Suchergebnisse

Issue 36.2 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Lores Umvers~ty, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Budding, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1977 by REWEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW r:oR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELI6IOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Mlarch 1977 Volume 36 Number 2 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REvxEw Fort R~L~to~s; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REvmw Foa R~L~mvs; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. We Journey Through Tears Ann .Marie ' Krupski, C.S.J. ," Sister Ann Marie resides at 152 Third Street; Troy, NY 12180. I would not exchar~ge th, e,, laughter of my heart for'the fortunes of the'' mult=tudes; nor would I be Content with convert=ng my tears, invited by my agonized self, into calm. It is my fervent hope that my whole life on this earth will ever be tears and laughter, Tears that purify my heart and reveal to me /he secret of life and 'its mystery. . ' . . . Teals with which I join the.broken~hearted.1 Unlike Kahil Gibran, we feel more comfortable when we convert our tears tb'~"laugh~er, "dompanionship, or any available distraction. As the psalmist reflects:"Who'of us wants a pillow drenche~l with tears, eyes wasted by grief, or sustenance by the bread of tears? But really, we are not comfort-bound people; tears ar~'-an essential ingredientoin our lives and when we hesitate to convert the.m, we find that they .convert us' by purification, revelation, and consolation. ~ ~'~ Tears That Purify o To~let tears purify us, w.~"must go to andpass through Gethsemane; the thought of such sojburhing repels us. For in Gethsemane there is no periphery; outer edges are only for those who run away or fall asleep. Those who st, ruggl.e to stay mdst encounter the razor edge of unrecognized and unacknowledged realities, and to particiPate .in. these realities we must go alone. Carlo Carretto reflects: "Because not even Jesus can tal~e our place in the leap of Faith; it is up to us. It is like dying. It is up to us, and no 1Kahil Gibran: Tears and Laughter, Bantam Books, Inc., New York, 1974, p. 1. 1 69 170 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 one is able to take our place.'"-' At this time, the loneliness of pain and the pain of loneliness are so intense that our finite rootedness is shaken by fear, great distress, and sorrow to the point of death (Mk 14:34). With tremen-dous hesitation, we stumble into the crucible of inner anguish. Here, the fire of severe distress touches every fiber of our being, invades each corner pre-viously hidden from our own insights, and temporarily immobilizes us; al-though immobilization does not cripple or paralyze us. Like St. Paul, "We are afflicted in every way possible, but we are not crushed" (2 Co 4:8). Intense inner anguish teaches us to walk with suffering, and suffering stretches us beyond the narrowness of our own horizons. However, one of the haunting and terrifying qualities about Gethsemane is that even if we choose not to go there, it will .come to us. When the flood of pain drenches our soul, Gethsemane penetrate~ us, and suffering becomes unavoidable. In the agonizing abyss, we learn how to die, and how to live our dying. And the surprise of dying catches us off guard. For while we expect to walk to our death daily, we do not often foresee walking with our death. In fact, at first we may not recognize that this death-in-life is life-giv-ing as was Gethsemane, with its seemingly negative features: --Being devoid of the human support of friends: "He came back and found them sleeping . Had you not the strength to keep awake one hour?" (Mk 14:37). "My friends and my companions shrink from my wounds, even the dear-est of them keep their distance." (Ps 38:11 ). --Being stripped of the expectation that the God of the impossible will remove the struggle: "Everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me" (Mk 14:36). "My God, my God, why have you deserted me?" (Ps 22:1). --Being vested with the willingness to do what we really prefer not doing: "Let it be as you, not I, would have it" (Mk 14:36). "My food is to do the will of the one who sent me" (Jn 4:34). --We go "right into the dark cloud where God is" (Ex 20:21~ and 24:18). As soon as we enter the cloud, the cloud enters us, and we go the way of apparent absurdity. In the mist, we ponder: is darkness really light; aban-donment ieally presence; diminishment, growth? It is so difficult to realize that God is here; our anguish is too great, the cloud too thick. So. often we feel: "bowed down, bent double, overcome . . . numbed and crushed . . no relief from , . . pains" (Ps 38:5-17). With the poet of Lamentations we cry out: He has forced me to dwell in darkness . He has walled me in; I c~nnot escape; he has made my chains heavy; . . . My eyes dissolve in torrents of tears. My eyes weep ceaselessly, without relief (Lm 3:6-8 and 48-50). "The God Who Comes, Orbis Books, New York, 1976, p. 40. We 1ourney Through Tears / 171 " Our spirits.,sink and our hearts groan as we brood on our anguish. We go about in mourning all day long, sometimes even moaning aloud. Reluc-tantly we try to pierce the darkness which has penetrated us; yes, :reluctantly because often we are afraid to be pierced by the light. It becomes easier to cry, more consoling to be blinded .by tears than blinded by the cloud's thick-ness. And desolation's touch has no light grasp in this agony. It is as though "there is no one to comfort me" (Lm 1:21). Any of our attempts to look for comfort become futile when the embrace of annihilation is so relentless. Gradually, the surface-rooted tree within us topples and the.broken fragility which ,remains is divested of any strength, we could have once called our own. We shiver in the exposure of our weakness and murmur the only yes that comes, the only yes that is genuine, the yes we have cried in the tears that purify. With Jesus crucified we. cry out, in a voice not loud but humbled (Lk 23:46), "into your hands I commit my spirit" (Ps 31:5). It is-this meager but genuine "yes" which is, for us, the beginning of the fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy: '"Yahweh will purify the sons [and daughters] of Levi so that they' will make an offering to Yahweh as it should be made" (Mal 3:3). So that our offering can be made as it should, we are led along the path of,constant conversion and unlimited surrender. Along this path, we begin to cry the tears that reveal the secret of life and its mystery. Tears That Reveal To let tears purify us, we went to Gethsemane.To let tears reveal mys-tery, we will go to the mount of Transfiguration. It is, here that we learn the beauty of.light and the significance of shadow, the breadth of revelation and the depth of.mystery. When we read the account of the Transfiguration, we respond favorably to the light and dazzlingly white parts. Although like Peter, we may feel somewhat awkward or ,even frightened by such intensity; we, too, want to echo his words: "It is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for'Moses, and one for Elijah" (Mk 9:5). How we long to stay 'with Jesus, "light of the world., and light of life" (Jn 8: 12). Immersed in radiance, we often skim over the next part of Mark's nar-rative: "And a cloud came covering them in shadow . . ." (Mk 9:7). This shadow, so significant in the whole event, helps us realize that transfiguration does not just occur in luminous light. For at .the exact moment of revela-tion Peter, James, and John are covered in shadow. And it is precisely at this moment that a voice comes from the cloud to proclaim: "This is my son" (Mk 9:8). From the cloud,'.the voice announces the revelation. In the shadow, the apostles receive it. Cloud and shadow are so vital in revelation. As~we weep the tears that reveal, we might reflect on two moments in our lives that integrate light and, shadow, revelation and mystery: the mo-ments of transcendence and of trust. (Later, each of us will be able to con- 172 / Review [or Religious; l/olume 36, 1,977/2 sider many aspects other than those mentioned here:~) However, it must be clear that~no one can share an experience: of.the transcendent~ Only, the Holy Spirit c.an do that. Sacred Scripture helps us in this'realization. .Through the prophet Ezekiel, God .tells us: "I shall put my spirit in,you" (Ezk 36:27). Jesus has revealed that ~the Holy Spirit will teach us every, thing (Jn 14:26). And St. ~Paul reflects: ~ . ¯ .'. the Spirit~ reaches the depthS of' everything, even the depths of God.'Afte( all the depths ~0fa person can only be known'by onE's Spiri't~ not by any other ¯ person, and in the same way the' depths oLGod can only~ be~known by the Spirit of God . we have received the ;Spirit that comes from God, to teach~ usto understand the gifts that he has given us (1 Co 2:10.12)¯ .~ So, filled with the Spirit, consider a moment of transcendence, This could be h peak experience in prayer, nature, music, art~ or literature. It' is ~that time when, ra'vished by beaoty and saturated ~by the ineffable, a depth of awe'brings us to ~h~°~"~bsolute Beyond" present within~us. Caressed by the Inexhaustible, 'we too ~soOn become exhausted by the_qnexpressible; penetration of the Real i~ to~ painful and touch of the Intangible too'unreal. Like Peter, we want to make a tent~make the moment last. Yet, we hesi-tate to remain in this light. For while on eai'th, we human folk do explode when filled with infinity. Once touched by trafiscendency; however, we are almost immediately covered in shadow; our peak experiences will not be timebound. Nothing can or ever will completely capture that in which we pa'rticil~ate. :A photo-graph, won't do it nor will a symphony or a poem. Mo0nbeams will always be for dancing not holding, and the Rockies, will stand majestically right where they are. Reality and ~ur expressions of it cannot co-exist with' the same degree of impact. In our finest moments of creation .(tent making) we experience endless~limitations. Our concretizations.become forever'unsatis-fying. And when we get caught in the trap of thinking that ,any of our achievements determine our worth, then indeed, does the sand of a hollow victory slip through our fingers. As, we.seek what cannot be realized, no con-tainer confine~ the tears, no expression captures the actuality and no,dis-traction disturbs the stillness.of silence~ We wlio experience such, limits long for the 'Unlimited and tears become the release-rdief. ~ ~ '~ :~' Although God "has given us the wisdom to understand' fully the mys~ tery" (Ep I ~9), :it'is only in the moment of trust,that,~we realize underst'and~ ing not solely based on the rational. This wisdom turns us inside out ~and upside down and again we weep because we so need to weep. Even the ligl~t and dazzlingly white parts of transfiguration are blurred. We :live in shadow. Yet, this moment is precious because God is so present, ~ven though veil6'd by cloud: It is in this intimate event that we experience the "existential mo-ment of redemption.'; '~For thus says the Lord Yahweh.~. your salvation lay in conversion and tranquility, your strength, in complete tru'st" ;(Is 30: 15). At first, however, we hesitate to trust the very God who made us;',who We ~lourney Through Tears / 173 Iove~ us with an everlasting love and in whose eyes we are precious. Our pride I~etrays us and we remain too rational to participat.e in ways not our own. Blinded by our desire to have our cak~ and edt it to'Q, we really pre-fer the best of both worlds. Oh yes, we'll, pray but we'll also croffd the soli-tude. We are living examples of being "distracted from distraction by-dis-traction.''' a And why not? After all, we are human. How easily we become ~rey to and proficient in processes of rationalization. Go~l, however, does not rush us. but, per~sistently draws us to himself. Best of all lovers, he is most respectful. It is as though h~ patiently asks: "Will you have me? Will you really have m6?" He gives us Jesus to be our way and to show himself to us (.In 14:6-9). Yet this revelation is always his gift, "because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own. but by'a"gift from God: not by anything,you have d0ne,~so that nobody can claim the credit" (Ep 2:8-9). My virtues do not win this, grace nor do my vices detract from it. Furthermore, it may come witho.ut invitation and planning but never with-o. ut preparation. The gift-giver himself prepares me to receive such'fullness, arid the preparation takes place in the moment of trust. It is then that I am emptied of stubbornness and stripped of~ the tendency to cling to any vanity. In speaking of love, Kahil Gibran poetically exl~resses the depth ahd ex-tent of love's preparation. , When love ~beckons to yQu, follow him, though his ways are hard and ste.ep. And when his wings enfold you yiel.d to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he sp~eaks to" you believe in him. though his voice may shatter your dreams . For even as love crowns yot{ so shall he ~:rucify you. Even as he ascends to your heights and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun~ so shall be'descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.4 In this shaking, I cry all the more; for so many realizations come: 1 must walk a way of unlimited surrender arid constant conversion until the day I leave this earth. I must die while I am alive if I really want to live. And I must lose all if I r~al.ly0~want to participate in the All. As I journey to God I cannot set limits on any sacrifice. I' cannot even expect to avoid suffering, defeat, limitations, failings or misunderstandings. Teilhard de Chardin expresses the diminish.ment I, experience in the rmoment of, trust when he discusses "appa~rent fai~lure and ,its transfiguration." ~ The lives of the saints and generally speaking, the lives of all those who have, been outstanding for intelligenc.e or. goodness, are full of these instapces in~ which one can see the person emerging ennobled, tempered, and renewed from some ordeal, or even some downfall, which seemed bound to diminish or lay the i~erson low forever. Failure . . canalises the sap of bt, r inward life, aT. S. Eli0t5 "Burnt Norton," Four Qigartets. Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., New York, 1971, p. 17. ~ " 4The Prophet, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1971, p. 13. 17'4 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 disengages the purest "components" of our being in such a way as to make us shoot up higher and straighter . . . In the presence of St. Augustine or St. Mary Magdalen . :. no one hesitates to think . . . felix culpa . . . As a result of His omnipoience impinging upon our faith, events which show themselves ¯ . . as pure loss will become an immediate factor in the union we dream of establishing With Him.:, And with Chardin I become ready to cry out: "O God, grant that I may understand that it is You (provided my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibres of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within Yourself.'''~ During the emptying and parting of fibers, I pray, and in this prayer Jesus so softly, deeply, intimately, gently, repeatedly says to me: Trust Me. I Love You So Very Much; 1 Died For You. You Are Very Precious To Me. I Am With You, And I Know What I Am Doing With And Through You. Trust Me," Even When You Don't Understand. Always Trust Me. After the light and shadow, th6 revelation and mystery of transfigura-tion, when the apostles "suddenly looked round, they saw no one with them anymore but only Jesus" (Mk 9:8). So it is with us; at the end of trans-figuration we see no one but Jesus. In his light we see and don't see; in the shadow we don't see and can't see. And we cry even more because we'd rather play "finders-keepers"; transfiguration, however, teaches us the role of "finders-seekers." Perhaps our stance does not really matter after all. For Jesus, only Jesus, is in both the beauty of light and the cover of shadow. Realizing this, we, too, can hymn to God's love: Nothing therefore can come between us and the love of Christ, even if we are troubled or worried, or being persecuted, or lacking food or clothes, or being threatened or even attacked. : . These are the trials through which we tri-umph, by the power of him who loved us. For I am certain of this: neither death nor life . . . nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power . . . nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rm 8:35-39). In speaking of his discontent with converting tears, Kahil Gibran hoped to cry the "tears with which I join the broken-hearted." We shall conclude these reflections by considering these tears. Tears With Which I Join the Broken-Hearted Before I can sincerely, sensitively, and caringly cry the "tears with which I join the broken-hearted," I must experience the. comfort of consola-tion from God. And before I can experience his comfort, I will have en-dured suffering. Having reflected on some forms of sfiffering in the discus-sion of pfirification and revelation, we might now consider our experience of God as consoler through St. Paul's own experience of this consolation. ~The Divine Milieu, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1960, pp. 59-60. ~Tt, e Divine Milieu, p~ 62. We Journey Through Tears / 175 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, a gentle Father and the God of all consolation, who comforts us in all our sorrows, so that we can offer others, in their sorrow, the consolation that we have received from ~God ourselves. Indeed, as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so through Christ, does our consolation over'flow (2 Co 1:3-6). Paul pours out so much to us in this short passage. Prayerfully to travel through parts of it is to immerse ourselves in the immeasurably rich reality of the whole. God is a gentle Father and the God o] all consolation, who comforts us in all our sorrows. ( 2 Co 1 : 3 ). How does one speak of the comfort of God's consolation? Who dares to speak of it? Each of us has perhaps known this rest for our souls. In considering this experience, my words come simply. When I am over-burdened, I go to Him, though not at first, of course, because I am so proud and independent. Finally, however, compelled by an intense, insatiable need, I do go to him (he always invites me [Mt 11:28-30]) and he em-braces me so tenderly and holds me so gently that I wonder why I did not go to him at first. Even when I have resisted going and even when he has waited long for my coming (Is 30: 18), still he greets me as though he had always been my first choice. ~He makes no demands and asks no apologies. Instead, he lavishes me with love and gifts me with his peace, comfort never to be given by anyone or thing in this world (Jn 14:27). And only his peace can dry my tears, heal my wounds, and comfort me to the full. I will heal them and lead them; 1 will give full comfort to them and to those who mourn for them, I the Creator. who gave them life. Peace, peace to the far and the near. says the Lord; and I will heal them (Is 57: 18-19). At. first, the reality of complete relief astonishes me but the Lord fills me so compassionately that I am not overwhelmed. In fact, he enables me to enjoy: ,, A glimpse o[ glory--,I have given them the glory you gave to me" (Jn 17: 22). The glory of grace--"Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received-- yes, grace upon grace" (Jn l : 16). The grace of abiding Love-~"And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time" (Mt 28:20). But comfort from the Lord himself, is gift given to be given again, so that we can offer others, in their sorrow, the consolation we have received from God ourselves (2 Co 1 :~). Before reflecting on offering God's consolation to others, however, I must consider my weakness and God's power. When I experience purifica-tion, revelation, and consolation I become increasingly aware of my many weaknesses. At first, this knowledge overwhelms me but the love of Christ overwhelms me more (2 Co 5." 14). Entangled in the web of human limita-tions, I sometimes approach the broken-hearted ready to extend myself. All too soon I cry my own t~ars, not theirs. Readily I become weighed 176 / ~Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 down by their burdens. And unable to sustain such weight I, too, become broken.~To offer human comfort'alone, is to drain a well dry. Dissatisfac-tion with my present limits enables me to realize that on!y the Lord can "give strength to our bones so that we can be like a wat~r.ed garden, like a spring of water whose waters never run dry" (Is 58:11). Only Jesus can prbrhise that: "the water. I shall give will' turn into a spring inside them, welling Up to ~ternai life" (Jn 4: 14). Those whb drink the milk of human comfort°will thirst'again but those who drink "the water that~I shall give will never be thirsty again" (Jfi 4: 14). A~ I b'ecome increasingly aware of my weaknesses I als'o becomeincreas-ingly convinced of the l~owe~ of God. It is St: Paol who helps me in this recognition: "Yes, we were carrying our 'own death warrant with us, and it has taught us n'ot to rely on ours'elves but only on God" (2 Co 1:9). Just as the Lord prevented Paul from'"getting too proud," he encourages me in a Similar manfier: "My grace is enough fo~ you: my ~power is at its best in w6akness" (2 Co ~12:7-9). However, I cannot tangibly ~measure the power of God nor the degree to which I am offering'another the consolation that I have receiqed from God. This is a matter of' faith. In all likelihood, it is not even necessary knowl6dge for me. Besides, "the coming of thi~ king-dom ~f God does not admit of Observation" (Lk 17.:20). Despite my' weakness, the Lord assureff me that I ~:an still be a vehicle for his consolation. At times, I wonder if he almost delights in my weak-ness~ For Paul recalls: "It was to.shame the wise that God chose what is foolish by human reckoning, and to shame whatqs strong that he chose what is weak by human reckoning" (1 Co 1:27-28). This is how ou~" God is. This is how he loves us. He gives to us always all ways. And he is no respecter of strength. "Yahweh is interested . . . in those who rely on his love" (Ps 147:10-11). He is "near to the broken-hearted" (Ps 34:q8). He even permits 'me to witness his love to the broken-hearted. "We, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness,, of the Lord, all grow brighter and " brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect" (2 Co 3" 18). But St. Paul also reminds us that "We are only the earthen-ware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such an overwhelm-ing power comes from God and not from us" (2 Co 4:7). To realize the source of bur strength is a special gift so that we might "never. be ashamed of witnessing to the Lord . . . relying on the power of God" (2 Tm 1:8). Having recognized weakness it is possible ~to say with St. Paul: "I have not lost confidence, because I know who it is that I have put,my tru.st in, and I have no doubt at all that he is able to take care of all that I have entrusted to him" (2 Tm 1:12), Now I am able to cry the "tears with which I join the broken-hearted." And it is through Christ that consolation will Over[tow (2 Co, 1:6). ,We Journey Through Tears / 1177 Conclusion All life pulses with rhythm and the rhythm Of life pulses within me. Just as seasons of the year repeat, so do seasons of the spirit. Therefore, the Gethsemane experience will be repeated in my life. However, upon its return, neither I nor Gethsemane will be the same. A return or returns are each different from the other and each different from any other's. My body may be ravaged by physical pain, my mind tortured by mental anguish, or my faith shaken by spiritual darkness. But God will be with me throughout it all: leading me, teaching me, and advising me. At last, I will enjoy transfiguration not for a moment bat for an eternity: not only Jesus, but Father, Holy Spirit, and the whole c~ourt of Heaven--[orever. My journey will be finished, "the Lord Yahwehlwill wipe away the tears" (Is 25:8), and "there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness" (Rv 21:4) ]orever. ,Now Available As A Reprint Colloquy of God With a Soul That Truly Se~ks.Him Price:,. $.3b pei: c0py~. plUs~.postage._ Address:~ ~ ~Review for Religious 612 iHumboldt Building 539 North Grand St. Louis, Missouri 63103 The God of Brokenness Jean Annette Gustafson, C.S.J. Sister Jean Annette last published in these pages in the September, 1976 issue, pp. 77'1-776. She now works full-time as writer, composer, liturgist and artist. She presently resides at 211 Third Ave.; Venice, CA 90291. Often I find myself reacting to the one-dimensional God of our theologies: the God who is always good, kind, loving, patient, supportive, and affirm-ing. If God is omnipotent and omnipresent, then I cannot reconcile this type of God with the majority of my experiences. Too much of life is harsh, violent, non-supportive and tragic. The human condition is characterized by infinite examples of suffering and brokenness: sickness, death, divorce, shattered relationships, crushed hopes, lost loves. For me to believe only in the God described above is to place him somewhere outside the human con-dition; it is to say he is not presentin some of the most significant moments ,of my life. The only God I can know is the God who reveals himselfwthe God whom I perceive in and through my experience. This is not to say that the God I perceive is really God, for the human mind will never in this life totally comprehend or understand who God is. God is indeed a mystery, a paradox. He does transcend the human co~aditibn and yet is somehow intimately involved with us on a day-to-day basis; he is "unmoved" by hu-man suffering and yet profoundly loves us and cares about our pain; he is active in the world and yet often remains silently passive. What I venture to put forth here is certainly not an attempt on my part to define God. It is, however, an attempt to break, down his usual stereotypes and once more to acknowledge his mystery. I have come to a point in my life where I am acutely aware that our words and theologies of God will always fall short of his reality. Our words--good, kind, loving,,and so forth--are not really God, but symbols 178 The God o] Brokenness / 179 which describe our experience of him. When I say that a patient, supportive, affirming God does not always "work" for me, I am merely saying that these words are incomplete, these symbols do not always describe my ex-perience. In times of great suffering and stress, I perceive a different God who no longer fits into the nice, neat categories into which I usually squeeze him. This article is not intended to imprison God in a new "box," but to present, in words I realize can only be symbolic, another one of his many faces--that of the God of brokenness. This God I have experienced ~ is similar to the Hindu Brahma, who creates, and Shiva, who destroys. My God is both loving and dangerous, gentle and violent. He builds me up and he tears me down. He gives me life and he makes me die. He consoles and yet leads me to the pit of desolation. He is the God of Jacob, who wrestles with me and then leaves me maimed. Like the God of Isaiah, "he is a sanctuary and a stumbling stone" (Is 8: 14). He wounds and bruises (Is 30:26); he immerses me in chaos and leaves me bewildered (Is 34:32); he smashes my defenses (Is 24: 13); he reduces me to nothingness and ruin o(Is 24: 14). I do not believe God actually works to destroy me or that I am but a helpless creature victimized by him. But when I am in the throes of a terrible experience, I certainly am aware of my helplessness before his tremendous power. When I feel like he is breaking me apart, I do not consider him to be good nor do I regard him as gentle. His arrows pierce deep (Ps 38:2); his hands .lie on me heavy and hostile (Jb 30:20). Like a lion, he hunts me down (Jb 10: 16), dashes me to pieces (Jb 16: 12), ani:l wrenches me from all former relationships. He causes dissension within and .around me, and often breaks my heart (see Lk 12:49,-52). With wild ruthlessness, he knocks down what he has built and uproots what he has planted (Jr 45:4). "I am going to break [you] just as one breaks a potter's pot" (Jr 19:10-11 ) ; "Irretrievably shattered, smashed., so that of the fragments not one will remain big enough for any use" (Is 30: 14). This "destructive" side of God is something I find in Jesus. As Simeon predicts, Jesus is the child who "is destined for the fall and for the rising of'many" (Lk 2:34). Jesus is not always the "nice guy"; sometimes he is violent, ,angry, and passionately judgmental~ Blatantly he condemns the Scribes and Pharisees; voci.ferously he expels the money changers from the Temple and overturns their tables; defiantly, he l~reaks all sorts of laws and customs of his culture. He lashes out at Peter, ."Get behind me, Satan!" and curses the fruitless fig tree. He deals almost harshly~with both the Canaanite woman and the woman with the hemorrhage. Jesus is the God-man who comes not to bring peace, but the sword. "I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" (Mt 10:34-6). At the same time, however, Jesus is also someone who is broken by God. Jesus knows only too well what it is to experience hurt and disil- Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 lusionment, the temporariness and fickleness of loves lost. ','You have turned my' friends against me and made' me repulsive to theme' (Ps 88~8)'. "Even my closest and most .trusted friend who shared my table rebels against me" (Ps 41:9; see Jn 13:21 ). Jesus is not always the strong man of Galilee, calling the cards and ~dealing out miracles. He ~is 'a betrayed man,. an aban-doned son, a person whom. his family considers mad and whom his con-temporaries scorn, His agony in the garden is real agony --- close to a com-plete psychological and spiritual breakdown. ',I ~am a worm and no 'man . O :God;:why have you forsaken me?" (Ps 22; Mt 27:46). To perceive that God can"and perhaps does on occasion do violence to us leads me to ask the inevitable: why? Perhaps God is angry and is punishing us.~As the prophet Jeremiah says, ~his is anger that will°burn forever. "We are burnt up by your anger and terrified by your fury" (Ps 90:7). "I will enslave you to your enemies in a country which you do not know, for my anger has kindled a fire that will burn you' up" (Jr 15: 14).0"Yes, a fire has blazed from my anger; it will burn to the depths of Sheol" (Dt 32:22). Perhaps God is jealous (Zc 8:2). "You shall have no gods except me . . . for I am a jealous God, and I punish" (Dt 5:7-9). Or perhaps God.is a stern father, a law-giver, who disciplines and purifies us. "Yahweh your.God is training you as a man .trains his child" (Dt 8:5). "Yahweh reproves the. person he loves, as a father checks a well-loved son" (Pr 3:ll:-12).'Like Jeremiah's potter (or like Pygmalion with Galatea), perhaps God 'tears us down only t6 rebuild and reshape us into 'something better (see Jr 18:4). We are leaky cisterns' which, he must break and then refashion (Jr 2: 13). These answersall seem to play a prominent part in the underlying philosophy of numerous scriptural storie~. God sends a massive flood to destroy the wicked while he rescues Noah'.s family. God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah but sa~es Lot and his relatives. God mak6s the Israelites wander in the desert for forty years until a new generation can be born. God/Hosea punishes his unfaithful wife/Israel but later restores, her to his house. God/Jesus tears down the Temple and in three days rebuilds it. Somehow, howeyer, none of these answers quite satisfy' me. It's not that they are false explanations; it's simply that they define the experience of suffering as something reasonable, as a "means" to something better, instead of as.an experience valuable in and of itself. ~ ~When I suffer with a goal or endpoint in mind, I may live so much in the future that.I remove myself from the present. I somehow anesthetize my pain. -"O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" In essence, I do not suffer. I deny my reality. When. I suffer "for some-thing," I may reduce faith to a false Pollyanna-ism. ,~'What we suffer in .this life can never be compared tb the glory which is waiting for us'? (RmS: 18). In real suffering~ I do not know how things will turn out; in real life, I never,,can predict the~ future. Suffering does not~ guarantee, anything. Further- The God, o! Brokenness more, this mentality of suffering ,~'for something" may giveobrokenness a redeeming'~quality, .but it sets up a false dichotomy. The sentiment that "Today, I am miserable; tomorrow I will be in God's company" puts God somewhere ,Outside the actual experience of being broken. ,.,,Thus, for me, the .symbol,~"God, of brokenness," encompasses ,still another aspect of the Hindu Godhead: Atman, the God within. I see this God's face"in all ~places and .in all people: the spaced-out, hard-looking Clients of a San Francisco V.D clinic, the urine-splattered body of a friend's alcoholic father, a crazy war veteran who lives with his cat on the Marina del Rey ,.jetty, thee frightened old people who spend their last years waiting for death, the neighborhood 'derelicts who rummage through garbage cans seaching, for food, the ~almost hopeless Vietnamese refugees who are not 9nly alienated from their homes but who are overwhelmed by grief, guilt, and depression. This God .is the God of emptiness and senselessness, of divorce and tragedy. He is a strange God--silent, still, vague . . . a God who redeems ,brokenness, not-by changing it, but by being there himself broken and hurting.- This God is a sad God: one who experiences.misunderstanding and poverty. He is a hungry 13od; the God of the streets, the God 0f .the Third World.~ He is. there in failure, exhaustion, rejection. He is a wounded God, who gets threadbare when we do, frustrated when we are, and wearied when we can no longer keep going. Like Jesus, he weeps over a situation he cannot change (Lk 19:41). "How,~often I have longed to gather you together, as a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings" (Lk 13: 35).~ He cries when one of his friends dies (Jn 11:35). "Tears flood my '~eyes night and day" (Jr 14:1~7). This God is somehow helpless with-us. He can do nothing while sinners prosper and good people are stoned to death (see Mt 23:27; 21:35; 22:6). When we s~uffer, he suffers. To perceive a. God who may be broken is to discover intrinsic value in, the experience ,of brokenness. Brokenness is no longer seen as evil in itself, or something which reflects God's absence. Instead, brokenness be-comes the place where we can touch God in .a new way; we can share with him~on deeper levels,.with greater understanding. "A destruction has been decreed," says the .prophet Isaiah, "that will bring inexhaustible in-tegrity. Though Yahweh has struck. [you] harshly, he will heal [you].-. He will reveal himself to you" (Is 10:22). Job, innocent of any crime.but devastated by God ne.vertheless, concurs. Brokenness establishes for us .a new relationship ~with God. "I knew you tlien only by hearsay, but now, I have seen you with my own eyes" (Jb 42:5-6). Brokenness is not just a bad side of the human condition; it is the foundation of integrity, the place where we encounter God face to face. And because God is there, brokenness becomes essential to the realization of true. liberation and full humanization. To be human somehow, contains the inherent predicament that we 1112 / Review for Religious, l/olume 36, 1977/2 tend to build houses on sand instead of on rock. We seem consistently to Choose the particular~in place.of the universal; 'we settle for myopic truths rather than truths of a cosmic dimension. We see aspects of God, and tl~en label them as God in his entirety. We reverence certain values, and then. give' them too much value. We discover another person, and then make-him° or her into a god. Like Humpty Dumpty, we sit securely on the great plans and structures we have erected, never realizing that they lie directly over the "San Andreas fault." Inevitably they crumble and we fall apart with them, never to be put together again in exactly the Same way. Brokenness hurts so much and affects us so completely because it always involves'the loss of something we value, someone we believe in, a truth upon which we base~ our lives. In a sense, the value, the belief, the base from whii:h our actions flow, are all false gods. To lose something or someone extremely significant shocks us into recognizing that although we have been sincereand t6 the best of our knowledge, righteous--we have also been dishonest. We have limitedtruth to our vision of truth; we have blinded ourselves to the larger reality. When we do encounter the real truth, it nearly devastates us: we hit 9.0 on the Richter scale; we ex-perience the total disruption of our previous life patterns. It is as though We were dismembered, detached, estranged from our own selves. The~ truth hurts. None of us likes to get broken. To preserve our-selves from pain, we necessarily alienate ourselves from truth. This, to me, is the essence of sin. We sin whenever we are content with our present understanding of reality and refuse to hear, see, or feel anything to the contrary. Remember the temptation of Jesus in the desert? It is the tempta-tion not to stumble, not to fall, not to be broken. We sin whenever we try to maintain Our psychological, social, or spiritual, status quo~and thus pre-vent the truth from getting too close. How ingenious we are in employing defense mechanisms which sus-tain our superficial peace of mind! How eagerly we let our inner sirens, like those of Jesus Christ Superstar, lull us to sleep and convince us that we have nothing to be worried about. How quickly we turn off the problem~, subsurface anxieties and fears that upset us/ and believe that everything is as it should be. "With God on our side, who cab be against us?" (Rm 8: 32). Just trust in the Lord, and we shall be saved. This artificial stance is what Kierkegaard would call "philistinism." It is a mediocre type of existence which thrives on safety. Like Chief Bromden, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, we refuse to "stick out too far," and like Jenny in Ingmar Bergmann's Face to Face, we cannot .probe too deeply within ourselves. Either position is a risk; either can break us. I am beginning to realize that we are all makers of idols in one way ~or another. We close ourselves ~ff to certain parts of reality. If we start feeling uneasy in our self-deception, we simply take another pill, swallow some more bourbon, or enroll in transcendental meditation classes. In some The God. o] Brokenness / ! 113 area of ou¢.~iives and' our relationships, we .d.ull our truth-receptors and choose to live--again, like Chief Bromden--in a perpetual state of fog. So much of our "normal" ' existence so effectively evades the truth, that it takes a bizarr~ and catastrophic event to. make us realize, with Dr. Martin Dysart in Equus, the enormity of our numbness and the magnitude ofour 'repression. No wonder that when promises and relationships (which were really founded on incomplete truths) are broken, so' many of us have emotional and nervous breakdowns. Brokenness forces us to re-evaluate our vision of-reality, reassess our beliefs and values, and perceive the truth more comprehensively. What continues to amaze me is the belief that in Jesus I not only find a broken man who stumbles and falls all the way to Calvary, but a broken God who stumbles, falls, and is crucified. The God-man on the cross is the most" incredible event in history. It not only boggles my mind; it shocks me (like St. Paul who got knocked down from his horse) into new levels of awareness. That God would choose to become part of the human condi-tion, that he would be incarnated as Jesus, that he would allow himself to be broken, forces me to see reality in a new way. Truth becomes larger than I ever imagined. My former truths, like clothes which have shrunk, are no longer big enough. I have changed. I am somehow more honest, and thus, mor~ capable of achieving liberation. I believe that the God-man on the cross happens every time we suffer, every time we wait withoot hope, every time we lose heart. In brokenness, we enter an altered state; our consciousness expands, deepens, matures. We become necessarily more humble, for we now realize our grasp of truth is not~as all-encompassing as we once thought, our power to control the future is not as absolute as we would,have liked, we' are not really made up of "sugar.-and spice and all things nice." We are not yet honest, not yet free, not yet human. We cannot put new wine in old wine skins, nor can we put new truths in old structures. To become new, to become whole, adult,' ~integrated, means to somehow "suffer in God's way," "to change for.the better" (2 Co 7: 10): We must. detach ourselves from our old struc-tures and bonds; we must constantly undergo experiences of brokenness. We.must "break the unjust fetters and undo .the thongs of the yoke . . . to let the oppressed [in and outside us] go free" (I~ 58:6). It is beginning to make some sense to me ~why such towering persons of G0d--Augustine, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, and countless others-- are all persons who have known brokenness, not just once, but over and over again. "It is indeed a dreadful thing," as the author of Hebrews tells us, "to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb 10:31). To establish an honest relationship with God is to live, as Teresa writes in the twenty-first chapter of her Autobiograph~,~"a troubled life, never without its crosses, but a life of great growth." To t~y and yet to make mistakes, to be sincere 184 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 and yet to fail, to give everything and. realize it is still not enough, is.to be, come more human and, I think, more like God. Perhaps what I am writing about is another version of John of the Cross' last Night of God, Albert Camus' existential stance in the face of absurdity, the Gestalt therapists' belief that we must experience and value our suffering. In each of these systems of thought, we are called upon to suffer with a courage which~'in a way surpasses faith. For m~e,~the God of brokenness is a symbol which evokes from me the realization that God al-ways transcends what I believe about him, and thus challenges me beyond faith to a courage to let go of my questions and also m~y answers. Like Job--face to face with the God of brokenness l receive not only the power to persevere through suffering, but the power to heal and be healed. This is what I think Paul means when he writes:- "I struggle wearily on, helped only by his power driving me irresistibly" (Col 1:29). If we can but touch this broken God, contact mystery and let it remain mystery~ then shall our wounds be .quickly healed over (Is 58:9), then shall we obtain new life, then shall our broken hearts be revived (Is.57:15). "I will heal [you] and console you," says the God of Isaiah. "I will comfort you to the full, both you and your afflicted companions . Peace, pe~ace to far and near, I will indeed heal you" (Is 57:18-19). 1 do not write these things lightly, nor are they, for me, "pie-in-the-sky" truisms. I write them as someone.who is just now emerging from an. over-whelming three-year experience of being crushed and broken. I have not been able to put myself together as before, nor, for that, matter, have ."all the king's horses and all the king's men" been any more successful. But, almost like Ezekiei's vision of the dry bones, I feel my disjointed parts knitting together in a new way, with a new identity, a greater integrity, and a freer spirit. God is active and present in my experience; his spirit is breathing life into my broken pieces. ,Not only has brokenness changed me, it is increasing my capacity to act and live so that the liberation and humanization of others can also take place (whether these others live in the Third World, in my, neighbor-hood, or in my family/community). As St. Paul says, it seems we mu~st suffer change within ourselves so that we may be better able to increase love, build stronger bonds between persons, improve our k~nowledge of reality, and deepen our perception of the entire trtith (see Ph 1:9). Broken-hess-- with its simultaneous experience of a passive God--is forcing ,me to acknowledge my limitations, but also forcing me to accept the responsibifity to do what I can to eliminate the oppressors of the human spirit. ~, ~ I do believe in a God of love, but I also know that I do not know what these words mean. Perhaps, as Noel O'Donoghue writes: "Love is first and last the heart open to be wounded again and again and again.~. Where the tears of things, the tragedy of life has touched ~me most poignantly, :The God o/ Brokenness / 185 there, in that direction is the heart of God.''1 For me, a God 6f love is also a God of brokenness--who breaks me (or allows me to be broken), and yet who is broken with me. I do not understand suffering, nor do I understand him. All I can really say is that I have been br~okeg, I am being healed, I will be broken again. And somewhere in my suffering, he will be there. O God, whoever you may be, I pray for the ever increasing ability to see your truth clearly and to keep trying despite all obstacles. Do not let my floundering be for nothing or my agony wasted . Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new (John Donne, "Divine Meditations, 14,). 1Noel Dermot O'Donoghue, O.C.D. "The Faces of God," Doctrine and Li/e, Sept. 1976, pp. 639 and 643. Soliloquy of a Seed Something tells me to surrender ail' I am and hope to be; and (o de~s'cend the dark of earth to be transformed into a tree; but~to go up dare I go down and think a tree can fit in me? Edward A. Gloeggler P~O. Box 486 Far Rockaway, NY 11691 Cooperation or Opposition: Analytical Psychology and Christianity Approach Suffering Josef Goldbrunner Professor Dr. Goldbrunner is on the faculty of the University of Regensburg, Ger-many. Analytical psychology and Christianity constitute two theoretical systems; they are both patterns of life as well as two theories about salvation. What is their mutual relationship? Is cooperation between them possible or are they fundamentally opposed to one another? This question is 'to be examined with regard to another question which distresses them both--the question of suffering, We shall investigate the effect the two have on those who suffer, not only theoretically but in the instance of concrete results. How much supportive and effective force does Christianity exert on those who suffer? And what effective force lies at the disposal of Jung's analytical psychology? The method chosen for our investigation is that of the "soul's journey," a method Dante likewise selected as the basis for his Divine Comedy. In the present instance, however, we have in mind a contemporary soul-journey; and we envision, as it were, a skyscraper with an elevator in which we will ride from top to bottom through all the stories down into the basement where the foundations of the structure--analogous to the dwelling place of the soul--are anchored. A stop will be made at some of the stories and the problematics involved in each stop will be debated. I From the penthouse at the very top of the building we gaze out into a landscape of suffering whose traces are evident everywhere: psychic suffer-ing, .spiritual suffering, mental suffering; and in every instance pain is pres- 186 Cooperation or Opposition / 1117 ent like a devouring, caustic acid. The full]/ human experiencing of such pains we term suffering. Is there any remedy for this suffering, any rcure or perhaps even a deliverance from it? A terrifying landscape of suffering lies before us, a landscape which at first glance seems meaningless. Dare this suffering exist? Ought it to be? Must it be? Is suffering an .evil or is it good? And not only do we encounter evil as' something existent, but men as well who of themselves increase it. These are questions which have plagued mankind since the beginning of time. If we descend one story, however, we will discover there, stored in a library as it were, the answers which mankind has proposed to these self-same queries. Let us begin with antiquity: Vergil knew that objects, too, have their tears--sunt lacritnae rerum--and Aeschylus had his Agamemnon state that "in suffering there is knowledge." That is the pedagogical value of suffering, a value 'which is still a contested issue. Then, too, there are books in which the pain of initiation rites is described, pains of growth or "becoming" in-flicted during such rites. There are, furthermore, books which glorify this pain as a type~of mysticism of sufferingi Christian spirituality in particular has contributed to the support of this attitude: through suffering one merits heaven, for suffering is a form of participation in the sacrifice of Christ. We can also discover books about the intoxication of pain, books which originated in archaic mystery cults, As a result of this intoxication of suffering an explosion-like expansion of consciousness is produced which extends into the realm of religious experience: Although the aging and .morose Schopenhauer denied that pain has any meaning whatever, Kant spoke of its immanent value to life~ Nietzsche elevated it to the level of an heroic stature and Teilhard de Chardin maintained that pain is indeed a propellent force in the process of evolution. In the writings of India we are taught that it is only through repeated rebirths that we are ultimately freed from pain. In the books of the Jews pain is looked upon as a punishment for guilt and is required for the confirmation of the good. And then there is Camus. In his novel The Plague he~ says to the dentist: "We ought not to rest so long as there is one child who is still suffering. A god who would allow such a thing--no~ there is no god." The poet Hermann Claudius once penned the noteworthy verse: " 'Great God of eternity, do You will joy or sorrow?' And the voice above me spoke, 'Why do you distinguish be-tween the two?' " Thorton Wilder remarked sarcastically: "Why have the gods not expressed themselves more plainly in this matter?" And Berdyaiev, who died in 1948 as a Russian 6migr6 in Pai'is, speculated in his famous boo~, The Meaning o[ History, about the possibility of a catastrophy which erupted within~the bosom of the Trinity: pain may well have arisen as a direct consequence of this catastrophe and God himself had to make 188 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 amends for this by personally entering into the world,and gathering it unto himself. Answer follows upon answer. In the final chorus of the Passion Accord-ing to "St, Matthew we are told: "Amid tears we. sit down," but it is pre-cisely this, ho~vever, that we no longer are able to do. Sorrow shouldo.nOt be; that is the protest that weighs upon our shoulders today. We ought to do everything in our .power to ward off pain.Can analytical psychology be of any ,assistarice here? And .Christianity, what can it effect in this. at.ca? What can the therapist do to alleviate suffering? What, the pastor of souls? III ~ Let us descend one more story where we come upon a therapist's con-sultation office. Across from him sits a patient whose eyes radiate an intense suffering, a, spiritual~ pain, a person who can no. longer, frge himself.from his own nightmares. Hideous monsters harass him, close in upon him, and the more he tries to ward them off, themore they pursue him, the more loath-some they become. He endeavors to defend himself against all this horror, against theseS'negative factors that seek to force their way out of his uncon-scious into .,his consciousness. Then the therapist demands of him that he overcome this dualism, this .dichotomy within himself, by accepting this darkness~within him, by admitting that these monsters spewing forth evil are also. an integral part of his nature. The patient .stares at him without comprehension, even more, with spiritual horror. He is to be~not only Jupi-ter, but Saturn as well? Not only: Apollo but equally. Dionysus,~,Faust and Mephistopheles? And help, he. is told; can be obtained, only if he.':over-comes~ this dissension, this dualism~ and admits that this darkness .is only a part of himself. Yes, this is the way to wholeness, the way.~of integration of the darkness within one's own inner self. This is the juncture at which curative indivjduation occurs. Analytical psychology points out ways to such a possibility,for life; Who-ever has once gazed into the horrified eyes of one suffering in such a man-ner, ,one caught within such a personal crisis; and whoever has seen how there gradually emerges from this horror a composite of shuddering and fascinated astonishment, because in this commingling of good,,and evil, .of joy and.grief, in this union of light and darkness a new dimension reveals itself, a religious dimension actually; whoever has experiqnced these things for himself knows that the way of individuation is indeed a~form of healing which leads one from the depths of spiritual suffering to new life: That,is the way out of the dualism of light and darkness to the ,fusion of their antitheses; out of the enmity of good and e.vil, the enmity~of good and,evil tendencies, to the reconciliation of, the, two; from the separation of the conscious from its roots in. the subconscious to wholeness; from fruitless suffering to a type of rebirth. Medical experience has discovered the truth of this again and again with reference to individuals, the individual.patient. Isit Cooperation or Opposition / !119 not possible that the way of individuation is of equal verity with reference to the collective life of.mankind? Would it not be possible, then, that ana-lytical psychology could also aid in the alleviation of the' great .sufferings of all mankind? ~ ~ . IV , Let us now leave the therapist's consultation room and'take the elevator down another story to his study, a veritable replica of.the chambers of Doctor Faust. A book is lying on his desk, a copy of Jung's Answer to Job, and across from the psychol~herapist sits a thrologian who is at the same time an expert in pastoral care, a man in other words who" is not only learned in the area of theory but one who from personal experience is in-timately 'acquainted with the heights and depths of the human soul. He places a copy of the Holy Scriptures on the desk in front of him and a dialogue ensues between the two, the psychotherapist and the theologian, between psychology and Christianity. In his book Answer"to Job Jung poured forth all the. professional anger in his soul his anger with God, the creator of such a'world, and his anger with Christianity which often enough only increases the sufferings of man here on earth. The book is, however, also an attempt to apply 'his theory of individuation to the question of the sufferings of mankind. Although he is not able to provide a wholly satisfactory answer to this question, otir expectation allows us to hope that he will be able at least to convert the torture chamber into an operating room. Let us listen a moment to Sbme of his argument and share a portion of his Answer to Job. Dichotomy, dualism, division--these constitute the source of all un-happiness; but especially the dichotomy between the conscious and the un-conscious, between light and darl~ness and, too, between good and evil. This dichotomy within the soul is projected onto our image of God kand thus God is drawn into the dichtomy within the human soul. According to Jung, Christian teaching has recognized only the luminous Christ as the Son of God, while his dark brother, Satan, has been wholly separated from God. In a very early stage 0f the development of Jewish theology, Satan was still a member of the heavenly.court and he bore the title LuCifer, the bearer of light (Jb 1:6). Christianity, however, drove him out from the court of heaven, thrust him down into hell and thereby separated evil from God. In God resides only good, and consequently all evil, all wickedness had to be eliminated from the image.of God. The orientatiow toward such an image of God, however, must necessaiily have negative repercussions on man, who will then seek to repress into .himself all forms of darkness arid to force his shadow down into his subconscious. It is there that the devil now rages and generates collective explosions the two World Wars and the ter-rible interlude in Germany between these wars. If we would but dare once again to alter the image of God, to concede that Christ and Satan are:both 190 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 Sons of God, to unite light, and darkness, good and evil, to reconcile joy and pain, and to recognize in God the conjunction of antitheses as a complexio oppositorum; and then, if man would have the courage to identify himself with such an image of God, then indeed mankind would open a way for accepting the evil and shadow within itself, an acceptance with even a religious basis, for it would but reflect the very nature of God himself. Were this so, ext, reme tensions would subside to a bearable and politically manageable level. The conscious would be so conjoined with the subconscious that henceforth evil could be controlled by man and never again would, the explosions of warfare have to erupt from within the structure of society. That would indeed be a way for mankind out of count-less sufferings. This is a fascinating train of thought and, even though the exegesis of Ju.ng's book is now long out-of-date, we do find in it an image of God the contemplation of which demands great courage: God as bright and dark, good and evil, an image which nonetheless could prove to be the remedy for the hopeless situation of the world today. Were this concept to prevail, analytical psychology would be more than a mere medical, discipline; by abandoning the consultation rooms of the doctor, psychological therapeutics would evolve from a healing science to a salvific science. But let us not at- ~tempt to take the easy way out. There are passages in the Old Testament which seem to verify Jung's view: see Is 45:6-7: ". I am the Lord, and there is none else~ I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil . " And in Lm 3:38: "Shall not both evil and good pro-ceed out of the mouth of the Most High?" The image of God in the Old Testament would seem to confirm what Jung proposed. The theologian sitting opposite the therapist begins to speak: "I under-stand your whole protest, sir, the protest of the doctor, .of mankind, the protest of a grieving and sickened mankind. And I admit that appearances seem to speak in your favor. I have one main objection, however, to your position: your way does not penetrate the world within, it does not breach the inner realm of the soul, for this image of God consists only of a projec- ,tion from within man himself. Whoever seeks to address the question of suf-fering, however, has to break through to the exterior world, he would have to coordinate his image of God to God's. own reality--and this cannot be accomplished solely with projections from within man's inner world. As a theologian, I would like to advance an argument of my own. "My first argument can be found in the New Testament in I Jn 1:5: '. God is light and in Him is no darkness.' According to the evidence of biblical exegesis, light in this instance signifies ethical perfection. In God, therefore, there is no contact with moral evil. God is light and no darkness exists within him. To project darkness onto the being of God contradicts the clear statement of Holy Scripture. On this issue, Christianity clearly opposes Jung's Answer to Job." Cooperation or Opposition / 191 This position, however, creates a new difficulty for theology, concerning which one cannot remain naive and say that God is good and everything evil springs from somewhere else. Even the. theologian must make God re-sponsible for the evil and wickedness and suffering in the world, for God created a suffering world. Consider only the fears of animals--fears of one another, of earthquakes, floods and epidemics with all their consequent sufferings. God is directly responsible for all of this physical evil. In con-trast to this, however, it is necessary to distinguish moral evil, because of which an excessive amount of pain is engendered in the world and through which the .physical evil present is increased even more--as for example through the agency of war. Although this moral evil stems from man himself,~ God did create man with this inherent possibility and thus he also is responsible, albeit indirectly, for the moral evil in the world. He effects salvation, and creates evil., he leads into temptation! Is God, therefore, evil after all'?." But 1 Jn 1:5 states that "God is light and in Him there is no darkness." A modern mystic, Marie Noel, wrote: "For God, the Sovereign Good, cannot be suspected.TM Christianity has indeed rejected all teachings which defile the image of God. The question thus remains: Since he is responsible for everything, since he effects both redemption and evil, what attitude is one to assume toward such a God? There are three possibilities. The first one is atheism, .the denial of the very existence of God. The second is the way indicated by Jung, the projec-tion namely of both good and evil into the nature of God~ In both of these instances human modes of thought have been made the measure of God. The third possibility is the open question of whether it is not possible that God is responsible for everything, and yet he is only light without any admixture of darkness. This is something enigmatic. Perhaps angther, a supernatuial possibility is open to God? This open question has always been a thorn in the flesh of a thinking Christianity, ,an open wound that will not heals, but one that prevents us from locking ourselves up within the inner chambers of our soul. It spurs us on rather continually to attempt to break through from the immanent to the transcendent. Expressed in simple terms this means that our open question compels us to permit God to be God and not a human being. Karl Barth stated the problem in a very speculative and scientific sounding formula when he said that this was the "ultimate exhaustion of systematic theological speculation." Despite all responsibility for suffering in the world, there is no darkness within God--a dilemma in-capable of solution in human terms. Thus, it is that indeed on ~principle analytical psychology and Christianity differ one from the other. A second argument consists in the fact that, although one might expect Christ to have revealed something about suffering and to have clarified its 1Marie Noel (pseud. for Marie Melanie Rouget), Notes ]or Mysel] (Notes intimes). Tr. by Howard Sutton. Cornell University Press, 1968, p. 33. 192 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 significance, he did nothifig of the kind. He refused to argue with, the Pharisees'~about it or to offer any explanation whatsoever. His own disciples thought.'within the framework of a correspondence between guilt and punishment, and thus when they asked him in the case of the man who had been born blind who was responsible for his blindness, he himself or his parents (Jn 9:1-2), Christ answered, "None of them." Beyond this he did not go--he, offered no proof. He never spoke of the how or the whence or the wherefore of suffering, nor did he promise in any way that our human condition would ever change. He did, however, proclaim a new Day of the Lord on.which the creator would once again touch the world with his creator-hands ~ind remove all suffering. On that day he will cause all former things to pass away and will "wipe away each tear" (Apoc 21: 4).~This is all a reference to some time in the~future and thus to an act of redemption, hot of healing. Can one really take this promise seriously and yet maintain that .it is but ~a futile and ineffectual consolation against a far distant future, aovain 'promise of better things to come in some far distant time? That would indeed be an .expansion, of consciousness to a far distant and ~future" horizon. This' attitude demands of the Christian first of'all a renunciation, of any°reasoned proof for the necessity of suffering; secondly, a reservation and modesty in judgment before the enigma of the question of suffering,' which ought thus to be treated as a "question of discretion" in relation to God~ and thirdly, it is demanded of the Christian that he sur-render ,himself to suffering. ~ ~ This leads~directly to a third argument, the distinction, namely, be-tween' "evil~''~ and its.,"fuiiction." Evil does remain evil, but it can have a positive function. Pain is terrible, but it can also have a positive function. Suffering ought.,not to be, nor should it be allowed to continue to exist, and yet it too can exert a positive effect. Although the evil ~remains evil, even ~in has positive :consequences. That is the mystery of the felix culpa, The why and the wherefore of evil and wickedness and suffering are connected With God, although we are unable to explain how. But what we can ascer-tain is at least a .part,.a thread of this whole skein of realities, namely 'that the function, of evil','or wickedness or even pain can be positive as well as negative. Let us discuss this matter in somewhat greater detail, An excellent and telling example of this point of view is to be found in Lhe story of, the prodigal son and the banquet given in his honor upon his return home (Lk 15:1-32). His sin remains sin, the evil he committed re-mains' evil, the suffering he caused remains suffering--this is something he did do, something which did hurt his father. Later, however, in conversa-tion with his father during~the celebration banquet, the son begins to under-stand for the' first time"his 'father's maturity, and for the first time the father can rejoice at the reasonableness of his son who at long last has outgrown his ~child!sh naivete~ This certainly does not imply Some form of mysticism of sin, nor is it an appeal to sin, for in no way was it certain that. the son Cooperation or Opposition /d93 would ever find his way home again. He could just as easily have lost his way forever. But for him who returns we rejoice. This positive function of suffering is an experience which analytical' psychology has concretely ascertained and with which it operates; it relies upon it as a medicinal factor in the,process of curing. To this extent the psychotherapist is a specialist in the area of pain, and to an equal degree the pastor of souls should likewise be such an expert in the same area. This is one of the fruits of the theory of integration of the darker elements of man's nature into his conscious personal!ty. The function of wickedness, evil and pain, therefor.e, can be something positive. Analytical psychology will share this experience with Chr!stianity if Christianity will but renounce naive thinking and forego its predominant modes of thought. To this extent these two theo-retical systems can attai~ a mutual understanding. V Christianity, however, knows something more, a something which can-not be discussed in the atmosphere of~a polemic. Let us, therefore, abandon the room where the psychotherapist and theologian sit across from one another and descend a few more stories of our skyscraper. There0w,e will come upon a chapel suffused with the "air of individuation," that is a s, till-ness with a meditative atmosphere, a quietness that radiates a presentiment of transcendence. And let us fu~'ther imagine that at this precise moment a woman is entering the chapel, a woman who has been sl.andered, and against which slander she cannot defend herself. This calumny has hu-miliated her beyond description and its grave con.s~eqences have seriously affected her marriage, her social position--indeed her whole life. The only thing that she can do, this Christian woman, is to let the suffering in her soul rage itself out until she is wholly burnt out within. At this point in her life she now stands squarely be,fore the Pauline e,xperience of kenosis; the function of her suffering is no longer somethi.ng merely psychic, for in her it has also assumed a theological dimension, a theological reality which cannot be clarified by means of some theory. It is rather only through the aid of symbols that one .can hope to lay bar( .what is happening in-the woman's heart, that we can begin to perceive her struggle in the midst of .the burning pains of her humiliation, in the fluctuating rise and fall of her emotions, in her cries for succor; in the absence of any answer to her grief. All of this is veiled within symbols, and yet at the same time re-vealed by them: Buddha smiles--Christ weeps. Buddha sits--Christ treads the way of the cross Buddha seeks to destroy the ability to suffer--Christ, however, assumes the burden of,the cross Buddha remains silent--Christ cries out upon the cross 194 / Review [or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 Buddha dissolves his being into the great Nirvana--Christ however, is awakened from the dead Buddha detached all disciples from himself--Christ will draw all men to himself (Jn 12:32). It is a function of suffering:that, by wholly emptying itself, it fights its way through to ultimate humiliation and degradation until everything within it is consumed and dissolved. But then there follows an ascent, a rebirth. The woman leaves the chapel and her bitterness of heart may well have been transformed into a compassion for every living creature. She does not know how this happened, or why, but she experiences it nonetheless, the experience of a transformation. She is not necessarily comforted--for in her soul something was indeed consumed by flames--but she is strength-ened. As Paul Claudel once wrote: "God does not comfort, but he does strengthen." This truth of Christian experience still exceeds what analytical psychology can effect. VI So as not to abandon the basis of sober fact, let us descend yet another story where we enter a dentist's office. He is just about to begin drilling a patient's tobth. Let us also imagine that for some reason or other he was unable to anesthetize the patient's mouth before drilling. He thus demands of his patient the' a.cceptance of the pain to follow, a searing agony likened only to some invention of the devil. This is in a way a tragicomical situation to be enacted in a dentist's chair and one in which there are no heroes. The situation, however, has the advantage of being able to prepare the pain cleanly and in every detail, pain in the purest form, as it were. At this juncture, all of our theories collapse like houses built of cards. When the whole scene is over, we experience a most remarkable sensation, as if some-how something foreign had touched us, as if in a way we were standing on the border of a new dimension of reality. And we are also perhaps thank-ful that the pain, though not our own, has ceased. From where did the man derive the courage to endure such suffering, and to do so in silence? And what transpired in us during the operation? Theoretically we are indeed unable to imagine this, but in the form of a dream it can be done. VII Now let us descend to the lowest sub-basement, where the foundations of both our imagined skyscraper and our psyche are anchored. In a dream series one dream is repeated again and again: a cave in a forest and flight from the cave. In the next dream, however, the following occurs: This time, in spite of great fear, I entered the cave. Suddenly I had to stop because I had come upon the edge of an abyss or chasm. It was horrible just to gaze into it and I could not bring myself to do so. Finally, however, I did look down and then I experienced a moment of terrifying fear, a moment Cooperation or Opposition / 195 of hatred and desperation. Everything within me was thrown into disorder and as I stood there looking down, the chasm suddenly was not there any more. A stream of clear and flowing water had assumed its place, At this point, two questions arise: First, what really is happening in the dream? Abyss, fear, hatred, desperation--is that what dying is like? Some-thing in the dreaming person had to die. "Everything within me was thrown into disorder," he said. The stages of this transformation are clear: the sur-rendering of one form of life by gazing down into the abyss--the descent into a chaos which is simultaneously a creative chaos. Suddenly--and one is not certain how or why, since this is decidedly not an intellectual process which can be initiated or manipulated--an ascent, a rebirth is symbolized by a stream of clear flowing water, the water of life, the sign of a new life. Is the mystery of suffering ultimately the same as the mystery of kenosis: dying, chaos, new life? A sense of awed modesty in the face of such an occurrence cannot fail but to seize those who have ever been permitted to witness such .an event, be it as psychotherapist or pastor of souls or simply as a fellow .human being. A second question here 'forc6s its way to the fore: whence did the pa-tient derive the courage finally to stare down into the abyss, to confront his suffering? ~The intensification of his personal crisis, the increasing pressure of his suffering are without a doubt contributing factors. Certain energetic dynamics of his psyche must also have urged him forward. Just as as-suredly, however, this ~was also a question of inner stature and for this very reason such courage cannot be demanded of those with lesser internal forti-tude. An equal role, however, must be attributed to the effect of the ther-apist whose consciousness influenced, in an intellectual manner, the con-sciousness bf the patient; in like manner, too, his unconscious influenced the patient's unconscious. (This non-verbal communication can go so far that the patient's dreams and those of the psychot.herapist's are actually identical, a fact attested by recent research in this area.'-') The 'transformation must also have been effected by the fact that the third psychic instance in the psychotherapist--one might call it the "self" or even the "person"--in-fluences the nucleus of the patient's own person. That is the non-verbal, cura-tive gift which can effect courage, the courage tO gaze down into the abyss and to accept this suffering and thisdying. It is also an invitation to a further penetration and absorption into one's inner sel~. This is a process which cannot be manipulated; and whether the patient is willing to cooperate in the process, whether he or she.participates wholeheartedly and with under-standing, can only be the result of a composite of pressure from suffering, inner fortitude and freedom, free choice. At this point psychotherapy is no longer merely a form of mechanics, but has become rather a communica, tion between therapist and patient, an exchange worthy of a human being. zH. Dieckmann, "Der Traum und das Selbst im Menschen," in Analytische Psycho- ~ Iogie, V (1974), 1-16, esp. pp. 11-12. 196 / Review for Religious, lZolume 36, 1977/2 The pastor of souls also exerts an influence on the faithful, consciously in conversation with them, subconsciously when he suffers with them, as St. Paul said: "Weep with those who weep." But over and above this, the nucleus of his person influences that of the other, and if faith dwells there and~ inothis faithS,~ the pneuma, the blowing of the Holy Spirit, then here we encou~nter a new, a pneumatic dimension which is not to be found in depth psychology. In-this instance Christianity goes beyond analytical psychology. If the .Christian participateg in this movement, his participation is also the result of a con~posite; a composite of the pressure from suffering, inner forti-tude, freedomS,and faith. It can indeed be maintained that, with respect to thei'r efficacy fbrothose who suffer, analytical psychology and Christianity do share much~ ih .common; Christianity, however, exceeds their common bond, it goes :a,step beyond it~ VIII Let us now leave the cellar and mount upward again. After such a "jour-ney of the soul" one ought to recover one's equilibrium over a .glass of wine, or~better yet by participating in a' symposium. A portion of Plato's Sym-posium thus geems fitting here: the participants have spent the 'night in di;inking and revelry and have fallen asleep, including Aristodemos, 'the commentator of the final scene. On th6 following morning, as the cock be-gins to crow,~.he awakens and sees that onlythree others are also awake-- Socrates and two of his drinking compahions. They have filled a huge bowl with wine and in' honor of the gods of morning, they pass it around from one to the other, each one sha~ing it with his neighbor on the right. Socrates is trying to explain to his companions that a truly gifted writer of tragedies must at:,the same time also be a writer of comedies. This is that famous Socratic irony that reappears again and again and which Guardini interprets thusly.' "The thinking man realizes that realities exist which exceed his ability to formulate.''':~ ~ Human, words cann~3t encompass the truth, and one should be able to laugh at this, just as Socrates and his companions did. Having now taken a soul-jc~urney through the great question of suffering, weighed terrifying questioris and looked into the depths of various chasms, the ultimate re-mains to be said: we have no answers. We. have nonetheless experienced something about the efficacy of suffering. This can annoy us; yet on the Other hand we can laugh at it as well. To us as Christians the latter is be-fitting. In conclusion we might well cite Harvey Cox who, in a diagnosis of the religious attitude of our present age, made a statement that is in essence aparaphrase of this very Socratic irony: "Comic hope is the mood of Our embryonic religibus sensibility today.'"' :~Romano Guardini, Stationen und Ruckblicke. Wurzburg, 1965, p. 49. ¯ 'Harvey Cox, The Feast of Fools. A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy: Harvard University Press, 1969, p. 156. A Movement Toward Hope: Christian Fraternity of the Sick Pdtricia Loivery, M.M, Sigt~r ~Pdtri~:ia has, ~f late, become a frequent contributor to these pages. Twenty-five years i~ ~P~r6, she resides at the~conveht o[ Madres de Maryknoll; Casilla 491; A~requi~a; Perti." ~ - ,~ Ond~of the most moving experiences of~Christian .community in which I have shared took place in a house dedicated to "Our Izady. of Happiness." The o~casiian was the "VI National Assembly 6f the Christian Fra~ternity, of the Sick." At this week-long meeting 53 delegates from 14 dioi:eses in Per(= gathered tb. review the past work of the fraternity and set new goals for the,ftiture. The~tffeme of the meeting was: "A New Man for a New Society." The model of that ne~v nian, of'course, ~was th~ Risen ChriSt, but~ Iosaw be-foreome~ men= and women' Who were veiy much in the process of becoming "new;' thdmselve'~. The majority of the delegates were young (20-_30), °most were severely handicapped and all were utterly ingpiring.=;Being with v~aliant handicapped people was, not a new experience for me, but somehbw the un2selfconscibus~ happy and dedicated way they approached the work at hand ,was asterling exampleoof what the,'fraternity is all about: These people, 'having passed through~theirodarkest moments of suffering with the help of others, were now ready and eager' to share the vision of their, new life and the source of their happiness. Each had0his, particular story but ho one was~much con-cerned about dwelling on it, and certainly, there was no trace of self-pity or need for sympathy. The atmosphere was one of normal, happy, enthu-siastic people .facing .a challenging .task; the complete acceptance of one another promoted full and active participation on.the part~ of all. ~ Our long,day began in the chape!~where our best sharing and dialogue 197 1911 / Review for Religious, ,Volume 36, 1977/2 took place. The hours sped by as we attended meetings, did household chores (dish washing was a fun time!), relaxed, sang, introduced the whole group to particular areas of the country through slides, typical dances and stories, attended uplifting liturgies, and offered a helping hand (or foot) to anyone in need of it. There are numerous examples that could be cited to make one marvel at what handicapped people can do, but I prefer simply to' state the fact that there is nothing they cannot do, especially when gathered together in a house of "happiness." In this article, I would like to give some specific information about the Christian Fraternity of the Sick--its history, spirit, structure, concerns and hopes for the future. History In 1942, in the City of Verdfin, France, a young woman named Mar-garita Renaud was in the hospital. At the same time, the chaplain, P~re Franqois (now Auxiliary Bishop of Verdfin) became a patient. During his time of recuperation, and having learned from his own experience of suf-fering, he began to see the patients in a new light and treat them with new interest. One day he suggested to Margarita that she write to several other sick in the city, inviting them to visit the hospital; three of them responded to the invitation. Two weeks later, five came t6 visit Margarita and P~re Franqois and all committed themselves to visit other sick in their homes. From then on, they met every two weeks to discuss their visits and to share their insights. Pi~re Franqois led them tO a deeper understanding of Scripture and of Christian community. Thus began the Fraternity of the Sick--a movement of the sick for the sick. ~, ¯ Two years later, thirty-fivemembers, some on stretchers and. in wheel2 chairs, made a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin in Benoite-Vaux, and there they celebrated the '~'birthday" of the fraternity. Little by little, it spread to almost all the dioceses of France, ,to Switzerland, Belgium, Ger-many, Africa, Canada and Spain. From Spain it was brought to Mexico and to the countries of Central and South America. On March 1,. 1967 the seed was planted in Perti by a~dynamic Jesuit, Padre Manuel Duato. His own personal experience of physical pain coupled with a joyous, bouyant spirit won him many followers among0the sick and handicapped in Peril. They nicknamed him: "Padre Quitapenas"--the priest who takes the pain away. His friends grieved deeply when. he died of can-cer in December of 1973. His memory is perpetuated in his lasting gift to them: a new way of life--the way of hope, courage and joy. " The spirit of the fraternity is both realistic and idealistic. The realism is the acknowledgment that we are limited, weak, sick. We are not afraid of the word "sick," but we do protest the commonly used word "invalid" A Movement Toward Hope / 199 because it connotes ~the idea of worthlessness, uselessness and complete in-activity. The fraternity challenges the indifference of modern society toward the physically limited or weak person. We do not hesitate to acknowledge weakness because, by experiencing it, we have become more truly ourselves with a deeper capacity to contemplate the existence of God and the mystery of life. But, like other minority groups, we feel the need to fight for the recognition of ourselves as full persons with corresponding rights and duties. We recognize and accept our infirmity for what it is--an evil, but not of our own making nor a punishment from God. Jesus said of the man born blind: "I~ was not that this man sinned, or hi's parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him" (Jn 9:3). We.do not pretend to know the answer to the mystery of, evil~ but we do have a. realistic response to it. We intend to accomplish what Christ has given us the power to do; overcome it. The idealism of the fraternity can also become a reality because it is :solidly based on evangelical charity and fraternity. Even on a purely human level we recognize that brotherhood involves understanding, interchange, giving and receiving, interdependence. But for us, this human fraternity has been transformed by Christ who, having made himself our brother, calls us to be brothers of one .another and sons of the Father. This Christian family .is one. in which .the smallest, weakest, poorest are the most beloved. In the movement's Charter, five of the seven fundamental principles deal with ~spirit"; the other two explain the structure. Padre Quitapenas literally "took the pain away" when he emphasized: "Maximum Spirit-- Minimum Organization!" ,. Charter Point l: Evangelical Charity Charity as practiced in the fraternity strives to' imitate the qualities of Christ~s~own love. It is universal'becauseit is not limited to a certain ~class of people; it is for all without boundaries, It' is disinterested: Jesus loved us first and was faithful until death. We go out to our brothers without fear of being rejected or misunderstood, not expecting praise or gratitude. It is respect[M: Christ never imposes, always invites. We try to awakefi the other to his own worth and dignity, calling him forth with patience and perseverance. In this prOcess, we come to recognize his true value, and often receive more than we are able to give: Lastly, it is total. As ~'Christians we strive to give the best of ourselves in total dedication;' even to being Willing to give our lives for the other. Christ lived that kind of fraternity~ This point might bring the response: "That's too mu~h to ask!" But it would not be an ideal if it did not ask so much. Striving for such an. ideal causes us to give more than we thought we could. Perhaps more than others, the sick need this kind of presence rather than ideas and words, however beautiful, to keep l~hem from isolation and despair. Where there is solidarity ~200 / Review Ior Religious, Volume ,3,6, 1977/2 there is h6pe., It is a~ if,Christ' said:~"Organize yourselves as,brothers,, treat each other.as such, and obstacles will disappear,,barriers fall and prejiadices 'overcome." So it is that love and understanding which leadSto deep and harmonious relationships are the very soul of the fraternity. ,, Point I1: Dedicated to, All the Sick Without Distinction . ¯ . Because of its nature, the Christian Eraternity embraces all .who are -sick without ~ discrimination of culture, social, status, religion., age, sex or type of infirmity. The fraternity is open to all because each one-is a person ~who needs community. Children, youth, adults and the aged are all welcome ~ in,~the fraternity,,but it is to the young adult that the fraternityr.looks for the :vitality and dynamism needed to carry on its work. Because of-their critical awareness and disillusionmentwith, present conditions, they are willing to take responsibility and work toward change. As one totally paralyzed youth said at. our assembly: "We want a revolution~a revolution of love!" Although the fraterni.ty is a lay,~apostolic movement, in the Catholic Church, it welcomes those of other~faiths, Christian and non-Christian. We -do not come together to discuss,our_differences, .but rather to unite~.our efforts to,build a better worldqn which each person becomes whole. It*should be noted, however, that in forming a fraternity~.'it,i~ important that its. leaders be deeply convinced of the gospel 'message; otherwise, they ¯ could not transmit it to others, o. The fraternity is .not an association or pious confraternity which a. per-son j6ins by signing up.'Rather, the individual ~is meant to 15articipate; ac-cording to his ability, in the responsibilities and activities of the movement, to feel part of the movement. To participate is to live fraternity. This in no way eliminates certain sick people, for example, bed-ridden patients,¯ be-cause the first responsibility of a member of the fraternity.~is,concern for other sick people. This concern can be expressed in many different ways, an important one being our openness to friendship. It is not uncommon that ,a meeting ~or activity is held by a group gathered, around the bed or wheel-chair of a person who cannot'be moved. : ~oint_ I11:, UniIying Contacts The fraternity promotes a. spirit of unity, both personal and communi- ~tarian, among the sick and with the well who wish ~to participate in the movement by offering their friendship and service to the sick. ,.,~. The concept of Christian friendship underlies° all our contacts. Much could be said about the beauty and value of .friendship and the great gift it can be for one,who feels isolated and alone. Suffice,it to say-that the concept of friendship which we try to live consists in: --concern for the good of the other , Sacrificing oneself for the good of the othe]" ~ committing oneself to action for the other. ~ ' ' A Movement Toward Hope / 201 The beginning of'friendship is person-contact; often this contact is made through visits to the sick in their homes or in the hospital. We feel that these Visits should be characterized by attention, respect, esteem and~itedication. The person being visited is unique, therefore deserves undiv, ided attention and sincere interest. We offer it willingly, showing by our attitude that we are more interested in listening to him than in watching the~clock or talking about ourselves. We respect his personal freedom to share or withhold his confidences and friendship. Discretion teaches that we not press our own religio,us:beliefs on him; without speaking of God, his presence can be felt, Through genuine esteem~ we will come to see the personal worth and true value of the person, and will begin to learn what he has to teach us. In giving the best of ourselves to the other, he will gradually know that we have come to help him carry his burden, to make his sufferings our own. Bi~sides promiSing to visit him again, we invite him to our group encounters when he is able to come. The regular fraternity meeting (once a month on diocesan level and oftener, .if desired, on parish level) is a unique opportunity to promote the sick person and to form leaders. A meeting that does not foment the active participation of the sick is a failure and cannot :be called~a meeting of the fraternity. We are not interested in a faultlessly ordered meeting or in num-bers, but rather that those present come of.their own choice and participate actively, .and that the atmosphere be one of warmth which encourages all to enter into dialogue and decision making. Thus the sick person learns the .value of working in a group in which his own opinion and that of others is respected. The meeting consists of reflection: on a gospel passage, b.usiness and usually some socializing. ' Other encounters vary according to the initiative of the group. Some of the more common ones are: workshops, retreat, days, general meetings | (which include all zones, or two. or more zones planning an activity to-gether), liturgies and the Sacrament. of the Sick, picnics, parties, etc. All encounters have as their objective to bring ~the sick together to experience friendship, personal growth and each one's ability to take responsibility for himself and others. Our-friends, the Collaboraiors, are well people who value the ideals of the fraternity, seek to understand the sick person through friendship and offer their services as an expression~of that friendship. We value our relation-ships ~vith ,the well.We need each other and each has something to offer the other. The collaborator learns (through experience as well as in planned workshops) how to be comforiable with the sick, when to assist and when to encourage independence. He or she learns to be present in such' a way as to fill a need unobtrusively. The collaborator may take an active part in fraternity meetings, etc., but should always be aware that leadership in the fraternity belongs to the sick. The support, encouragement and patience of the well often open the way for the less secure handicapped person to come 202 / Review for Religious, :Volume 36, 1977/2 into his own. Specifically, the well may have some talent, learning or tech-nique which can be shared to help the handicapped advance in a particular area~ Other collaborators offer mobility which facilitates the sick person's participation ~.in meetings, activities, etc. These friends, are appropriately called: "Flying Angels"! The sick, in relating to collaborators, grow in appreciation of the ser-vices they receive, and learn to accept help graciously without negating their need or becoming demanding in their requests. As they become friends of the well they soon realize that these, too, car~y the tieavy burden of suffer-ing~ although not a physical one. Often the well person needs to express his own uncertainties, worries, problems, hopes and fears, and finds in his sick companion, a willing listener and grateful friend. The fact that in the fraternity there exists this happy union of the sick and the well proves that, where hearts are open and loving, limitations and differences disappear. Point IV: Integral Development of the Sick Person One of the main objectives of the fraternity is the integral development of the whole person of the sick and physically limited, In Jesus' healing ministry, he always healed the whole person, never dividing him into parts. Just as he was capable of forgiving sins, so could he command the person to stand up and walk (Lk 5: 17-26). The vision of the whole person includes the moral, psychological, spiri-tual, affective, social and physical aspects. Moral and~ psychological re-cuperation often engenders physical rehabilitation, just as the development of the social and religious dimension uplifts the person morally and physi-cally. One compliments the other and all are necessary to facilitate growth. Many examples could be given to show how the inter-action of these vari- "ous aspects have contributed to healing in the person, and the part that a group such as the fraternity plays, As one doctor said: "The fraternity mobilizes a considerable amount of energy in the form of group therapy. which is a powerful help toward complete healing. It is not that an ampu-tated leg will be returned, but that, in spite of everything, the man can be complete, minus one leg?' ¯ Another important break-through comes for the sick person when he realizes that God loves him and accompanys him in his suffering. This in-sight is often ,given him through the human love of others; It .helps him to face the future with more hope and Christian optimism. Point V: Integration Into Society and Active Collaboration in Its Trans- [ormation Another'important objective of the Fraternity is to help its members become fully integrated into society so that they might contribute actively toward transforming it. A Movement Toward Hope / 203 -You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Mt5:14-16). Christ invites his disciples to act without fear in the presence of the world so that others, seeing their good works, will know of the power of God within them. As the sick and handicapped grow toward wholeness, they face the dif-ficult task of integrating themselves into their environment: the family, so-ciety, the Church. The fraternity is a movement that discovers the sick, pro-motes them and then returns them (without ever having isolated them) to their community ready and capable of making their contribution. It teaches them to be critically aware of conditions imposed upon them; to see, to judge and to act with Christian vision. False ideas about illness perpetuated by the family can cause the sick one to become a non-person. Families are inclined to two extremes in the problem of handicapped members: over-protection (paternalism) which causes the individual to lose his personality and become the "eternal child"; or, through ignorance and disinterest (abandonment) he is made to feel that .he is an inconvenient burden altering the life of the family. In either case, the sick person may lose interest in everything, including his own personal growth, becoming apathetic and selfish. Society, for its part, would prefer to deny the existence of the handi-capped'person. It sets up protective institutions~which gradually de-person-alize the individual and make him incapable of participating in the rights and duties of an ordinary citizen. In this, the sick person must judge so-ciety and challenge its prejudices, He can,prove that the true value of the person lies, not in physical beauty and material productivity, but in the gift of spirit and life. The fraternity urges the sick and handicappdd to develop their potential and prepare themselves through study, mastering a trade or developing a compensatory faculty, to live an independent life. In many cases, the handi-capped person may be more efficient in some particular area or job than some. well people, but he usually is considered eliminated even from ap-plying.' It is not a question of the sick trying to compete with the well, but of being recognized as persons and given equal opportunities. Many sick and handicapped people may never be able to join the hus-tle and bustle of our work-a-day world, but by their steadfast patience, clarity of thought; ability to listen and look for solutions, and by sharing their deep peace and joy, they can silently transform into light the darkness of our world. The Church, too, must take a new interest in developing and utilizing the spiritual potential of its handicapped members. It is not enough to as-sign them to a life of prayer, precious as that is in itself. Values, sorely 204 / Review for Religious, ~.olume 36, 1977/2 needed in our world today, can be highlighted by the presence of the sick in the Christian community. Reflection on the Paschal'Myst6ry, hope in suffering, spirit-strength in weakness, the value of life over all things, the lesson of obedience, victory over evil, the attainment of happiness and wis- ,dom, the privilege of carrying one another's burden are but a few things the sick have to say to the Christian community. Point 1/1: Team Leadership ~ The fraternify is vitalized by teams of responsible sick and handicapped people. The value of working in~teams is well known by all who have ex-perienced such group effort. Foe the sick person 'the support of a, team is doubly important. Through it, he learns the value of and need for unity, dialogue, sincerity, friendship, vision, and solidarity in action. He discovers that he is important, but not indispensable; he knows that what he lacks another has;' and he learns, through practice, to develop ,his leadership qualities and help others,to develop theirs. Teams of responsible' sick and handicapped people are formed'at the parochial, diocesan, regional and national levels~ These~ in turn, are re-sponsible to an International Team. The teams in their distinctive environ-ment promote, orientate, coordinate and vitalize,' both in depth and geo-graphic extensi6n,!~ the fraternity. A team iscomposed of at least five members: the responsible person, the assistant, the spiritual advisor, a secretary and a treasurer. In order to give as many of the sick as possible the experien6e of leadership, the teams are renewed every two yearsoby election. Most of the sick cannot dedicate full time to the work of the fraternity, but carry out their apostolate over and above their ordinary.duties: In order to begin a Fraternity, a group should have the approval of the local bishop,~ work together,for at least one year and then seek .affiliation through the National Fraternity at a General Assembly. Such7 a fraternity is being established in the United States by a Marianist brother who. previ-ously worked in Peril.1 ~, The teams.,are responsible for planning meetings and other activities, but, more importantly, for. preserving, the spirit of the f~raternity. There are many pitfalls into which the fraternity could fall. Some would make. ofit an enterprise for solving labor problems, a social service,~agency for material assistance, a recreational center where the sick distract themselves or a .confraternity of prayer. It is none of these even though,some aspects of each are. present. Those who. come to the fraternity looking only for personal ,or material gain usually leave disappointed. Many others catch the spark of the true meaning of "fraternity" and are richly rewarded. The fact that the responsible positions in the fraternity are assumed 1Brother' James L. McC~.ffrey, S:M': Cehtral Catholic High School 1403 N. StY' Mar~'s Street; San .Antonio, TX 78215. A Movement Toward Hope / 205 by the sick themselves stamps the :movement as a liberating one. Who better than the sick can 'understand the sick and plan for them? How better can they face their own reality, promote themselves and prepare for taking their ¯ .place in ~.society: , ~. Point VII: The Role of the Minister The Fraternity receives its vital Christian orientation especially from the religious minister,., who is usually a.priest~ but could also be a brother or sister. This person is known in the fraternity as the Assessor. Although the assessor is a member of the governing team, he contributes more by his discreet presence and unifying word than: by his organizational ability~ He is meant to be a. brother to his co~workers, and a friend a.mong 'friends. Often it is his supportive presence that enc.ourages the lay person to fissume his responsibilities; skillfully, he can. draw,.out the more timid ones to express themselves and help them make' their own decisions. His principle task is to direct the team and all members of the fraternity toward a deeper~ understanding of the Christian spirit; and lead them. to seek solutions t6 their,problems in the light.of, the gospel: 'By his own life witness', his word, and sensitive ~attitude, he gives spiritual vitality to the movement a'nd sets the sick on the road to discovery of their own spiritual depth Since the fraternity welcomes one and all, many enter it with little .spiri- ;tual formation; therefore, it' is primarily the religious minister who should be cohScious of their spiritual development: Through talks, worksh.ops, re-treat days and personal contact, he can begin the process of spiritual forma-tion that has so much meaning in the sick person's life. ~, The assessor is appointed by the bishop and is the fraternity:s direct link with the. Church, He seeks to work :with parish priests,, hospital chap-lains and others interested in ministry to ,the sick .in order-to transmit the spirit of the fraternity and develop a pastoral plan for the sick. He l(eeps the fraternity in touch with other lay apostolic movements for mutual en-richment. He is also in a position to heighten awareness in the hierarchy of the needs, iproblems, aspirations anti'activitieS; of the sick in the difcese. More than any of these, aspects, though, it .is his simple presence, his [attitude of service and his inspiring word that makes the assessor a key fig, ure in the fraternity. " ~ Aclivilies . ,~ ¯, Here' I would like to mention a few of the activities.our fraternity groUp in Arequipa (Perti) has undertaken. Through them,'we have tried to reach out;to others in love, and have become fuller, happier people because of it. 1) AnnualFraternity ,Encounter To mark our anniversary each year; we in-vite all the sick and handicapped of~the city to an all-day celebration on the last Sunday of April. It is a gala affair beginning with the arrival of some 300 people ranging from children~ to old folks, many in ,wheelchairs, on 206 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 crutches or aided by a friend. A well-participated concelebrated Mass opens the program. This year, 'for the first time, two of our members were married at~ this Mass. After the Eucharist and formal words of welcome our dedi-cated collaborators serve a well prepared lunch. The afternoon is filled with music, fun and games. The hidden talent of the handicapped is discovered as the blind sing, the old amputee dances with the aid of his crutch, chil-dren recite poems and tell jokes, young people play musical instruments and lead group singing. A special feature of the festivities this year was a soccer game played by young men and women in wheelchairs. Each was given a straw broom and the. action began. We might have been in the stadium watching professionals, so exciting was the game! 2) Reflection Recently seventy-five members of the fraternity gathered for a reflection, day during which we had a. group dynamic which helped us to count our blessings. Each person received a letter from an imaginary friend --"Joe?' In small groups we discussed the letter, and then in a general ses-sion formulated the answer. Unfortunately, "Joe" had been in an accident which left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. According to Joe he had no friends now except the happy, active handicapped person to whom he was writing. (Joe wondered how his friend could :be so happy, anyway!) As for himself, everyone had deserted him and, although his family was nice enough, he knew they were just putting up with him. He was never going to walk again so he might as well be resigned to doing nothing the rest of his life. Joe did sincerely try to think about God but he couldn't understand why, if God were really his Father, he could punish him this way, especially since he didn't deserve it. The priest was always coming around telling him that suf-fering has meaning, but that went in one ear and out the other. Joe pre-tended to listen because, after all, he "couldn't offend the guy." What .he really wanted was to~ hear from his friend who had gone through the same thing and could sympathize with him. In answering "Joe's" letter, his friend reassured him of his friendship and understanding, but urged Joe to open his eyes and see the brighter side of life. Self~pity was blinding him! How could he expect people to come to him all the time? Why didn't he go visit somebody else and make some friends? There are a lot of people worse off than himself right in his own neighbor-hood. He could go around and see if he could help them in some way; or, at least, he could get to know them and talk things over. Joe would find that if he tried to make somebody else happy, he would be happier himself. Next, Joe ought to think about job possibilities. True enough, he couldn't walk but he still had his hands and his head. There are plenty of things he could do with those, but if he didn't put forth a little effort, he'd. never discover what they were. If he feels .useless, he has only~himself to blame. It is too bad Joe can't see any meaning in suffering; his friend sure can! Why, it~ makes a person feel so much closer to other people who are going A Movement Toward Hope through the same thing (without complaining); after all, everybody has something to suffer. It's a,nice feeling to be a real brother to somebody. Joe should know that God isn't going to try him beyond his strength. He is giving Joe the opportunity to stop and think about life and become a bet-ter person if he wants to. Joe ought to remember that God's own Son had to suffer, and by suffering, save the world. Now he's giving Joe a chance t6 do something for the world, too. Sooner or later, Joe will find out that his accident, instead of being a punishment, is a blessing in disguise. About the priest, Joe should'realize that if Father keeps' coming back to see him, it means he wants to be his friend, and he should appreciate that. If Joe really tried to listen, he would learn something. One thing for sure, if Joe doesn't get hold of himself, he'll soon find out that the greatest suffering in life is selfishness. Poor Joe! 3) Radio Programs For many shut-ins and sick people of the city, two weekly radio programs called Fraternity are a source of education and in-spiration. 'The programs consist of background material about the fraternity, letters and testimonies of the sick, information about rehabilitation or spe-cial courses being offered, a spiritual message, and news of,activities, meet-ings, and so forth that are being planned, The unique part of the programs is that they are planned and executed entirely by the sick and handicapped. One of~ the participants is Reyna, a blind girl, who reads her script in braille. To the unknowing listener, Reyna sounds like anyone else, but to her proud friends she is someone special. 4) A Christmqs Project Christmas is a special time for expressing fraternity. Each parish or zone usually has a party which many of the sick attend. Last year, in planning ours, we realized that the house-bound sick, who need the partY ,.most, would not. be able to come. So we decided to take the party to them. Settling on ten people, ~e planned a one-hour visit with each, giving them the choice of the. day and an afternoon hour during the week before Christmas. We packed a party box and wrapped a gift for each visit. The gifts were chosen according to each one's need or specigl interest. The very poor received a basket of food; to old Don Lucho, whose life revolved around the Sacred Heart, went a statue of the Sacred Heart. The party goers were usually four; two handicapped people, one collaborator and the pastor. To begin our visit, we set up a small crib, sang carols, reflected on the Mystery, shared what Christmas meant to us and prayed for Christmas blessings. Then we chatted and had the party with the growing number of family members who gathered as interest grew. Before leaving, we presented our gift. Don Lucho was in ecstasy; no other gift could have mean so much to him. He died two months later gently embracing his Sacred Heart statue. Observations It may not be practical or even possible to apply all that has been pre-sented here in a given situation, or to belong formally to the Fraternity of 2011 / Review ]or Religious, Volfime 36, 1977/2 the Sick. However, I feel that Christian fraiernity is as varied as creative Christians are numerous. Therefor(, the following suggestions may serv6 hs a spring-board for those who owish~ to direct their ministry to the sick in a "spirit of fraternity:" --Approach the sick as "real7 people who hav'e the same needs, aspirations, hopes, desires,, joys and sorrows as others. Respect and love them for what they are and what they can become. --Raise the consciousness level among the sick by helping them to see, judge and act in order to change their own attitudes and eventually transform their ambience. Bring the sick together so that they might become friends.~ In friendship they will learn to appreciate themselves and one an-other more, and, in solidarity, make their contribution to the commtinity. --Reflect and pray with the sick so that they may grow in knowl-edge of the ways of God, and come to understand their mission. (Isaiah speaks beat~tifully of.,God's love for his suffering servant, the mission to which he is called and the reward that will be his.) Share your ministry with the sick; provide opportunities for them to minister to other sick; encourage them to go beyond them-selves, reaching out to others with the sure kn.owledge that the weaker they are the more powder t~hey have to raise their brothers. qsaiah's prophecy, read by Jesus in the synagogue,,is often used to de-scribe the official minister's, role in the Church. I believe that it also ap-plies to those other "servants" who have been tried and corfie forth as gold (Jb 23: 10). They, too, have been commissioned to bring the good ne,~,s to the most isolated and forgotten, the world of the sick. Together with it, ttiey can now carry their own spirit of hope. "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me; He has sent me to announce good news to the poor, To proclaim release for prisoners and recovery of the sight for the blind; To set at liberty those w~.ho are oppressed. To proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." And he said to them: "This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen." (Lk 4: 18-19; 21)' An Obstacle to Community Waiter J. Handren, S.J. l~ather Handren is now retired. He resides at Loyola Center; 54th & Ci_ty Ave.; Phil-adelphia, PA 19131. Deafness is an illness. If is a malfunction of one of the'~iaarts of the body. it is a depri~/ation, an abnormality, something which can distort other parts of' the human makeup in the person's efforts to compensate for his lack of hearing. As with all other things which affect humankind, deafness has both its physical effects and its social'effects, and, consequ6ntly, its psychological, mental and spiritual repercussions. It causes not only lack of hearing and corisequent isolation, but also bouts° of temper, ignorarlce 6f much of what is happening in the world and tlespondency. It is usual, I believe, when speaking of this affliction, to refer to "deaf-ness" as the total loss of hearing; any "partial loss is called "hard of hear-ing." In this article, for thesake of brevity, I stiall use the word "deafness" only, making distinctions whenever it becomes necessary to explain the na-ture of the case in question. ' "I suppose that I, just iis all other human beings, would be oblivious of the condition of the deaf had I' not suddenly become deaf, that is, become ¯ extremely hard Of hearing,~ at-~ge 65, just at the time that I was retired from a life-long job of.teaching. Having attained the status of "emeritus," I had plenty of time to observe"c~refully all the effects of~a seventy-five percent loss of hearing, to think many long and,seriou~ thoughts, and to come:up with some ideas about it. It is the result of these meditations which I am offering for~your consideration. When'a person suddenly goes deaf late in life there is an added frustra-tion put upon him which, perhaps, may not bother so much thosewho have suffered from a hearing-~defect over many years. All life long he~ has been accustomed to hearing. His reactions those swift, spontaneous responses 209 210 / Review 1or Religious, l/olume 3~,~ 19~77/2 ~ to sound which all normal hearers have, but few notice--have been attuned to hearing properly, and responding promptly. Then, of a sudden,~there is badly impaired hearing, and the quick, eager reaction is checked in mid-air, as it were; because suddenly there is nothing to respond to, and one is caught at a loss. One wants to hear; the strong, immediate drive of one's whole being is to hear and answer, but there is now no hearing, or, at least, not enough to make sense. Even with a l~earing aid this is true for those ~,ith badly impaired hearing. For this frustration to keep recurring day after day is wearing on the nerves and can cause other psychic phenomena such as (apparently) unmotivated testiness, snappishness, or else gloom and brooding. Of course, the religious, trained as he is in the spiritual life, has enough sense to fight against these moods, but they are there, and their tantalizing presence is wearing. The deaf person can no longer enjoy music. If he has been a music lover this becomes a great sacrifice. A person with normal hearing has no proper concept of what it is like to listen to a beautiful piece of music, one which has been loved in times past, and to hear nothing but cacophony: some notes coming through piercingly and others not being heard at all. The result is just noise. Your friends ~annot really understand that. Sym-pathetic or not, they have no idea of your plight; so you avoid music. Nor can the newly deaf any longer enjoy the theater. O~ what use is it to sit,in the dark for two or three hours and watq.h people move about the stage?. In order to know what it is all about you have to read the play after~ wards--if,,you can find a copy. The same holds true for, lectur.es.and at-tendance at large meetings. Most lecturers seem .to speak confidentially to the first row, even though they have a mike before them, and as for qu~es-tions from the floor, there is a dead silence in the hearing aid, as though the' .questioners were afraid of the sound of their own voices. But, ~after all, who are the deaf? About 5:3% of those over 65. use hearin.g aids, and only 0.4% of those under 65. This is a very small seg-ment of the population. Is it really worth a great deal of trouble and ex-pense to try to help such a small group? ~- Even~in conversation a hearing aid is not much good beyond six, feet or so: When~,there is a general conversation with many taking, part, the babel of all those ,voices confuses the hearing aid and iams the receptio.n. This is something else people find it hard to believe. Here they are .shouting at you, from a distance of a few feet and yo.u. refuse to. hear and undeLstand! But all the time the~background noises and the echoes of their well-meant shouts are blocking all possibility of communication. And so the deaf stay away from as many social~g.ath~rings as they can. . Now,~.why all this? After all, the deaf hav.e these~ very expensive~,elec7 tronic gadgets intheir ears, why ca~n't~hey hear as,well as any ~o~ther person? When I was buying my hearing aid the ~technician said~to m~: '~Father, remember this is an aid, .not a replacement for your lost hearing., Nothing can take the place of your own ears, but this will be better than not hear- An Obstacle to Community / 21~1 ing at,all." How very~true! . o A,,.hearing aid is a .small microphone and amplifier, ~, highly . refined but of,-limited.range. Every sound it picks up .is amplified, and it amplifies equally all the sounds it receives. But,.the human voice is the softest of,.all souiids and, thus, all the other~harsh, piercing or overwhelming sounds of our contemporary din-culture are far more penetrating than the human vpice,could ever be. Let me give some examples., .~,~ As I sit 'at ;table with .:a friend, he .may be speaking to me just a few feet. from my hearing ,,aid, yet the clashing and crashing (as it sounds to me) of knives, forks hnd,cro~ckery a few. tables away will jam .his voice out.Or, take .the classroom scene.- The walls are clean and bare, as are the blackboards and ,'ceiling; the floors are polished hardwood, the desks covered with smooth,, hard: writing surfaces all perfect substances for echoing. Then we have the teacher's voice bouncing off these surfaces, anti the. coughs, the scraping~.of feet, the shifting of chairs, the laying down of.lpens; and all the oother~signs of,~life,and activity ,usually found in class, .rooms. Not only these sounds but even the echoes are amplified so that the wearer of the hearing , aid ~ is sometimes drowned in a sea of sound. The human v~oice has a hard time penetrating such a din. ~'. Well, what can°be, done about all this? The first thing that occurs to me is for all~ normal hearers to make themselves conscious of the~ situation. Don;t. think that whoever wears a hearing aid automatically obtains normal hearing~ or'~even good artificial hearing. He has .only avoided, the worst° of his problems; namely, how to hear anything at all. There is a big gap be-tween "tuning in" on the human race, and actually hearing what the human race is saying. There is the further problem of trying, to get the human ~race to speak,clearly, distinctly ands fairly slowly~ so as not to run the~.syllables together. For,. if the second ,syllable comes too hard_upon the first it is drowned,by the echo of the. first, and the third by the second, and s6 on ad conlustonem. Then, too, the normal speaker sprinkles "ifs," "buts,"k,"nots" ~and. many others earth-changing words of small size through-out his speech, to the distress of~ the mechanical, ear. 0 .~. If you wish to communicate with the deaf, .keep ,~ your voice as much as possible at the sam.e pitch, and iiatensity. The i~xp~ressive tonal, changes of emotional, conversatiori will be lost on the unemotional, hearing aid; itqs,,a receiver, not an interpreter. I think that religious houses,could do something abrut the,,decor of ,the places where the commianity gathers, such. asi'ecreation rooms, chapel, dining rooms, and the like. Non-echoing surfaces would be the?desirable thing if the deaf are to be accepted into the confidence of community conversation. It does,take special efforts to communicate with the deaf and each individual must settle his own con-science on the amount of' charity he is willing to exercise in regard to his fellow religious who are poor in hearing: One would think that the predicament of deaf human beings, as I have outlined it, would offer no particular problem to a religious community 212 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/2 which is supposed to be founded on charity. However, there is a large problem, a~hidden snag, which contradicts all theories. ,The ordinary, evbryday religious.is not deaf, and, therefore~ is not r+minded twenty-four hours a day of the condition of not being able to.hear. And, so, he forgets, ands the-deaf person is forced to the constant, .annoying0practice of re-minding people' of his difficulty. This becomes very tiresome. You would think that the sight of the hearingaid wouli:l be reminder enough, but ap-parently~ it"is not. The deaf person feels about as you would if you had to begin every conversation by reminding people of your weight, or your age. It is just as annoying'to have to keep announcing, one's deafness. And so, we deaf ones tend to "drop .out." We avoid all but necessary meetings with others; we avoid large gatherings; we avoid the theater, the lecture hall, the concert hall, even the TV room; and we end up by~ becoming quite isolated. , ~, This is not so bad for those who love to read, to think, to write, ,to paint, or otherwise lead their own private lives, but itqs not community:~life, and the deaf seem. rather cut off from community. Sitting around-in silence among one's fellow religious is not community; we c'an go, out and take a bus ride to do that! A.further misfortune is that many of the deaf still retain~the gregarious natures God gave them from the start. This isola-tion is especially ~ hard. on them. They. miss the points;'of all the jokes be-cause the point is usually buried in gales of laughter by the narrator and the audience. They miss the~quick, incisive bon mot, for it is usually, delivered in, swift, low tones. They miss the emotional conclusion of a story; because the speaker usually whispers it to himself. We certain.ly cannot consign all the deaf to. the'.oblivion of their ail-ment, no more than we can the elderly, the lame, the blind, or anyone else 'who has .lost ~some.of his physical faculties but not the use of his reason. We are told that due to the excessive noise of our .times (hard "rock," jack hammers; low-flying jets, band saws, power mowers, power leaf-blowers, sirens, diesel.rigs on the road, and all the dreary rest of it) there is.~a growing incidence of deafness seven among the young. If this be true, we can expect 'ttuite a time of it in a generation or~ so: I delayed writing this article for thr6e ~years, nagged b~ the worry that it- was motivated by self-pity. Yet, I really believe that what:I have said needed to be said, and~meditated, and acted upon. The deaf I have knowfi in the past have been very patient, e.ntirely toO'long-suffering, humble people," perhaps despairing of ever being understood, and~they have not made a sufficient case: for themselves. It is' surprising how little has'been written, about deafness and its social effects. I hesitated, then, to write, and argued with myself, until, one day I was discussing the subject with a friend and mentioned my fears. He replied with a laugh: "Don't worry about that. You will not hear what they .say about you, any aWy. , - ~" ?,ome to think,of it, that is one of our consolations. , Prayer of Personal Reminiscence: Sharing One's Memories With Christ David ?J. Hassel S.,]. l~ather Hassel has been involved f~r the last six years in the T

Issue 36.5 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edaed by faculty members of St LOUIS University, the editor,al offices being located at 612 Humboldt Braiding, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1977 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor September 1977 Volume 36 Number 5 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW Fon REL1c~ous; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts andbooks for review should be sent to REVXEW YOn REL~CIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. The First Week of the Spiritual Exercises and the Conversion of Saint, Paul Carolyn Osiek, R.S.C.J. Sister Carolyn is on the faculty of Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, where she teaches New Testament. Most recently, she had been Research/Resource Associate in Women's Studies at H~rvard Divinity'School. Her address: Catholic Theological Union; 5401 S. Cornell; Chicago, IL 60615. The title ~ays in a general way the topic of this article. Actually, however, it is somewhat the other way around, for another way of expressing the topic would be: Paul's decisive "First Week" experience, or, the "First Week" in the life of Paul. The present investigation Will be an attempt to focus, examine, and understand the personal experience of Paul which parallels and reflects the process experienced and planned by Ignatius for his followers in what he later came to call the "First Week" of the Spiritual Exercises. There are some obvious limitations to such an undertaking. First, if as is generally accepted, Paul's initial conversion experience took place some-time between 33-36 A.D., and if what is preserved of his Philippian, Ga-latian, and Corinthian correspondence was written between the years 54 and 57 from Ephesus, there is a 20 year gap between the.experience and the description. 1 Second, Paul had no intention of writing an autobiography.' He alludes to his own spiritual experience only insofar as it helps him convey ~The chronology of the letters is disputed. Here I follow J. A. Fitzmyer, "A Life ~Jf Paul," Jerome Biblical Commenthry, ed. R. E. Brown. J. A. Fitzmyer. R. E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice Hall, 1968), pp. 218, 221. 657 6511 / Review for Religious, .Volume 36, 1.,977/~5 his point to others, usually in terms of the bankruptcy of the Mosaic laW vis-a-vis the grace of Christ--a religious situation far removedin actuality from the experience of most of us, whatever figurative applications can be made. Third, the one source in which Paul's spiritual conversion-is graph-ically and formally portrayed (in triplicate)--Acts 9:22 and 26~could be utilized in a consideration of New Testament theology of conversion, but in the light of modern scriptural source criticism cannot responsibly be used to shed light on Pauline spirituality or spiritual experience. Some of the elements picked up by Luke in.his triple narrative will be used as illustrative of the Pauline experience in the wider dimension of familiar religious symbols, but it must be kept in mind that for Paul they are secondary. This brings us to a statement of the broader scope of the present under-taking. The purpose of the investigation is not historical. If it were, it could well stop with the Pauline data. Rather, the full scope is an attempt to understand Paulis wounding and healing as exemplary of a common spir-itual journey through death to new life for a purpose. The expanded ar- .ticulation of that process is drawn from personal experience as retreatant and as a spiritual director. It might be well to begin by describing the structure of the "First Week' '~ process as it will be treated here. Basically it is a movemrrit of entering into death in Order to have life, of descending into the depths 0nly to find there new inspiration to arise, of going down with the old and familiar and coming up in newness, as the ancient ritual of baptism by immersion so clearly portrays. It is wodnding and healing, alienation and reconciliation as the person comes face to face first with human evil and then with divine good-ness. Precisely where these two currents cross is the point of greatest pain because the comparison becomes nearly unehdurable. But out of the con-flict engen.dered by that pain comes the energy to begin anew, and thus the paradoxical cycle of death and rebirth is once again lived out. Ignatius' term -confusion" is not a bad word to describe the growing sense that something is wrong, both in its literary meaning of "shame" and especially in its more common sense of "losing one's bea.rings." There are three stages that can occur as defenses are stripped away and the sense of confusion sharpens. Ignatius described these three stages one way in n. [63] of the Exercises: first, a deep knowledge of-pers~onalo sin and a feeling of abhorrence; second, an understanding of the "disorder of my actions" and a resulting feeling of horror; third, a. knowledge of the sinfulness of the world ~.and, again, a.sense of horror. Abhorrence and horror are strong enough terms, yet they imply a primacy of activity on the part of the retreatant though, it must be added, the grace to have such feelings is clearly seen as something to be asked of and freely bestowed by God. The terminology used by Ignatius here, at least as we can understand it four centuries later, does not adequatrly desc.ribe the passive nature of the First Week experience as it is sometimes encountered when, without active The Spiritual Exercises and the Conversion of Paul / 659 pursuit of desire for sorrow for sin, and so forth, rational defenses and affective supports ~reviously relied upon suddenly disappear. Disorienta-tion deepens as awareness of sin increases. The revelation of sinfulness progresses; as Ignatius.described it, in three stages. The first is that of felt guilt over specific acts for which the person is respohsible, guilt that has been accumulating perhaps over a long period of time, the full impact of which suddenly bursts forth with unexpectedly painful sharpness as the reti'eatant faces God and himself in solitude. Crnfusion is balanced only by the fi~m witness of the mercy and forbearance of God in allowing the person t~J come to this point. The second stage occurs if the layer of the conscious mind can be sufficiently peelea off to-reveal the underlying basic tendencies to evil for which a perso~n is only partly responsible at the conscious level. The feeling of confusion, pain,, a~nd alienation increases and a ne'w factor eri(ers in: helplessness-sthe inability to do what one Would want to do about vast areas of life. ,;The realization deepens that one is unable to Consciously regulate tendencies to grab for security, love, and control that diminish both victims and subject. The person is painfully aware of not being in control of his own motivation. At this point feelings of guilt mix with a newly discovered fear of one's own innate destructiveness. Mistrust of oneself can be countered by trust in the God who has kept him from becoming worse than he is. In the third stage the probe of the ~pirit goes deeper still until it reaches the 16vel at which personal responsibility is no longer at stake. It is .the experience of total powerlessn~ess, helplessness, total inability to act in any way.to save oneself. The forces of disintegration seem to be triumphing and God seems to have left the person totally to his own resources which have consequently cru'mbled. Here it is no longer a question of guilt and merc~,, but of the ability to live with fear and to cling to some memory of the love of God. The familiar theological maxim that God sustains all things in existence at every moment becomes a crushing reality, for the person is This "confusion." flowing from the sense of being judged by God, is not the result of a rational process: it is total loss of face before a situation which cannot be long endured with the usual supports of reason and prudence. We find ourselves con-fronted by ttie cross of Christ placed in the presence of unmeasuredness itself, that which is "madness to the world" (I Co 1:23).2 Z"La 'confusion.' fruit spirituel de cejugement divin, n'est pas le r~sultat d'une argumenta- 'tign logique: elle est perle totale de contenance, devant une situation qui pr~cis~ment ne peut ~tre plus Iongte.mps support~e avec !es ressources habituelles de la raison et de la pru-dence. ~Nous voici, devant la Croix du Christ. mis ,en presence de la d~mesure m~me, qm est 'folie l~our le monde" (I Cor 1:23) . La premiere semaine des Exercices." Christus, vol. 6. no. 21 (1959), pp. 22-39 (translation mine). 660 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 sure that nothing within himself is preserving his being, .and yet it seems to be God himself wh6 is crushing him. Ignatius understood [53] that only the total powerlessness of Christ on the cross as he is destroyed by force.s beyond human control can give any meaning to this experience, W. de Broucker describes this state of soul in a way that sums up the whole triple movement: It is precisely the attitude expressed by the dying Chris.t that marks the beginning of the movement upward: "Into your hands I commit my spirit." Surrender into the hands of God, the cessation of struggle against the force that seems to be annihilating the self, goes against the basic instinct of human nature. It is natural for us "to fight for life, to hang on tenuously to the familiar. If the shred of self that is left can be given up, a new self can be formed. With surrender comes trust that there is someone or something to surrender to, and that something other than total chaos can result. Once trust has been given, a dim hope can begin to arise, an assurance that dawn will~ome and that a reason for the suffering and death of the experience may be that something greater is coming to birth. With a new confidence given to the force that is at work within, further insight into one's personal responsibility may result. There may be deep-ened realization of how one's total helplessness before God, now a.~vivid reality, creates subconscious defenses in the form of root tendencies to turn away from God in order to avoid pain, conflict, or unwelcome truth. New awareness of personal orientation away from God then leads to a whole new outlook about personal sinfulness. The avoidance, neglect, anxiety, and self-seeking expressed in everyday~life as sin are seen with much more understanding and insight into one's personal motivation.s and weaknesses. At this point a healing of pain and guilt can take place and the mercy of God becomes an invading presence _bringing with it the experience of reconcil-iation leading to a deep sense of peace and eventually of joy. The new clarity of understanding leads inevitably, for the person who remains faithful in following the new way where God is'leading, to a trans-formation of attitude and behavior. This transformation is a psychiC and spiritual change that invades the whole person, btit rarely does it happen all at once. It involves the abandoning of certain accepted values and untried assumptions regarding personal autonomy, perception of truth, or need for affectivity. Realization of what God is asking in these areas and consequent surrender and acceptance of change usually happen gradually over a period of at least several months. What is happening simultaneously is the ac-quisition of a new set of personal values to replace the old ones, values usually founded on sharpened awareness of the fragility and weakness of the self and a deep sense of awe an~d gratitude at the ways that God's power is at work in weakness. Mary Esthei- Harding describes the psychological change that is taking place at this point: The Spiritual Exercises and the Conversion of Paul / 661 Whenever there is an upsurge of highly activated unadapted material into conscious-ness, the task of assimilation becomes urgent. This holds true whether the new material is valuable, creative stuff or merely alchaic phantasy that bespeaks more a morbid exuberance than a prolific creativity. The assimilation of the new material demands a fresh standpoint, which implies a recognition of the relativity of all former judgments. What was formerly considered unqualifiedly good must'now be judged in the light of,the new and enlarged understanding; the same must be done with that which has been considered bad? The whole experience might be summarized as an awareness of: the goodness of God gratitude sinful actions guilt. need for mercy, forgiveness sinful tendencies fear struggle need to experience love of God powerlessness surrender trust hope And a new awareness of: sinful tendencies new awareness of mercy love motivqtion for sinful power of God acts , need to change There follows a healing and reconciliation peace, joy and a gradual transformation of values, attitudeS, behavior As 'was stated at the beginning, the primary focus of this paper is the spiritual experience of Paul, aRd the previous discussion of the process is by ~ay of setting the stage. Patil's change Of heart is classically spoken of as a "conversion;" The limitation inherent in the use of this term is the restricted sense in which the word is most often used: change of faith or religion or, somewhat more broadly, emendation of a wayward moral life, while the root meaning of the word "conversion' ~ is really something closer to an "about face~'--a total turning of the person from one orientation to another. While Paul's "conversions" certainly did entail a change of reli-gious affiliation, though probably not a change of moral conduct, it must be Understood. primarily in the broadest sense of the term, as a complete overthrow and turn-about of personal values. Because of the ambiguities aPsychic Energy: Its Source and Its Transformation, 2nd ed. Bollingen Series X (Washington, D.C.: Pantheon, 1963), p. 285. 662 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 present.in the word "conversion," it might be preferable to ~pe~ak of the "transformhtion" of Paul in his encounter with the li~,ing Christ.4 Contrary to, what much p0pu,!ar arid undiscrimina.ting piety (and perhaps even the a~uthor of Acts)would,have us think, Paul's transformation did not happen.overnight or even in three days as a careless reading of Acts 9:18-30 might suggest. Paul himself speaks of three years (Ga 1:18).~tran~spiring before he began to preach Christ. There is no reason' to suppose that the process moved along with remarkable speed. We tend to clothe Paul's transformation~ixperien~e in'a thick ~overirig of the miraculous, leaning too heavily on the clear triple account of Acts and too lightly on Paul's own illusive comments. The flash of light, the heavenly voice of the reveals/r, Paul's being struck to the ground, and the mysterious three-day blindness are all stock elements of narrations of divine epiph-anies. For some, miraculous revelations are a stumblingblock and a source of conflict. But for most people today, they are something else: an invitation to disregard. And so what happens°is that someone like Paul, who leaps out at us so humanly in his own writings, becomes relegated to the dim past, to the gallery of "saints" who are not quite as human as the rest of us, to the realm of the "supernatural" dichotomized from that realm in which we ourselves live and struggle. The reason for all this is 'not surprising: we do not have to have the uncomfortable experience of seeingourselves reflected in such a "saint." The ways of God with humanity are as varied as are the persons who seek to know them, and yet there are qualities of our common humanity that remain very much the same. It is for this reason that an analysis'of the transformation process a~ given above, and an attempt to see that process as it happened in Paul are worthwhile. We may be able to see something of ourselves in him and so better understand the ways of God in us. It is a mistake to think of Paul as changing f.rom hardened persecutor to egthusiastic mystic, from~his, blind cruelty to a Christian sensitivity, as though: his transformation, were from sinner to saint. Paul was not a hard man; .he was a sincere and generous man. His pursuit of Christians sprang 4An important article or] the structure and Western interpretations o"f Paul's conversion ex-perience appeared long ~go and attracted considerable nOtice in Protestant Scholarly circles, coming as it did out of a Lutheran interpretation of~Paul; I refer to Krister Stendahl'.s "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," Harvard Theglogical:Revi~ew 56:3 (July, 1963), pp. 199-215, an article well worth reading. In recent conversation betwe_en the author arid rfiyse!f there was agreement about Paul's "clear conscience" regarding his former way of life in Judaism (see ~specially pp. 200-201); however, I would not want to stress the idea of "introspection" as the search for personal sin, but would rather emphasize the seeking after awareness of God's action within the person. In contrast to Dean Stendahl's interpretation (pp. 204-205) I would distinguish two aspects of Paul's change of ways: first, a personal transformation, and second, the directing of that new energy toward evange Jzat~on of the Gentiles. The Spiritual Exercises and the Conversion of Paul / 663 not from cruelty but from enthusiasm in the service of God. He was the good and tlpright man whom the Lord loved, and because the Lord loved hii~ so much, he called him to give more. Paul says of himself (Ph 3:5-6) that his family and religious credentials were impeccable and that he had done far more than the minimum required to be a son of the Law. He was without fault in itg r~gard,'fully aware of its value as gift bestowed upon Is-rael as a proof bf God's love. Hi~ sincere thirst for justice miast have led him periodically into the self-scrutiny of the just which produces an awa(eness of personal failings anti sinful tendencies that only deepens devotion as it deepens-an ap~areciation of God's mercy. ,.Then something happened. Whether his encounter with the living Christ was as dramatic as Acts 9 portrays it is doubtful, for Paul nowhere alludes to~,,his experie]ace as containing elements of the sensational,but rather de-scribes it qui[e simply: "Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" (1 Co 9:1); "I did not receive [the gospel] from a human source nor was I.taught by any but a revelation from Jesus Christ" (Ga 1:12); "God who had set me aside from my mother's womb called me through his grace and revealed his son in me" (Ga 1:15; see Is 49:1; Jr 1:5). There is an undeniable sense of personal encounter and ,call, even for a specific mission, but ~very little impression of fanfare. He found himself at point zero, knocked off his horse more internally than externally, with no patterned defenses or conditioned responses to fall back on that had not been stripped away by a new presence that was relentlessly pursuing him. ,When the realization of whathad happened began to take hold of him, Paul knew he had been changed. Luke's image of blindness approximates in physical.terms what must have been his psychic,state for a period of time: confusion, loss, fear, inner chaos, spiritual paralysis, the terrifying~feeling that hig whole world was coming apart. As he began to surrender to the force that was invading him, he would have become aware that it was a new and unwelcome presence that of Jesus of Nazareth, suddenly: intruding upon his well-ordered world. This is in fact the heart of the experience of brokenness: that Christ manifests himself in a new and unexpected way, and before his demanding presence all pre-conceived structures of life must be put aside. '~ Onc~ he had accepted what was happening, he would have begun to see h~ms~lfin a new way, feeling within himself the slowi3i-dawning and terrible realization that he had misplaced his devotion and misdirected his zeal, the frustration of knowing for the first time that he had beeri turned in a di-rection which, in the light of a new awareness, he had to judge as the wrong way. New understanding Would .have brought about new se'lf-knowledge and a new capacity for radical honesty about the movements of his life, enveloped in deepened awe at the sustaining and patient love of God re-vealed in Christ who was now calling into question the whole meaning of his life. ,664 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 The realization that the love of God has been constant when our re-sponse has been anything but constant, that his forgiveness was extended even before we knew for what to ask it, can be a crushing blow from which the security of the ego never fully recovers. The wound inflicted on it is not cured, as if the tearing never happened; rather, it is healed, brought to new wholeness- not in spite of, but because of the rending. As is often the case, Paul's healing and reconciliation with God were not for his sake only., but that he might lead many others to the same point: "The love of Christ overwhelms us when we realize that one died for all., so that the living should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again., for everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Co 5:14-18). What is cautiously born then is a'self that must undertake the painful task of she~lding and leaving behind as so much debris much that the former self deemed of value, in order to make room for new value to come. In the case .of Paul the reversal which he had to endure to be faithful to newly-given grace was dramatic and loaded with not only personal but also social consequences: "But whatever was formerly gain to me, I have com~ to consider it loss because of Christ; mor.eover, I now consider everything loss because of the overwhelming knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord, for whom I have let go of eve~:ything and consider it rubbish in order to gain Christ and be counted with him" (Ph 3:7-9). For him it meant giving up a worldview, religious affiliation, a certainty of being right, a reputation, family and friends, the whole fabric of personal and social relationships that had formed the pattern of his life. Few are called to so drasti6.a change. Yet the most fundamental change must have been one with which many can resonate: the need to reconstruct from broken fragments.a new self, a much more fragile self, like an earthenware jar hollowed out at the center in which "the overflowing power comes from God and not from us" (2 Co 4:7). It is the need to understand and accept the voice of Christ addressed to the prostrate human spirit, "My grace is enough, for strength is brought to fullness in weakness," and to respond by saying, "Joyfully then I will openly share my weakness so that the power of Christ may be revealed through me" (2 Co 12:8-9). It might be argued that the above account of Paul's conversion .and transformation is a fanciful extrapolation based on insufficient data. Yet the essential human experience underlying it is so basic and .universal that no matter in how many myriad forms it is manifested, a true experience of transformation from one spiritual state to another (as opposed to a super-ficial "conversion" that is only temporary because self-induced) has certain fundamentally similar components. Certainly Paul's experience was a trans-formation of this kind. Though he leaves many things unsaid, the pain and fear, the bewildering search, and ultimately the ecstasy of discovering that it is precisely in crucifying weakness that the power of the risen Christ is manifested, come through in the few literary traces he has left. The Spir!tual Exercises and the Converison of Paul / 665 For Paul transformation meant a radical break with the past, with family, home, and faith. For most of us, the break is not so abrupt, and yet the need to abandon old habits of thinking and feeling to make room for new ones still only dimly perceived is a common element. Spiritual directors are plentiful these days, but guides and models in one's spiritual experience are not always easy to come by. An ability to find echoes of one's own life in the jolting experience of Paul may give encouragement and be a cause for that movement of hope in darkness which affirms with him that no matter how chaotic may be the experience of finding out what we really are, for the person who continues trying to hang on the way Christ has hung onto him neither height of blind pride nor depth of despair--both of which can co-exist in the same person--nor any creature of the imagination can ever wrench us away from the love of God that is expressed to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.5 ~See Ph 3:12; Rm 8:39. REPRINTS FROM THE REVIEW Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of Discernment of Spirits by J. R. Sheets, S.J. .50 Retirement or Vigil by B. Ashley, O.P. .30 The Confessions of Religious Wom~en by Sr. M. Denis, S~.O.S. 30 The Four Moments of Prayer by J. R. Sheets, S.J. .50 The Healing of Memories by F, Martin .35 The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat by H. F. Smith, S.J . 35 The Teaching. Sister in the Church by E. Gambari, S.M.M. .30 The Theology., of the Eucharistic Presence by J. Galot, S.J. .30 The Vows and Christian Life by G. Greif, S.J. .30 New Reprints° Centering Prayer--Prayer o~ Quiei by M. B. Pi:nnington, O.C.S.O .50 Colloquy of God With a Soul That Truly Seeks Him .30 Prayer of Personal Reminiscence by D. J, Hassel, S.J. .60 Orders for the above should be sent to: Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 No. Grand Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63103' Please include remittance with all orders less than $5.00 A Theology of the Religious Life Local Church and Ladislaus Orsy, S.J. Father Orsy teaches Canon Law at the Catholic University of America. He resides at Carroll House; 1225 Otis St. N.E.; Washington, DC 20017. The text of this article is the keynote address given in New Orleahs at the annual convention of the National Conference of Vicars for Religious, on March 21, 1977. The notes were added later to try to dispel some ambiguities in the text and, elucidate further the author's mind. Saint Thomas Aquinas introduced one of his famous works with the Sen-tence: "A small error in the beginning leads to a great one in the end.''1 In the same spirit of wise caution we can say that the wrong question ~n thee beginning is likely to lead to the wrong answer at the end. Let us transform, therefore, the terse words of the title, "A :Theology of the Local ChUrch and Religious Life," into a question rightly construed, that can lead us securely in our inquiry toward the ans~ver~s that we do not know at the point of our departure. Indeed, the title breaks up quite naturally into three queries: 1. What is our understanding of the local church? (By under:standing we mean tides quaerens intellectum; faith seeking underst.and!ng. Here we mean the knowledge of the local church that is givew t.hroughfaith, and is deepened through our reflection on the data of faiths)z ° ~ ~ 2. What is our understanding of religious life? (Understanding means, here again, knowledge through faith and reflection.) , 3. What is, and what should be, the right relationship between the two? The questions spring quite natur~ally from the title. Yet, I am still not satisfied with them. They shouldbb focused with more care, sharpened with greater precision. Also, they should impose a limit on our rather broad topic, and thus make the discussion of it more manageable for our specific purpose. Let us try again to set the right questions. 666 A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 667 1. What is our understanding of the fact, of the ~event, of a particular church ? There are two significant changes in this new formulation. We seek a better understanding of the fact or event of the church; that is, our'focus is not on an abstract concept, but on an actually existing community of Chris-tians who form a church, although not the:universal Church. Our focus is concrete and existential. Our understanding will develop more from .the observation of the living body than from the analysis of texts. Also, we substituted the term "particular" for "local." The reason for this isthat local church has a geographical connotation and tends to point to a parish or to a diocese, hardly to more than these. The term "particular" allows greater flexibility; it points toward the natural unity of a group of Christians inside the broad,universal community. Such unity may well emergedn a diocese, .but it may well go beyond it and extend as far as an ecclesiastical province, a region, or a country.~ It may even spread over several countries. To seek the understanding of a "particular" church, instead of a "local" church, frees us from narrow boundaries and will allow us to examine the issue in a broader context? But we must impose a restriction on ourselves. We do not intend to exhaust the mystery of a particular church by investigating all its dimen-sions. We want to understand its life in relationship to religious commu-nities. That is all; but, it is a lot. 2. What is our understanding of the fact and event of religious com-munities? Here, too, our focus is concrete. Our primary interest is not in the concept of religious life, but in the real life.of religious communities.4 With a well-defined limitation: we seek the understanding of the life and work of religious communities in their .relationship to a particular church in which they exist, and where they give themselves to the service of the universal church. 3. What is, or what should be, the relationship between the two, a particular church and religious commutiities, in it? We intend to reflect on the living relationship that exists, or should exist, in the b6dy of the church between two diverse members. We seek ihis understanding in view oflntelligent Christian action, with the intention of ¯ finding norms and guidelines for such action. Let us turn now to the first q,uestion. First Question: How Can We Come to,a'Better understanding of the Particular Church? All understanding begins with the perception of facts. For facts about the particular church we must turn to the awareness of Christians through-out- the centuries, from the beginning to our days. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 Some historical pointers about the development of the particular church; or, how did the Christian community perceive the particular church throughout its history? In the early centuries, Christian communities developed maihly along the great commercial routes of the Roman Empire. Soon they structured themselves; the bishop presided over the congregation. The local com-munities were closely knit; those were the times when Christians knew each other by name. While they were aware of the universal dimension of their religion, they enjoyed a certain amount of local autonomy,. Yet, right from the beginning, there was a ,movement to bring the smaller communities around the bishop into a larger unity, either under the supervision of a traveling bishop, or under a metropolitan residing in a larger city, usually the capital of a province. Particular churches with their own language, liturgy, discipline and customs, developed, not so much in each~city, but in larger territories that represented a natural cultural unity, They developed different understandings of Christian faith; they created different practices. Of course, those differences did not go so far as to deny or contradict the unity necessary for universality, but they certainly went far enough to give a different character to each of those particular churches.'~ Such trends are clearly discernible well into the Middle Ages. Individual dioceses in most places were too small to give a specific ex-pression to their faith, to create their own discipline; culturally, they were ¯ ¯ absorbed into a larger unity, into the ecclesiastical province or the national church. Thus, the Irish church, from the beginning, wa.s quite different from the continental churches, yet there was not much difference from one diocese to another. The English church, too, had its own characteristics under the leadership of Canterbury. On the Continent, the legal customs of Germanic peoples gave a certain unity to many churches. In Spain, the Mozarabic rite developed and united many dioceses in worship. In France, churches around Lyons formed again a vital unity, distinguished by their liturgy. We could continue the enumeration of such developments, but for the purpose of this article, let us content ourselves with a general statement, that I believe is historically correct. If by particular church we mean a church that has its own specific charisms, its own mind and its own heart within the universal Church, then only a few dio.ceses were truly.particular churches,n Differences in theology, liturgy, and discipline could be found much more between ecclesiastical provinces, regions and territories of nations, than between dioceses. The source of such variety is much more in human culture than in the understanding of faith. With the waning of the Middle Ages, a change takes place. The power of the metropolitan see in the Western church is reduced to a minimu~m. Liturgical worship, preaching, and discipline become strongly unified in the whole Church, even to the point of exaggerated uniformity. The role. of A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 6159 particular churches, be they dioceses, regions or provinces, is reduced to a minimum. Vatican Council II wanted to restore the dignity of the particular church and the bishops sti'essed its importance repeatedly,r ~'et the council was not in a position to do much reflection on the nature of the particular church, on what it has been throughout different periods of.history; it did not tell us how the term should be understood in the future. Indeed,°the developments after the council reflect some confusion, even some contradiction in these matters. In many theoretical writings and commentaries on the council, it is assumed that the particular church is the diocese. Its unity, its specific character, its distinctive vocation are em-phasized. Yet recent developments in liturgical and disciplinary legislation do not give,.much importance to individual dioceses; they give much more power to larger :tinits represented by national or regional episcopal con-ferences. While differentiation on the diocesan level is virtually impossible, ex-cept in insignificant and minor matters, privileges, exemptions, special permissions are easily granted to a larger unit such as a region or a nation. It is clear now that the term "particular church" can be used in two distinct ways. It may refer to an individual diocese, to one congregation around its bishop, or it may refer to a larger unit that comprises several dioceses and possesses a unity that springs from human factors such as culture, history, national inheritance, and so forth. Both uses are legitimate and important. But the meaning ought to be clarified in each case. Reflecting on the relationship of religious communities to the particular church, we cannot sweep away this problem of meaning, calling it purely semantic. The issue of relationship is alive on both levels and brings up different problems that we must face. There is the issue of the rela~tionship of.religious communities to a diocese. But there is also the issue of the relationship of religious com, munities to a larger unit, e.g., ~to the national church, that has its own particular characteristics. In the United States, both issues are alive. Theological reflections on the fact or event of the particular church, or, what is our understanding of a particular church? 1. Christian people throughout their historY were aware of belonging, as it were, to two communities: one, universal, the other, particular. The universal' community is world-wide; it springs from the action of the one Spirit of God, who was poured out on the face of the earth. The entrance into it is through one baptism that is the same everywhere. The particular community is the local one~ For some, the local church means the parish, for some others the diocese, for others again, it may well mean the church in a country. 2. The temptation always existed, and will probably never leave us, to Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 oppose the two to the point that one is considered important at the expense of the other. But any such consideration is wrong because it tears up the visible body .of Christ. When we speak of the universal Church and the particular ones we. do nothing less.and nothing more than to describe an existing differentiation in the social, body of Christ. His body is one, but it is composed of parts; the whole could not exist without the parts;-and the parts have no life .in themselves. Any separation means death for all; any destruction of natural harmony brings sickness to the whole organism. 3. Paradoxes can be helpful inour attempt to understand such complex differentiation. It can be :said that there is both autonomy and dependence in each member of the body. The particular church is autonomous and yet it depends on the universal Church. The universal (~hurch is itself the source of life for all other churches; yet its vitality comes entirely from the local churches. We may think of the autonomy of the heart in bur body. It will not ~ perform well unless all the other organs let it do what its spec!fic task is; any unwarranted intervention with. the heart,may bring subsequent disaster for the whole body. Yet the heart is totally dependent in its function on the whole body. The rhythm of its beat, the strength of its action, are carefully regulated by numerous other factors and agents present in the living body. If they,.cease . to function, no life-giving blood will flow into the heart. We may not be able to reach~a precise definition for the local church, but reflection through symbols and images can give us a great deal of, under-standing. 4. If we ask now what precisely the source.of differences is among the local churches, we find that it is mainly in the humanity of those Christians who form them, that is, not so much in any specific Christian belief, but in th~ human traditions; history and culture of those who believe. Thus, initially, the Jews and the Greeks and the Romans all received the good news equally, but they built up churches that were marked by their own culture, national customs and characteristics. Thus there were soon Jewish churches, Hellenistic Churches, and churches of the Romans, all part of the "same universal Church, yet all different. .Later, the inhabitants of Ireland, of England, of the Iberian peninsula built their churches on the universal elements of Christian faith, worship, " and discipline, and on the particular elements of tl~eir own inheritance. 5. The situation is not much different today. Here and there, an isolated di6cese may be found that has its own distinctive life as a diocese. The Christian community of a Pacific Island may well develop.distinctive traits that no other diocese in this world can possess. But such cases are rare today. More often there is a regional unity. The dioceses of Alaska form a natural unity that is quite different from their sister churches in the South. A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 671 There" might also be a national unity. The dioceses of Japan are not mark-edly different from each other; the strong unity of the culture and traditions on the four islands is manifest in the particular church of Japan. Even a whole contir~ent can display a unity. How many times in recent years we have. heard the churches of South America speaking with voices that were strikingly similar to one another. There are foundations in South America for a specific particular unity that embraces the Christians of many dio-ceses, numerous provinces and several nations. 6. °Such re°flecti0ns and considerations do not leave us with a clear concept'and definition of what a particular church is; but they leave us with a good working understanding of the complex nature of our Church that is both universal and particular at the same time. Our undei-standing reflects the true state of things and.~e do not become captive of romantic ideas that are definitely present in the .post-conciliar writings. Father Karl Rahner himself stresses that there is church whenever the bishop celebrates the Eucharist, surrounded by his community. Such a ViSion certainly corre-sponds to our earliest traditions, but it is simply not realistic today. Few of the faithful ever partake in the Eucharist'celebrated by the bishop, and the size of the dioceses geographically or numerically makes any such cele- I~ration virtually iml56ssible. Our understanding it not in adopting clear theories. It is much more the perception of the changing, shifting realities of the Chi~rch. That is how it should be. The duty of Chri~tia.ns to uphold the particular church; or, how must we confess in word and deed our belief in the particular church? At this point, two facts stand out. One is that there is no Christian Church without particular churches, as~there is no human body withotit members. The other is that there is no Christian who does not belong, somehow, to a particular church, as there is no individual cell that does not belong,to a distinct organ in the human body. No one can; therefore, belong to the Christian Church without assuming the duty to uphold a particular church, although this duty may well be differentiated according to the condition of each one, as we shall see. There is no direct and immediate entry, into the universal Church, since it is the communio of local churches. Interestingly enough, not even the pope him-self, who traditionally has been called the "Bishop of Rome," or the "Uni-versal Bishop," belongs exclusively to the universal Church. He is not residing in a territory detached from all particular churches, as the Presi-dent of the United States resides in the District of Columbia, detached from any allegiance to any state. The pope is the Bishop of Rome and belongs to that particular, church, while he is also the head of the universal Church. The very structure of the (2hurch demandsthat there should be aduty on every single person to uphold his own local or particular church. The support to a,memb.er church must always be in harmony and good 679 / Review for Religious, Volume,36, 1977/5 balance with the belief and support given to the universal Church. There is no precise measure to determine how much a Christian should give tohis particular community and how much to the universal congregation of the Church. Such measure can only be determined by taking into account a call and a mandate: the vocation of an individual person or of a distinct com~ munity. Even in the case of the same person, of the same community, the contribution can be shifting and changing according to needs, and their existing capacity to give. Now we have come to the point where we can speak .more explicitly about the duty of religious communities to uphold the local, particular church. It is a duty from which there is no exception and no exemption. But the duty is not the same in every group. Religious ins'titutes that are exempt from the jurisdiction of the local or~linary and subject to the direct supervision of the Holy See, have a f9ndamental universality, a call and a mandate to go to local churches where the need is greater.8 They are freed from the power of the local,.bishop, not in order to be total free-lancers in the Church, but to be free to serve~ anywhere in any local church. Because of the universal call and mandate of such religious institutes, their world-wide organization, their capacity to move from one place to another should be respected. But once they are settled within the boundaries of the local church or in the territory of a particular church in the broader sense, they must blend into the local scene; they must even strike roots in the local soil in order to bring forth good fruit. They should not be a source of disruption, but a source of strength.9 Similar considerations apply to'various communities of pontifical right. As a rule their vision goes beyond the limits of a particular church, their aspirations often stretch far and wide. But they too, are at some place and have the duty to serve the people of God there. Then there are the institutes of diocesan right. They dedicate them-selves to the service of the universal Church through serving exclusively near a local church. They are not superior or inferior to the others; they simply have their own distinctive vocation and dedication. The duty to respect.and to serve a particular church SpringS not only from a law imposed by God through the structures of the Church, but also from the respect due to differences manifest in our human nature and in our historical traditions. The upholding of the local church originates in a deep belief in the Incarnation; in the blending of divine and h6man elements in the Christian community. The gift of God may be similar all around but it takes different shapes and forms in various ~places. Second Question: How Do We Perceive Existentially, Understand Rationally, and Be at Home Practically With Religious Communities? The question sounds broad but the focus of our inquiry is strictly cir-cumscribed again. We do not wish to reflect over all the aspects of the A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 673 existence and life of religious communities. We want to know, to under-stand and help them in their relationship to the local and particular (hurch. This is the proper scope of our inquiry. A short survey of the development of religious communities in their rela-tionship to the local or particular church will be good grounding again for further reflection. Our survey will be limited to a few facts arising in the history of the Western Church. The birth and expansion of the monastic movement from the sixth into the ninth century can be described in a somewhat unusual way: the au-tonomous monasteries that sprang up first in Italy, and then on the con-tinent of Europe, also in the British Isles, had much of the characteristics of a local church. The monasteries were cities of God, distinguished from the cities of man. The brethren gathered around the Abbot to offer their praise and thanksgiving to God.~° In some places, the bishop exercised a certain amount of power over them. In other places, due oftrn to distance, the monks lived and died Within their own monastery, with no interference from any ecclesial au-thority. By the eighth century however, the weakness of being alorie and not being in communication with a broader ~egment of the Church became manifest. Signs of decline and decay were setting in. The eighth century that witnessed the movement of Cluny also saw an increasing awareness of the need forgreater unity am?ng religious com-munities. Monasteries of different places, provinces, regions and countries placed themselves under the power of the Abbot of Cluny. Such close unity clearly constituted a new relationship to both the particular and universal Church. In fact, without the help of the church of Rome, that is the pope, they could not have achieved what they did. With Cluny, an organizational breakthrough had been made. In the eleventh century, the movement of Citeaux brought about again a new type of union of monasteries built more on a bond of love than on any legal structure. In the thirteenth century, Francis and Dominic were certainly dedicated servants of local churches, but soon they moved beyond this: they em-o braced the whole of Christendom. They brought their own new approach toward serving both the local and the universal Church. They had a strongly developed sense of universality, without, however, turning their backs on local needs. ~ ~ The sixteer~th century is the time when new continents opened up. Discoverers and colonizers set out to conquer new lands. That is the time of the foundation of the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits seemingly had no allegiance to any local church. They were devoted to the pope. But further examination shows that while they set out on their apostolic journeys, often 1574 / Review for Religious, Volume 36~ 1977/5 sent by the pope himself, for the sake of the universal Church, once they arrived, they went to extraordinary lengths to build and to uphold local churches in India, in Japan, in South America. Paradoxically, they left thei,r native churches to become all to the natives in faraway places.~z The nineteenth and the twentieth centuries bring a new development. There are many apostolic foundaiions; some more for the sake of the universal Church, some definitely for the sake ofparticular churches. Both trends are represented: to serve the universal Church, and to work for the welfare of local churches. Here our historical survey ends and our reflections begin. The ecclesial Character of religious communities; or, hdw are they related to the Church? Our .aim here is to articulate with some clarity an understanding of the obvious fact of history that religious communities exist in the Church and they are in the service of our Christian people. 1. The birth, the development, the existence and the work of religious communities is nothing else than a particular manifestation of the life of the Church.~3 A religious com,rnunity, independently .from the ~:hurch, has no life. When a community prospers, it is growing in the life that was given to the Church. This statement should be stressed today ~ince some religious comn~unities have become soinvolved in reflecting on their own life that they hhve lost sight of the source of their life. They work within a- narrow horizon, and never find what they are seeking so anxiously. Also, once we understand the fact that there is no life in religious communities except what comes from the Church, it is easier to understand the history of those communities which once prospered spiritually but later grew old arid died. There is not necessarily any shame~in that. Human persons too. are born, develop, prosper, grow old and die. God may well call a community into existence to provide for the needs of the times; he may well call another one for new needs. We are not privy to his designs. We should give praise for the vocation we have and should not covet what we do not have. Those who are ~nxiously asking whether or not religious life will survive lock themselves in(o the limits of a wrong question. The right question is: is there an abundance of life in the Church? If so, that life. will manifest itself in new ways that we cannot foresee. There will be always foolish persons around, such as were Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, to surprise us, to shock us, and to entice us to follow them. If we put our hope. where it naturally belongs, that is, in the Church, our anxieties may well disappear.~4 ~ 2. A religious community may have many goals, all of them good and right. But there is a built-in purpose in .every community that seeks and obtains approval from the Church. They. publicly proclaim that the words of life are with the visible Church. They want to be publicly recognized by the Church, they want to have their way of life authenticated as good enough to follow Christ. A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 675 The legal formalities of obtaining approval for a new religious com-munity have a deep theological significance. As often happens in the Church, the beauty is all within. A community asks for public incorporation into the strtictures of the Church. Such a quest is the fruit of an act of faith in the wisdom and the power of the Church. When such incorporation is granted, behind the test of the document there is a quiet recognition that the Church has seen grace operating in the community. It is an approval of the way of life of the group, of their service to thee community. The foundation. for the understanding of government and obedience in religious commu-nities is their ecclesial character. The Church gives them a public mandate. When they accept it, they obey the call to service.1'~ 3. Ye~, the mandate from the Church does not make all the ]zommunities the same. Each retains its own particular character and personality. Each is called to serve both the universal and local church in different ways. There are and there will be communities Who have their origin and the scope of their life within a local or particular church. There they were born, there they live, work and die. We all know such groups. Their gift is precious beyond telling.In Lesotho, who can serve the local church better than a congregation of native sisters? There are communities whose organization may spread throughout the ~niversal Church. Members are easily transferred from one place to an-other, according to need. Their vocation is to blend the universal mission with service in one place. The Franciscanor Dominican friars or the Jesuits would be typical examples of'suchcommunities. But let us recall that when a Eurbpean is sent to Japan, and takes up some apostolic work there, his mandate is to affirm and uphold through every available means the church of Japan. Missionary adaptation or "incuituration" is really an effort.to-ward building the local church. No matter how universal the vocation of a commu,nity is, eventually service must be given at a place that is the local or particular church. The duty of the Church to uphold religious communi.tiey; or, how can religious communities be "affirmed by the Church? The Church affirms a religious community through the act of public approval. But that is just the beginning. The initial act should be followed by unceasing help and encouragement to promote the integration of reli-gious into the life of the Church, both universal and particular. Respect for the ,way of life of each group should be the fundamental rule that governs the attitude of the Holy See or of the diocesan bishop. There is no single rule to say how this respect should go. , In the case of a contemplative monastery, respect may ~nean the ap-preciation of the prayers~offered by those monks and nuns, of the sacrifice of their lives. In the case of an apostolic community, the situation is dif-ferent; they are taking part in the practical work of evangelization. The 676 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 Church mandates them to preach, and to perform deeds of charity. They should be given an opportunity to share their experience with others. I.n the diocese, they should=be taken into the planning, even into the decision-making, process. Indeed, there is an ancient tradition to invite abbots of independent monasteries and, a newer practice, to invite superiors general of exempt religious, orders, to an ecumenical council. To have religious present at synods, held either on regional or diocesan levels, would be not only fair and just, bfit it would be according to our traditions, too. Such can be the affirmation of religious life in practice. At this point it is interesting to note that the development from synods to episcopal con-ferences is somewhat a departure from the old tradition of the Church. Surely, the episcopal body has a unique position in the universal Church, and the residential bishop is in charge of his diocese. But the bishop needs the religious to carry out well their own mandate received through their consecration. I~t is, necessary for them to be in steady contact with religious who carry so much of the burden of daily work in the Church and the churches. If reiigious share the pastoral work of the bishops, they should also have some part in planning and evaluating the same work.~ Third Question: What Is the Relationship Between the Particular Church and Rer, ligious Communities, and How Should This Relationship Develop? The relationship between a particular church and religious communities is a dynamic living relationship that must be created anew all the time. Legal norms cannot do more than give a framework that is always in, adequate .to generate life, but good enough to protect life that comes from deeper sources. Legal norms by their very nature are abstract, impersonal, and general. They are meant for typical cases irrespective of the persons inv61ved, and of their historical circumstances. But in real life there are only concrete situations and living persons and communities. The relationship depends on the personality of the bishop on the one side, of the religious community on the other side. They must work out their relationship concerning particular issues,lr Perhaps this.relationship is best described through analogies. The ob~,ious analogy of call and response can be used. The bishop calls on the religious community and asks for help to build the Church, to announce the good news, to do the good deeds of charity. When the re-ligious hear this call they must respond out of their own resources. The response of an enclosed community may well be in offering prayers for the needs of the diocese; the response of a group of Dominican friffrs may well be in preaching in' the diocese. The religious too, may call 'on the local church for help and encouragement; they may well need it. A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 677 They may play another role in the diocese. They may call people to a better service of the Lord. They can act as the conscience of the com-munity. Their independence and freedom allows them to do so, provided they can do so without presumption.18 The analogy of the body can be recalled also. The religious community must find its own identity in the body of the church, before it can function properly. The community is a member of the local church, with its own structure and role. It would not be in the interest of the local church to weaken a member group. On the contrary, it must promote their welfare, It must respect theii- identity, must use them properly for the purpose they have been created.19 Such relationship cannot be regulated 'by the rules of justice only, Justice gives birth to rights that must be respected, and certainly should not be bypassed and neglected: Nonetheless, a living dynamic relationship cannot be created if both sides stand on their rights. Such an attitude would lead to a dead end where all the participants become captive to their own rigidity and: dedication to strict justice:2° ~ Good relationships between the local church and religious living and working in it must be created'continuously by both sides. There is no other way of creating it than by charity thiat means to give. Neither side should ask first what is due to them, but rather what is 'it that they can give to-the other. Only then will there be a new spirit that builds the church instead of destroying it; a new spirit that brings unity to the whole body instead 6f fraffmenting it. ~ Conclusion As we reach our conclusion we may well experience contradictory feelings. On the~one side, we experience frustration. After ali we did not succeed in finding precise rules and fixed principles tO determine ihe relationship of the local church and religious communities. We found only changing ,and shifting patterns and the need to create relationships where they do not exist according to our expectations. On the other side we experience contentrhent because we are guided by the Spirit of God and the intelligence of believers rakher than by rigid rules. After all, the Lord himself did not give many detailed instructions to his disciples. He gave them his Spirit to guide them in all. With the help of the Spirit they have built the Church. They were guided more by a person than by words. Our hope, too, is in a person, in the same Spirit of Christ. He is with us, in the local church and in the religious communities. Yet, our hope is also in the dedication and intelligence of Christian people on both sides, in the local church and in religious communities. They; together, can create their relationship anew. 678 / ReOiew for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 By dOing it, they will experiencethe joy of the Incarnation; they will share theagony of the Cross. Yet, throughout it all, they will 'be blessed and will know a contentment that is in a small way the anticipation of the gift of the Resurrection. Notes I. Parvus error in principio magnus est in fine in "De ente et essentia," begin~ning. ~ 2. Such understanding is the fruit of both contemplation and rational reflection. We must first accept the mystery through faith and then seek the understanding of it. 3. We do not intend to down-play the importance of a diocese. It is a natural unit in the church, ,sacramentally and organizationally. Nonethe-less, the life of a given diocese ordinarily does not differ significantly, if at all, from the life of neighb.oring dioceses. But, often enough,.a group of dioceses displays significant differences from the way another group .lives. The local churches of Holland form a unity that is quite distinct under many aspects from the d!oceses of Germany. Organizationally, the division of the universal Church into dioceses is of permanent importance; but, histori-cally, the larger units have played a more importapt role. The term "par, ticul,ar" is used in our text loosely; its meaning is to be determined from the context. At times, it refers to a diocese. More often it refers to a larger unit: to several dioceses grouped together, displaying a common understanding of the mysteries, using similar rites in worship, cooperating closely in apostolic work. 4. The theological principle cannot be stressed enough. We do not begin with a definition; we begin with the contemplation of an event in the history of the Church. We seek to reach some understanding through the con-templative perception of the mystery. Therefore, our vision will never be so complete as apparentlya definition is. Even if we are able to reach a good understanding, it remains incomplete and leaves plenty of possibility for further pr.ogress. 5. As succeeding generations of Christians may focus on different as'- pects of the same mystery, and give practical emphasis to their vision, in a similar way, churches existing in the same historical period may build up differing~understandings of the same mystery, and order their practices acc.ordingly, not in the sense of Contradicting each other, but rather, in the sense 6f completing each other's perception. The same mountain can be looked at. by explorers from the North, and by explorers from the South. Their differing vision of the same mountain is complementary, not contra-dictory. The contemplation of God's mighty deeds in our history, deeds that are certainly permanent, gives rise to perceptions and understandings, that are diStinct and complementary. We see the origin of particular churches in such different perceptions, followed by different practices. A Theology of the Local Church .and Religious Life / 679 6~ At any time of Christian history, a diocese can be called a particular church organizationally. There is one community, with a bishop presiding over it_But beyond any Organization, there is a sacramental unity in the diocese; if the universal Church is a sacrament, so is the diocese. "This Church of Christ is truly present in all legitimate local congregations of the faithful which, united with their pastors, are themselves called,churches in the New Testament" Lumen Gentium, 26. 7." Vatican Council II strongly upheld th6 dignity of, and the right of, the local church.' For instance: "That Church, Holy and Catholic, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, is made up of the faithful .who are organically united i6 the Holy Spirit through the same faith, the same sacraments, and the same government and who, combining into various groups held together by a hierarchy, form separate churches or rites. Between these, there flourishes such an admirable brotherhood that this variety within.the Church in no way harms her unity, but rather manifests it. For it is the mind of the Catholic Church that each individual church or rite retain its traditions whole aiad entire, while adjusting its way of life to the various needs of time and place" Orientalium ecclesiarum, 2. 8. A paradoxical statement; nonetheless it is true; Exempt religious orders mostly used their freedom from local episcopal jurisdiction-to go from,one place to another, either to help the churches most in need, or through missionary activity, to give birth to new churches. Sometimes the privilege of exemption helps specific activities in the service of the universal church, such as, to :sponsor an International School of Theology in Rome or elsewhere. 9.' The strength they give to the local church eventually rebounds to the strength of the whole. 10. To describe the monastic movement in terms o'ffuga mundi, that is flight from the world, only~ is to do injustice to history. Granted that to flee the world was an important motive for people who wanted to join the monastic community, still theii" main motive was to build the city ~of God among the cities of man.°The monastery was as self-contained as the Small cities built on the tops of the hills and mountains of Italy. Yet, there was a difference: praise and thanksgiving were offered, t9 God, day and night. The task of th'e earthly city wasopus hominum, the work of man; the task in the city of.God° was opus Dei, work thai belonged to God. Admittedly, the theme 'of "fleeing the world" is stressed in contemporary monastic lit-erature. But such writings must be contrast+d with documents, such as the Rule of St. Benedict, where the ongoin, g praise of God and his service takes the central place; also, with the fact that the monks did not hesitate to go out into the world "of barbarians in central and northern Europe to bring them the good news of Christ, and to teach them all that they found precious in human culture. A monastery could truly be called a,"local" or "partic-ular" church except, perhaps, for the fact that it was not presided over by 6~!0 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 a bishop. But the monks were dedicated to the service of the universal Church0probably more than they realized. Without understanding their universal orientation, we cannot understand the conversion of Europe. For a wisely controversial book on the rise and fall of religious com-munities, see Vie. et mort des ordres religieux by Raymond Hostie (Paris: Cesclee de Brouwer, 1972). For a classical exposition of the development of religious orders, see From Pachomius to Ignatius by David Knowles (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1966). 11. The Middle Ages, also, saw the foundation of religious orders that were principally devoted to the works of the universal Church. There were orders' to promote the Crusades, or to take part in them; to protect the possession of the Holy Land; to give themselves for the redeeming of the captives, and so forth. 12. Thi~ history ofthe Jesuits shows eloquently that the service of the universal Church can never be separated from the service of particular~ churches, and vice versa. They could not have been more dedicated to the universal Church. They accepted a mandate from the pope, and the pope only. Yet once they established themselves at a given place, they did everything to enter into the culture of the natives. They helped them, in every way that was compatible with Christian faith and the universality of the. Church, to build new churches with strong particular traditions. In China, they devised and fought for specific rites in the vernacular suitable for the Chinese culture and mentality. They attempted to do the .same in India. In South America, they sided with the natives against the con-quistadores, and gave life to local churches within the framework of the so-called "reductions," that is, autonomous Indian settlements leading a strong community life reminiscent, somewhat, of the early church of Je-rusalem. History shows that to serve the tiniversal Church redounds to the good of Particular churches. 13. We like to stress that the life of religious communities is nothing else than a particular manifestation of the life of the Church. There is no such thing as the Church on one side and religious communities on the other, eitherhelping each other inharmony, or being in open conflict. The member is not .separate from the body; all life of the member is the life of the body, Religious life cannot be conceived of as charismatic life independent and separate from the institutional life of the Church. Charisma and structures, although distinct, can no more be separated from each other in the Church than the flesh and blood of a human person can be separated from his bones: The skeleton, ugly and unfriendly as'it is, gives support and proportion to the beauty of the flesh that covers it. Charisma and institutions must work' together. ~ 14. There is no need that is as. great today as the need for purification of our faith in the Church, and the right understanding of what ,kind of A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 681 community Jesus has founded. One conception should be discarded right from the start (in the terms of Karl Rahner, it could be called a "silent heresy"): the Church is a community of holy persons throughout. While it is true that there will always bepersons of extraordinary holiness raised by God among his people, there will always be many in the Church who are sinners, and glorify God by proclaiming his mercy. The Church is a human community, a community of sinners. Yet, because the Spirit of God is faithful to her, she will never lose or corrupt the word of God, provided the proclamation of the word takes place with ~'ull apostolic authority. Human limitations and fragility, however, will always be present and manifest in the Church till the end of time, be it in the hierarchy, be it in the people. To love the Church means to love the community as it is, and above all, to have the internal disposition to give what we can to this community. There is little love in those who continually expect to receive. There is love in those who know how to be compassionate. A religious community is one with the Church if the members are steadily asking themselves what they can give to her so that she can grow in goodness, into a greater likeness to Christ. For a more detailed explanation of these principles, see "How to Be One With the Church Today" in Blessed Are Those Who Have Questions, by Ladislas Orsy (Denville, N. J.: Dimension Books, 1976). Perhaps the best and most rewarding way of acquiring the right theo-logical understanding of the Church is to read and study its history. The real Church, suppprted by the Spirit, is there in its beauty and fragility. A merely conceptual and systematic approach may lead the unwary to a dream--beautiful and unreal. Once a person surrenders to,the dream, he will be frustrated by the harsh and true reality, that is, by the Church as it exists. 15. Indeed, the roots of a theology of obedience in religious life are there in the mandate that the community receives from the Church. There is a sacramental character to such a mandate, since the Church itself is a sacrament. (The seven signs are particular manifestations of the life of the Church.) Obedience to such a.great mandate should not be confused with ob~eying ordinary human rules and regulations that are part and parcel of the life of every community, religious or not. Through the v6w of Obedience, a person gives himself or herself explicitly, visibly, to the Church~ It is the sacrifice of legitimate freedom to accept a mission from the Church in which, behind human~structures, the Spirit of God lives. 16. There are few countries where the health and progress of the Church depend so much on education as in the United States. Much of this ~ork is sponsored, directed, or done by' religious men and women. Yet, when the most important policy-making body for the pastoral life of the Church meets, that is, when the episcopal conference deliberates, or de-cides, religious are absent and are given only a very limited opportunity to Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 contribute before, during, or after the meeting--a lack of balance, and the Church is poorer for it. °17. It is interesting to note that, with all the ingenuity of canon lawyers at .her disposal, the Church never succeeded in working out clear and entirely satisfactory norms to regulate the relationship between the local ordinary anti,religious communities of pontifical right, or those enjoying the privilege of exemption. Why? Because it is easy to state some theological principles such as: the bishop is the supervisor of~all apostolic works in the diocese; or, religious must be free to i'egulate their internal affairs, and to carry out their apostolate according to their constitutions. But, it is difficult t0 make detailed norms applicable everywhere. Nor will the new proposed legislation overcome this problem. If anything, history proves the insuf-ficiency of strict legal solutions. 18. A religious community of international dimensions can do much to bring a local church out of its own isolation, and to make it aware of the universal Church. The very presence of the members of~a community that works world-wide for the Church is a reminder ~to the faithful that they too belong to a community over which the sun never sets. 19. This implies respect for the particular charism of an institute. The local church should not try to use the religious for work contrary, or alien, to their own calling. 20. While it isright to work for justice, we should never lose sight of the ¯ fact that justice is the minimum of charity. Justice can proclaim what is due to each person and group and does establish a balance in the life of a human community. Yet the stability of an organization built on justice only remains precarious.To achieve contentment and happiness, it is necessary to ttave charity all around. By charity, we do not mean charitable handouts, but strong love that consists in giving, not only advice or things, but ourselves. A society in which each vindicates his or her own fights is built on a shaky foundation. A society in which each one is intent on giving what he has to others, is like a house built on a rock. This is obviously true of the Church, but it is equally applicable to any secular society. The great national'heroes of the past were those who were able to give to others, not counting much what they were giving. From what we just said, rio one should conclude that ttie cause of justice is not urgent, and that we should not work for it. Quite simply, as Christians, we must say that justice, in itself, i.s not_enough. The strength and perfection of love is a vital need for every human being and every"human society. The great idea of balance and welfare through the virtue of justice ought to be completedby the foolishness of love that God revealed through his Son. See the Conclusion in Morale Internationale, by Rene Coste (Paris: Desclee, 1964). For general orientation about the great problems of the world, and for spiritual recreation, all at once, see Return to the Center, by Bede Griffiths (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1977). From the Center will those actions flow that bring love, peace, and justice to all men. Prayer: Adventure Into the Unknown Cecile Godreau, M.M. Sister Cecile worked for eighteen years in Bolivia where she was active in spiritual direciio~ for young religious. Presently she resides with the M.aryknoll Sisters; Maryknoll, NY 10545. Today there is a thrill at the very thought of the unkno~,n. Is there life on Mars, on Jupiter, or on the planets around other suns? If there is life, is it more advanced or more perfect than the life forms we know? What about our own planet? Are there life forms we have not yet explored? What about ¯ those areas on earth where men have never or rarely ventured?.What secrets do they hold? There was a time when the knowledge of the unknown would have inspired us to build protective areas, or at least, to introduce taboos for safety's,sake. Today we want, and are drawn to venture into, the heart Of the unknown. I would suggest to anyone with a bit of explorer's blood, and ~,h~ has a heart desirous of giving beyond what is often a dull, everyday existence (called life), to join me in a consideration of a great adventure. This ad-venture is so unique and so intensely personal that it is different for each -one. It is so thrilling that the one who goes on this journey will need an eternity to finish it to discoger its source. I mean prayer, God's version of p~ayer, called spiritual life by some, mysticism or i:ontemplation.by others. I call it adventure: God calls: maybe, he proffers a mind-blowing call, the kind of call that, as in the life of St. Paul, knocks us down when we are riding high. Maybe it is a call as quiet as an evening calm. Or, maybe it is a call after a powerful experience in a Common pCayer situation because of, or with, an unusually charismatic person's approach to our weak defenses. Again, maybe it is merely the movings quietly within that crumble all our preconceived plans and leave 683 684 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 us stunned by silence, or the slow and burning love that somehow separates us from our past. It is impossible to mention every situation, for from the time of this very conversion, it is different for each. God knows how best to invite us into the great adventure. Once we have been converted, we are left to find our way into God's country. Like the prophet Elijah, we realize that God is not in the con-version, not in the earthquake or thunder, but in the whispered breeze. Even trees, whose job it is to let us know when a breeze is near, are often u~nmoved by the gentleness of a tiny breeze. But we are made with hearts attunedif we will but go into our hearts to see and hear what is taking place therein. Some stop here. It is difficult to go within. Our culture has worshipped the extraverted, the active, the expressed word. Our people are expected to tell the world how they feel about everything. So it is almost impossible to have a silent center within us. We are not accustomed to going deep within where God is waiting for us. We are afraid to find out how it is to meet God in our'hearts. We are afraid to discover life within because someone may think we are not socially-minded. People may think we are not committed. "Alone in our hearts where God resides" has a scary sound to it, or, perhaps, even neurotic. What is God doing inside when we have been shouting to him from afar? Some break through and come to the God within. For them, He is Father, or Jesus, or maybe an inner awareness or "presence." Here we are bound to kneel in silence. Even our vocal prayer and meditations come to a halt. As the silence deepens, we wonder if it is right to be here. And we need help so often to just sit and enjoy what it is to be with God. Here we need often to be assured like children. We are moved to love so deeply, we may think we are a little "different." We search for others to understand. Often there are few around who dare to talk about this. We are alone and happy, deliriously in love, or quietly secure. Our God is like a mother nursing its child, a child being embraced by a loving mother, or held like an infant to a father's cheek. As we settle down like Peter to build tents for our experience, Jesus reminds us it is time to go back down to the bustle of the city. Our first reaction to move on is, "I thought this was it!" We balk at being born, and we refuse to leave this hallowed place. So God "puts out the lights" so to speak. Here many get discouraged. Yes, they lose heart. Why? Because all was so comfortable. Here people try to find other loves and ways. They are frightened because they think they have lost their faith. "Faith," of course, is the name mistakenly put on the experience of God within. Faith,-in fact, is the stepping out into the darkness that God directs us toward. We "explore" Faith by putting our hand into the hand of the resurrected Jesus to go out and discover what it is to be Jesus, Son of God. We are going to have to molt our skins of the intense joy and the security Prayer: Adventure Into the Unknown / 685 that we had, and we realize that we are vulnerable. To put our hand into the hand of Jesus is not a journey deeper within. It is a journey beyond our human limitations. Here Jesus who directs our adventure gives us self-knowledge. We might get discouraged and have the feeling of one who has climbed too far, too fast. We are aware of our smallness. Yet, Jesus who helps us on our journey is intent on leading u~ onward. When we reach the place he means us to explore, he does a very strange thing. He lets us see our world through his eyes. We might find ourselves somehow knowing what Jesus means in his gospel. Somehow, we tread through life as Jesus did. We, little by little, begin to know ~vhat it meant for Jesus to have been driven by the Spirit. Now we no longer seem drawn within. Our eyes are cast out onto our world! How terribly important each person we meet becomes! We are not sure we are loving others as our-selves, or as Jesus, because we are somehow filled with a compassion beyond our own. We are almost sure our small selves are being used by Jesus. Yet, all along the way, we are aware of the difference. Our real selves come to light. We find fewer and fewer excuses for ourselves, and we are driven deeper into our faith. For some this step is done very quietly, almost imperceptibly. Some cry, "I no longer know if it is me or Christ living in me," while others go deeper into faith, knowing only that they must go on seeking a water to quench the thirst of "Everyman." Here each one is given something of Jesus to use for Others. Little by little, the awareness of self is lost in the dream of bringing solace to others. 'Here we lose touch with our world because it claims to do what we, in fact, are made ~over~ tiy Jesus to really accomplish. We talk a different language, and our agony is this language. We no longer speak as men do who have tongues in cheek. Our new simplicity makes us a target for the clever and the powerful. Yet we seem to be drawn to quietly go on. our wills and intellects, no longer bound up in our feelings, are sharper. We are able to see our. way better than before, and our way takes us, like/Jesus, into the Father's will. We delight in our brothers, whether large, smzll, sinful or ~,irtuous. We ar~ at last able to see the God hidden in each. We know what it is to be Jesus. We begin to desire with all our strength to build a temple to our new-found religion. Jesus will be our Master, and we will do our worshipping strongly for a new world. We will be the Jesus of this world. It seems we have arrived, and yet--yet, God has just brought us to a new faith. It is as though all the experiences we have had were pu! in a vast sea, and we were set afloat in the tiny boat of our new faith. No longer do we feel the strength of God, nor see the glory of Jesus. We are asked to ride a stormy sea in a skiff. There is only one thing to do: trust. We are terrified by our nothingness, as we are compared, not with men, but with God. This death experience is the most terrible and the most beautiful experience of our lives~this realization of what we are without 686 ,/ Review for Religious, VOlume 36, 1977/5 him. The deep peace that has seen us through that dark and light of our lives is a must now, and we hope it is real in this stage of our adventure. Here, too, each person is different, and comes to this at different times. Once we have opted for death, we are given a faith that we never thought possible: No longer a faith held up by our deepest feelings, nor one seeing the progress of Jesus in our lives, but the faith that believes because one holds on to God beyond any reason. We go into the darkness to be pulled out now not trusting ourselves, our "faith," our ways, even our religiosity. We are pulled out swinging from a thread like a string puppet. We go from anger, to despair, to surrender. Surrender, which once sounded so terrifying, is the beginning of life. A dark faith is given us. No longer do we explain, or sing to it, orhold it as a precious keep-sake, for we realize.it is simply gift. We are now ready to walk back with a song to our native home. Nothing can really make us fear again. Our wordless love is for God, the Great Unknown. God, who lias been badlyexplained over and over by ourselves and others, takes us into himself. It is as though welook for our small boat, only to see it has disappeared. We are at the beginning of an intense desire. Longing and homesickness set in to show us how intense ourodesire is for God. Yet, he turns us back to live again among his people. He gives us each a seed to nurture, and when grown, to share the fruits with others. Some are so overwhelmed by this that they fall into silent prayer, agonized with the weight of their message. Others are filled with speech, a babbling speech, yet a speech that can be recognized as a song of God. One can open one's eyes and God has grown unlimited. We hasten to meet him, only to find that at this point, he spreads out in all directions. One is surrounded by God, silence, and it will take an eternity to begin to explore, to begin our adventure into this great unknown. How much we desire to begin to go towards our deepest love, and at least arrive at the first steps toward an eternity of ~urprises, peace, and our Source. We are willing to live a thousand years, if that be what he desires. We ~ealize that creation needs our new song which we, like God's trou-badours, will sing, with hearts somehow free and waiting, in this new-found peace, his last call. An Apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice Max Oliva, S.J. Father Oliva is the Director of Social Ministries for the California Province of the Society of Jesus. His special interests are the theology and spirituality of Social justice. He conducts workshops on these two themes as well as on. other aspects of social justice. He is also Associate Director of Field Education at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. He ~resides at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Introduction We hear a lot of discussion today about the need to promote justice in economic, social and political structures. It takes only a cursory reading of the Bishops' Synod Statement, "Justice°in the World," tofind the Church issuing this call: Listenihg to the cry of those who suffer violence and are oppressed by unjust systems and structures, and hearing the appeal of a world that by its perversity contradicts the plan of its Creator, we have shared our awareness of the Church's vocation to be present in the heart of the world by proclaiming the Good News to the poor; freedom to the oppressed, and joy to the afflicted) How does one pursue social justice in the light of one's faith? How do we in.corporate and integrate the important ingredients of our own need for personal contact with marginated and oppressed people and the ongoing process of conversion that each of us must undergO? Row do we bring about a balance between our faith and our practical efforts for changing structures? This article offers some reflections on an apostoli~ spirituality for changing social structures, a ministry which can be a part of anyone's life and ministerial vision. The thoughts expressed here are the result of the tSynod of Bishops, 1971, "Justice in the World," page 1. 687 61111 / Reviewfor Religious, Volume 36, 1,977/5 author's reflection on his own ministry, both in inner-city Black commu-nities and in efforts to change social structures,z What do we mean when we talk about changing social structures? The most obvious example of structural change that comes to mind is the effect that a state or federal law can have on a whole range of institutions and the people in them. Take, for example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, which has had the effect of requiring businesses to hire minority and women workers, in responsible positions, or lose federal contracts or be taken to court in civil action suits. The ordinary citizen's role in promoting such a law might have been to draw attention to the injustices present before the law was passed by some kind of advocacy effort. Another example of structural change, again in the world of business: ~in the 1960's, many companies had as one of the standard questions on their applications forms, "Have you ever been arrested?" To the person ap-plying for work from an economically depressed area, this question was an automatic "No" to a possible job since many had been arrested. However, relatively few people had ever been convicted. Successful efforts were made to convince companies to change the word, "arrested," to, "con- .victed," thus opening the job market to a large segment of the community who had up to then been ex.cluded. Closer to home, changing structures m~ght involve affecting admission policies in a religious school so that more min.ority students might be able to attend, or, influencing a province so that an essential criteria for being a superior would be that she or he is strongly committed to justice. In both of these cases, an individual's action can have results that change the structures involved and thereby affect many people in the process. Basically, structures, systems and institutions of society are the frame-work in which human relationships--personal, political, economic, cultur-al~ take place. Social justice seeks to assess the worth of social structures and systems in view of how they impact the lives of people in them, or exclude people from them, and calls for personal responsibility for these structures. There are many ways to influence social structures, be it through actions to promote just state or national laws, be it efforts to affect international systems, or by way of altering a policy in one's own institution or com-munity. Whatever the means chosen, certain basic dispositions are neces-sary for such efforts to be realistic and, thus, effective. The first and pri-mary disposition is to be on the side of the economically po, or and politically powerless, as an advocate for their rights. In St. Matthew's gospel (15:29-31), we find Jesus sitting on a moun-tainside. There, "large crowds of people came to him bringing with them ~'i'he author is also indebted to Workshop participants who have given valuable feedback to the ideas expressed in this article. A Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice / 689 cripples, the deformed, the blind, the mute, and many others besides. They laid them at his feet and hecured them." What is particularly striking about this scene is not so much the cures, though, of course, these are marvelous signs of God's presence, but that Jesus actually, physically, touched these people: the crippled, the deformed, the blind, the mute--the marginated and outcasts of his time. Today, we, because we are Christians, are called to do the same, to touch the poor and oppressed of our day, those who are often different, from us by economic background, by color or culture, by education, perhaps by some kind of physical or mental handicap. To touch these, people means to have some ongoing personal contact with them, in order tolearn from them--their needs, their suffering, their aspirations, and their richness. To touch these people involves, paradoxically, a healing in ourselves, a deliverance from our prejudices, convictions, and attitudes, an escape from apathy, and an awareness that has deep within it a sense of urgency that justice be done. Such personal contact insures that our com-mitment be an "affair of the heart." Such contact is essential if our ministry of changing unjust .social structures is to be realistic, that is, meeting real needs. This ongoing personal interchange with oppressed people and an alert analysis of the structure we wish to change are basic dispositions for a ministry of changing social structures, be our work in schools, hospitals, a parish, retreat house, mass media, social ministry, or whatever,z Some Basic Principles The cycle of poverty is often described as consisting of: apathy--aliena; tion frustration--ignorance--hunger---despair. These words can also be used to describe our own state of mind and heart as we contemplate unjust arid dehumanizing structures. The problems seem so vast, the structures so complex, that we simply despair of moving at all to influence or try to change them. We need to begin our consideration of an apostolic spirituality for social justice ministry by taking a close look at some basic principles: 1. That each of us can be part of the change process for a more just world: by our choices, by our life-style, by our life-stance. No issue is so ambig-uous, no structure so complicated that we are unable to do something to influence it. ,~ 2. That other people--those we live with, those we work with, our stu- 3Personal contact with oppressed people, is also necessary for one-on-one kinds of service, such as spiritual direction, for the purpose of such ministry is to help the person clarify and deepen his relationship with God and challenge, when appropriate, the way the person lives out this faith in relation to the world. The director can be an excellent resource for helping the person being directed to see the intimate connection between faith and social justice and to discover ways she or he might effectively act to change unjust social structures. It is only by realizing this connection in his own life that the director will effectively communicate this message to the one being directed. 690 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 dents, parishioners, retreatants, fellow workers--can be reached and can change in their attitudes, in their values/in their standard and st.yle of life. Why? Because, like us, they are of good will. True, like us, they suffer from ignorance about those who are poor, are often insulated from those who are economically poor and politically powerless, and sometimes accept myths about the poor as truths. Still, they do not deliberately will the destruction and dehumanization of others any more than we do. They, too, seek hap-piness, peace and justice. And, like us, they sometimes get too caught up in self-interest or ignore the social dimensions of their actions. But if we can change, can become more socially conscious, more committed to justice, so can others. 3. That because of God's personal love for each of us, we are each im-portant in the process of building the kingdom of God, a kingdom initiated by Christ and commissioned to us, his followers, to carry on and build, a kingdom which fosters human dignity and equality, and which values hu-man-. development. , 4. That the Spirit is working in and through each of us even as we take small steps to change structures, and can work in ever new ways as we become more resolutely inserted into the world of the marginated and the oppressed. ~. 5. That other people---other religious women and men, diocesan priests, laypeople, Christians of.every denomination, and non-Christians too-are at work, acting for peace and justice, realigning their life styles, taking a critical stance toward the structures of society. This gives us hope. The Center of Our Commitment We are called to this ministry of changing unjust social structures by Jesus Christ, who works with us and whose Spirit is the source of our courage, wisdom, power and hope. God the Father is the center of our lives, the focal point of our identity: his personal love isthe basis of our worth.4 He is our Rock, our Foundation, our Beginning and our End. He is the One for whose sake ultimately we are engaged in the struggle for justice. ~ The more God is our center, the less chance do the idols that attract us and keep us from a commitment to justice hamper our ministry, idols such as popularity, "success," reputation, endless analysis, and the '.;good life." The more God is our center, the more effective will be our ministry of justice, for it will become ever more clearly his work. Because God is the center of our lives, we can develop the kind of apostolic qualities that are necessary for an effective ministry of justice. ~The author realizes that not all people relate to God, as Father,. as the center of their lives. This is the way the author relates to Gbd. To respect this difference, the word "Father" will only be used this once in the article. A SpiritutJlity for the Ministry of Social Justice Let us now consider some apostolic qualities that can help render our actions more fruitful. Apostolic Qualities for Our Ministry of Justice Because God is the center of our lives, we can be radically open: open to growth--intrapersonal, interpersonal and societal (our relationship to human.environments, structures, institutions and processes, especially of asocio-economic-polifico-cultural character). Open to new ~concepts and ideas, such as social sin and social grace, Liberation Theology and the use of Marxist tools of analysis for studying the structures in our socie[y. Open to face uncertainty and fear as we come into personal contact with the marginated and the oppressed people in our society and the environments in which they are forced to live. Open to face our own prejudice, racism and sexism as, they are manifested in attitude and language. Open to face our value addictions as they are reflected in our consumption patterns--the kinds of things we buy and.~why--and in our life style. Open to the pos-sibility of being misunderstood, even rejected, by those ~ith v~hom we speak about issues of justice, be they members of our family, our com-munity, or our constituents. Because God is the center of our lives, we can ~have a capacity for critical reflection such that no ideology, no system or way of life is "sa-cred" (or defines who we are). None can be free of scrutiny, challenge and, if needed, reform, be it: socialism, communism, capitalism, the American way of life and its values, the Church, our own community or the work of our apostolate, Because God is the center of our lives, we are not afraid to face the fact that we are converts to our ideas of justice and the actions we undertake for justice. Thus, we are capable of being ruthlessly honest with ourselves, neither becoming self-righteous nor bitter or cynical. Being honest in this way enables us to have what Thomas Cullinan calls "patient endurance,''~ a uniquely, Christian virtue, which is centered on Christian hope, without losing a sense of urgency that justice be done. Because God is the center of +ur lives, the focus in exercising our ministry of justice is not on "success" as we usually define it. Our success is in the doing or saying what we know we must say to be true to our convictions and the needs of oppressed people. Like the prophets, the doing or not of some word, some action, is not based on peoples' reac- 5Thomas Cullinan, O.S.B,, If the Eye Be Sound (England: St. Paul Publications, 1975), page 121, This is an excellent work of modern spirituality. In particular it uncovers the theological and spiritual foundations on which a socially committed Christianity must be built. Dom Tfiomas Cullihan, O.S.B., is a monk of the Ampleforth community, in England, and a member ¯ of the Commission for International Justice and Peace of England and Wales. Available: Catliolic Institute for International Relations; I Cambridge Terrace; London, NW I, England. 692 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 tions--be they affirmative or negative--not on how many people like us more or not, not on how many people ag~'ee with us more or not, but on being congruent with who we are before God, as we discern it in prayer and consultation. It is the virtue of integrity. Because God is the center of our lives, we can ~possess an habitual facility of discernment. In our ministry of social justice, there are two basic areas of input for our process of discernment. (1) The first element of our input is grasping the "signs of the times," that is, the cries of the poor and the oppressed of our world, their struggles,, their needs, their aspirations, their problems and the causes of these problems. Such knowledge and, more importantly, unders~tanding comes, as we said before, primarily by way'of some ongoing personal contact with economically poor people and those who are politically powerless and is supplemented by books and articles, films, workshops, or whatever means serves to increase our con-sciousness of the problems. Then each of us must lobk closely at her Or his talents, gifts, personality, ministerial strengths and weaknesses, and the kind of ministry she or he is involved in. In a spirit of prayer and with ~:onsultation, then, the discernment-reflection process gradually, organi-cally, and continually enables eiach of us to make action-choices for justice from where we are. For some, such action will involve integrating, social justice into classes taught or into the administration of a school or a hos-pital; for others, it will mean some kind bf political action or public protest. For some, it will mean homilies or retreat talks that show the intimate relationship between one's ~faith and a commitment to act for justice; for still others, it will involve direct service in an inner-city or rural, community or Third World country. Because God is the center of ou~ lives, we can ask him to fashion in us a heart for the oppressor as well as for the,oppressed. Injustice kills the perpetrator since exploitation, tyranny and oppression are sighs of death, spiritual death. We love the oppressor when we oppose with all our strength her or his spiritually suicidal behavior of oppression. With God's help we can enter every heart. For the po. or, we strive to win rights and the freedom to develop humanly; for the rich, we strive to win moral development. It is important to note, though, that the way in which one manifests one's concern for the oppressor will differ according to the kind of ministry one is involved in. The community organizer's way, for example, will be dif-ferent from the high school teacher's. Each develops a heart for the op-pressor in the context of her or his own situation. Because God is the center of our lives, we can have empathy with those who are economically and politically oppressed. Empathy is the'ability'to see life through the eyes of others. In our ministry of social justice it is seeing life through the eyes of the poor. It demands personal contact with people who are poor. It necessitates our taking a "learning stance" in the presence of oppressed people, listening to their needs, their suffering, being A Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice / 693 willing to be continu'ally educated by their life experiences and their contact with human misery. Empathy is the key to understanding and thus to be able to demythologize our views on why people 'are poor. Finally, empathy is the way to true solidarity and effective advocacy. Because God is the center of our lives, we can have a freedom from attachment---in the face of anything which is not in line with our primary goal: the will of God and the building of his kingdom, a kingdom which values and promotes human dignity, equality and development. Having our foundation in God allows us to be free from attachment to. any cause or issue, any insight or pre-conceived plan of action, any request, for action, or even our own fear of acting. It is the "single-heartedness" of the Be-atitudes. Finally, because God is the center of our lives, we can have a capacity for suffering--what Jos6 Magafia says in his book Ignatian Exercises: A Strategy for Liberation, "to rejoice in sufferings because they are the hallmark of every ,genuine liberating commitment.''6 Such a capacity en-ables us to make the fundamental Christian option of becoming advocates for the rights of oppressed people. It is also, obviously, intimately bound up with the preceding eight apostolic qualities and with the effort it takes to keep God as one's center. A capacity for suffering is essential for each person~s ongoing process of conversion, and we are all called to conversion: "It is too easy to throw back on others responsibility for injustices, if at,the same time one does not realize how each one shares in it personally, and how personal conversion is needed first.''r Just what is conversion ? One of the clearest descriptions the author has read is the following from Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J, Conversion is getting rid of something so that something else can take its place. It is getting rid of everything that prevents us from being filled with the Holy Spirit. Conversion, then, is a change; a change tfiat takes place deep inside us; a radical change. Let us make no mistake about it: there is nothing supdrficial about conver-sion. It is not, for'instance, deciding, after a somewhat more fervent retreat, to "give something to the poor," or to be a little more generous to one's "favorite charity." This is a praiseworthy thing in its way, but it is not conversion. Conversion is not a giving of something that we can well afford to lose. It goes much deeper than that. It is a putting away of something that we are: our old self, with its all-too-human, all-too-worldly prejudices, convictions, attitudes, values, ways of thinking and acting; habits which have become so much a part of us that it is agon.y even to think of parting with them, and yet which are precisely what prevent us from rightly interpreting the signs of the times, from seeing life steadily and seeing it whole.8 ~Jos6 Magafia, S.J., Ignatian Exercises: A Strategy for Liberation (New York: Exposition Press, Inc., 1974), page 117. rPope Paul VI, 1971, "A Call to Action," page 28. 8Pedro Arrupe, S.J., "Witnessing to Justice" (Vatican City: Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace, 1972), pages 25-26. 694 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 Our call to conversion as we pursue our ministry of social justice is not a one-time happening, it is an essential element of the Cross-Resurrection dynamic that permeates our lives as Christians. And conversion does in-volve suffering as well as joy. With God as:our center, we can have the courage to face our own need for conversion and the suffering that ac-companies it, Such suffering is redemptive. Conclusion We are,' each, called to a ministry of justice, but our ministry must take place in the rootedness of our faith lest we become simply good humanists or philanthropists. Our commitment must be founded in the love of God and the "Good News" of his Son. Although this may seem to be an evident" premise, it is easy to lose sight of once we become involved in actual work. We depend on one another for support, for.challenge and tolerance. And we are nourished in our commitment to act on behalf of social justice by our prayer and the Eucharist: in prayer, for it is here in the quiet moments that we can face the reality of just who our center is-~ourselves or God; in the Eucharist, because it strengthens us to face our timidity and fears, it calls us out of ourselves to be, like Jesus, persons for others. Now Available As A Reprint Prayer of Personal Reminiscence:' Sharing One's Memories with Christ by David J. Hassel, S.J. Price: $.60 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious 612' Humboldt Building 539 North Grand St. Louis, Missouri 63103 Taking the Long View Francis X. Hezel, S.J. Father Hezel is director of the Micronesian Seminar. based in Truk; Caroline Islands; Trust Territory, Pacific 96942 Not too long ago a gentleman visited these islands offering a new eight million dollar college as a gift to the Micronesian people from the U.S. Congress. His offer met with an enthusiastic response almost everywhere. At last Micronesia would soon have its own four-year college! Not a con-ventional college, but one that would be specially tailored for providing training in vocational skills or whatever else is judged to be educationally relevant. I was dismayed by the uncritical enthusiasm that greeted the visitor's offer, well-intentioned though it was. Don't people here know, I asked myself, that the new college will cost almost two million dollars a year to operate? A tidy sum, considering that the total amount of local revenues generated in the Trust Territory is only seven .million dollars at present. Isn't this gesture, I thought, a bit like making a gift to a poor friend of a good-sized German shepherd to guard his house, letting him know as you walk out the door that the animal eats five pounds of meat a day? tin any case, would a new four-year college of any kind help solve the burning question of how to promote economic development? Diplomas abound in the Trust Territory and marketable skills are on the increase. The real problem, of course, is jobs; and this won't be solved by adding another expensive education mill. As long as the goal is to develop Micronesia's resources and make the islands more productive, a new college with an increased capacity can only make a bad situation worse. If you want a person to spend his life in a fishing boat or on a farm, the worst thing you can do is plant him in a chair for another four years. He will very likely never get out of it afterwards. 696 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 Its the old story, I said to myself. Another."gift" from abroad; more hidden costs, social and economic; and the dependency rut gets deeper and deeper. How is it, I wondered,th~at this familiar story is repeated over and over again, even by individuals and groups that profess a commitment to self-reliance? Surely some of them must see the long-range effects of these projects. Consider the response to the Headstart and Old Age Programs, to use as examples two federal programs designed to benefit opposite ends of the population. No sooner was the Trust Territory made eligible for federal funds under these titles than every district opened an office, applied for government money, and began an earnest search for ways to spend it. The immediate benefits of the two federal programs were all too obvious: food for the young and the old, an income for those on the payroll, travel abroad for program directors and their understudies, and the promise of other good things to come. But how about the fact that the~palates of the young were being ha-bituated to breakfasts of tomato juice and doughtmts? What about the danger of families abdicating their strongly-felt traditional responsibility to provide for the elderly? Or the risk of weakening family and community ties, as still another responsibility of theirs is surrendered to a government agency? Then, of course, there is again the matter of furthering the eco-nomic dependence of Micronesia on a global superpower that has military interests to maintain. Somehow these last questions were overlooked in the rush to expand the district payroll and get money rolling in. A paycheck and cases of corned beef are just a bit more real than such intangibles as family bonds and ,psychological dependence. - Do I sound a trifle "anti-progress," or possibly even cynical?.Then let me make a public confession. Neither I nor the staff of the small private school of which I am director have altogether resisted the temptations of "easy money" from abroad. We are receiving federal funds from the six-million dollar Federal Feeding Program, as are virtually all public schools and a good many 'mission schools as well. To understand how an abomination of this sort ~might have happened, you would have tO put yourself in the shoes of a school administrator who is wondering how he will make it to the end of May. without going broke. Local support groups have not come through, the school accounts are just about exhausted, and bills continue to pile higher on his desk. Just then, in walks a federal program officer with a sheaf of papers in hand who proudly announces that he has funds to cover the entire cost of the school feeding program for the year. To the beleaguered school.administrator it is a heaven-sent answer to a pressing problem. Naturally he signs on the dotted line, heaves a sigh of relief, and then settles back to wait for the first check to come. ~ Taking the Long View / 697 That, however, is only the beginning.'A year later the school admin-istrator has to decide whether he shall continue to participate in the feeding program. He knows very :well that the 25 thousand dollars he receives will not raise the nutritional quality of the food one bit. Healthy food is some-thing that teenaged boarding students must have in ample quantity, no matter hbw financially hard-pressed the school may be. He knows that the Feeding Program of which his school is a beneficiary can only further re-inforce the "handout" mentality of a people long accustomed to looking to Washington to pay all their bills. He recalls with a shudder all that he has read and heard about the stifling welfarism of Indian reservations. But he calculates that an additional 25 thousand dollars a year would allow him to build a garage, a maintenance shop and new water tanks which he thinks that the school may need. And so, dismissing the uncomfortable concern he feels for remote consequences, he signs on the dotted line just as he did the year before. Like the others in the examples cited earlier, he has responded to the immediate need and left the future to take care of itself. Micronesia teems with persons like him (or should I say me?) whose decisions are based on answering today's needs at the expense of the future. Jobs, schools, roads and the like occupy our exclusive attention while the hidden costs of these "improvements" and the nature bfthe funds that finance them go uncalculated. This preocc~ipation with the sho~'t-term rewards might be called the national disease of Micronesia and it has infected every part of society. The employee who drinks up his paycheck, on Friday and Saturday to the sorrow of his family for the following two weeks shows acute symptoms of it. So does the fish dynamiter who pulls in his haul, rubs his belly, and leaves the shattered reef to repair itself---in twenty years time. Then there is the young college student who spends the two days before his semestral exams emptying Budweiser cans with his friends, and a week hence is looking for plane fare home from college. Is it simply an accident that a couple of years ago the theme song of the islands seemed to be "Help Me Make It Through the Night?" The people of an island press for Congress of Micronesia funds to erect a seawall, conscious only of the money that will make its way into their pockets, but unmindful of the damage to their sense of community that loss Of locally sponsored labor projects will inflict. Congressmen vote to ap-prove high-cost capital impr6vement projects to be funded by the U.S. knowing full well that the cost of maintaining these facilities will be a financial burden to Micronesia in later years. Top,level policy-makers cam-paign for higher wages for government employees, thereby undercutting any real hope of inducing young people to take up less lucrative but much-needed work in commercial agriculture and fishing. And ,everyone-- parents and educators alike---encourages the greatest possible number of 69~1 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 high school graduates to go off to college without the least idea of how they will occupy themselves when they return. Entrepreneurs with an eye for a fast dollar build supermarkets, bars aid moviehouses, thus helping to send the annual level of imports soaring still higher. Prominent businessmen who are. instrumental in bringing tele-vision into their islands make a killing on sales ofTV sets~ leaving the social consequences anti'the economic effects on families for others to handle. Political decisions, I fear, are made in much the same way. Nothing can convince me that the people of the Marianas, when they signed their Cove-nant with the U.S. two years ago, were as fond of the American Eagle as the dollar on which it 'appears. Yet money buys good things, as I have already ungrudgingly admitted. Whether, however, it will also purchase an enduring social bliss for the Northern Marianas remains to be seen. I have never heard or read a cogent explanation of what any of the separatist districts wants politically and I have despaired of ever doing so, although it is well-known what those districts expect by way of fiscal gains. I can only assume that they desire for themselves whatever their generous benefactors~ desire for them--whether these bene.factors be America, Japan, Nauru, or the Sheikdom of Aden. Surely it would be difficult to maintain that their decisions are. models of political far-sightedness, whatever else they may have to recommend them. But the rest of us are in no position smugly to point an accusing finger at those districts that have sought greener pastures---or, to be more exact, greener bankrolls--elsewhere. Which of the remaining' districts can hon-estly say 'tha~it would not have jumped at the chance to do likewise, had the opportunity been offered? We all seem to have fallen prey to this obsession with the immediate pay-off. It may be that this is an all too human weakness, but it is a frightening irony that our failings should be rationalizedqn the name of "progress" or "development." If development implies anything at all, it suggests a forward-looking approach---one that is as concerned with to-morrow and 20 years hence as with today. With the coming of foreign currency to these islands a century and a half ago, Micronesians were for the first time able to accumulate a surplus, to hoard, to save and invest. Money created the possibility of a "tomorrow" in these islands. By a strange irony, however, foreign money is now being used to freeze us securely into the present and to anaesthetize us against a concern for the future. Not that money, jobs, education, material improvements, and even federal programs are evil in themselves. The real problem is that these and other short-range benefits are so alluring that they overpower more distant considerations. And when they are offered to any of us gratis, their at-traction is practically irresistible. An announcment is made that some new federal program is offering funds to establish national parks, buy library books, or develop curricular materials for teaching the metric system. We Taking the Long View / 699 run to our desks' and concoct a proposal that will enable us to receive our share of the funds. Why not take advantage of a windfall while it lasts, we reason to ourselves. The trouble is that the objectives we set down for our programs can all too easily be inconsistent with or even run counter to broader develop-mental goals in ttie Trust Territory. There's certainly no harm in securing federal money to build a museum in which traditional artifacts will be displayed., or in providing emergency assistance for' rebuilding houses after a typhoon, or in putting up a new sports center at U.S. expense. But we must not be surprised if the cu-mulative effect oUall this on the community is to teach people that Santa Clauscomes to Micronesia every day of the year. Over many a desk in headquarters is posted the inspiring adage: "Give a person a fish and he has a meal today. Teach him how to fish and he has food for the rest of his life." It is very easy to understand how this lesson can be lost on our people today in the face of the mammoth give-away program that enervates our com-munities even 'as it showers on'them its material "blessings." Buyit~g canned federal programs is a lot like buying canned fish. It is inexpensive, convenient and satisfying---an eminently sensible thing to do. But there, are still those hidden costs to be reckoned, as we know only too well. Whether we weigh these costs in making any initial decision or not, they are bound to catch up with us in the end. Those of us who ~take a dim view of ~anned programs funded from abroad---and I include myself hereto so on the grounds that their long-term costs usually outweigh their immediate benefits. These "costs" can be conveniently grouped under three bro~d headings: social, economic and political, although some would want toadd "environmental" as a fourth heading. Let me now suggest a few examples of each. Regarding social costs we may say this. Programs that introduce into a community a substantial amount of money to build a road, erect a com-munity center or feed schoolchildren all too often bring about the pyscho-logical or social impoverishment of the community that they are intended to help. This happens when members of the community decide that it is more profitable for them to sit and wait for things to happen rather than initiate devi~lopment projects oftheir own. At this point, cooperative work by families on community projects sharply declines, and so does what we commonly call "community spirit." When most of its responsibilities are pre-empted by government agencies and alien institutions, the community simply loses confidence in its own effectiveness to achieve anything of real value. The same may be said of the family. As it relinquishes its respon-sibility for feeding toddlers, schoolchildren and the aged, the ties among its members will almost certainly weaken. The obvious question that must be asked of every development project, then, no matter what the source of funding, is whether its effects will be to increase or diminish the social fabric and sense of purpose of the community. 700 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 ¯ Micronesians commonly refer to their islands as "poor"--that is, as lacking adequate income to provide for themselves much of what they regard as desirable. For this reason, there is usually a mad rush to obtain whatever haaterial benefit~ the U.S. or any other country might offer by way of assistance. What is often overlooked, however,, is that certain gifts may make us poorer rather than richer. Expensive hospitals, water systems and airports are also expensive to rriaintain year by year--and the future budget of a "poor" group of islands is bound to be very limited. Moreover, some improvements can require an expanding network of expensive facilities and social services to support them (or clean up the social mess they have made). Take,the case of a costly new high school that is built of sufficient size, to allow all school-age youth in the area to enroll. Soon after the new school opens discipline problems multiply, since there are clearly a large number of misfits who have been accepted in the cam-paign to make secondary education universal. To keep the poorer students in school, a special program for potential dropouts is funded through a federal grant. A recreation center is built and new staff is hired to moderate the center's activities. Social therapists are trained---at additional expense-- and hired to counsel "hardcore" problem students. Mental health facilities and referral centers are established through still another program. In short, everything.possible is done, at prodigious expense, to keep in s~chool young people who never wanted to be there in the first place, As social services and physical facilities proliferate along with the pro-grams that support them, Micronesians are gradually led to believe that a society without expensive gadgetry and quackery is entirely impossible. To have a school without sliding classroom dividers or a hospital without sophisticated laboratory equipment becomes unthinkable. It is no wonder that Micronesians have come to believe that they can't live without an extravagant subsidy from abroad! Naturally this means that they will have no recourse but to continue living in the shadow of the American eagle--with all that this implies politically and militarily. Very few decisions today are simple decisions. Most have far-reaching implications on the future social, economic and political order in these islands. We know this only too well, of course, but all of us still must adjust to making decisions at times as if there were no tomorrow. Until all of us learn honestly and openly to weigh the long,term effects of our choices, not just count the immediate gains; we will be deluding ourselves

Issue 31.6 of the Review for Religious, 1972. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS ANI) ANSWERS EDI'I'OR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editor, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be .sen.t to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Build-ing; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S,].; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by I~dculty members of the School of I)ivinity of St. Louis University. the editorial offices beihg located at 612 Humboldt Bnilding; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1972 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Printed in U.S.A. ¯ Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years; other countries: $7.00 a year. $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or r~encwal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. cur-rency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editori-al correspondence, and books for review shonld be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 tlumboldt Building; 539 North (;rand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. NOVEMBER 1972 VOLUME 31 NUMBER 6 CAttAL BRENI)AN DALY, D.D. Prayer in the Modern World [Cahal Brendan Daly, D.D., is the Bishop of Ardagh and lives at Bishop's House; St. Michael's; Longford, Ireland. The article was a lecture at the Carmelite College; Castlemartyr, County Cork and was first published in Mount Carmel, Spring 1972, pp. 204-12; Summer 19"72, pp. 23-35. The article is reprinted here with the kind permission of the editor of Mount Carmel. ] In the New Testament we not only find the example of prayer given us by Our Divine Lord, and the discipline of prayer as it existed in the first Christian community, but we find above all a theology of prayer. In fact, we find the whole message and mission of our Lord Himself presented to us in a context of prayer. The New Testament is, if you like, a whole theology of prayer. It is usual nowadays in modern theology to speak of Christ as the Man for others, and of course He certainly is; but we must not forget that before and above all else Christ is the Man for the Father. Christ is the Adorer of the Father; and it is only then and because of this that He is the Man for others. This is reflected in the commandments given by our divine Lord Himself in the form: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God" - this is the first commandment; the second, like to it indeed, but nevertheless, second to it, is the commandment to love our neighbor. In an age of horizontalism we do not need to remember this. But there is a crisis of prayer at the present time. It is a crisis, I think, which goes deeper than prayer, affecting faith itself. The contemporary religious crisis is one that involves our very sense of God, the reality of His transcendent Being, and of our relationship with Him. It could hardly be denied, l am afraid that through a one-sided emphasis on this-worldly values, we may be neglecting the direct service of the wholly Other who is God - the rights of man perhaps coming to rival, if not eclipse, in our consciousness, the rights and claims of God. But surely the first thing required of a People of God is "Godliness" - the sense of God which that untranslatable old English word "Godliness" conveys. Worship is God's "Worthship," our acknowledgement of what God is worth, it is our avowal that God is worth a lifetime of our praise, and admiration and adoration, and service and thanks - our attempt to pay tribute to the "worthness" of God. Is the crisis of prayer not just the obverse side of a decline in this recognition of God's "worthship"? But there are several prevalent themes of modern discussion which are contributing, I think, to the modern crisis of prayer. It is suggested, for example, that prayer should be spontaneous and not rule-regulated; that it should be communitarian rather than individual; that it can take the form of a dialogue and service among our fellow men, rather than of silent personal converse with God. The Bishop of Woolwich Perhaps one of the best known exponents of some of these themes is the former 902 Review fox Religious, Volume 31, 197216 Bishop of Woolwich, above all in his book Honest to God. This has a chapter on prayer - a chapter which contains many beautiful and profound things, including as I remember it, the opening sentence which is that "Prayer and Ethics are the two sides of one and the same coin." This I think is a very profound thought, that Christian morality is simply our prayer applied to living and our living is our prayer carried out in act. There are other helpful thoughts as well in that chapter. But the general thrust of the Bishop of Woolwich's thinking is away from the idea of personal withdrawal and aloneness with God: away from the contemplative aspect of prayer at least, to prayer as engagement, prayer as involvement, as dialogue and as service. The Bishop would, I think, regret having to withdraw from the world and the neighbor into what he might be tempted to call the ghetto of aloneness in order to pray. He would prefer to find God and to serve Him and to worship Him in the neighbor, in dialogue and service with the neighbor. Now this of course is excellent, but nevertheless one needs to ask some questions about this. It seems to me that some very penetrating questions have been put to the Bishop about this by a fellow Anglican called Martin Thornton in a little book, which is very impressive to my mind, called TheRock and theRiver. In this book, Martin Thornton remarks that while reading Honest to God,and, above all, this chapter on prayer, he finds himself on practically every page, scribbling in the margin cryptic letters "Y.B.H." and he said almost certainly if his books were being looked over after his death by his executors (or anyone else) they would wonder what on earth "Y.B.H." could mean, but he tells us that they mean "YES, BUT HOW?" The point that he wants to make is that it is magnificent to be able to find God in our neighbor; it is wonderful to be able to be conscious of the presence of God in the neighbor, and to be conscious of the presence of the adorable God in our work, in our apostolate, in whatever. It is possible, but very difficult. How are we going to arrive there? Then Martin Thornton goes on (because he is himself a specialist of the spiritual life, and of the history of mystical theology), to remind us that this is in fact what traditional spiritual writers called habitual recollection or the habitual sense of the presence of God. But, he said, you will find that the saints and the great doctors of prayer have all of them warned us that this is a culmination, a climax of the spiritual effort. It is what mystical writers and saints might hope to arrive at and to achieve fitfully and partially at the end of years and years of disciplined effort. Whereas he fears the Bishop of Woolwich thinks that anyone can do this at the drop of a hat. He says that this is too naive by half- it just does not happen that way. Spontaneity and Discipline The title that Mr. Thornton gives to his book, The Rock and the River, is deliberately symbolic. The river for him is the spontaneity of prayer - the habitual sense of the presence of God always, not requiring certain periods set apart for it, but coming spontaneously and naturally in the course of doing other things. This for him, spontaneity, is represented by the river - the river of the continuous novelty and joy of the finding of God. But the river flows from the rock - a deep Biblical theme - and the rock is fidelity; the rock is constancy; the rock is the discipline of fidelity and constancy in our relations with the constant and faithful God. He insists that all experience, including our own, will tell us that unless we practice this discipline, which Mr. Thornton calls the Rule, the Regula, and unless we are faithful to that discipline, we won't have the spontaneity either. By the regula, he is referring in a general way to the rules of disciplined prayer that have Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 903 been left to us in all the great spiritual traditions and religious families. Surely he is faithful to human pyschology and pedagogy in that insistence. Surely in this as in any other spiritual domain spontaneity does not come naturally, it doesn't just happen - spontaneity is acquired. If you want to acquire spontaneity in your practice and your love of music, you've got to go through the hard monotonous humdrum discipline of practice. If you do, but only if you do, then you will eventually arrive at an informed but spontaneous enjoyment of music. So it is surely with any other human skill. Spontaneity is acquired by discipline. We should not contrast the spontaneity with the discipline. Similarly it is only at the price of disciplined, controlled and persistent prayer life that we will arrive at habitual recollection, or have joy in the moments of our prayer. The Example of Jesus This is true, as I said, psychologically; it is true pedagogically. But what is much more important is to approach this problem of prayer from the standpoint of the New Testament itself, and what it tells us about the practice of our divine Lord Himself, and the insights it gives us into the place of prayer in the life of Christ and in the life of the Christian. A careful study of Christ's own personal prayer life in the Gospels shows that He adhered strictly to a daily discipline of rule-regulated prayer. The rules were precisely those prevailing in contemporary Jewish piety; but Christ deepened and extended their observance as he did with every detail of Jewish religious practice. Every pious Jew, for example, in Jesus' time recited the Shema, or the Jewish creed, first thing on waking and last thing before sleeping. The words are based on Deuteronomy: "The Lord our God is the one Lord - you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength." Jesus observed this custom faithfully as did all his disciples. For instance, when the rich young man asked our Lord "What must 1 do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus had only to remind him of the prayer he said that morning. This is what He does in fact when He says to him: "What is written in the law? How do you recite this?" (because the Jew normally recited his prayers aloud). Our Lord was simply asking him: "Do you remember your morning prayer? Do you remember what you said this morning?" This practice of morning and night prayer was regarded as an absolute minimum of religious practice and it is significant that in Jewish thought to omit morning and night prayer would be, in effect, to cut oneself off from the religious community. It was a minimum of recognition of God, a minimum of witness to the transcendence of God, without which one could not be regarded as a member of the praying community, the priestly community, which was the People of God. The pious Jew was further obliged to pray at least six times every day, and this of course is the basis of the Breviary, the Office, the Prayer of the Church, with its afternoon and evening hours. The many references that we find in the Gospels to Jesus' prayer are to be understood in relation to this rule of prayer. When Jesus impresses on the disciples the need to pray continually and never to lose heart, he is not referring, strictly speaking, to acquiring the sense of the habitual presence of God. The word "continually" has a technical meaning. Our Lord is referring to the regular, disciplined, rule-regulated periods of prayer in the course of the day; what He is requiring of them is faithfulness to the daily discipline of fixed times and rules of daily prayer. It is interesting that it is in that very same paragraph of St. Luke's Gospel that Jesus so poignantly asks "When the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith upon the earth?" a question which challenges every one of us always, but 904 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 above all now at this time of crisis. It seems to follow from this conjunction that to find faith on earth, according to the teaching of the Gospel, is one and the same thing as to find persevering prayer on the earth. It is also full of deep significance that each single one of Jesus' answers to the temptations of the devil are taken from the Biblical prayer-formulae prescribed for the daily prayer of the Jews. Every one of them is part of what one might call a domestic or personal liturgy of the pious Jew. The lesson surely is that prayer is our defense against the temptations which the devil continually brings against our faith. The Jewish Practice of Prayer We have in recent years had tremendous new light shed upon the prayer life of our Lord from a somewhat unexpected source - a Jew who knows very well the cultural tradition of the Jewish people. That is to say, it has been brought to public attention, because this man I am going to refer to has been of course depending a great deal on the research of more primary scholars. He is himself a more popular writer, but nevertheless one of impressive stature. He is a French Jew called Robert Aron; and he has written a number of books based on his knowledge of Jewish tradition and Jewish religious practice, to illuminate for us the pages of the Gospel. His two best-known books are: Les annbes obscures de Jksus (The Hidden Years of Jesus) and Ainsi priait J~sus Enfant (This ls how the Boy Jesus Prayed). Both are published by Grasset. Now Aron has shown how the whole life of the devout Jew in Jesus' time was saturated with prayer. One of the interesting quotations he gives us from Jewish tradition is: "Whoever enjoys anything whatever in this world without first saying a prayer commits an untruthfulness." The prayer or blessing which preceded and which followed every important act of the day would have been taught to Jesus as a child by His holy Mother and would have been part of His whole human religious psychology. The Apostles were faithful to Jesus' example and to His precepts. The Acts of the Apostles frequently referred to the observance of the fixed hours of daily prayer. St. Paul again and again talks of praying continually, praying without ceasing, praying day and night, praying always. He urges his converts to keep praying, to be "persevering in your prayers." Again I repeat, St. Paul is not talking about habitual recollection. He is talking about fixed and undeviating hours and rules of prayer. What he is urging in all these passages is fidelity to the regular hours of prayer. Indeed the whole of the day was, as I have just said, consecrated for the faithful Jew by prayer; there were prayers of thanksgiving or blessings to accompany every action, function, and happening, whether of work, leisure, or recreation, in everyday life. We know from the Gospels how Jesus observed these blessings, these prayers before and after meals, before journeys, before arrivals, before seasons, before preaching or teaching, before acts of healing, miracles, and so on. St. Paul followed His example when he bids us to be always and everywhere giving thanks to God who is our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a certain disaffection now from prayer of this kind, from the practice, for example, of blessings before and after meals, before and after journeys and undertakings; but it is salutary to remember that it came directly from Christ our Lord Himself. Of course it certainly is not part of the essence of our faith that we observe a particular set of fixed rules of prayer. Many of you know that this insistence could and sometimes did become a sort of legalism and a sort of spiritual burden which hindered rather than helped progress in prayer. One can bind heavy and insupportable burdens in this matter of devotions, trimmings, added to essential Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 9O5 liturgical prayer. Nevertheless, it is vital that there should be recalls of the presence of God in the course of one's day, and that in the course of one's life there should be moments of withdrawal from human contacts in order to be alone with God. This I think is absolutely fundamental in Christian life, both from psychological and from deeply theological reasons. Here again the contrast between spontaneity and regulation has been exaggerated and the contrast between love and law in this, as in many other spheres, has been overdone. After all, love creates its own self-imposed laws; and in any sphere you like to take of human relationships, you can easily see this. The man who says he is too busy earning money for his family, or for his wife or fiancee, to have any time to recall her birthday, or to remember her anniversaries, or to think of giving her a present, would be a humbug. Love is made of thoughtfulnesses of this kind. Love is the willing acceptance, the joyful acceptance, of certain patterns of conduct, which manifest our fidelity and which make our love to be real rather than just verbal. Law is the expression of love, and when it is, it is no longer felt as law, it is no longer felt as a burden. This perhaps is why some prayer practices became burdens, because they could not be assimilated into one's love of God. Nevertheless that there should be time for this withdrawal is indispensable, to remember what life is about, and what we are here for, to remember that we are a People of God. Those of us who are committed to the following, the exclusive following of Christ, have special need for these regular moments of intensive recall of who it is that we have chosen, or rather, who He is who has chosen us. Prayer and Eschatology A very meaningful contemporary way of expressing this is to say that these moments of withdrawal are necessary in order to give us an eschatological dimension, an awareness of what it is to be waiting for the Lord to come in glory. Schillebeeckx has some very interesting remarks in his book on celibacy. He suggests that the deepest meaning of celibacy is that a man who is really waiting for the Lord to come in glory has not time to be bothered with all the distractions and so on that are necessary to have a courtship and a marriage and to look after a family. He is too completely absorbed in the thought of the coming of the Lord and in the need of preparedness for the coming Lord to be bothered with anything else but the affairs of the kingdom. This 1 think is a very valid phenomenonological and existentialist explanation of the meaning and the relevance of celibacy. In passing, Schillebeeckx remarks, and 1 think that this too is profound, that this in fact is the basis of the Church's practice of fasting and of self-denial generally. Someone who is really intensely, excitedly waiting for a tremendous event to break through can't think of anything else, he can't think of eating, he doesn't even feel hungry. The Church, knowing that as an eschatological community we ought to have this feeling of excited waiting, on tip-toe of expectation for this great thing to break through, adopts the external behavior-pattern (e.g. not eating)which corresponds to the inner feeling. If we were really waiting for something important to happen, or for someone really loved to come, we couldn't be bothered to be hungry. The Church feels that we can as it were invert the process, induce the appropriate feeling by adopting the relevant behavior. Now it seems to me that in a similar way fixed times and moments of awareness of God are indispensable if we are to have the mentality of a people of faith, of a people of hope, of a people constantly aware that we have not here a lasting kingdom, but we seek one that is to come in Christ, "who is, who was, and who is to come." 9O6 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 Jesus, however, was not content with the rule-regulated prayer of the Jews; He deepened it, and He stressed the need for personal commitment rather than conformity, and for interior sincerity rather than routine. Jesus reinforced the rules, but He wrote them on the heart rather than as the Pharisees did on the palm and the forehead. You will remember what seems to us the incredible foolishness of the Pharisees in taking the words of Deuteronomy literally. Deuteronomy says: "You are to write this law on the palm of your hand and carry it perpetually before your eyes so that you shall never waking or sleeping, forget this law." The Pharisees did just that; they wrote sentences of the Law out on bits of paper and carried them in the palms of their hands and wrote them out on a phylactery, and carried it in front of their eyes and thought that this was carrying out the Law. But Jesus wanted the rules to be written on the heart, to be assimilated into our lives, rather than carried out legalistically. He told us therefore to pray to the Father in secret. Jesus' Solitary Prayer Jesus also extended the fixed hours of prayer, turning the regular evening prayer of the Jews into night-long vigils ending only with the dawn. The Gospels are at pains deliberately to emphasize that these were vigils of solitary prayer. The Gospels make a special point of remarking that Jesus left the crowds behind even when they needed Him, even when they clamored for Him and followed pathetically after Him, looking for His help and His healing. Jesus deliberately turned His back on people that needed Him, in order to be alone with His Father - this we must never forget. Here is how St. Mark described it: "That evening after sunset, they brought to Him all who were sick and those who were possessed by devils; the whole town came crowding around the door. In the morning, long before dawn, He got up and He left the house and He went off to a lonely place, and He prayed there. Simon and his companions set out in search of Him. When they found Him they said 'Everybody is looking for you.' " Later, St. Mark continues, after the miracle of the loaves, He Himself sent the crowds away, after saying good-bye to them: "He went off into the hills to pray, and about the fourth watch of the night, He came to His disciples." This was about 3 to 6 a.m. He came to His disciples after hours of vigil, hours of solitary prayer alone by night. "He came to them walking on the water." St. Luke is even more explicit. St. Luke says: "I-Iis reputation continued to grow, and large crowds would gather to hear him, and to have their sicknesses cured, but he would always go off to some place where he could be alone and pray." Not just once, not just a few times, but regularly, habitually, he would "always" go off "to some place where He could be alone and pray." Again, St. Luke writes: "He went out to the hills to pray and He spent the whole night in prayer to God." This was before the vocation, the calling of the disciples. "When day came, he summoned his disciples and he picked out twelve of them and called them Apostles." It is not fanciful, it is theologically accurate, to say that the vocation of each one of us was involved in that vocation of the twelve, for our vocation is only a prolongation of theirs; therefore, our vocation too was included in the prayer of Christ. St. Luke's Theology of Prayer St. Luke shows Christ's whole life as spent in an atmosphere of prayer. Indeed he interprets Christ's whole mission in terms of a theology of prayer. St. Luke's Gospel begins, remember, with prayer in the temple, and it ends with Jesus ascending into Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 907 lleaven in the posture of prayer, in the gesture of blessing. The blessing is not just any blessing, it is the blessing of the Holy Spirit and the promise of the Father. It is Jesus' prayer that brings this promise to fulfillment; it is Jesus' prayer that brings down the only true blessing, the gift of the Holy Spirit to the world. Then let us never forget that there is a continuity between St. Luke's first Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and what we might call his second gospel, the gospel of the Church and of the Holy Spirit, which is the Acts of the Apostles. There is a parallelism of structure between the two. St. Luke's Gospel, his gospel of Jesus Christ, begins with prayer in the Temple and with the Annunciation and it ends with waiting in the temple for the promise of the Father to be given by the blessing of Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles begins again in the Holy City and the Temple where they are to remain continually in prayer, praising God all the time and waiting for the power from on high and for the mission which in the power of the Spirit will send them to the ends of the earth. There is a parallelism between the conception of Jesus and the conception of the Church in St. Luke which is most striking and is theologically very profound. The Gospel begins with prayer in the Temple and the coming of the Holy Spirit, which makes Mary the Mother of Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles opens with a description of the Apostles joined in continuous prayer with Mary the Mother of Jesus waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Church. In truth we have to say that St. Luke has a clearly developed theology of prayer in which Jesus' whole life and work are explained in terms of prayer. Now this is not just a personal idea of St. Luke. This is divinely revealed and inspired instruction about the mystery of Christ as a mystery of salvation consummated in prayer. This revelation occurs with particular intensity at four points in St. Luke's Gospel: the Annunciation, the Baptism of our Lord, the Transfiguration, and the Ascension. Now there are remarkable parallelisms between these four scenes, these four theophanies if you like, in St. Luke's Gospel. These elements are constant throughout the Synoptic Gospels of course, but they are presented with particular vividness and explicitness in St. Luke. In each of these scenes we note the manifestation of the shekinah, the cloud of divine glory which everywhere in the Bible marks the awesome presence of God. Again, let me remark in passing that there has been a lot of nonsense talked about the "myths" of the Gospel and the need to "demythologize" the Gospel in order to get at its fundamental truth. Often this turns out to be a parabolic kind of truth, which has nothing to do with facts but is simply a subjective conviction of being addressed by God now, in my existential situation in the present. But what we have in the Gospels is not myth at all, but a technical, theological language. You couldn't expect the sacred writers to use our kind of language wltich has developed in our sort of Greco-Latin culture. Inevitably what they had to use was the theological language of a Semitic culture and particularly of a Biblical people. They used the theological language of the Old Testament. But make no mistake about it, the language of the Bible is not just the simple anthropomorphic talk of a people who knew no better; it is the work of a highly sophisticated and developed theology, with its own clearly recognized theological symbols. One of these is the cloud. The cloud is a theological description of the presence of the all-holy God. We have this cloud of divine glory in all of these scenes that I talked about. One could of course write a whole library of books about the theology of the shekinah in the Old and in the New Testaments. This cloud of divine glory marks above all God's presence in the Tent or Tabernacle where He dwelt among His people in the desert and it marked His presence in the 908 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 197216 Holy of Holies in the Temple of the Holy City. The Transfiguration Now, with this background, let us look first at the scene of the Transfiguration. St. Luke is careful to point out in all these passages that our Lord was in prayer, before the manifestation of the cloud of divine glory occurred. St. Luke is careful, for example, to point out that it was to pray that Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mountain of Transfiguration, and that it was as He prayed that the fulguration of divine glory pervaded His body. So St. Luke is not telling us only about the actual event in the life of our Lord. He is also, in parenthesis, implicitly telling us about our prayer life as Christians. Here again we have an instance of the great blessings and graces that modern exegesis has brought to the Church. We can see now that the New Testament writers were all the time recalling the actual words, the actual events of the life of our Lord in the context of the Church, in the context of the life of the Church, in the context of the liturgy, and above all in the context of the Holy Eucharist. Therefore we are getting two messages all the time in the New Testament, one about what our Lord did in the past, and one about how the Church experiences her Lord in the liturgy of today. That is one of the reasons why the Gospels are never merely an account of what did happen once, long ago in history. They are always also a revelation, an unveiling, of what is happening now in our liturgy of today, which is essentially the same as the liturgy of the early Church. To return to this scene of the Transfiguration. This was the epiphany of God made one with human flesh in the body of Jesus, and it reveals Jesus as the new Tent, the new Tabernacle, the new Temple, replacing the old Tent, and replacing the existing Temple, and becoming then and for all time the only place where God could be encountered and worshiped in all future history. This incidentally, is why St. Luke smiles as it were at the nffive foolishness of poor old Peter - Peter said: "Let's make three tents." St. Luke is telling us in part: "Poor Peter, don't mind him. He didn't know what he was saying, he didn't know that there is only one tent, not three. There is only one tent where God dwells with men, the Tent of Christ's Body." We enter that Tent in prayer; and every time we pray in the name of Jesus, we enter already into the glory of God present in the Body of His Son. That's why it is good for us to pray. It is good for us to be here in prayer with Jesus in the glory of the Father. Never are we more praying in the name of Jesus than when we are praying in the Mass or before the Blessed Sacrament, because this is the transfigured Body. The Body of Christ in the Eucharist is the Temple, the only Temple of access to the Father. After the radiant glory of God had transfigured Christ's body, the cloud became a dark shadow enveloping Jesus along with Moses and Elias who stood by to acknowledge Him as the author of the new and eternal covenant. Not only here, but frequently, in fact habitually, you find this ambivalence about the cloud of divine glory. It is at once light and darkness. It is radiant blinding light, but also impenetrable, mysterious darkness. These are not contradictory. God's glory is darkness by excess of blinding light. When the light of the sun is at its most luminous, it is fatal to look directly into it, for example during an eclipse. So it is with the radiance of God's light. That is what it means to say God is mystery. At this point, out of the cloud comes a voice - the voice of the eternal Father: "This is my Son, the Chosen One, listen to him." Now we know why the cloud is Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 909 dark. The darkness is the same as the darkness that covered Calvary at the time of Christ's death. This is not just an astronomical phenomenon; this is mystery, this is revelation, this is the language of Biblical theology. It was the cloud of God's glory that covered Calvary when Christ was dying. Here, in the dark cloud of the Transfiguration we have the revelation of the coming Passion. These words "This is my Son," are taken from the prophet Isaiah and they refer to the Suffering Servant, not just the Son, but the suffering Son. When we are told to listen to Him, we are being told to listen to the lesson of His Passion. Here we have the revelation that Jesus is God's Temple precisely in and because of His Passion. It is because Jesus suffers that He enters into glory and brings us with Him into the Father's glory. Jesus the True Temple This theology of the Temple is, again, a tremendous new insight of recent exegesis and of recent theology. Take for example something that always puzzled us, 1 think, namely the question of what it means that, at the death of Christ, the veil of the Temple is rent in two from the top to the bottom. We must recall that in the Jewish Temple there were separate compartments for different categories of worshipers. There was one for the women who were not allowed to come more than to just the outer precincts. Beyond this there were the ordinary priestly people, the lay men. Beyond this was the place set apart for the priests. Finally beyond the inmost veil, was the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest himself could enter, and he only once a year. Beyond this veil the High Priest dared to enter only backward, for fear of looking at where the glory of God dwelt. But when Christ dies, the veil is torn apart, the curtains are all drawn back. There are no separations, no boundaries, no barriers, any more. We can all come up without distinction, without exclusion into the very presence of divine glory. We do this every day in our Mass and at our Holy Communion. This is one example of the central importance of the theology of the Temple in the reading of the Gospel. But, to return again to the Transfiguration; here we are entering into the heart of the mystery of Christian prayer. When we pray we are made one with Jesus in His prayer. This means we become one with Jesus in His divine Sonship; and over us when we pray the same voice of the Eternal Father is spoken "This is my Son, my Chosen One." Again, another example of the supposedly mythological, but really theological language of the Bible is to be noted in the words, "the heavens were opened." This means that the separation between God and man which sin is, is abolished by the redemption of Christ, and that in Christ we already share in the life of heaven, we are already admitted into the presence of the Father. That is what the opening of the heavens means. This happens in Jesus Christ and happens in our lives every time we pray. Every time we pray, the heavens are opened over us and around us, and we are enveloped with Jesus in the same love with which the Father loves His Son. It is not so much we who pray then, as the Beloved Son who prays in us. Or, as St. Paul says, it is the Spirit of adoption, it is the Spirit of the Son making us sons, who is given us by Christ to pray in us with groanings that are ineffable. All that we have to do when we pray - because we do get discouraged in our efforts and we feel we are making such a poor fist of it - but really all we've got to do is to try to remove the distractions which impede Christ from praying in us. We have only, as it were, to stand back and let Christ pray in us, let the Holy Spirit pray in us, to remove the distractions which impede and try to create the conditions which permit the Son and the Spirit to pray in us. The word "pray-in" is familiar now, but all Christian prayer is really Christ's "pray-in" in us. Christian 910 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 prayer is essentially Christ praying in us, and the Spirit praying in us. Therefore in us and through us as we pray glory is given to the eternal Father by the Son in us, through the Holy Spirit in us, as it was in the beginning and is now and ever shall be for ever and ever. St. John's Theology of Prayer We note in passing that this revelation of the meaning and the mystery of Jesus and prayer in St. Luke's Gospel agrees completely with the Gospel of St. John. In the very prologue of St. John's Gospel, we read: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." We know that these words are again a reference to the cloud of divine glory and the Tent of God's dwelling, because the words really mean "He pitched His tent [God's Tent] amongst us." These words are not just a description, but also a theology. Christ becomes in His very flesh the temple of true prayer, prayer which really encounters God, really gets through to God, really opens the heavens for us and reconciles man to God; and this is made possible through Christ's Passion. Note that the very first act of faith in Christ is that which is given by John the Baptist immediately afterwards in St. John's Gospel in the form "Look, there is the Lamb of God." This is the first act of faith in Christ, and we repeat it every day at Mass. Another reference to Christ's Passion is found when Jesus later says to the Samaritan woman that worship will not any longer be in any privileged place, but "true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth." A certain Protestant tradition, not a universal one, but a certain Protestant tradition has tended to interpret this in an anti-institutional and anti-liturgical sense. Worship in spirit and in truth would be something like Quaker worship where there would be no priesthood, no liturgy, and so on. This could not be further from the thought of St. John. St. John is the most sacramental, the most liturgical, the most eucharistic and the most ecclesial of all the evangelists. The words "spirit and truth" refer not to some disembodied deinstitutionalised form of spirituality; they refer to Jesus' own risen Body. There is no contrast between body and spirit. All the related contrasts, so often made nowadays between spirit and institution, between spirit and structure, are alien to the thought of St. John and indeed of the whole of the New Testament. Christ's Body is spirit, Christ's risen Body is life-giving spirit. To worship the Father in spirit and in truth is to worship the Father above all in and through the Holy Eucharist which is the Body of Christ. "Spirit and truth" is Christ's own risen and glorified Body become life-giving spirit. Here St. John is absolutely one with St. Paul. What Jesus is saying here is that His risen Body is the only Christian temple, and that it is only through His Body that we come to God. Therefore, the apex, what the Constitution on the Liturgy calls the source and the summit, of all Christian spirituality, is the Holy Mass, where God's Spirit (in the words of the Eucharistic prayer), "comes upon these gifts to make them holy so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is the moment when the words of our Lord to the Samaritan woman are realized and we become "true worshipers of God, the kind of worshipers the Father wants, worshiping Him in spirit and in truth." The Baptism of Our Lord Now, let us turn briefly to the Baptism of our Lord which contains another revelation of the mystery of Christian prayer. St. Luke again characteristically tells us that Jesus, after His own Baptism, was in prayer when heaven opened, and the Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 911 Holy Spirit came down upon Him, and the voice of the Father sounded over Him: "You are my Son, the Beloved, my favor rests on you." The mystery of our baptism is included in that of the Baptism of our Lord. We are baptized in order to pray - it is as siraple as that. We are baptized in order to pray in union with Jesus and indeed in His very person. Baptism, which the more traditional way of speaking called christening (a much more beautiful terns: christening) is our "oneing" with Christ. "One-ing" is another of those untranslatable old English words which you find in the medieval mystics - oneing with Christ. That is what our baptism means. We never realize this oneness with Christ more than when we pray. When we pray, as the Council puts it, we are "sons in the Son," and the voice of the Father is say-ing over us when we pray, as it said over Christ when He prayed - "You are my Son, the Beloved, my favor rests on you." Prayer is the highest exercise and the supreme fulfillment of our baptism. The baptized People of God are before and above all a praying people. The Ascension Finally we come to the mysteries of Ascension and Pentecost. The Ascension is another manifestation of the mystery of prayer. Jesus ascends to the Father enveloped in the cloud of divine glory. Remember the disciples were not interested in what the weather was like on the day when our Lord ascended, and the whole cloud is not something that happened to be there because it was a nice summer's day. The cloud is also the theological description of the glory of the Father into which Christ entered when He left earthly vision. Jesus ascends to the Father, therefore, enveloped in the same radiant cloud of divine glory that we have seen at the Annunciation, at the Baptism, and at the Transfiguration. He ascends in an attitude of blessing, the attitude of prayer which He keeps forever in heaven in the Father's presence. His blessing is above all else the gift of the Spirit, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The priest at Mass is acting in His name, vicariously giving Christ's own Ascension blessing to Christ's people when he says "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." In a sense - in a very true sense - the liturgy, the Eucharist above all, is the proof that it is all true. After His Resurrection, Christ invariably greets His people, His community, with the words "Peace be with you." If in our liturgy we can be greeted by His representative with the words "Peace be with you," this is the proof that it is true that Christ has risen and is with us. Nobody can give us peace, nobody has the right to say "Peace" except Christ. Therefore, if peace is given to us, if it is present in our liturgy, this is the proof that it is all true and that Christ is living and is here. Pentecost and Prayer The coming of the Holy Spirit on the infant Church is also linked with prayer. This time it is prayer "together with Mary the Mother of Jesus." 1 have said in passing already that it is certain that St. Luke intends to call attention to the analogy between the conception of Jesus which he describes in the Gospel and the birth of the Church which he describes in Acts. In both the glory, the glory of God and the overshadowing of the spirit, marks the end of the separation between God and man, and it shows that in Christ, in the Church, God has come to live in the very midst of His own and in prayer we infallibly meet Him in Christ and in the Church. Mary the Mother of Jesus is there, with an indispensable place in the mystery of salvation and with an irreplaceable part in the prayer of the Christian. In 912 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 passing it might be worth asking ourselves to what extent some of the problems and troubles in the Church today are linked with the manifest and deplorable decline' in devotion to our Blessed Lady. The Our Father I have said that the People of God is above all a people that prays. Now this is shown very clearly in the Evangelists' account of how Christ gave a special prayer, the "Our Father" to His disciples. The disciples had just watched Jesus praying, and when He finished one of them said: "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." For the Jews in that particular cultural situation a religious group was identified by its specific form of praying. So the disciples are really asking for a prayer which will mark them as members of Christ's new Messianic people, partakers already of the coming kingdom of God. In answer Jesus gives them the Our Father. Its most striking word is the word Father. Jesus never once prayed without calling God "Father." But what is not usually recognized is that neither the Old Testament, nor Jewish tradition ever addressed God as Father. This is a remarkable fact. It has been brought to our notice by (among others) a Lutheran exegete called Joachim Jeremias. This vocative use of the word "Father" in praying to God is new and unique in the prayer of Jesus and in that of His followers after Him. What is even more striking is that Jesus uses a special term for "Father" in speaking to God, the word "Abba." This is a family word, a child's endearing word for father, "my dear Father." It would be going too far and would suggest something childish to say that He called God "Dada" - "Abba" is a familial, not a familiar term - "my dear Father." Never before in history did any man dare to speak so intimately and so affectionately to God. Jesus in the Gospel, according to Jeremias' count, uses it 177 times. This term is something characteristic of Jesus' own prayer and of Jesus' own attitude to His Father. Jeremias in one of his books called The Central Message of the New Testament regards this as perhaps the central message and says that even if we had nothing else than this to prove the special, absolutely unique Sonship, the divine Sonship and therefore the Divine nature of Christ, His use of the term "Abba" for Father would be enough. This is the supreme manifestation of the unique filial relationship between Jesus and His Father. The disciples never ceased to be amazed at this way of addressing God. They were even frightened by it. They couldn't bring themselves without an effort to repeat the words after Him. The touching effect is that when they say the words after Jesus they always repeat his own words "Abba" in the very language that Jesus used, Aramaic, even when they didn't use or know the language. This explains the odd sort of repetitions, or duplications that you get in St. Paul, "Abba," "Father," the two words mean the same thing; but the disciples could not say "Father" to God without reminding themselves that Jesus said "Abba" and that He ordered them to say it after Him. This was as though to say: "We couldn't say it unless He did and He told us to do so." This is the explanation of our own introduction to the Our Father in the liturgy: "Because of the divine command and following the divine example we dare to say Our Father." I am afraid the translation that ICEL have given here is not a good one. "We pray with confidence." This is not enough. It does not convey the full force of the Latin words, "audemus dicere": "We make bold to say," "We dare to say." This is what the Church has always meant by this introduction to the Our Father. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 913 But the Our Father is not just a prayer that we say; it's a prayer that makes itself true as we say it. God becomes our dear Father, and we become His favorite children, in and through and with Jesus Christ when we pray. That is what our prayer is, our sharing in the mystery of the Divine Sonship, our entering into the unique relationship between Jesus and His Father which is expressed by His use of the word "'Abba" - "'my dear Father." The Our Father is the realization of our salvation, it is the proof that we are saved. If we were not baptized we could not say it. That is why every baptized person in the early Church was given the Our Father to learn by heart (which is perhaps a commentary on a certain reaction at the present time against prescribed forms of prayer for children). Here is what St. Paul says to the Galatians: "The proof that you are sons is that God has sent the spirit of his son into your heart, the spirit that cries 'Abba Father,' and it is this that makes you a son." The whole theology 1 have been trying to suggest to you is contained in that sentence - "the proof that you are sons is that God has sent the spirit of his son into your heart, the spirit that cries 'Abba,' 'Father,' and it is this that makes you a son." The kingdom has come when we pray Our Father. The glory of the final coming is already present and we share in that glory in the very heart of the blessed Trinity. Jeremias has said that the Our Father is eschatology making itself true as we say it - eschatoiogy realizing itself - a very profound thought. Infallibility of Prayer 1 have said that the Our Father, and indeed all Christian prayer, makes itself true as we say it by the power and in the person of Christ. Now we are bound by Our Lord's own words to believe that prayer is infallible, that every true prayer is infallibly heard. What then are we to say of unanswered prayer? There can be no answer to this problem, in the light of the Gospel, other than that no prayer is unanswered if it is in the name of Jesus. What Jesus Himself said was: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, will be granted to you." Note the qualification, "in My Name." If a prayer is in His name truly, truly and really in His name, then it must be answered by the power and promise of our Divine Lord Himself. Jesus said something even stranger; He said: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, believe that you have already received it, and it will be given to you." Is this some curious, almost pathological form of auto-suggestion? It cannot be. But there is a mystery here and it is the New Testament which gives us the key to this mystery. No prayer is unanswered, because every prayer admits us to the presence and the glory of God. In heaven's name, what else have we to pray for but that? What else do we want but that? Is God not enough for us? Every prayer gives us oneness with Christ, and again, in heaven's name, what are we praying for but that? What do we want, but that? What do we need but that? Is Christ not enough for us? St. Paul said "Since God did not spare his own Son but gave him up to benefit us all, has he not also with him given us everything." Is there anything he has refused? Like Jesus Himself, then, we can thank the Father before our prayers are answered. You remember our Lord, before the raising of Lazarus, said: "I thank You, Father, because You have heard my prayer." Prayer is our privilege before it is our duty. The same is true of our faith. Karl Barth says that what we should be saying now is not, "You are bound to believe," but "You are permitted to believe." The faith is a privilege, not a burden, and so is prayer. All our prayers are answered in Christ - Christ is the answer to our prayer. All our prayers end with "Amen." The word 914 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 does not mean so much "may it be so," but rather "it is so." It is so in Christ. Christ is God's Arden to our prayer. St. Paul says: "With Him it is always "Yes" and however many the promises God has made the "Yes" to them all is in Him." And He goes on to say: "That is why it is through Him, that we answer "Amen" to the praise of God." Prayer is in crisis in the modern world. T. S. Eliot in "The Rock" says: Endless invention, endless experiment brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness knowledge of speech but not of silence knowledge of words but ignorance of the Word all our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance. The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries brings us further from God and nearer to the dust. There is a certain truth even though a certain pessimism in what Eliot says. But it is consoling to recall another great man of our time, the outstanding humanist and servant of humanity who was Dag Hammerskjold. It was prayer and specifically the Our Father which inspired Hammerskjold to give his life for others. "Murderous Angels" notwithstanding, Hammerskjold was a very great man. "The only value of a life," says Hammerskjold, "is its content for others; and therefore in my great loneliness, to serve others. How incredibly great is what I have been given and how meaningless is what I have to sacrifice. 'Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done.' You wake from dreams of doom and then for a moment you know beyond all the noise and the gestures, you know the only real thing, love's calm unwavering flame in the half light of an early dawn." In this Carmelite setting, I am happy to end by suggesting that this is a contemporary echo of St. Teresa's epilogue of her life of prayer, written on a scrap of paper found after her death in her breviary in 1582: "Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, All things pass, God never changes, Patience attains all that it strives for. He who has God is lacking in nothing. Only God is enough. Solo Dios Basra." SISTER MARY GARASCIA, C.I'P.S. Prayer and Spirituality ISister Mary Garascia is a member of the Theology Department of Gerard High School; 2252 North Forty-fourth Street; Phoenix, Arizona 85008.1 Introduction It is Fall as these thoughts are being written, and across the nation the past summer produced the usual spate of chapters and meetings which will in turn generate programs and conferences and discussions in the community houses of American religious this apostolic year. Private prayer continues to be one of the most frequently discussed topics, demonstrating the persistent concern felt by many sisters with this area of their religious life. The statements which follow are not a systematic development of the nature or methods of prayer; neither are they original. They are, it is hoped, things which are said too softly or too seldom, and which may help to give discussions of prayer and spirituality a certain perspective. Perspective on Prayer: Prayer as Positive Perhaps the idea that is most often not uttered at the beginning of prayer discussions is that prayer is supposed to be a positive human experience. It should be, in general, enjoyable and easy. Prayer is an experience of contact with God, and the God of Christianity is the Approachable One. Both the Old and New Testaments present God as a departure from the magical-mysterious pagan gods and the philosophical-mystery gods of the Greco-Roman world. God is revealed, instead, to be lover, friend, father, savior. Because that is the way God is, Jesus could respond with the simple and natural Our Father when someone asked Him how to pray. Certainly at times prayer will be difficult because life itself is, at times, difficult. But the times when prayer is a deeply rewarding experience should predominate. A God who must be sought in tortuous ways is not lovable or attractive, nor is He the God of Jesus. The "dark night" of the mystics is not meant to characterize the spiritual life of man. It is only a temporary stage, as all suffering and dying is temporary and is oriented toward resurrection and future life. Probably the first rule of prayer should be to enjoy God, to relax and pray naturally. It should be clear, whenever prayer is discussed, that behind all the words there lurks a God of nearness, approachability, and overflowing generosity. Perspective on Prayer: Prayer and Autobiography Possibly one reason why prayer becomes unnatural or strained is that it becomes separated from autobiography) Each person writes a story with his life. The story IMichael Novak, Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 43-87. 916 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 is sequential and hopefully has direction and meaning. If a person is religious, his story is also religious. In other words, if he were to tell his story to another, he could not tell it merely in terms of vital statistics, places of residence or employment, achievements, and so on. All these things would be seen by the religious person in terms of a greater reality: the times, places, and experiences when God entered his life, the development of his own religious consciousness. Prayer needs as its ground an awareness and appreciation by the praying person of his own religious story. The person prays not to an unfamiliar God, but to a God whom he has come to know in a process of time and experience, to a God whom he can take for granted on the one hand, and yet to a God who enters his life so constantly and insistently that their relationship is a continual source of awe and rejoicing to him. With this consciousness of story, prayer takes place at the meaning core of the person. It can never become an exercise or a duty because it is always an extension of experience. It will more often be affectively rewarding, as it should be, and natural. An underlying assumption of this point of view is that a person is willing to trust himself and his own religious experiences. This is not to say that man never errs, becoming proud, presumptuous, idolatrous, or that it is not important to imitate others or seek guidance. But there quickly comes a point when the praying person must accept the fact that God has spoken to him, is really calling him in a unique way. Unless he accepts God in this way, believing and accepting his own experience of God, prayer will tend to be marked by insecurity, darkness, distance. Perspective on Prayer: Prayer and Conversion The notion of trusting one's religious experience in order to pray leads to considering how important the quality of religious experience is. All the methods, spiritual systems, directors, and rules with which prayer gets surrounded have only one purpose: to lead the person toward certain basic conversion experiences. These are the peak experiences of the person's religious story, the turning points when the person begins defining himself in terms of his relationship with God, the point of decision to believe in the face of insufficient evidence, the assent to take seriously certain gospel precepts. These conversion points are absolutely essential if prayer is to be more than a passing phenomenon. Once certain conversions have been experienced, changes in the cultural underpinnings of prayer, such as theological upheavals or the declining influence of organized religion, are not perceived as basically threatening to prayer life. Pseudo oppositions like work and prayer, God and neighbor, resolve themselves into situations of healthy and prayer-supporting tension, if they continue to be of concern at all. Preoccupation with how to pray or with the quality of one's prayer tends to disappear, and the person begins, in freedom, to seek out for himself his own prayer rhythm. Finally, through conversion the person becomes capable of handling suffering, the great testing-point of anyone's spiritual life. It is hard to stop being concerned about methods, rules, spiritual systems because of the recent past history of ascetical training which, unfortunately, came to be dominated by the personal spiritualities of Saints Teresa and John of the Cross. Thomas Merton, one of the most serious pray-ers of contemporary America, also said some of the most freeing things about prayer: Systems are fine, up to a point, but all they are for is to help you get to the point where there is no more system, where you deal with God absolutely in your freedom and his Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 917 freedom.2 There is really no opposition., between praying alone and being with people. Both are true, both are right, and you don't divide one against the other and say it's purely horizontal or purely vertical. It is both horizontal and vertical, and you should follow what is right for you at a given time. When you are dealing with people for as long as it works, go on dealing with people; when you get tired of dealing with people, go pray alone. There comes a time when you just get tired of a particular prayer form unless you have a charism of never getting tired of it! All right, that is your charism, your thing. But most of us should simply follow the natural rhythm of the way we are constituted, and follow the Holy Spirit. There is a time and a place for everything,a Sometimes statements such as Merton's are accepted up to the "yes-but" point. Yes, but is it not possible, if a person really lets himself go, does his own thing, that he may cease to pray, or pray very infrequently? Yes, of course, it is possible, because man always has the option of choosing things which bring him death instead of life. The reasonable person will be aware of the possibility and take reasonable precautions. However, this possible catastrophe will certainly be the unusual and extraordinary case. Every person who walks along a street risks being hit by a car, but only the neurotic stay home. Perhaps this statement sounds facetious, but it is based on some of the assumptions already developed: that prayer is, basically, a happy and rewarding experience and therefore even very busy people will come back to it with the naturalness of a man seeking recreating leisure; that prayer is an outflowing of religious experiences so deep that the idea of a converted man forgetting God would be as unthinkable as the Jews forgetting Jerusalem during the exile.'* Finally, fidelity is not something that can be produced by following a regimen: Fidelity does not come out of a personality we have safely banked. Fidelity arises from our inter-relationship with the flow of life. It is something that comes out of a person who is mature enough to deepen his convictions in moments when they are severely challenged. Fidelity, in other words, is not something that exists because we stay the same. It is a dynamic quality that exists because we are capable of growth and constructive change,s Out of the desire for God and the pleasure of his company will flow a certain discipline. Prayer will be chosen over other things because it is important, at the core of the meaning system of the person. The search for God will seem worthy of time and energy. The person who has experienced conversion will find it hard to forget the experience; he will tend to remain conscious of the possibility of future conversions and will work to keep himself open to conversion. Any worthwhile human endeavor has its built-in asceticism. Someone once pointed out that there are three ways of viewing man: as evil, as good but with certain dangerous impulses which need caution, or as growth-oriented. Everything written above opts for the growth-oriented view of man, who relates to a God of abundance and nearness, and a prayer life which feels good and is guilt free and peace-filled.6 2Thomas Merton, "Prayer, Tradition, and Experience," Sisters Today, February 1971, p. 28"/; see also the same author's "The Life That Unifies," Sisters Today, October 19"/0, p. '71. 3Thomas Merton, "Prayer, Personalism, and the Spirit," Sisters Today, November 1970, pp. 133-4. 4 Psalm 13"/:5-7. 5Eugene Kennedy, In the Spirit, in the Flesh (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), p. 85. 6George A. Lane, S.J., Christian Spirituality (Chicago: Argus, 1968), p. 92. 918 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 Spirituality in Crisis For some time, even years, there has been talk of a prayer crisis; and certainly the universal and continuing concern with prayer among religious would point to the existence of many problems in this area. However, there is another way to see the situation. All types of prayer are problematic these days, personal private prayer, group prayer, formal liturgical prayer. It is possible that the reason why prayer problems are so resistant to solution is that there is an underlying spirituality crisis. There have been so many fundamental changes in Church and culture that prayer has been placed in an impossible position: it is expected to help the person combat secularism, to support his faith, to keep him from becoming lost in work, to save him from mere humanism, to aid him to achieve emotional calm and survive crises, to give meaning to his life, to put him in contact with God, and so on. No wonder there is a prayer crisis. Prayer is carrying the whole burden of what should be the shared task of a viable spirituality. Prayer has come to dominate spirituality when actually prayer is only one function or aspect of a man's spiritual life. Perhaps the best solution to prayer problems is to forget them for a time and turn to the task of finding paths to God which cut through and join together all the reaches of the world of the praying person. Space does not permit a description of forces which have caused a breakdown in spirituality, a discussion of schools of spirituality, or even a definitive definition of the word. As a working definition, spirituality can be thought of as a particular style of approach to union with God,7 an approach which encompasses elements like prayer, penance, activity, and so forth. Personal spiritualities will differ in accord with personality, level and type of intelligence, perception of reality, life experiences, and other individualizing factors. Yet much of a man's approach to God is shaped in common with other men out of the culture in which he lives. Today man's life is the product of a period of cultural erosion of faith and spirituality, and he confronts a world deprived of a generally accepted integrating principle. Many people have come to accept as normal a schizoid world of oppositions:8 individual-community, freedom-law, service-prayer, human-divine, and so on. The need is to seek a more unified approach to God, one in which the whole life of man, rather than mainly his prayer, becomes the point of interaction between man and God. This task belongs to the whole Church, to dialogue, and to time. Below are listed some rather obvious and not at all original areas where the discussion could begin. The reader will want to add others. Sacramentality "To be, so to speak, submerged by the 'divine milieu' of the whole universe., is the fundamental gift for which man can only pray: Lord, that I may see.''8 Seeing the world as a sacrament is a very Christian thing to do, for the Incarnation has transfigured all nature starting with the unique sacredness of the Son of God. A sacramental spirituality is probably the only answer to a world of increasing secularity since the sacramental order of things does not set itself in opposition to the secular order. Man needs, therefore, to come to experience the secular world as 7james Carroll, Prayer from Where We Are (Dayton: Pflaum, 1970), p. 16. 8Thomas Sartory, "Changes in Christian Spirituality," in Life in the Spirit ed. Hans Kiing (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), p. 82. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 919 a sacred sign. How can this happen? How can man's awareness of and receptivity to signs be increased? In addition to answering these questions, the search for a viable spirituality needs to speak to the problem of evil, suffering, death, frustration, anxiety, and the other negative elements of life in order that these, too, may be sacred contact points. Work Jobs in American society today are regarded as mainly functional: they supply the money to take care of the person's needs. Few people claim to have any great feeling of reverence for or dedication to the goals of their employers. In addition there is an enormous distrust of the society's institutions, a distrust which increases even as more and more people are employed by them. Religious up to the present time have stood in sharp contrast to this picture. However, in the face of open placement, vacations, increased freetime, higher salaries, doubt about institutional apostolates, and so on, there is a need to reaffirm a spirituality of work. Work is not just a means to purchase leisure. The work of a religious is dedicated work. It must be seen as and really be redemptive and fiealing. Religious can bring a permanence of dedication to their work. They are capable of being neutral persons, free of the need to seek power and to manipulate others, a freedom facilitated by the vows. If work is perceived as redemptive, it will no longer divide the spiritual life of the person; it will nourish it. A Renewed Asceticism "To continue to make ourselves present to others requires a possession of ourselves and a sensitivity to our own complexity that all too few people develop.''9 "Growth in maturity requires death to selfishness, irresponsibility, undisciplined instinct so that we may rise to a new life of mature, generous, and trusting freedom.''~° Man today is helped to have deep insights into himself through the advances and availability of education and psycholog)). These resources should make it increasingly possible to choose a way to God which fits the particular personality structure of each individual. But living spiritually requires a tremendous amount of self-discipline which is perhaps not obvious to those who set out to "do their own thing." A person has only a certain amount of time and psychic energy. If these are used on self-defeating or self-destroying activities, there is no possibility of praying well or serving well. Living spiritually means, for example, declaring all out war on the moods and depressions which Americans love to indulge in; it means forsaking jealousy and infighting and competition for status; it means facing old age gracefully; it means ceasing any form of manipulation of others; it means really forgiving other community members for things that happened at their hands in the past; it means facing reality about ourselves. If a person is to be a sign of Christ, he must first be a fairly attractive human person. Christian spirituality should help the person to be in tune with himself and to accept himself and to direct his self. "Prayer, then, takes place by a man's believing acceptance of himself, by laying hold in a discriminating and yet reconciling way, of all the levels of his life, including feelings, sexuality, and the body, to hear the music, not of his own making, which is sounded at the root of his being." i ~ 9Kennedy, In the Spirit, p. 42. 10Andrew Greeley, "The New Agenda," Critic, May-June 1972, pp. 4 I-2. Gregory Baum, Man Becoming (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), p. 83. 920 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 A Communitarian Spirituality Spirituality flows from community. The Biblical concept of salvation is of a saved people and of individuals who work out their holiness within the salvation community. The sociology of knowledge reveals the disturbing truth that man never knows God definitively but only God as he is perceived and defined by men today. Peter Berger says that under the immense array of human projections there are indicators of a reality that is truly other, and that it is important to turn to all religious traditions, past and present, to recapture their "moments of truth," the sacred contact points of each age, their signals of transcendence.12 A spirituality which moves away from absolute and changeless conceptualizations must become grounded in a deep trust in the presence of the Spirit in the living community. Theqe must also be a corresponding willingness to expose oneself to the community for the guidance which saves a spirituality from becoming magical or singular or presumptive, and a willingness to share one's spiritual riches with the community. A communitarian spirituality will be especially needed as the pressing moral issues of the next decade arise, issues for which there are no adequate precedents or philosophical principles and about which Christians cannot afford to remain neutral or undecided. Finally, the spirituality of today must be concerned with creating a society in which the next generation will find it just a little easier to seek God. It is, in fact, within the energy-sapping fight to build a better world for mankind that some of the most profound contacts between God and men take place. Conclusion What has been said about prayer and spirituality is incomplete and ignores most aspects of both topics. Prayer is basically a joyful, simple openness to God, no matter what else it is made out to be; but prayer is in turn dependent on the whole of the spiritual life style of a person. "I have one longing only: to grasp what is hidden behind appearances, to ferret out that mystery which brings me to birth and then kills me, to discover if behind the visible and unceasing stream of the world an invisible and immutable presence is hiding." ~ a 12peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 59, 99-112. 13N. Kazantzakis, Saviors of God (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), p. 51. JOHN WILCKEN, S.J. Religious Life in the Church I John Wilcken is a professor of theology and lives at 175 Royal Pole; Parkville, Victoria 3052 ; Australia. ] it is probably true to say that religious life has always been a problem in the Church. I do not find this fact either surprising or alarming. I think religious life is of very great importance in the Church -- I am thinking here primarily of the Catholic Church - and it has a tremendously important part to play in the Church's life. Briefly, religious must keep the Church faithful to the radical demands of the gospel. But inevitably religious will sometimes - perhaps often - be unequal to this task, and then their lukewarmness and infidelity will be a source of serious harm in the Church. For both these reasons, that is, the importance of their task and the inevitability that they will at times be unequal to this task, religious are always likely to be a problem in the Church. Where religious are in earnest, they are a problem because they are challenging "vested interests"; where they are lax, they are a trial to those who have the welfare of the Church at heart. Whatever they do, religious must resign themselves to being a problem. This problem was well to the fore in the debates and behind-the-scenes struggles of Vatican I1. The struggle crystallized in what might seem to be a relatively unimportant procedural question, namely whether there should be in the Constitu-tion on the Church a separate chapter on religious) The European group of bishops and theologians who had the leadership at the Council - men like Karl Rahner and Cardinal Doepfner - wanted religious life to be dealt with in the general chapter on the holiness of the Church. Thus they hoped to avoid perpetuating the impression that there are two standards of holiness in the Catholic Church, namely the following of the evangelical counsels in religious life for those who aim at perfection, and the following of the commandments in secular life for those who simply aim at salvation. But the bishops who had been religious and the major superiors of religious orders felt that this would be an undervaluing of the importance of religious life and pressed for a separate chapter on religious. On paper the religious superiors won - there is a separate chapter on religious - but one might consider that the result was really a compromise, since Chapters 5 and 6 of the Constitution on the Church are really one long chapter with an artificial division in the middle. It has been constantly pointed out that the theology of religious has not yet been satisfactorily worked out and that Vatican 11 has certainly not said the last word in this matter. The main treatment of the subject is in paragraph 44 of the Constitution on the Church, a paragraph which is somewhat confused in its Isee the discussion of this in R. M. Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (New York: Hawthorn, 1967), pp. IO3-9. 922 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 structure. It makes a number of different statements not very clearly connected with each other and remains finally somewhat unsatisfactory. One might take from it two propositions which are helpful. The first is this: Furthermore, it [i.e., religious life] not only witnesses to the fact of a new and eternal life acquired by the redemption of Christ. It foretells the resurrected state and the glory of the heavenly kingdom. Religious life is here presented as a form of kerygma: it is a sign of God's kingdom. The second proposition is: Thus, although the religious state constituted by the profession of the counsels does not belong to the hierarchical structure of the Church, nevertheless it belongs inseparably to her life and holiness. The close connection between religious life and the Church is here emphasized; and it is pointed out that the connection is not with the institutional structures of the Church, but with "her life and holiness." There is another quite illuminating reference to religious life earlier in the Constitution on the Church, namely in paragraph 31 where the Council is distinguishing the special contribution of lay people in the world from that of clergy and religious. Here we are told that "by their state in life, religious give splendid and striking testimony that the world cannot be transfigured and offered to God without the spirit of the beatitudes." Once again religious life is presented as a form of kerygma: it is a sign indicating how the world is to be transformed and offered to God. There is also a helpful reference in paragraph 18 of the decree on the Church's missionary activity. It reads: Right from the planting stage of the Church, the religious life should be carefully fostered. This not only confers precious and absolutely necessary assistance on missionary activity. By a more inward consecration made to God in the Church, it also luminously manifests and signifies the inner nature of the Christian calling. This reference I find particularly significant. Once more religious life is seen as kerygma, but the vital importance of this sign is brought out. One gets the impression that the true nature of the Church cannot be manifested to people in mission lands unless religious life is there to reveal her inner life. Once more religious life is seen as belonging inseparably to the Church's life and holiness. Moreover, there is here a mention of diakonia: "precious and absolutely necessary assistance" is conferred on missionary activity. Vatican II has helpful things to say about religious life, but scarcely provides an adequate theology. The close connection between religious life and the nature of the Church is mentioned, but this ecclesiological view is not sufficiently developed. The Council in general tends to adopt a kerygmatic approach to theology and in speaking of religious life stresses the kerygmatic aspect. The aspects of koinonia and diakonia do not get adequate treatment. The term "religious life" is a rather odd-sounding one, and it has recently come trader considerable attack, for example in the book Experiences in Community by Gabriel Moran and Maria Harris.2 The word "religious," meaning someone belong-ing to a community of sisters, brothers, or priests, is simply a translation of the Latin religiosus or religiosa, and perhaps the word is more bearable in Latin. Canon 487 of the Code of Canon Law, which came into force in 1918, gives this description: 2(New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), pp. 54-7. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 923 "Fbe religious state is a stable manner of living in community, by which the faithful undertake, besides obedience to the commandments which bind everyone, also the ob~rvance of the evangelical counsels, by vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty. This description comes from a body of law. It portrays a state of affairs that had already existed for many centuries and codifies legally a life structure which had first been worked out in practice. Moreover this description - which is over 50 years old - reflects a theology that is now out-of-date. The clearcut distinction between those who merely seek to obey the commandments and those who undertake the practice of the counsels was rejected by Vatican II which saw the whole people of God as called to perfection {Lumen gentium, no. 40) and recognized that the practice of the evangelical counsels is not restricted to those in religious life (Lumen gentium, no. 39). Briefly, the Code of Canon Law describes a way of Christian life which had in fact existed in the Church for many centuries and describes it in accordance with theological ideas which have now been superseded. The aim of this article is to reflect theologically on this phenomenon known as religious life which exists in the world at the present time and has existed in the Church in varying forms for many centuries. The approach is theological, rather than sociological, although 1 think my conclusions would to a considerable extent be in harmony with the views of such sociologists as Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch.3 So the starting point for reflection is religious life as it actually does exist and as it has actually existed for so long. It seems to me that what makes religious life important is that in this state of life the gospel message has been lived out in a radical and thorough-going way, thus giving leadership and inspiration to the rest of the Church. This radical interpretation of the gospel need not, of course, be limited to those in religious life. But it has happened, as a matter of history, that in the Catholic Church this thorough-going acceptance of the gospel demands has been a feature of religious life in particular. Those wishing to respond in a special way to the call of Christ have, very frequently, found themselves drawn to religious life, and have seen this kind of life as giving them scope for the following of Christ's call. Now there are, of course, Churches today which do not encourage religious life, and presumably the radicalism of the Gospel message is preserved in them in some other way. I am speaking of those Churches in which religious life is in fact encouraged, notably the Catholic Church. The matter might be expressed in another way. There are certain very important values in the New Testament which have, in fact, been preserved in the Catholic Church largely by means of religious life. Whether they will continue to be preserved in this way may seem uncertain to many people. Clearly the styles of religious life are changing rapidly; and a new form of dedicated Christian life that of the secular institute - has appeared. What seems quite certain is that the fundamental values of the gospel must be, and will be, preserved somehow. Leadership must be given by those who are willing to follow Christ so whole-heartedly that the pattern of their lives will be radically changed. In this way the complete dedication of the whole Church to Christ will be both signified and strengthened. Moreover, the unity of the human race which Christ brought about by His death and resurrection will be exemplified in a community life that triumphs 3See, for example, J. Milton Yinger, "The Sociology of Ernest Troeltsch," in An Introduc-tion to the History of Sociology ed. H. E. Barnes (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948), pp. 311-2. 924 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 over differences of background, character, and natural interests. And the service of mankind which Christ the suffering servant came to render will be continued. That is, leadership will be given in the kerygma, the koinonia, and the diakonia of the Church. To put it another way, the faith, the charity, and the hope of the Church will be strikingly manifested. First, let us consider the role of religious in the kerygma, or proclamation of faith, of the Church. There is, I think, a fairly general consensus among New Testament scholars that the center of Jesus' preaching was His proclamation of the kingdom (or reign) of God. He declared that the definitive intervention of God in history, to wttich the Jews had looked forward so eagerly (see Daniel 7), was near at hand and, indeed, already beginning. God was acting decisively in the world through the preaching and work of Jesus Himself, and men were called to accept this preaching in faith. But the acceptance of this preaching was no small matter because Jesus made radical demands on people, involving a marked change in their way of life. The demands of the Sermon on the Mount were drastic enough, but particular people also received individual calls - Peter, Andrew, James, and John had to leave all to follow Jesus; the rich young man was asked to sell all his goods and give the money to the poor. The followers of Jesus were promised hardship and persecution. Loyalty to Christ had to come before the closest family ties. The Apostle Paul, who is perhaps the New Testament figure about whom we know most, found that his meeting with the risen Christ changed his life out of all recognition. He regarded all his earlier religious privileges as worthless. He led an apostolic life which involved constant labor, hardship, and persecution; and he seems to have regarded his sufferings as precisely the visible guarantee of the genuineness of his apostleship (see 2 Cor 11). He remained unmarried to devote himself fully to the Lord (1 Cor 7). In the apostolic period and during the early centuries of the Church, martyrdom was often looked upon with longing as the crown of the Christian's life. Paul wanted "to be gone and be with Christ" (Phil 1:23). Ignatius of Antioch implored the Roman Christians not to intercede for him with the civil authorities lest his martyrdom be prevented. Cyprian's letters reflect the persecuted Church's extra-ordinary esteem for the glory of martyrdom. Thus the early Church had this consciousness that Christ's preaching called for a radical response - a response that could even be so total as the sacrifice of life itself. This spirit of total self-giving was seen as essential to the Church's life. But the Church was not always persecuted. The possibilities of martyrdom grew less - especially after Constantine had guaranteed to the Christians freedom of worship, and even more so by the end of the 4th century when Christianity had become the sole accepted religion. But the spirit of total self-giving still had to be preserved in the Church. Leadership had to be given by those who undertook the radical living out of the gospel message. The Church's willingness to renounce everything for the sake of Christ still had to be signified and exemplified. St. Anthony, in the middle of the third century, set the example of the renunciation of earthly goods for the sake of Christ. Hearing the gospel of the rich young man one day at Mass, he felt that the words were addressed directly to himself, and he carried out literally the command of Christ. He lived a solitary life in the desert as a hermit. By the beginning of the 4th century, organized religious life had begun with the monastery of St. Pachomius. Thus when the age of persecution was passing and the possibility of martyrdom becoming less, a new way was being discovered of making a total response to the gospel message, namely the living of the monastic or Review for Religious, Volume 3 I, 1972/6 925 eremitical life. This kind of life must be seen entirely in the context of the Church. With the acceptance of Christianity by civil society, there was the danger of too much accommodation to comfortable living. The Church's way of safeguarding itself from this danger was to demonstrate in a striking way that the following of Christ makes total demands on the person. This was signified and exemplified by the monks and hermits. The monastic and eremitical life might be looked on as a social manifestation of the Church's faith in Christ. And there is an added reason why one should see religious life as belonging to the Church as a whole. Recruitment to religious life must come continually from the ranks of the whole Church. A sect can propagate itself, since children born into the families of the sect will presumably follow the beliefs of their parents. On the other hand, monasteries of celibate monks and nuns must draw their recruits continually from the Church as a whole. Thus religious life is a function of the whole Church, manifesting the Church's faith and proclaiming the radical demands made on mankind by the Gospel.* Next 1 want to consider the role of religious in connection with the Church's koinonia. Vatican II speaks of the Church as the sacrament of union and unity: By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of ~crament or sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind. She is also an instrument for the achievement of such union and unity (Lumen gentium no. 1 ). There are two aspects of the Church's sacramentality mentioned here: the Church is the sacrament firstly of union with God and secondly of the unity of mankind. The Church must first of all remain utterly obedient to God and closely united with Christ. The vine and branches image brings out admirably the necessity of union with Christ: "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). This union with Christ, which is based on faith and love, must be nourished by prayer: the Church must be a praying community. And 1 want to discuss now the union (or koinonia) with God through prayer. The Gospels speak surprisingly often of the prayer of Jesus Himself. Even Mark's account of the early public ministry of Jesus, with the impression it creates of intense activity and of the crowds continually pressing on Jesus(see Mk 1:45; 3:9; 3:20; 4:1), includes several references to His prayer. After the evening of cures at Capernaum, Jesus went off to a lonely place early in the morning and prayed there (Mk 1:35). Again, after the first miracle of the loaves, Jesus sent the crowds away and went off into the hills to pray (Mk 6:46). Matthew and Luke give an account of Jesus' instructions on prayer and record their versions of the Our Father (Mt 6:7-15; 7:7-11 and parallels in Luke). Luke in Acts describes the early Church as a praying community. For example, there is that verse at the end of Chapter 2 which is almost a definition of the Church: "These remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brother-hood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers" (v. 42). After Peter and John had been released by the Sanhedrin, Luke describes the prayer of the community (Acts 4:23-31). Paul, in Chapter 12 of Second Corinthians speaks of his mystical experiences when he was caught up into the third heaven (2 Cor 12:1-6). He frequently speaks of his prayer of thanksgiving at the beginning of his epistles (e.g., 4On religious life as sign, see Karl Rahner, "The Theology of the Religious Life" in Religious Orders in the Modert~ World by Gerard Huyghe and others (London: Chapman, 1965), pp. 41-75. 926 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 Rom 1:8; 1 Cor 1:4); and he tells the Thessalonians to "pray constantly" (I Thes 5:17). The Church must be a praying community. It must be in union, that is, in koinonia, with the Father and the Son. The Church must be the sacrament of this koinonia, that is, its sign and instrument. But prayer, as we all know, is difficult, and leadership must be given in this matter. In Chapter 7 of First Corinthians Paul at least hints at where this leadership might come from. "An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord's affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord" (v. 32), he writes, and a little later he adds, "In the same way an unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord's affairs; all she need worry about is being holy in body and spirit" (v. 34). The one freed from earthly cares can devote himself or herself more fully to those of heaven. Then again, the author of First Timothy writes of widows as people who can give themselves fully to prayer: "But a woman who is really widowed and left without anybody can give herself up to God and consecrate all her days and nights to petitions and prayer" (1 Tim 5:5). In fact profound prayer has always been seen as one of the absolute essentials of religious life - and this is true also of the orders founded specifically for external apostolic works. For example, a characteristic phrase to describe the Jesuit is, "contemplative in action," and this phrase indicates that the Jesuit, for all his outside activity, is meant to be a man dedicated to prayer. And of course the great contemplative orders of the Church, Cistercians, Carthusians, and so on, have been centers of prayer and sources of teaching on prayer for the whole Church. Thus one of the vitally important roles of religious life has been to give leadership in prayer, or koinonia with the Father and the Son. The second aspect of the Church's sacramentality mentioned by Vatican II is to be a sign and instrument of the unity of mankind. This function of unifying mankind through the grace of God is very solidly founded in the New Testament. When Jesus was asked, "And who is my neighbour?" He replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10), thus indicating that there is no place in Christian love for any kind of bigotry or prejudice. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus speaks of community charity as the sign of Christian discipleship: "By this love that you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples" (Jn 13:35). Presumably, this love must triumph over natural causes of division, such as differences of temperament, interest, background and so forth. Paul brings out explicitly the fact that Christ has rendered unimportant the natural distinctions between people: "All baptized in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:27-8). Thus Christ came to bring mankind to the unity of charity in spite of the natural causes of division in the world. Vatican II sees the Church as the sign and cause of this unity. I would like to give two illustrations from the New Testament of how this koinonia function of the Church was lived out in practice. One is Paul's collection of money for the poor of the Jerusalem Church. As is well known, this was not simply an act of charity on the part of the Gentile Christian Churches. It was a "peace offering" to the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem, Paul's effort to heal the deep division between the Jewish and Gentile wings of the primitive Church. If the saints of Jerusalem accepted this money offering, Paul hoped that this would represent their full acceptance of the Gentile Christians as brothers in Christ. Differences of culture and tradition could not be allowed to divide the Christian Church. This was a striking and wonderful example of Christian koinonia, and Paul Review for Refigious, Volume 31, 1972/6 927 labored untiringly for its success. The other example of early Christian koinonia is the description in Acts of the primitive Jerusalem community. Luke describes the early Christians as living together, sharing their goods, owning everything in common, and being united heart and soul. Certainly this is an idealized picture. Even the account in Acts gives hints of the divisions that were there from the beginning. There is the Ananias and Sapphira episode, and, more significantly, the dispute between Hellenists and Hebrews in Chapter 6. One might have expected that the Greek-speaking Jews, who had had experience of living outside Palestine in the broader context of the Hellenistic world, would have found it hard to get on with their fellow-countrymen of Palestine, who knew nothing but Jewish culture and tradition. The division seems to have been so sharp that it resulted in the setting up of a separate organization for the Greek-speaking Jews, namely, the appointment of the Seven. Nevertheless, in spite of the very real natural divisions that were there from the beginning, Luke sees this earliest period of the Church's history as exemplifying in a remarkable way the unity and charity that Christ came to bring. Even the division caused by private property seems to disappear, and there is the sharing of possessions and the common ownership of property. There is a joy and fellowship in this group of believers that is seen as a direct result of Christ's resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The implication seems to be that Christ has destroyed division in the world and brought unity to the human race. Even the account of Pentecost at the beginning of Acts,Chapter 2 confirms this: the coming of the Holy Spirit has destroyed the language barrier. And this fact of the restoration of the unity of mankind does not remain hidden. The phenomenon of tongues at Pentecost was apparent to all and remarked on publicly (Acts 2:7-1 I). Luke tells us a little later that the community of believers was "looked up to by everyone" (Acts 2:47). The infant Church is the sign and the beginning of united mankind. The radical manifestation of this in Luke's account is the sharing of goods and the common ownership of property. What actually happened in this matter of property in the early Church is not clear. Certainly Luke looks upon common ownership as an ideal for the Church, as something that occurred back in the Golden Age, in the Church's first fervor. Presumably, there was some basis in fact for the traditions that came down to Luke. But the practice of common ownership did not last long in the Church at large. The exercise of charity in the matter of material goods certainly did last, and the Christians continued to show strikingly their love and concern for one another: "See how they love one another, and how ready they are to die for each other" (Tertullian). But it is easy for fervor in these matters to grow less: the pull of material possessions is strong, and the causes of division in mankind are both manifold and powerful. Yet the Church must continue to be the sign and cause of unity in the human race. Christ came to make mankind a community of love, and the Church must strive constantly towards this goal. Those who want to give wholehearted obedience to Christ's call to unity and koinonia have felt themselves drawn to community life within the Church. There, property is no longer a division, and the choice of one's fellows is entirely in God's hands: one does not choose one's companions in religious life, but must accept in love the brothers or sisters whom God sends. The love of Christ and the common vocation must triumph over natural differences and antipathies. In this way the koinonia of the Church is lived out in a radical way, and an example of community life is given which may be an inspiration to others. 928 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 This is the task of religious. Of course, they often find themselves unequal to the task. There can be bitterness and division in religious communities, just as there can be anywhere else in the world. But the structure of religious life is one which, of itself, calls for a radical living out of Christian koinonia, of Christian charity: one accepts in love the companions whom God sends, regardless of natural antipathies. Christ's love must triumph over natural inclinations. One other point could be mentioned in this connection. Religious are often spoken of as an eschatological sign. For myself, I do not find the relationship of religious to eschatology particularly enlightening - unless one is simply referring to the fact that the Church is essentially an eschatological community and that religious life "belongs inseparably to her life and holiness" (Lumen gentium, no. 44). But it is significant that both the examples of koinonia in the New Testament which I mentioned do seem to have an eschatological dimension: Paul does seem to have seen his collection for the saints of Jerusalem as being in some sense an eschatological event, and the primitive communism of the early Christians was no doubt largely due to their expectation of an early Parousia.5 However, I do not want to stress too much this aspect. Suffice it to say that religious life is essentially eschatological precisely because the Church is essentially an eschatological com-munity. The word diakonia is heard a great deal in theological discussion these days, and the Church is being thought of more and more as the "Servant Church." This function of diakonia is connected with recent writing on the theology of hope and "political theology.''6 The servant Church, the Church concerned with the renovation of the present social order in the light of its hope for the future, necessarily enters into the public life of mankind. The Church can never remain a purely private organization, just as Jesus of Nazareth could not remain simply a private person. The preaching of Jesus - His denunciation of legalism and hypo-crisy, His stress on rightness of heart before God and genuine love of neighbor,His proclamation of the kingdom of God and call to repentance - this preaching soon brought Him into conflict with the upholders of the established order. And His own manner of life - His going out to the sick and the distressed, His forgiveness of sinners and table-fellowship with tax-collectors, His acceptance of the outcasts of society - this manner of life was a disturbance of the normal social order. Yet His great popularity, the crowds that came to hear and be helped by Him, showed that He was a force in the land to be reckoned with. The gospelHe preached, the human values He stood for, made Him into a "radical" in the best sense of the word: one who got to the roots of the problem. He manifested in His own life of service God's universal love for mankind, especially for the sick and suffering. His life and preaching were a dynamic force which was in fact to transform human society - and it was to do this by being continued in the life and preaching of the Church. It is not easy for the Church to preserve this true Christian radicalism. Again, leadership must be given - and in fact it has always been given, for example by many outstanding bishops of the patristic period. But this leadership in social radicalism came to be taken over, to a considerable extent, by religious orders. For example, the Benedictine monasteries gave stability and order to a world falling 5See the discussion of Paul's enterprise in K. F. Nickle, The Collection: A Study in Paul's Strategy (Naperville, Illinois: Allenson, 1966), pp. 129-42. 6See J. Metz, The Theology of the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), especially Chapter 5, "The Church and the World in the Light of a 'Political Theology.' " Review for Refigious, Volume 31, 1972/6 929 into chaos after the decline of Rome. The Franciscans brought the spirit of the gospel and of poverty to a medieval Church weakened by wealth and power. The many teaching and nursing orders founded since the Reformation were established precisely to care for children and sick people who were being neglected. Mother Teresa's Missionary Sisters of Charity were founded to meet the problem of utter destitution in our contemporary world. Meeting the real needs of people who cannot help themselves requires dedication and self-sacrifice; yet it is a vital task for the Church. This task has often been carried out by religious orders. In fact, this is how religious orders came to be founded. A great need is recognized, a gifted founder or foundress gathers together a group of dedicated people, and thus a new religious order arises - this is the general pattern for the foundation of religious orders. And this pattern implies the giving of leadership in the Church's task of reforming and renewing society. It is a manifestation of the Church's hope - hope in the possibilities of this world's social institutions, and confidence that God is in fact working to transform our world. 1 am not saying, of course, that religious orders are the only groups of people that give leadership in this matter of renovating society. Nor would I claim that all religious orders today are clear on their social task - this is far from the case. But I do wish to claim that the essential thrust of a religious order - seen especially at its foundation - involves leadership in the renovation of society. And this, I think, is true even of contemplative orders. They too, in their own way, deeply influence social life. The heart of the Church's life can, I think, be summed up in those three words: kerygma, koinonia, diakonia. Vatican 11 states that religious life belongs inseparably to the Church's life and holiness (Lumen gentium, no. 44). 1 have been trying to expand this statement by showing that the task of religious orders is to give leadership in the Church's kerygma, koinonia, and diakonia. To put it another way: the Church proclaims radical renunciation for the sake of the kingdom, a union with Christ resulting in a living together of human beings in charity despite human divisions, and a service to the world that transforms society. Religious orders were founded precisely in order to give leadership in the putting of this program into practice. Whether an order should survive or not depends, 1 suppose, on whether or not it is still giving this leadership. I would like to make a couple of further comments before going on to a brief discussion of the future of religious life. What I have said about religious may possibly give the impression that it is all a rather emotional affair, and very grim and serious. This is, of course, simply not true of religious life as it is actually lived. Like all Christian living, religious life must be characterized by sober wisdom and a spirit of Christian joy. The New Testament does not have a great deal to say about wisdom - except to say that Christ is our wisdom (Jn !:1-14; 1 Cor 1:30) -and we have to go back to the wonderful sapiential books of the Old Testament. Monastic spiritual writing through the centuries has in fact been filled with healthy, down-to-earth commonsense, and this surely is one of the things that has made possible the survival of religious life. One might mention also the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, written with such prayer and labor by St. Ignatius Loyola. These have been so influential over the last few centuries precisely because they are so realistic, practical, and wise. Then, in the matter of Christian joy, religious life has been able to survive also because of the spirit of deep happiness that has been preserved there. Trials and problems abound, as they do everywhere in this world, but those who really have a divine call to religious life find in it a joy that they have 930 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 never known elsewhere. One might cite St. Teresa of Avila in this connection. In spite of the incredible trials and hardships of her life, she remained a very merry soul, a source of joy and happiness for the communities in which she lived. Finally, something should be said about the future of religious life. There are certainly the prophets of doom. For some people, the age of religious life in the Church is simply over. I do not myself share this view. No doubt there are more stormy days ahead for religious orders in the Church; and they will, of course, continue to change - this is essential if they are to survive. Those that refuse to change, or to change soon enough, will be in a dangerous situation. But it seems to me that religious life in its essentials corresponds so fully to the Gospel message that it will last as long as the Church lasts. No doubt the Christian values preserved and encouraged in religious life could be preserved in other ways; but, given the Church's actual traditions, I cannot see this particular way of preserving them dropping out altogether. Keeping in mind the analysis given in the body of this paper, I would like to outline what seem to me to be the essential elements of religious life which must be preserved in the various changes that are taking place. The first is the celibate life. Jesus called for the willingness to make radical renunciations for the sake of the kingdom even to the extent of changing the whole pattern of one's life. Paul saw the celibate state as extremely helpful for the full dedication of oneself to God (I Cor 7). In fact, throughout the centuries of Christian history people have felt themselves called to make this radical renuncia-tion for the sake of the kingdom. I do not anticipate that this vocation will cease in the Church. Although the eremitical life had its vogue in the early centuries, the Church has found by experience that life in community is more helpful. Not only is there mutual support, but a demonstration is given of the power of Christian love which can transcend the natural barriers between people. But the existence of community immediately raises also the problem of authority. These communities will have to demonstrate to the world that the kind of authority described in the Gospels (e.g., "anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant" - Mk 10:43) can be lived out in practice. Those called to celibate community life will need to be sustained by a deep spirit of prayer, and their communities will need to be centers of prayer for the whole Church. Prayer is difficult, but essential. The whole Church needs inspiration and instruction from these communities. Property is one of the sources of division among people. Wealth, against which we are so constantly warned in the Gospels, seems constantly to bring with it pride, lack of concern, selfishness, harshness. These communities will need to guard against these dangers by the sharing of possessions and moderate living. Finally, there must be essentially an outward look. These are communities of the Church, peopled by vocations from the Church at large. Religious must give leadership in the humble service of mankind, especially where the needs are greatest. To sum up the picture: celibate life, in community, under an authority of service, prayerful, moderate in style of living, not divided by property barriers, existing for the service, of mankind. In this picture I am merely trying to describe the evangelical essentials. Many other elements will have to come in - such as wider; even world-wide, organization. But if we try to keep our eyes fixed on the essentials, which are firmly based in the New Testament, we are in a better position to see that the changes which do take place are in the right direction. JOIIN CARROLL FUTRELL, S.J. Living Consecrated Celibacy Today [John Carroll FutreU, S.J., is the Director of the Spirituality Program of the Divinity School of St. Louis University; 220 North Spring Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri 63108; an Indonesian translation of this article has appeared in the October 1972 issue ofRohan£ I The meaning and value of consecrated celibacy as a Christian way of life has been severely challenged during the last few years, not only by Freudian or secularized mentalities, but also even by priests and religious who at one time made the permanent commitment to a life of consecrated celibacy. It has been argued that a life of consecrated celibacy is unnatural and inhuman, and that, consequently, no celibate can attain true personal fulfillment and human maturity. The life of celibacy has been attacked as an at least implicit belittling of marriage as a Christian way of life, as contempt for a less perfect vocation for those who are incapable of living the "perfect" life of virginity. The law of the Latin rite which requires celibacy of its priests has been attacked as an unjustifiable act of tyranny denying the basic human right of human fulfilhnent through sexual union to men who wish to be ordained. Undoubtedly, these arguments have had influence upon some persons who have left the priesthood or the religious life in order to marry. These theories also brought about the aberrations of the "Third Way" a few years ago, which was a naive attempt to enjoy affective fulfillment in an exclusive relationship with another individu',d of the other sex through all the bodily expressions of love short of sexu',d union. The purpose of the following reflections is not to discuss or defend the law of celibacy for priests in the Latin rite. This law has been studied and controverted in many books and articles during recent years. It is well to recall, however, that any community has the right and the duty to demand certain qualifications of those members of the community called upon to carry out specific functions within it. A "job description" always includes the qualities which the community feels the persons who are to serve it in particular capacities should possess. It is not, therefore, a violation of human rights that for historical reasons the Church decided that its priests in the Latin rite should be chosen from only those among the faithful to whom the charism of virginity has been given. Whether in the light of contemporary pastoral needs it is a wise decision to retain this law universally is another question. But the issue is one of pastoral discernment, not of violated human rights. The following reflections are concerned, rather, with the meaning of consecrated celibacy as an authentic Christian alternative, a specific and valuable vocation within the Church both for individual persons and for those called to celibate communities. After recalling the basic motivation for celibacy as a Christian way of life, some practical considerations will be offered on the particular challenges in the contemporary world to those persons who feel called to live their lives as 932 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 consecrated celibates. First of all, it should be recalled that celibacy is a charism - a special divine gifting of the Holy Spirit to individual persons for the service of the whole People of God and of all mankind. Christ said that only those can make themselves "eunuchs" for the sake of the kingdom of heaven "to whom it is granted" (Mt 19:10-2). In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul, in his instructions on marriage and virginity, after remarking that he would be happy if all remained as himself celibate, adds that, nevertheless, "everybody has his own particular gifts from God, one with a gift for one thing and another with a gift for the opposite" (7:7). The Holy Spirit pours out a variety of charismatic gifts upon the members of the community of the faithful for the good of the entire body. The foot needs the hand, the hand the eye, the eye the ear (1 Cor 12:12-30). Thus, those who receive the charism of celibacy are given a gift from the Spirit which is authentic and valuable for the whole people. To discern that one has been given this charism and to choose to accept it and to live out its consequences is not a priori~ to destroy the possibility of true human fulfillment and maturity. This depends upon the way a person integrates his celibacy into his growth as a person. Human maturity and fulfillment are no more automatically achieved through sexual union in or out of marriage than they are through consecrated celibacy. There is abundant human evidence to demonstrate this fact. Human beings are totally sexual beings, and to come to human fulfillment we must assume our sexuality in our personal integration through a growing maturity of loving, finally leading us to the full expression of our deepest urge to love - totally self-giving love - which is also what gives human meaning to physical sexual union. But human sexuality is not identical with genitality. There are other authentic ways to express the deepest meaning of human sexuality, which is to enter into personal union with other persons through self-giving love. It is the experience and the expression of personal, self-giving love which is the fulfillment of human sexuality, whether this expression is through physical sexual union or through a life of consecrated celibacy. To discern that one has received the charism of celibacy and to choose to accept it is not a belittling of marriage, whatever may at times have been the mistaken attitudes of certain individuals. It is not as a matter of fact to show contempt for marriage if otte recogtttzes that cottsectated celibacy ts a Christian alternative (chosen by Jesus and by St. Paul also) and that one is called to it. Whether one Christian vocation is "better" or "more perfect" than another is at best a theoretical question, the answer to which depends upon the norms one uses to establish his hierarchy of values. For the individual person, this question is always concrete, existential, and relative: "What is better for me? What am 1 called to through the gifting of the Holy Spirit to me?" The fundamental motive to live a life of consecrated celibacy is the experience through the charismatic gift of celibacy of being called to give all one's love totally and personally to Jesus Christ and to symbolize the totality of this love by foregoing the physically sexual expression of love during one's whole life. Consecrated celibacy, then, is grounded in an all-encompassing personal relationship of love with Jesus Christ, whatever other secondary values it may involve, such as mobility and freedom for apostolic service. The functional value of celibacy cannot be the fundamental reason for living it. For one thing, in certain circumstances. good functional arguments can be given for non-celibate apostles. Furthermore, merely functional motivation will be inadequate for most ~persons to live con- Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 933 secrated celibacy authentically and deeply for a lifetime. Their celibacy must be experienced as the full exercise of their love for Jesus energizing their love for all other persons. Only a celibacy which is the human expression of deep personal love for and identification with Jesus Christ, Himself a celibate for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, can bring the consecrated celibate to true growth as a mature human person who gradually experiences progressive self-fulfillment through his personal relation-ship with Jesus and his life of witness and service to mankind. He grows to authentic personal development through the experience of being like Jesus and with Jesus a "man for others," who gives away his life in love to all other men and women through his celibacy. Consecrated celibacy, then, is a sign embodied in a human life of the true meaning of all personal love which in every case, including marriage, is realized only through self-giving to the other. Consecrated celibacy also has a unique value as a striking, visible witness to mankind of the depth of the faith and hope of the People of God in the complete fulfillment of the kingdom of God when the Lord Jesus will come again and God will be all in all in the Parousia. Those who, following a charism from the Holy Spirit "bar themselves from marrying for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19: 12), give the same testimony of their whole lives and of all their love to belief and hope in the Paschal good news of Jesus Christ which a martyr gives through his death. Through his life-time fidelity to his commitment of love, the consecrated celibate is a living sign of the Church's belief in the irrevocable promise of God, in His eternal fidelity. The celibate's renunciation of the physical expression of love is proclamation in one human life of the Church's hearing of the word of the Lord that love will never end. Consecrated celibacy is perhaps the most telling testimony of faith in Christ's promise of everlasting life, of life after death. Men can feel that the celibate is a fool, but they must confess that the faith and hope of Christians is powerful indeed, since it can inspire men and women to such a life, to such a love of Jesus who is encountered only in faith, to such a hope in God as the Absolute Future of man. The first practical challenge to the person who feels called to the life of consecrated celibacy is to discern authentically that he truly possesses this charism, a discernment which must be confirmed by the community if his vocation is to enter a religious congregation. A charism is known by its visible effects. The presence of the charism of celibacy is discerned, therefore, by evaluating the psychological, emotional, and spiritual maturity of a person for indications that he is capable of living a life of authentic celibacy. At the beginning of such a life, it is necessarily a matter of judging the foundation within the young person for growth into a full life of consecrated celibacy. One important evidence of possessing this foundation is the fact that he has no great emotional or moral problems in living a chaste life already. It is necessary also to ascertain that his motivation for chastity is based upon a true appreciation of human sexuality at the person's level of human maturity and spiritual development and not upon fearful anxieties or false notions about sexuality. Since the fundamental motive for freely choosing to respond to the charism of celibacy is personal love for Jesus Christ, it must be discerned that the person's desire for this life is rooted in his faith experience of the person of the risen Jesus. The growth and depth and permanence of this charism depends upon the growth and depth and permanence of his personal relationship with Jesus in love, which depends upon his continuing and deepening life of prayer. Thus, he must have 934 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 initiated already an ongoing practice of profound personal prayer and be convinced of the need of continuing it and growing in it throughout his lifetime. The second practical challenge to the consecrated celibate is the authentic living out of the consequences of his commitment. Each individual must possess a realistic recognition of the necessary consequences in his concrete life style of commitment to consecrated celibacy. That is to say, he must conduct himself in his interior, personal life and in his external behavior and in his relationships with other people in a way that will guarantee constant and loyal authentic living of his celibacy. The individual exigencies of such a life style are relative to the great variety of temperaments and the psychological and physiological conditions and experiences of individual persons. Therefore, it is impossible to give more than a few very obvious general prescriptions. What is required of each person is absolute honesty with himself before God in discerning his concrete actions in here and now situations, so that he does not permit himself to behave in a way that will "chip away" at his authentic celibacy, rather than in a way that will deepen it and strengthen it. To guarantee this honesty in such a delicate area of life, true openness with a competent spiritual director is of great importance. Particularly, the celibate must be sensitive to "non-verbal" communication - the risk of sending messages to other persons which go counter to a relationship of truly celibate love, even when the verbal conversation is quite in accord with it. A truly honest person who prayerfully reflects upon the authenticity of his living of celibacy develops this sensitivity and will be aware when a relationship is beginning to be dangerous to his own celibacy or detrimental to another person. Most celibates will at times experience "falling in love" with someone. Perhaps even more often, at least after several years of authentically living celibacy, they will experience others falling in love with them, when this is not reciprocal. Here, the celibate's temptation may well be to a subtle form of seduction or manipulation of the other person because of the flattery he enjoys. Any of these situations must be confronted with the means honestly discerned as those demanded in order to maintain true celibacy and true charity. These means might range all the way from non-verbal communication, through discussing the situation with the other person, to the necessity for completely breaking off the relationship. Once more, true prayerful discernment and the help of a spiritual director are necessary to discover what actions are called for in each concrete situation. The consecrated celibate must accept the fact that in freely choosing to respond to this charism he is deciding to live the rest of his life in tension with "the couple that might have been," just as any person who makes a life commitment to a specific personal identity must live in tension with what he might have chosen to become. The "couple that might have been" may be one face or a succession of faces. At certain moments of life, this tension will be felt as a heavy burden, a true cross, especially when one wants to share a great joy or a great grief with another person in the way of sharing that can only develop within the uniquely intimate relationship of marriage. It is perhaps in moments such as these that the celibate is aware of making the least falsified act of love of God that he will make until his ultimate act of love on his owrt death bed. A third practical challenge to the consecrated celibate is to achieve true, human, affective fulfillment within his life of celibacy. Human, affective fulfillment is developed only through the self-transcending experience of love with other persons. Thus, the celibate must have truly complementary relationships of love with other human persons - celibates and non-celibates, men and women. The "incomplete- Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 935 ness" that seeks completion through self-giving love relationships with other persons is at the root of human sexuality, and the integration of sexuality into consecrated celibacy requires such complementary relationships. What is renounced by choosing to respond to the charism of celibacy is the relationship of exchtsive complementarity with one other human person, as happens in marriage. The celibate must experience the relationship of exclusive complementarity in his personal love relationship with Jesus Christ encountered in faith. This means that the celibate must have a deep pr

Issue 8.6 of the Review for Religious, 1949. ; ¯ A.M. D~G. Reviewfor Relig°ions NOVEMBER 15, 1949 Roman Con.grecjations :. ¯ ¯ ¯ . JosephCreusen How Often Must We Pray? . Gerald Kelly Acjes of the Interior Life .". G. Augustine Ellard "We Are His Members!" . M. Raymond Questions Answered Books' Reviewed Annual Index :h VOLUME VIII NUMBEk 6 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS VOLUME VIII NOVEMBER, 1949 NUMBER 6 CONTENTS THE ROMAN CONGREGATIONS-~3oseph Creusen, 8.3. . . . 281 HOW OFTEN MUST WE PRAY?--Gerald Kelly, S.J . 289 THE THREE AGES OF T'HE INTERIOR LIFE-- G. Augustine Ellard, S.J . 297 "WE ARE HIS MEMBERS!"--M. Raymond, O.C.S.O . 317 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 40. "Reform" of Cloistered Communities . 323 41. Religious Wears Graduation Pin . 324 42. Sister as Organist in Parish Church ." . 325 43. "Class Money" for Personal Needs . ' . 325 BOOK REVIEWS-- The Day with Jesus and Mary; She Who Lived Her name; The Happi-ness of Heaven . 326 BOOK NOTICES . : . . 328 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 331 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 332 ANNUAL INDEX . . . ." . " . 333 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, .November 1949, Vol. VIII, No. 6. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July. September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street. Topeka, Kansas,. by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: Alfred F. Schneider, S.J. Copyright, 1949, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. The Roman Congregat:ions Joseph Creusen, S.J. gO,~ religious who, have not made a study of canon law the terms Roman Curia' and "Sacred Congregation" will not suggest a clear picture or ide~. Superiors, of course, know that recourse "to Rome" is necessary in order to obtain certain permissions or dispensations and that their petition will be forwarded to the Sacred Congregation of Religious by their local ordinary o~. by the Apostolic Delegate. Eventually an answer will arrive from the Sacred Con-gregation through the same channel, signed by a cardinal prefect or by the secretary, and there will be a fee to pay. And that is about the extent of their knowledge. Hence the purpose of the following pages is to introduce our readers to this ancient and important institution. Name and Oflfce of Cardinals The early popes like other bishops had their particular clergy, consisting of clerics of both lower and higher rank, among whom priests and deacons held a special place. They were attached to the principal churches of the diocese of Rome, and therefore to the "title" of the church, being attached to it as :it were by a "'cardo'" or hinge. Hence, they were said to be "'intitulati'" or "'incardinatL'" On account of their higher rank the deacons and priests of the Roman diocese so connected with a special church were called "'cardinales'" (cardinal priest, cardinal deacon). Little by little the term "'card[nalis'" (cardinal) was restricted to designate the first priest or deacon of the main churches of Rome. When freedom was granted to the Church by the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, the popes began to call the bishops of the " neighboring dioceses to assist them in certain solemn ceremonies and to ask their advice in more important matters. This was done par-ticularly in provincial Roman councils. Thus it happened that the bishops of the nearby dioceses, who were summoned more frequently to assist the pope, were also called cardinals, or "cardinal bishops." The evolution of this institution of ca~rdinals took a long time. By the end of the fifth century the city of Rome had been divided into seven districts each under the authority of'a "cardinal deacon" 281 JOSHPH CRHUSHN Reeiew ~or Religious who cared for the economic condition of that district and especially for the welfare of the poor. The "cardinal priests" were at the head of the great basilicas and the other principal churches of Rome. From the twelfth century on the "cardinal bishops," called "'suburbicadi'" or "suburban" .(of the cities adjacent to Rome), numbered six. Plus V. (Const. Feb. 17, 1568) for the first time reserved the tide "cardinals" to" his councillors. During the early centuries of the Church the right to choose the new pope was exercised exclusively, or at least partially, by the clergy of Rome, by the citizens of that city, by the noble families, and by the Emperor. Finally, when it became possibIe for the popes to reserve this important right to the cardinals, their dignity and influence were much increased. They were then entrusted with the most important offices of the Roman curia. Those who resided in Rome were more or less frequently gathered in a "consistoriurn'" and became, as it were, the senate of the pope. The legates sent to vari-ous parts of the world by the Holy Father were chosen from among the resident cardinals. With greater centralization of Church government, the number and the difficulty of matters submitted to the Holy See became con-siderably increased. In imitation of civil governments, the pope was obliged to establish "offices" (boards of cardinals, councillors, and clerks) to assist in making new laws and in governing the extensive organization which was required to handle the great volume of business relating to such things as financial affairs, faculties of bishops and their relation to regulars, the struggle against heresy, the interpretation and the introduction of the decrees of the Council of Trent--~to m~ntion only the more important ones. Sixtus V is regarded as the real founder of the Roman congrega-tions. He fixed the number of cardinals at seventy--six cardinal bishops, fifty cardinal priests, and fourteen cardinal deacons1. He also reorganized the sacred congregations, incre.asing their number to fifteen (January 22, 1588). Reform of Pius X From the very beginning of his reign Dius X determined to revise the law of the Church. He made a start with the constitution 1A cardinal deacon is, of course, at least a priest, but his "title" is a church which in early ages belonged to a deacon. Many. of the cardinal priests are bishops, but they have a °'presbyteral ~itle." 282 Nouember, 1949 THE ROMAN CONGREGATIONS Sapienti consilio, dated June 29, 1908, by which he reformed the Roman Curia. This legislation was incorporated latei: on, almost without change, into the new Code of Canon Lau), which was promulgated in 1917. According to the. reform of Plus X the Roman Curia now consists of fifteen sacred congregations, three papal tribunals or courts, and five offices, such as that of the secretarg of state.In this article, however, we shall confine ourselves to the sacred congregations and make practical applications of what is said to the Sacred Congregation of Religious. Roman Congregations A Roman congregation is a board of ~ardinals who have a very accurately defined part in the government of the Church. They are assisted by a group of major and minor officers, and by a body of councillors called consultors. At the head of every congregation we find a cardinal prefect, except in the cases of the Holy Office, the Congregation for the F~astern Church, and the Consistorial Congre-gation. The pope himself is the head of these three congregations, and the cardinal who would otherwise be the prefect takes the place of the secretary and is called assessor. All the other congregations have a secretary and a subsecretary. The secretary of a congregation plays a very important part in transacting its business. Consultors To assist in the study of difficult questions proposed to the con-gregations, each one of them has a board of councillors who are called consultors. They are chosen from among the diocesan clergy and from among religious, are specialists in their field, come from various countries of the world, and most of them reside in Rome where they are engaged as professors or hold a post in.the curia of their order or congregation. Some of these consultors are Roman prelates. Minor Ot~cials To help the secretary and the subsecretary in the solution of the ordinary problems and cases which are presented to a congregation, we find a group of monsignori and priests who are called "'aiutanti di studio." These are internal councillors as contrasted with the consultors mentioned above, who may be termed external councillors since they do not ordinarily meet for consultation in the congrega-tion. Then another group called "'minutanti'" are in charge of 283 JOSEPH CREUSEN Review for Religious summing up the petition.s, while the "'protocolist'" (one or more~ takes care of the documents and puts them in order. Finally, each congregation.has a bursar, an archivist, and a group of lay helpers who are called ushers. The Sacred Congregation of Religious Let us now pay a visit to the Sacred Congregation of Religious. This will be the best way of explaining what a Roman congregation is and what it does. Pius XI built a modern office building to house the Sacred Con-gregations. It is called the Palazzo delle Congregazioni (palazzo meaning any large, ornate building),, and it is situated in the Piazza San Callisto near the old church of S. Maria Trasteoere (across the Tiber). Nearly all the congregations have their quarters in this modern building, and the two upper floors afford lodging for many officers of the congregations. Entering a courtyard we have an immediate view of this imposing edifice. On the right, as we pass along we see a beautiful fountain flanked by a statue of Plus XI, a memorial to the founder of this new home of the congregations. In the driveway immedi-ately in front of the building, we may see several autos with the legend "S C V" (Servizio Cittd Vaticano) in lieu of license plates. This indicates that one or more cardinals are already in their offices. We enter the building at a door marked "Congregation of Religious'" and find ourselves in a long corridor with high windows and ceilings. Going to the end of this corridor, on the left we find a large assembly room where various committees and consultors meet under the chairmanship of the cardinal prefect or the secretary of the con-gregation; then comes a series of smaller waiting rooms for visitors. On the right we find a waiting room and the office of the cardinal prefect and that of the secretary of the congregation. Smaller offices house the roinutanti, protocolist, bursar, and archivist. This latter is the antechamber to a very large room which has a balcony all around, and is used to keep all the documents of the Sacred Congre-gation. These are contained in steel files, in alphabetical order of the diocese in wh.ich the mother house of an institute is situated. To the right of the entrance we find another series of offices-- subsecretary, various business offices for religious men, for teaching and nursing sisters, and for the past two years an office for the secretary and committee in charge of secular institutes. 284 Nooember, 1949 THE ROMAN CONGREGATIONS The offices of the congregation are open to the public for business from 9:00 A.i~, to 1:00 P.M. During these hours the waiting rooms are filled'with religious priests, Brothers, and Sisters, who wear various habits, some ~f which would appear strange to us. Some are dressed in civilian clothes and have no religious habit. These are members of the recently established secular institutes. During office hours the officers and employees are kept very busy, and during an interview with the secretary one will ordinarily be interrupted two or three times in twenty minutes by an usher who brings a document to be signed. The Congregation of Religious is competent to handle almost any matter which concerns religious. When necessary, the secretary will send a petition to another congre-gation or ask for special faculties from the Holy Father. The subject matter of petitions sent to the Sacred Congregation of Religious covers a great variety of things of greater or less importance. For ordinary dispensations the cardinal prefect or the secretary have habitual faculties, and they will grant directly the dispensation requested. Thus, by way of example, we may mention: permission to change a last will and testament, to remain outside the religious house for more than six months, to leave papal cloister in order ~o undergo a surgical operation. For all petitions which require some discussion, a meeting called a congresso is held at least once a week. At this meeting the car-dinal prefect, the secretary, and the subsecretary are present. Som~- times one or more consultors are asked to be present to give their opinions or to discuss the report ("ootum") they have written on the subject. According to an ancient practice all questions of some importance were submitted to the "congregation," that is, to the cardinals who form the Congregation of Religious; but Pius XII has enlarged the competence of the "'cor~gresso pieno'" (full meetings)', that is, when some consultors are called to discuss questions with the cardinal prefect, the secretary, and the subsecretary, and sometimes one or other members of the congregation. The cardinals who are members of the Congregation of Religious gather in the Vatican Palace every Friday for a meeting which is called "'plenaria.'" There are twenty-three cardinals who are mem-bers of the Congregation of Religious at present, but only eleven of them reside in Rome. The others may sit in at a meeting when they happen to be in Rome for their "'ad limina'" visit, or on some other occasion. The cardinals who live in Rome are called "Cardinals in 285 ¯ .JOSEPH CREUSEN Revieto [or Religious Curia." A week before the meeting, each one receives a copy of printed documents regarding the case or cases to be ~.iscussed. These will ordinarily consist of a copy of the petition to be heard, the ,doubt to be solved, and the report (called "'votum") of one or more consultors. One of the cardinals is designated to explain the case to the assembly. He is called the Cardinal Ponens. Instructions or decrees to be issued by the Sacred Congregation, the approval of new religious institutes, difficult juridical questions, are examples of mat-ters discussed in the plenary session of the congregation. Every second and fourth Monday of the month, the cardinal prefect is received in private audience by the Holy Father who makes the final decision-~either approving the results of the plenary session or requesting a further study of the question. In the Congregation of Religious there are five boards or "com-missions" made up of various consultors according to their special competence. Among the more difficult tasks of the congregation is the preparation of instructions and decrees. These require long and arduous study on the part of the higher officials and of certain con-suitors. Our readers may be familiar with some of th~ more recent ones such as the following: the decree on military service for religious (January 1, 1911) ; the instruction on the second year of novitiate (Noyember 5, 1921); on the papal cloister 6f nuns (February 5, 1924); on secular institutes (March 19, 1948). Only canonists can. appreciate how much time and work are consumed in the preparation of such documents. Usually the preparatory work is entrusted to a board of consultors tinder the direction.of the secretary or subsecretary. The final meetings will be presided over by the cardinal pre.fect himself. Ordinarily one or two consultors prepare a draft which will then be discussed by the entire board. Being canonists themselves, many of the consultors realize how accurately terms must be chosen to avoid criticisms of the text and doubts which might arise as to the meaning of this or that word. Even the,non-canonists contribute useful suggestions. Since the consultors come from various 'countries, they look at the matter in the light of the special conditions in their own countries. Hence no one will be surprised to learn that some instructions are discussed for one, or two, or even three years before they are ready for publication. 286 Nouember, 1949 THE ROMAN CONGREGATIONS Procedure in the Congregation A simple example will give us an idea of how ordinary routine business is conducted by the Congregation of Religious. A superior general with the approval of his council decides to ask the Sacred Congregation for permission to contract a debt of $100,000 to enlarge or to equip a school or hospital. The petition must be writ-ten in Latin, Italian, or French. The petition is usually addressed to The Holy Father according tO a well-known form: "Most Holy Father: The undersigned N.N., superior general of the congregation of N.N. (mother house in the diocese of X), pros-trate at the feet of Your Holiness, sets forth the following." ' Then come~ the petition itself: "With the approval of my gen-eral council I ask for permission to contract a debt of :;100,000 to equip on a more modern scale, a hospital, school . . ." ~ Then the need for the improvement will be briefly and clearly exposed. If the congregation has other debts the superior is obliged to mention them also. It is very important to assure the Sacred Congregation that the religious institute will be able to pay the interest regularly fiom ordinary income and, after not too long a time, to retire the capital debt. The petition ends with the form: "And may God, etc." without finishing the clause. Then a final "Your Holiness' most humble servant in Christ," followed by the signatures of the superior gen-eral and his general councillors. If the approval of the general coun-cil is not required, the councillors do not sign the petition. If the congregation has a cardinal protector, the petition may be sent to him, and he will forward it to the congregation with his recommendation. For less important matters it will be sufficient to have the document signed and sealed by the local ordinary and by tbe religious major superior. It should be addressed directly to: ."His Eminence, Cardinal Lavitrano, Prefect of the S. Congregation of Religious, Piazza S. Calli~to, Rome, Italy." According to the importance of the matter, the favor will be granted immediately by the cardinal prefect or by the secretary, with or without having been examined by a consuhor. Certain matters are frequently discussed in the congresso; and if it be something still more important or difficult, it will go through a "plenary session" of the cardinals and will finally be submitted to the pope in private 287 ,JOSEPH CREUSEN audience by the cardinal prefect. For many indults a printed form is used, and the clerk has only to fill in the name of the petitioner and perhaps add a brief remark. If the petition was not presented by the cardinal protector, the indult will have to be claimed at the treasurer's office by an agent. Small religious congregations which have no agent of their own in Rome usually send in their petitions through the diocesan chancery of the mother house, and then the local ordinary's agent will take care of them. In such cases the favor is frequently not granted directly but faculties are given to the local ordinary of the mother house (general or provincial) to grant the favor "if he finds the motives and the circumstances alleged to be true." On the back of the indult are.indicated the various fees to be paid. The first is an alms to be given the Sacred Congregation on the occasion of the granting of the favors; the second is a tax in compensation for the expenses involved (work of the clerks, report of the consultor, and so forth); the third is an alms for whoever executes the indult; the fourth fixes the sum the agent may ask for his work and expenses. Conclusion Perhaps one of my readers will ask me in a low voice, "Why does it occasionally take such a long time to get an answer back from the congregation?" I could igive many reasons. It is not always the fault of the officers of the congregation. Let me remind my readers of what I said above, that the Sacred Congregation has general com-petency for practically all matters concerning religious. Now, according to very incotnplete statistics, published in 1942, the reli-gious congregations with papal approval number about 111,000 religious men and 587,000 religious women. These figures do not include the numerous members of diocesan congregations, nor the r~ligious orders; hence, no mention at all of the hundreds of monas-teries of religious nuns. To give but one small example of the num-bers of diocesan religious, a Belgian bishop once told me that he had ii/:ty (yes, I mean i/fry) smaller or larger mother houses in his dio-cese. This being so, it will not be useless to have a friend in Rome who can go to the Sacred Congregation and inquire of some employee about your business. 288 l-low Orq:en Must We Pray? Gerald Kelly, S.J. DURING the years I have.been teaching religious, particularly Sisters, I have often been presented with this problem: "Exam-inations of conscience sometimes contain the.question, 'Did I miss my morning and even!ng prayers, and my grace before and after meals?' Does this question mean that such daily prayers are obliga-tory? And if they are not obligatory, how are we to explain the question to children?" The problem, be it noted, concerns obligation. It pertains there-fore to moral, not to ascetical, theology; and it is as a moral problem that I intend to treat it. But before I touch upon the actual ques-tion, I should like to make some preliminary observations that may prevent misuntterstandings. Preliminary Observations I lay claim to no special knowledge, acquired or infused, natural or supernatural, concerning the teaching of catechism to children. In fact, I may state quite frankly that at the end of the one year of my Jesuit life in which I had the duty (or privilege) of teaching cate-chism to third-graders I was thoroughly convinced that I had not reached their minds with a single idea. As a fellow Jesuit once put it to me when we were returning home after a catechism session, "Every time I leave that class, it's with a feeling of having been thwarted." Despite that year of frustration, I still retain certain notions concerning what ought and what ought not to be taught to children. For one thing, I believe it is much better to show children (and per-haps adults, too) the fittingness, the loveliness, and the beauty of the various acts of prayer than to try to make precise distinctions con-cerning their obligation to pray) If they love prayer, they will pray; and thus they will fulfill these obligations even though they cannot define them. This seems to be in keeping with the common opinion of theologians to th~ effect that Catholics who lead a devout lFor material on the fittingness and beauty of some of the acts of prayer mentioned in this article confer, among other things, these articles in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: Moral Beautg in Our Duties toward God (I, 244-52) ; The Life of Faith (II, 41- 51); and Are You Sorrg for Your Sins? (III, 335-48). 289 GERALD KELLY Reoiew /~or Religious life need never worry about failing to fulfill their various duties to pray. Nevertheless, it is not right, merely in order to encourage children to do good, to foster an erroneous notion concerning their obliga-tions. Consequently, when any book or statement gives them the impression that they have a strict obligation though in reality they do not, that impression should be tactfully corrected. As regards daily prayers in particular, I might observe before discussing the main question that, even if there should be an obliga-tion to pray every day, there is certainly no duty to pray at definite times of the day, for example, in the morning or evening. Evidently these are fitting times. Yet pious Catholics who humbly confess that they did not say (heir morning prayers but said them later in the day surely have a false conscience if they think that in so acting they sin. Moreover, even if there should be an obligation to pray daily, there is clearly no obligation to say the prayers in some definite posi-tion. Some people seem to think that if they do not kneel when they pray they are doing wrong. A notion of this kind should be ~orrected--or, better still, prevented. Now for the question: is it obligatory, at least under pain of venial sin, to pray every day? Official pronouncements of the Churcl'i do not answer this question. A casual reading of Sacred Scripture seems to answer it in the affirmative. For instance, we are told: "Pray without ceasing" (I Thess. 5:17); "We ought always to pray" (Lk. 18 : 1) ; and "Be instant in prayer" (Col. 4:2). Texts like these appear to demand at least daily prayer; yet we know, from the traditional teaching of approved theologians, that such texts need not be taken in their full literal force. In part, at least, they express a counsel, not a command. To know the extent of the Obligation we have to turn to the writings of the moral theologians. Meaning of Prayer What do theologians mean by prayer? In general they distin-guish between prayer in the strict sense and prayer in the wide sense. In the strict sense prayer refers to petition, and it is defined as the "asking for becoming things from God." In the wide sense itmeans "any lifting of the soul to God," or any attual "communion with God." In this latter sense prayer includes acts. of faith, hope, love, adoration, petition, thanksgiving, praise, contrition, and so forth. It seems unquestionable that when we consider the problem of 290 November, 1949 HOW OFTEN MUST WE PRAY? daily prayers we are referring not merely to the prayer of petition but to prayer in the wide sense. To determine the exact obligation of praying, therefore, we ought to study what theologians have to say about the necessity of each of the acts mentioned in the previous paragraph. As a matter of fact, with reference to the necessity of prayer, moralists do not treat all these acts; but they do treat the principal ones: faith, hope, charity, contrition, and petition. These five acts, as treated by theologians, are primarily considered as inter-nal acts; though at times, of course, as when we speak of the neces-sity of certain acts with reference to confession, some external expres-sion is understood. Besides these various internal acts, theologians also treat of the necessity of social worship, which might include in some way many of the prayers not specifically treated elsewhere. A brief survey of these various sections of moral theology will give us all the background we need for a correct answer to th~ question: are daily prayers of obligation? Various Acts The Catholic life is a supernatural life: and faith is the founda-tion of supernatural living. It is evident, therefore, that faith must play an important part in the Catholic life. In fact, a truly devout life undoubtedly includes many acts of faith, at least implicitly, every day. But the fervent life is not the measure of obligation. Obligation refers to the minimum. And. when tbey speak of the obligation of making acts of faith, theologians are very conservative in estimating the required frequency. Treating of the necessity of making acts of faith, moralists first consider the nature of faith itself and its importance in the Christian life. From this consideration they conclude that every Catholic must make an act of faith at the beginning of his conscious moral life when he first realizes ~hat God has revealed certain truths to be believed. Another occasion that calls for an act of faith is had when the Church solemnly defines a certain doctrine and thus imposes upon us the duty of accepting it as divinely revealed. Besides specifying these two occasions, the most that theologians can say about the precept of faith in itself is that we must make acts of faith "at times" during life. Some have tried to define this obligation more accur-ately in terms of years, months, or weeks. These opinions are der-tainly worth reading; but they are merely opinions, not binding on anyone. 291 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious In the preceding paragraph I have indicated duties imposed on all Catholics by the precept of faith itself. Besides these, there are certain occasions when some other precept or special circumstance includes at least implicitly the necessity of making an act of faith. For instance, the duties of making acts of hope, charity, and contri-tion include the duty of making implicit acts of faith because such acts are impossible without faith. So, too, the duty of making a good confession or a good Communion. But in all these cases faith is not necessarily a separate act. Also, if one is facing a strong temptation which he cannot overcome without an act of faith, this act is obligatory. And if one has denied his faith by the sin of heresy or by apostasy from the true religion, he must, in reparation, make a new act of acceptance of the revealed truths he bad denied. The theol6gy on the necessity of acts of hope follows much the same pattern as I have outlined with regard to faith. From the dog-matic and ascetical points of view it would be difficult to e~aggerate the importance of hope. It must be present in the repentance of the sinner, in the heroism of the saint, and in the salutary perseverance of all the just. But concerning its prescribed frequency one must be cautious. Like faith, an act of hope is required at the beginning of one's moral life and "at times" during life. And like faith., it is at least implicitly required in certain other acts, for example, in an act of contrition, in a good confession, and in any effective prayer for grace. Also, an act of hope is required in reparation for a sin. of desperation. We next consider the best of all prayers, the act of love of God. That there are certain special occasions when an act of charity is imperative, is evident. For example, if a man is dying in the state of mortal sin and cannot receive a ~acrament, he can save his soul only by making an act of perfect contrition, which includes an act of charity. Also, if a person is in the state of mortal sin and must receive one of the sacraments of the living but cannot go to confes-sion, he is bound to regain the state of grace by means of perfect contrition. Even apart from these special occasions, one must at least occa-sionally during life make explicit acts of charity. This is the con-stant and universal teaching of eminent theologians, and the only teaching that the Church wilI'tolerat~. Absurd opinions such as these: it is enough to make an act of charity once in a life time, or once every five years--have been condemned. How anyone cc~uld* 292 Nooember, .I 9 4 9 HOW OFTEN MUST WE PRAY? hold opinions of this nature in view of the facts that the very ~ssence of the New Law is ~harity and that Sacred Scripture. urges us again and again to love God is somewhat of a mystery. Yet it is one thing to say that we must make acts of charity occa-sionally or even frequently; it is quite another to say how often they must be made. There is nothing defined on this point; and the theologians cannot determine it. All that can be said with certainty is that acts of charity should be made occasionally, or perhaps rather often, during life. In the preceding paragraphs I have made some references to the act of contrition. These were merely passing references. A sum-mary of the approved teaching concerning the necessity of this par-ticular act would run somewhat as follows. It is a conditional obli-gation; it depends on the fact that one has sinned. The Blessed" Virgin, for instance, could not make an act of contrition--and therefore could have no obligation to do so--because she never sinned. But for one who has sinned, contrition of some kind is an absolute requirement for forgiveness. For one who has committed a mortal sin, this clearly means that he has a serious obligation to make an act of contrition (perfect or imperfect, according to circum-stances) on the following occasions: when he is in danger of death; when he makes his yearly confession; when he is 'obliged for some special reason to 'acquire the state of grace (for example, when he receives a sacrament of the living). Venial sin does not require con-fession and is not an obstacle to the fruitful reception of the sacra-ments of the living; hence it seems that there is no definite occasion when contrition for venial sin is absolutely called for. Confession. of course, would make it conditionally necessary: that is, if one who has only venial sins wishes to go to confession, he is obliged to make an act of contrition. We come now to prayer in its strictest theological meaning, peti-tion. This kind of prayer may be considered under a twofold aspect: it is an act of worship of God, and it is a means of helping ourselves. As an act of worship, petition expresses our reverence for and dependence on God. Understood in this sense, prayer is certainly of obligation for all men, independently of their personal sanctity and of their special personal needs. Yet, if we limit our consideration of prayer to this sense, we can say no more about the frequency of the obligation than we said about the necessity of making acts of" faith. hope, and charity. We can simply say that every man, even the least 293 GERALD KELLY Review ?or Religious tempted, even the most perfect, even one confirmed in grace must pray occasionally. His very nature demands that he express his dependence on God in this way; but neither reason nor revelation tells clearly just how often he must so express himself. Prayer, however, is not merely a means of honoring God; it is also a personal necessity. In the providence of God, humble petition is the ordinary means of obtaining His blessings, particularly His grace, and grace is a necessity both for salvation and ~anctification. Since man is obliged to do at least what is required for his salvation, he is certainly obliged to pray. But how often must we direct our petitions to God? Must it be every day, or every time we need help? Theologians, having care-fully considered the data afforded by Scripture and Tradition, do not feel justified in giving an unqualified "yes" to such questions. The most that they can give as a general rule is that we must pray "very often." Beyond this, the answer is~ relative; some need to pray more frequently than others. As regards the prayers we have considered in the preceding para-graphs, one difficulty in estimating the obligations is that this must be done almost entirely without the help of definite statements by the Church. The case is different with reference to social worship; hence we need but mention this ~opic very briefly. The Mass is our principal form of social worship; and the Church.has stated quite definitely that we must assist at Mass on all Sundays and on clearly determined feasts of obligation. Conclusions I suppose that up to this point my discussion sounds m?re mathematical than religious. If it does, it is unintentional; I have not been inspired by any love of mathematics. I have no desire to urge people to count their prayers or their obligations. And I earnestly recommend for the comfort of all the common opinion of theologians to which I referred earlier in this article: namely, that those who lead a good Catholic life need not be concerned about any possible failure to fulfill their various duties to pray. Nevertheless, mathematics has its place; and one place is right here, in this conclusion. We have to ask ourselves whether all the duties to pray that have been outlined in this article add up to an obligation to say daily prayers. The answer is negative. If we prescind for a moment from the relative duty of praying for the 294 November, 1949 HOW OFTEN MUST WE PRAY ? graces we need, it seems that all the other duties can generally be fulfilled by the devout attendance at Mass at the prescribed times. The necessity of prayer for personal needs might increase this some-what, but there is no evidence that it is a daily duty for everyone. Do all moral theologians agree with the conclusion that daily prayer is not of strict obligation? The answer seems to be "yes, and no." They agree with,the conclusion ir~ theor~t; but many prefer to give a qualified answer for practice. These moralists would answer the questi6n concerning the duty of saying daily prayers somewhat as follows: "Theoretically, there is no obligation to pray every day. But in practice there is usually a sin in the omission of these prayers, because when daily prayers are omitted without a sufficient reason this is often due to a small fault of laziness, sensuality, or human respect." This formula, or one somewhat similar, is sponsored by eminent theologians; and catechists who wish to follow it in explaining the duty of praying are certainly justified in doing so. But I would not recommend it. I find it confusing. It says, on the one hand, that daily prayers are not of obligation; yet, on the other, it demands a sufficient reason under pain of sin for omitting them. This seems to beg the entire question. For if there is no obligation to say daily prayers, why should a reason be required under pain of sit~ for omitting them? As for the statement that failure to say these prayers could be a sin of laziness, this seems to ignore completely the distinction between imperfection and venial sin.2 For laziness is not a sin in the strict sense; it is an inordinate disposition or tendency, and it becomes sinful only when it leads to the neglect of some duty binding under pain of sin. In other words, laziness is an imperfec-tion when it induces one to'act against a counsel (e.g., to break a rule which does not bind under pain of sin), and it is a sin when it leads one to violate a precept (e.g., to miss Sunday Mass in whole or in part).8 And what I have said of laziness is similarly true of such things as sensuality and human respect. 2Some authors hold that a positive imperfection is a venial sin. These men might logically defend.the formula I am here criticizing. But many moralists who pro-pose this kind of formula also hold firmly to the distinction between positive imperfections and venial sins. aEven here, when we speak of the "sin of laziness," it is not a specific kind of sin, but merely the source of sin. This is obvious from the fact that when ones misses Mass through laziness, all that he is obliged to confess is the fact that he missed Mass. 295 GERALD KELLY Because of these difficulties, I would not personally recommend the formula. I prefer the practical explanation given by Father Tan-querey m his moral theology, which may be roughly translated as follows: "The faithful are to be urged to pray daily, especially in the morning to ask the graces they need for the day, and in the evening to thank God for benefits received, to make .an act of contrition for their sins, and to commend their souls to God before going to sleep. Those who omit their morning and evening prayers do not sin directly by this omission; but experience proves that, all other things being equal, those who do not say these prayers fall into sin more frequently than those who. do.TM One final point. In view of all that has been said, what is a catechism teacher to do when the examination of conscience for children includes the question: ':Did I miss my morning and evening prayers, and my grace before and after meals?" Before I answer, let me recall my own experience in teaching third-graders. With this experience in mind, I have not the temerity to suggest the precise method of illuminating young minds. All that I dare suggest is that the teacher try in some way to convey the following ideas to the children : "This question does not mean that you would commit a sin every time you omit these prayers. The question is put there to remind you that all of us must often p~ay and that those times are especially fitting times for prayer. If you do not pray at these times, there is a good chance that you won't pray at other times, either; and this would mean that you do not pray even when you really need it, and that would be a sin. So, keep the habit of saying these daily prayers, and when you go to confession check up on yourselves to see whether you have been saying them. If you find that you often miss your daily prayers, you will know that you are getting a bad habit, and you ought to correct it." 4Cf. A. Tanquerey, Synopsis Tbeologiae Moralis et Pastoraiis, II (1936), n. 861. 296 The Three Ages of the Interior Life G. Augustine Ellard, S.J. WITH the publication of the second volume of T~e Three Ages of the Interior Life1 the work is now. complete in English. The first volume was considered in this REVIEW, VI (July, 1947), 249. In what follows the work as a whole is discussed. I. Content As the title suggests, spiritual development is conceived and pre-sented after the analogy of organic growth. Corresponding to the periods of childhood, adolescence, and maturity in natural human life, there are in the supernatural life also three stages of spiritual evolution, namely, progress along the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. Moreover in both the natural and the supernatural orders each of the three periods is ushered in by a crisis. Of these the first is birth for one's physical life; corresponding to it there is justifi-cation, or the beginning of one's interior life. Adolescence is intro-duced by the second crisis, puberty; and, analogously to it, with "the night of sense" a person enters upon the illuminative way. Finally, the third natural crisis consists in attaining one's majority or reaching maturity; the spiritual correlate is "the night of the spirit," which is followed by the transforming union, the state of full super-natural maturation. It will be noticed that two of the three ages are mystical. In case one should fail to make sufficient progress, or grow up, one would become a dwarf or midget. In an elaborate arrange-ment, summarized diagrammatically on page 245 of volume I, degrees of the virtues, the functions of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, various purifications, and the grades of prayer are assigned to each of the three ages. So much for the general idea indicated by the title. The second volume covers the second and third ages, that is, the illuminative way of proficients and the unitive way Of the perfect. Treatment of the illuminative way is introduced with a discus-sion of "the second conversion" and the necessity for it. Here, 1THE THREE AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE, Prelude of Eternal Life. B~ The Rev. R. Gattigou-Lagrartge, O.P. Translated by Sister M. Timothea Doyle, O.P., Rosary College, River Forest, Illinois. Volume Two. Pp. xiv -b 668. B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis 2, Missouri, 1948. $7.50. 297 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review for Religious besides Father Lallemant, who originated the expression, St. Cath-erine of Siena, Suso, and Tauler are drawn upon. Then the passive purification of the senses is handled; for this the great authority is St. John of the Cross. The principal characteristics of proficients are pointed out. After a chapter in which with the aid of a drawing the virtues and gifts of persons in this stage are fitted together into an imposing "spiritual edifice," the virtues, both moral and theo-logical, are taken up separately. There follows a section on docility to the Holy Spirit, ohe of the supernatural traits peculiarly empha-sized in this' work. Next the discernment of spirits, the Sacrifice of the Mass, Holy Communion, and devotion to Mary are dealt with inasmuch as they pertain specifically to this second age. After some pages on "the universal accessibility of the mysticism of The Imita-tion," we come to what in all this matter seems to be the author's leading preoccupation, namely, a series of chapters on contemplation. The author professes-to describe the passage from acquired prayer to initial infused contemplation in accordance with the teaching of St. Francis de Sales, St. Thomas, St. Teresa, and St. John ot: the Cross. In the official condemnation by the Church of the errors of the Quietists Father Garrigou-Lagrange finds a confirmation of his doctrine on the beginnings of infused prayer. Then there follows a more cbntroversial discussion of certain questions ~elative to infused contemplation; how, for instance, it should be defined, what its intimate nature is, what forms its progress takes, what it does not require, what the call to it is, and so on. Finally, the treatment of the illuminative way and of the third part of The Three Ages is concluded with a consideration of the agreements and disagreements between St. Teresa and St. John. The one is not a theologian and the other is. Part Four is concerned with the mature age and the unitive way of the perfect. In particular, it describes the passive purification .of the spirit, the habitual union of perfect souls with God, "the way of spiritual childhood" constituting a special form of the perfect life, the heroic degree of the virtues, and lastly different forms and degrees of the unitive life. Under this general heading come the perfect apostolic life, advanced reparation, the influence of the Holy Spirit in those who have reached this period, arid mystical union and ecstatic union according to St. Teresa, and then at last the trans-forming union, prelude to the union of heaven. At this point by way of appendix the author does a most unusual thing: he inserts a whole article by another writer who shares the same opinions on the 298 Not~ember, 1949 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE mystical problems that have been much debated in recent years. The fifth part deals briefly with extraordinary graces, that is, those miraculous favors which sometimes accompany high sanctity. The differences between facts of divine origin and morbid phenomena are pointed out. The diabolical manifestations of possession and obsession are also considered. The "Epilogue" returns again tb controversy. The first part is on "the axis of the spiritual life and its unity," the axis being faith, hope, and charity, and is made up mostly of a discussion about the distinction between ascetical and mystical theology. The second part deals with "the beatific vision and its normal prelude." One might think that this prelude, mentioned so often, would be a high degree of purity or virtue. Rather it is infused contemplation, especially as it occurs in the transforming union. The great raison d'etre of this whole large work, treating the spiritual life from beginning to end, seems to be to propound the thesis that infused contemplation comes within the normal develop-ment of the interior life and is morally necessary for the full perfec-tion of Christian life. Everything appears to be centered around that thesis. Over and over again it is indefatigably reiterated. On this more than on anything else will probably depend the permanent value and importance of the work. According to the author beginners meditate, that is, practice a discursive method of prayer, though their meditation may become simplified. Of course they receive help from the gifts of the Holy Spirit, present in all just souls, but this influence is latent and is not characteristic of their kind of prayer. If they advance as they should and if no special obstacles intervene, they will be given the grace of. infused contemplation. All contemplation practically, or at least contemplation as "the great masters" understood it, is infused. It is so called because it is due to a special inspiration coming through the gifts and is not at our disposal, like, for example, the ability to meditate, It proceeds from living faith illumined by the gifts of wisdom and understanding. Ordinarily the first form of infused contemplation granted by , the Holy Spirit is that described by St. dohn of the Cross as "the night of sense.". Then, if one be faithful and continue to make sufficient progress, one will also go through all the mystic ascensions as set forth by St. Teresa and St. 3ohn and finally come to rest in the transforming union or mystic marriage. Here the full perfection both of contemplation and of the Christian life are attained. More- 299 G.AUGUSTINE F~LLARD for Religious over, to this happy state all are called. As a matterof fact it is rare, but that is only because men are not generous enough in accepting the graces that would bring them to it. Thus a magnificent prospect is opened out before one who undertakes to pursue the spiritual life in earnest. I[. Merits Among the special values of The Three Ages would be included, I should say, these points: it is the latest and best expression of a very eminent theologian's doctrine; it is an excellent presentation of the spirituality of the present-day Dominican School; one can learn a considerable amount of theology from it; and, most of all, it has great inspirational power and force. Father Garrigou-Lagrange has long been a theologian of great distinction. In the Thomist school he has been among the first and foremost for a generation. To his credit there stands a long list of learned works in philosophy and dogmatic theology. For a number of years he has also taken a very keen interest in ascetical and mysti-cal theology and here too he has written very much. Altogether he is said to have published more than two hundred articles or books. His influence, in spiritual matters and ideas is very great, and any-thing that he proposes is apt to be taken up and propagated by numerous lesser authorities. The Three Ages sums up, completes, and puts in convenient form most of the ideas which be has pre-viously taught in his other spiritual writings. Hence it is now, and very probably will remain, the definitive expression of his thought in ascetical and mystical matters. It is also an admirable presentation of the general spiritual doc-trine of a group of Dominican Fathers, and in varying degrees also of others who agree with them. In other words, it gives the teaching of a certain school of spirituality within the Church, and one, too, which in our time enjoys special favor and exerts great influence. The simplest way now to indicate the substance of their doctrine is to say that it is just that which is set forth in The Three Ages. No other work synthesizes it so well. One could also say that it is that sys-tem of spirituality which is proposed in France by La Vie Spirituelle, in Spain by La Vida Sobrenatural, and now in this country by the new Cross and Crown. Now that several of Father Garrigou- Lagrange's spiritual books have been translated into English, he is by all means the chief representative of this school in our language as well as in his own. 3OO November, 1949 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE From what has been said it will surprise nobody that from n careful reading of The Three Ages one could learn much theology. The author is nothing if not a theologian; not, for instance, a psy-chologist. But one would have to remember carefully that it is the-ology of the Thomist school, not always simply Catholic theology. Throughout this work, from the first page to the last, St. Thomas is quoted over and over again; consequently one can learn much of the Saint's doctrine from it. An example of how theology enters into this second volume: the first chapter is concerned mostly with the language of spiritual writers as compared with that of the theo-logians. It is concluded that the language of the mystics, expressing infused contemplation, is the loftier of the two. Naturally those parts of theology are drawn upon most which relate to the practical living and development of the supernatural life: ~he inhabitation of the Blessed Trinity, sanctifying grace, the virtues, both moral and theological, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the nature ot? Christian perfection, the Sacrifice of the Mass, Holy Com-munion, prayer, and contemplation. There is a chapter on the errors of the Quietists about contemplation and pure love. On this latter Father Garrigou-Lagrange wrote at great length in L'Amour de Dieu et la Croix de des.us. Of all the excellences of this work, the principal one, I should say, is its inspirational value. Eminent theologian that he is, the author keeps reminding his readers of the grand dogmas of Chris-tianity, their "infinite elevation," their implications for our affective and practical lives, and the supreme motive power that they could and should have for our wills. One who is looking for something on a favorite minor devotion will not find it in The Three Ages; but one will be treated therein to a wealth o1: dogmatic material that makes an unsurpassed background for the spiritual life and subject matter for ennobling reflection and mental prayer. From the way and manner in which Father Garrigou-Lagrange handles such important doctrines as the inhabitation of the Blessed Trinity, the worth of sanctifying grace, the superiority of the infused virtues, the humility and magnanimity of Christ, the values of faith, hope, and charity, the Sacrifice of the Mass, reception of the Holy Eucharist, the fruits of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and so on, a reader feels his heart warmed and his enthusiasm enkindled for these great truths. III. Demerits On the debit side some deficiences are observable in The Three 301 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Reoieto for Religious Ages. It is all the more necessary and important to point them out-- and this is the reason for these criticisms--inasmuch as the work will most likely be read very widely and exert a very great influence. To many readers, less conversant with modern mystical controversies or less critical in accepting what a noted theologian writes, the book could easily be misleading in certain matters. The greater an author's reputation and the more excellent his work, the worse may be the consequences of its defects. The Three Ages is theoretical rather than practical; it is one-sided and narrow; an essential part of it, namely, its doctrine on the gifts of the hoIy Spirit, is uncertain; and its main thesis is not after all really so significant. 1. For a work that is directed to interior souls generally and has the professed aim of inviting them "to become more interior and to tend to union with God" (II, p. 8), The Three Ages has overmuch that is speculative and controversial. It inclines rather to stress the-ory than practice, metaphysics than psychology, contemplation than life, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit rather than the virtues. From the practical point of view, there are some surprising omissions. The particular examination of conscience seems not even to be mentioned, although surely it is one of the major techniques in modern Catholic asceticism. For the general examination no precise method is sug-gested. What is more strange, for all those who do not as yet enjoy infused contemplation--and surely, they would, be-numerous-- only 19 of the 1162 pages are given to mental prayer. Those who" struggle with the difficulties of meditation will not find much help or consolation. No definite method of: meditation or of any other form of mental prayer is offered. The well-known methods used in the Church are not even named. Of the little written on method a con-siderable part is rather in disparagement of it or against the abuses of it. A beginner might well ask what he is to do until.the time comes --and that may be in the distant future--when he is favored with mystical contemplation. In another and more general way The Three Ages does not seem to be as practical a work on spirituality as most people could rightly desire. Throughout, the emphasis is on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in contrast to the virtues. The "special inspirations" of the gifts are quite beyond our reach, except that indirectly by co-operating with previous graces we can dispose ourselves to receive .them. A practical-minded person bent on applying what he reads to his life might ask: "What can I do about the gifts that I am not doing anyway in culti- 302 November, 1949 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE vating the virtues? Wait for their, inspirations? Then, when they come, how shall I recognize them?" It would appear, both on theoretical and practical grounds, much better to emphasize the vir-tues, at least the theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity. The gifts are supposed to be subordinated to these latter. In general it is true of the whole work that it does not get down, except by way of inspiration and motivation, to the everyday details of actually living the good life. 2. The Three Ages is a very splendid exposition of one concep-tion of the spiritual life, but it is only one, and not simply the Cath-olic view. Nor does it make this fact sufficiently clear in its text. Consider, for example, the division of three ways, fundamental in this work. A leading contemporary spiritual author, whose doc-trine is on the whole very much like that of Father Garrigou- Lagrange and to whom this latter seems to be much indebted, is Msgr. Saudreau, the author of The Degrees of the Spiritual Life and other books. Saudreau, who also makes much use of St. John of the Cross, assigns infused contemplation to the unitive way (see the whole second volume of The Degrees) ; Garrlgou-Lagrange assigns it to both the illuminative and unitive ways--a great difference indeed. The manual now most widely used in ascetical and mystical matters is the Sulpician Tanquerey's The Spiritual Life. He has the three ways without any necessary inclusion of infused contemplation at all; it may or may not come within the unitive way (pp. 301, 461, 606, 736). The last Carmelite to write a full systematic treatise on ascetical and mystical theology is Crisogono del Jesus Sacramentado, Compendio de Ascetica ~1 Mistica (1933). He provides for a double set of three ways: one without infused contemplation, the other with it (pp. 53, 156). So does Naval, of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart, in Tbeologiae Asceticae et M~tsticae Cursus (p. 32). On contemplation also there is a difference. Among all the schools of spirituality in the Church, the one which has, so to speak, specialized most on contemplation is that of the Carmelites, and of course they glory in presenting the teaching of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. Their doctrine, or at least the expression of it, is not the same as what we find in The Three Ages. The leading representative now of the Carmelites is Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, professor of spiritual theology in the International Col-lege of-St. Teresa, Rome. He has written much on acquired contem-plation. Half of his work, St. John of the Cross, recently published 303 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review for Religious in English, is devoted to it. Besides, in Ecole Teresiene et Problems M~lstiques Contemporains, he writes: "By their doctrine on the con-templation that belongs to beginners, the Carmelite authors of the first generation gave the first indication of the doctrine of acquired contemplation that soon became one of the characteristics of the Carmelite School. They teach in fact the existence of a contempla-tion that follows meditation, that proceeds from it, though one may easily find in it some infusion of celestial light. Does not a con-templation which is the fruit of our activity in meditation merit the name 'acquired'? (p. 79) . It is certain . . . that this teaching on acquired contemplation is one of the characteristics of the Carmelite School" (p. 86). Very recently, at the end of a study on Thomas of Jesus and acquired contemplation, Father Gabriel writes: "Nothing that we have found contradicts, rather on the contrary everything favors, the traditional teaching of the Teresian school which sees in the doctrine of St. John of the Cross on the transition from meditation to contemplation the origin of the doctrine of acquired contempla-tion, and we need not fear to give to him whom that school names its Mystical Doctor the title also, more humble indeed but still impor-tant, of 'the Master of active contemplation' " (Revue d'Ascetique et Mystique, 1949, 17). In Father Garrigou-Lagrange's view of how mental prayer develops there is hardly any place for acquired contemplation. Con-templation, as "the great spiritual writers, especially St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa" understood it, is infused, and "ordinarily" (II, p. 337) it follows meditation. Quite fundamental to The Three Ages is the general interpreta-tion which it takes of the whole system of St. John of the Cross. According to one of the foremost contemporary Benedictine authori-ties on mysticism, it is not at all the right one. In commenting upon Garrigou-Lagrange's previous book, Christian Perfection and Con-templation, identical in this matter with the present work, and after saying that he presents in an incomparable way the doctrine of St. Thomas on Christian perfection, he adds: "but the conception that St. John of the Cross had of mysticism and contemplation entirely escaped him" (Mayer, M~stik als Lehre und Leben, p. 225). Other scholars also who have specialized in mystical studies take a very different view of St. John; for example, Marechal (Etudes sur la Ps~lcbologie des Mttstiques, v. II, especially pp. 321-359), and 304 November, 1949 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE Crisogono del ,)esus Sacramentado, San Juan de Ia Cruz, su Obra Cientitica g Literaria. 3. Next we come to the gravest defect that I find in The Three Ages, namely the uncertaintg of much of it, and the fact that this uncertainty is not sufficiently acknowledged by the author. Making a clear-cut distinction between recognized Catholic dogma or doc-trine and the conclusions or theological speculations that he shares is surely not one of Father Garrigou-Lagrange's excellences. This has been true of his writings in general. The whole vast construction presented in these two large volumes stands or falls with the special doctrine on the gifts of the Holy Spirit which forms as it were the supporting framework of it. How fully it enters into the whol~ system can be seen at a glance by consulting the diagrammatic outline on page 245 of volume I. And still this particular theory is proposed without any adequate indidation of its speculative and uncertain character. As a matter of fact there is very little in the theology of the gifts that is certain and commonly acknowledged as such. After quoting Leo XIII, Father Garrigou-Lagrange himself thus summarizes the papal teaching: "Encyclical Divinum illud munus (May 9, 1897), circa iinem. This text shows: (1) the necessity of the gifts ('has need of') ; (2) their nature: they make us docile to the Holy Ghost; (3) their effects: they can lead us to the summit of sanctity." (Vol. I, p. 70.) There is a great difference between these three simple points and the whole theory that forms the skeleton, so to speak, of The Three Ages. There never has been and is not now any consensus among theo-logians as to how the gifts of the Holy Spirit are to be conceived." Scotus denied the very existence of the gifts as distinct entities. Apparently his whole school, especially the Franciscan theologians, still does. From a recent Franciscan publication: "The doctrine of the Franciscan school and especially that of Scotus, tends to a simpli-fication of the spiritual life. The supereminence of charity and its effectiveness in the Christian life as stressed by our school show the unity of that life very clearly. This same trait in the teaching of Scotus is seen in his doctrine on the nature of the gifts of the Holy Spirit . Here again Scotus insist~ that entities must not be multi-plied without necessity. And once more we are impressed with the marvelous synthesis and unity in these various phases of the spiritual life as explained by the Subtle Doctor .Scotus maintains that the 305 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Reoieto for Religious gifts are not distinct from the virtues. He points out that there is no necessity for distinct habits, since the three theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues perfect man sufficiently for even the most heroic and very highest action." (The Virtues according to Franciscan School, Franciscan Clerics, Old Mission Santa Barbara, 1946.) In this denial Scotus was followed by the great doctor of the Church and master in spirituality, St.' Francis de Sales, who also is one of Father Garrigou-Lagrange!s preferred authorities. On the gifts St. Francis says: "Now they are not only inseparable from charity, but, all things well considered, and speaking precisely, they are the principal virtues, properties and qualities of charity. For (1) Wisdom is in fact no other thing than the love which relishes, tastes and experiences, how sweet and delicious God is; (2) Under-standing is nothing else than love attentive to consider and penetrate the beauty of the truths of faith, to know thereby.God in Himself, and then descending from this to consider Him in creatures; (3) Science, on the other hand, is but the same love, keeping us attentive to the knowledge of ourselves and creatures, to make us reascend to a more perfect knowledge of the service which we owe to God"; and so on, through the other four gifts. (The Lot~e ot: God, XI, 15.) Again, in a later chapter: "So that, Theotimus, most holy charity is a virtue, a gift [in the context clearly a gift of the Holy Spirit], a fruit and a beatitude . As being a gift, charity makes us docile and tractable to interior inspirations, which are, as it were, God's secret commandments and counsels, in the execution of which the.seven gifts of the Holy Ghost are employed, so that charity is the gift of gifts." (XI, 19.) One of the few works in English on dogmatic theology has the following to say on the gifts: "Thesis III: The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost are also infused with sanctifying grace. This proposi-tion may be qualified as "probabilis' . . . . Are these seven gifts (or some of them) really distinct from the infused moral virtues? Are they habits or habitual dispositions, or merely transient~ impulses or inspirations? What are their mutual relations and how can they be divided off from one another? These and similar questions are in dispute among theologians." (Pohle-Preuss, Grace, Actual and Habitual, p. 369.) In the Catholic Encyclopedia, over the signature of Forget, pro-fessor of dogmatic theolqgy in the University of Louvain, we find: 306 November, 1949 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE "As to the inner nature of these gifts of the Holy Ghost, theologians consider them to be supernatural and .perinanent qualities, which make us attenti,~e to the voice of God, which render us susceptible to the workings of actual grace, which make us love the things of God, and, consequently, render us more obedient and docile to the inspira-tions of the Holy Ghost. But holy do they differ from the virtues? Some writers think they are not really distinct from them, that they are the virtues inasmuch as the latter are free gifts of God, and that they are identified essentially with grace, charity, and the virtues. That opinion has the particular merit of avoiding a multiplication of the entities infused into the soul. Other writers look upon the gifts as perfections of a higher order than the virtues; the latter, the.y say, dispose us to follow the impulse and guidance of rehson; the former are functionally intended to render the will obedient and docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost." (Vol. vii, p. 413.) Among contemporary dogmatic theologians who propose the basic doctrine on the gifts as only probable or more probable one could cite the following: Van der Meersch, De Gratia, p. 215; Parente, De Gratia, pp. 26.7, 283: Diekamp-Hoffmann, O.P., Tbeologiae Dogmaticae Manuate III, 19, 155; Van Noort, De Gratia, (brd ed.), p. 155. Father De Guibert gave much attention to a stu~iy.of the gifts, and in particular he made a special effort to determine what is certain and what probable concerning them. His conclusion was that we could hold with certainty, or at least very great probability, that there exist in the souls of the just habitual infused dispositions of docility toward the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. This appears to him to be the basis upon which rest the speculative conclusions of theologians about the gifts (Revue d'Ascetique et Mgstique, 1933, 1-26). Father De Guibert's finding is indeed a long.~ay from Father Garrigou-Lagrange's coflception of the gifts. Among the best and most important studies on the gifts pub-lished in recent years seems to be a long article by Father De Blic, Pour l'Historie de la Tbeotogie des Dons. He judges that Father De Guibert went too far and that still less even can be said in favor of the prevailing theory of the gifts (Revue d'Ascetique et Mystique, 1946, 117-179). Of the theologians of this century who are special authorities on the gifts the outstanding one by far is the Dominican Father A. Gardeil. In the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catbolique he writes: 307 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Reoieto for Religious "In our days the debate still goes on among theologians over the dis-tinction between the infused virtues and the g!fts. If the distinction is debated, much more are other and" lesser points in the doctrines" (IV-2, 1778.) The Dominican Joret, in a good-sized work on the mystical theology of St. Thomas, points .out that it was .not until the thir-teenth century that the distinction between the gifts and the infused virtues was well worked out. "St, Thomas seems to have made .pre-cise and definitive the theory of the gifts of the Holy Spirit." Then, after a brief passage in which he gives St: Thomas's general idea of the gifts (divine inspirations as opposed to human, reflections), he writes: "In speaking thus we leave altogether the domain of faith to enter theological speculation. And we are going to remain there in the course of the following'paragraphs which will only set forth the teaching of St. Thomas." (La Contemplation M~tstique d'a~r~s Saint Thomas d'Aquin, 1927, p. 39,) ~ Among the most eminent Dominican theologians of the twen= tieth century is Hugon. On the gifts he writes: "There is a dispute as to whether the gifts differ from the infused virtues objectively and essentially or only after a fashion (secundum quid). This last is defended by a number of theologians, following the leadership of Scotus; but the Angelic ,Doctor and the Thomists teach that the gifts are specifically distinguished from the virtues as perfections of a superi-or and higher order by which a man is easily moved by, the Holy Spir-it." (Italics in the original: Tractatus Dogmatici, Ed. 10, II, 4~8.) Father Garrigou~Lagrange himself, in the, epil~gue to his French work,2 Perfection Cbretienne et Contemplgtion (Vol.II, [89]), after discussing "the minimizing conceptions of the gifts of the Holy, Spirit and the oscillations of theological eclecticism" and then "the superiority of the doctrine of St. Thomas o'n the gifts," concludes: "Thus there are four notably different theories of the gifts. Two are manifestly minimizing, but opposed to each other; one is eclectic and tends to rise higher; and finally the one which seems to us to be at the culminating point of truth. These four theories can be summed up as follows [italics as in the original French] : "The gifts, distinct from the virtues, are something normal and eminent and grow With charity. 2This epilogue does not appear in the English Christian Perfection and Contemplation. 308 Not~ember, 1949 AGES OF: THE INTERIOR LIFE "The acts of the gifts take place sometimes according to an ordinary human mbde; sometimes they are extraordinary. "'The gifts are distinct from the virtues and are principles of extraQrdinary acts. "'The gifts are not distinct from the oirtues.'" In The Three Ages there is little indication of any,other "the-ory" of the gifts than the one which the author himself adopts. So much for the existence and distinction of the gifts. . If now one should inquire into the number of them. there is much .less cer-tainty. To quote the Dominican Joret again: "The Septuagint version followed by the Vulgate gave seven characteristics to the Spirit of God resting upon the Messias: the spirit of wisdom . Thus one obtained seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, just as there are seven virtues, theological and moral¯ But neither in the one case nor the'other should we regard this number as limitative. For the sacred writers, as we know,.it rather designates the pleriitude of the divine operations. The single light of the sun divides into seven principal colors which can then have an infinite variety of shades. So it is with the Holy Spirit and His gifts." (Op. cir., p. 36.) Less certain than the number is the general function of the gifts, that is, the kind of work that they perform in the process of sancti-fying a person. A glance at the relevant places in different theo- .logians would readily convince one of this fact¯ Much less certain still are the functions of~, the particular gifts. Consider for a moment the case of St. Thomas. In a recent scholarly work devoted entirely to his mystical theology and wholebeartedly in sympathy with it, the author points out four ways in which at successive times St. Thomas endeavored to classify the workings of the different gifts, and then he conclude~: "The question, taken up four times, has resulted in four different constructions; once even with an explicit disavowal of what St. Thomas bad previously estab-lished. Who will assure us that the last is perfect?" (L. Roy, Lumiere et Sagesse. La Gra~e Mystique dans la Theologie de Saint Tho'mas d'Aquin, p. 185.) Father Garrigou-Lagrange's.conception of the various function~ of the gifts seems to have been developed from a combination of elements in three of St. Thomas's ways (The Three ~Ages, I, 76; III, 68, 4 and II II, 8, 4; 3 D. 34 q. 1 a. 2) His correlation of the virtues and gifts (I, pp. 51, 76) is ¯ 309 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Retffew for Religious criticized by De Guibert as not being quite in accord with St. Thom- ¯ as's (Theologia Spiritualis, 1937, p. 135). Of all these ways, and others too which could be cited, of assigning specific functions to each of the gifts, not one seems to agree :with the exegetes when they comment on and explain the original Scripture text (Isaias 11:2-3) that is the first foundation for all the doctrine on the gifts. Moreover there are two different forms of the modern Thomistic theory of the gifts. Besides the one which Father Garrigou- Lagrange espouses (that with the virtues one acts in a human way and with the gifts in a superhuman way), there is another one, defended in our time especially by Cardinal Billot. "The gifts have two modes, that is, an ordinary and an extraordinary one according to the differences in the many operations of the Holy Spirit, who freely breathes where He wills and apportions to all as He wishes . There is another way and one that is quite extraordinary; although it is not td be said to be at all necessary, even for high sanctity, it is'nevertheless as a rule found in those whom the grace of God calls to the supreme heights of perfection. Moreover this mode i~ concerned mostly with extraordinary contemplation, that is, with the prayer of quietude, simple union, ecstatic union, and consummate union." (De Virtutibus Infusis, Ed. 4, pp. 169, 173.) A contemporary mystical theologian in whose system this idea of two modes, ordinary and extraordinary, is most important is the Carmelite Father Crisogono. de Jesus Sacramentado. For him this is the true thought of St. Thomas himself, and also of some at least of his best commentators (La Perfection et La Mystique selon Led Prin-cipes de Saint Thomas, p. 44). Another point about the present-day Thomistic hypothesis of the gifts that will make many people pause is this: it appears to be indissolubly bound up with the contention that grace is intrinsi-cally efficacious. "We do not find anything in his system [Suarez's] corresponding to the idea, dear to St. Thomas, of actual operating grace, understood in the sense of instrumental prevenient and pre-determining motion, by which the Angelic .Doctor characterized the special nature of the gifts of the Holy Spirit" (Dictionnaire de The-ologie Catholique, in thd article Dons du Saint Esprit, A. Gardeil, 1778). "This interpretation [the doctrine of St. Thomas on grace and the gifts as understood by the great interpreters Cajetan, Bannez, John ~f St. Thomas, and the Carmelites of Salamanca] is for us the 310 November, 1949 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE only true one, the only one which safeguards the two great, prin-ciples of the intrinsic efficacy of grace and the specification of habitus by their formal object" (Garrigou-Lagrange, Perfection Chretienne etContemplation, II, [99]; see also [54], [59-62], [95]). From ail that has been said, especially in the form of quotations from leading Thomist theologians, on the uncertainties attaching to our knowledge of the gifts ot: the Holy Spirit, it would seem abun-dantly clear that no elaborate, doctrine about them should be pro-. posed as more than a theory or hypothesis. Nor should any major practical norm based on such a doctrine be set up as more than prob-able. I have made a special effort to find indications of these uncer-tainties in The Three Ages, I found very little indeed. The princi-pal' one seems to be implicit in this sentence: "The great majority of theologians hold with St. Thomas that the gifts are really and spe-cifically distinct from the infused virtues" (I, p. 73). Therefore it ¯ .is admitted that not all theologians agree on this particular funda-mental point. On the other hand a reader might expect that he is being treated to something that is especially reliable. Under the heading, "The Aim of This Work," the author announces that he will try to avoid the danger of "many pious books that lack a solid doctrinal foun-dation" (I, p. 9). In the Preface he writes: "We insist far more on the principles ge.nerall~ accepted in. theology!, by showing their value and their radiation, than on the variety of opinions on one particular point or another proposed by often quite secondary authors . The complexity of certain questions ought not to make us lose sight of tb~ certitude of the great directive principles that illuminate all spirituality" (I, p. xi; italics inserted). "For a clear understanding of the nature of the mystical union, we must treat of the influence of the Holy Ghost in the perfect, soul by recalling the most indisputable and lofty principles commonly taught on this subject" (II, p. 511) ,, The fact remai.ns, unfortunately, that much of The Three Ages is uncertain and questioned by perfectly orthodox Catholic authori- .ties. 4. To come now to the great central thesis of The Three Ages, namely, that infused contemplation comes within the normal devel-opment of the supernatural life. It is after all much less significant than one might at first think. (1) It embodies no great new dis-covery nor corrects any old error; (2) the attenuated-infused con- 311 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review for Religious templa.tlon which it holds out in prospect for all whose supernatural life evolves normally is not, considered as a form of human action or experience, very different from mental prayer that is acquirable; (3) the thesis suffers from being so closely associated with a ques-tionable theory of the gifts; and lastly, (4) various e~ceptions to it are admitted. (1) Father Garrigou-Lagrange writes: "In contradistinction to acquired prayer, infused contemplation is generally defined as a simple and loving knowledge of God and His works, whicFi is the fruit, not of human activity aided by grace, but of a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost" (p. 310). Contemplation "proceeds . . . from living faith enlightened by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, especially by those of understanding and wisdom, which render faith penetrating and sweet. "Supernatural contemplation thus conceived, supposes the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which His gifts dispose us to receive with promptness and docility, as the widespread sails on a boat receive the impulsion of a favorable wind; then the boat advances more easily than by the labor of the rowers, a symbol of discursive meditation united to the practice of the virtues. From this point of view, contemplation, because of the special inspiration which it supposes, deserves to be called, not acquired but infused, although at the beginning it may quite frequently be prepared for. by reading, affective meditation, and the" prayer of petition. The soul thus actively prepares itself to receive the special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which will at times be strong enough so that discursive medi-tation will no longer be necessary . These acts of love and 6f penetrating .and sweet faith are said to be infused not only because they proceed from infused virtues, in this case from the theological virtues, but because they suppose a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and because we cannot move ourselves to them with the help of common actual grace. In this case God mov.es us, not by inclining us to deliberate, but to acts above all discursive deliberation." (II, 281--2.) If this is all that is meant by infused contemplation, wh~ would deny the thesis, and what has all the argument been about?. Some. would quegtion what is said about the gifts, but hardly anybody would directly and categorically contradict the thesis itself. Since all acknowledge some sort of doctrine, at least as probable, about the gifts, who would not admit that in accordance with the providence and designs of God the mental prayer of all should be enlightened 312 No~emb~r, 1949 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE and enhanced as much as possible by special inspirations coming from the Holy Spirit through the gifts? Certainly this is not the essential analysis which certain theo-logians have had in mind in denying that infused contemplation comes within the regular development of the interior life. For Father Poulain mystical contemplation consists essentially in an experimental perception of God's presence (The Graces of Interior Pra~ter, chapters V and VI) ;and for Farges, in "an experimental sen-sation of the divine, that is, in an immediate intuition by the con-sciousness, more or less clear o~ obscure, of the presence in our souls of' God or a supernaturai object, the essence whereof remains unknown, which produces a sentiment of admiration and love, suspending more or less the powers of the soul" (Mgstical Pheno-mena, p. 57). According to Father Crisogono del Jesus Sacramen-tado, "infused contemplation is an affective intuition of divine things, resulting from a special influence of God in the soul . This actual grace is received in the habits of the gifts of understanding, knowledge and wisddm, which, at receiving it, are actuated according to their extraordinary operation . This operation of the gifts, which takes place in a superhuman way, is the act itself of infused ¯ contemplation." (Compendio de Ascetica g Mistica, pp. 164-5.) Father Crisogono holds that all are called to the perfection of the gifts working in their ordinary, but not in their extraordinary, mode. The two great doctors of the Church, St. Francis de Sales and St. Alphonsus de' Liguori, specialists also in spirituality, and, one would presume, cognizant of tradition, surely would have advocated for all a form of mental prayer that is full of inspirations from the Holy Spirit. If highly developed gifts and the resulting graces had been sufficient in their opinion to entail infused contemplation, they could hardly have written as they did. Thus St. Francis wrote: "Blessed are they who live a superhuman and ecstatic life, raised above themselves, though they may not be ravished above themselves in prayer. There are many saints in heaven who were never in ecstasy or rapture of contemplation. For how many martyrs and great saints do we see in history never to have had any other privi-lege in prayer than that of devotion and fervor." (The Love of God, VII, 7.) And St. Alphonsus: "The aim of the soul here ought to be single, namely, union with God; but that the soul should attain to perfection, there is no necessity of passive union. It is sufficient for 313 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Reuiew for Religious it to arrive at active union . Active union is perfect conformity with the divine will, and in this certainly the whole perfection of divine love consists. 'Perfection,' St. Teresa says, 'does not consist in ecstasy; on the contrary, true union of soul with God is union of will with the divine will.' This union is necessary, but not the pas-sive; and those souls that have only the active, the same saint says, 'can have far greater merit; because they suffer greater toil, and the Lord directs them like strong men, and the consolations which they do not have in this life are reserved for them by God and will be given by Him in the next life.' Cardinal Petrucci says that without infused contemplation the soul can indeed well arrive, with the benefit ¯ of ordinary grace, at a~nnihilation of its own will and at transforming it into God's, willing nothing else than the will of God . Whence he adds that since in this is the whole of sanctity, nobody ought to desire and seek from God anything else than to be directed by Him and with His help to accomplish His will."(Praxis Confessarii, Num. 136 ; italics as in the original.) , .Similarly, Pope Benedict XIV in writing his famous standard work De Servorum Dei Beati~icatione attributes infused contempla-tion to "a special favor of God" (XXVI, 7). Moreover he observes that a number of perfect persons have been canonized although in their processes nothing was said about infused contemplation (Op. cir., XXVI, 8). From the foregoing we may safely conclude that besides infused contemplation understood as prayer characterized by the gifts of the Holy Spirit there has also evidently been another concept of it in quite orthodox Catholic authorities. If in interpreting the thesis it be added also that prayer consti-tuted by the influence of the gifts (II, 313) is essentially just what the mystics and in particular what Saints Teresa and John describe, a critical reader might interpose: "Do you propose this analysis of fact and this theory of the gifts as certain or as probable? If prob-able, .very well; no objection. But if certain, on what grounds? What is the evidence?" (2) The infused contemplation proposed as coming within the normal development of the spiritual life is not, in terms of what is humanly noticeable, very different from the highest form of acquired prayer. Neither at its inception nor in the course of its progress nor at its culmination does it appear to be a strikingly different phenome-non in consciousness. Whatever is to be said metaphysically about 314 November, 1949 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE the nature, formal objects, and so forth of the virtues, the gifts, the various kinds of mental prayer, and so on, psychologically and morally and practically there may be no observable difference oetween this infused contemplation and the prayer which just pre-cedes it. Into the two forms both the virtues and the gifts enter. If it be (according to the theory) the influence of the gifts which "constitutes" (II, 313) infused contemplation, the change need not be great enough to be discernible in consciousness. The author fully admits "that the transition from the last acquired prayer to initial infused prayer is not so clearly distinguished" (II, 328-330). Repeatedly he suggests that it may take "an experienced director" to notice that the one has succeeded the other. "A simple and loving.attention to God . . . cannot, in fact, be prolonged without a rather manifest intervention of the gifts" (Christian Perfection and Contemplation, 329). In this case it would seem that nothing but the prolongation calls for infusion. This quotation is taken from a context in which "the nature of the mystical state" is being explained. Moreover even in the course of the acquired prayer of recollec-tion the~e will be isolated acts of infused contemplation (I, 245). So much for the beginning of infused contemplation considered as a conscious experience. If now in the ulterior stages of it, espe-cially as they are described by St. Teresa, one separate the accidentals from the essential, surprisingly little will be left. "The degrees of contemplative prayer are chiefly those of the growing intensity of living faith, of charity, and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost which correspond to them" (II, 299). It seems that nothing is essential~ beyond "only an infused light: the special illumination of the gifts of understanding and wisdom" (II, 317). It even appears that ecstasy is not essential t(~ the stage called "ecstatic union" (II, 344). By what criterion the distinction between essence and accidents is made does not stand out very clearly. Not even the supreme and rare state of the mystical marriage is very marvelous as an experience. "According to St. John of the Cross, the essential basis of this wholly eminent state is in no way miraculous; it is, says the Saint, 'the perfect state of the spiritual life,' being here on earth the culminating point of the development of the life of grace and of the love of God . In the transforming union the higher faculties are drawn to the innermost center of the soul where the Blessed Trinity dwells." (II, 529.) The gift of 315 AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE Review for Religious wisdom, which exists also in the most stupid soul possessing grace, is, when fully developed, sufficient to account for it. One might well wonder whether the great mystics who vehe-mently lamented their utter inability to describe (heir absolutely ineffable experiences would recognize them in the results of Father Garrigou-Lagrange's analysis. (3) Nor are the force and significance of the central thesis 'increased by having it lean so heavily for support upon the author's uncertain theory of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In itself the thesis is quite independent of that particular doctrine and need not stand or fall with it. But as a matter of fact it is proposed as in part a consequence of the theory and from this point of view it cannot lay claim to greater probability than the theory upon which it is based. (4) Lastly, the doctrine that infused contemplation comes within the normal development of the spiritual life is rendered still less significant by a rather liberal admission of exceptions: "Infused contemplation is,. in principle or in theory, in the normal way of sanctity, although there are exceptions arising from the individual temperament or from absorbing occupations or from less favorable surroundings, and so on" (I, x). If, therefore, to return again to the general import of the central thesis of The Three Ages, it be taken to mean merely that contempla-tion marked or constituted by the "special inspirations" of the gifts comes within the evolution of the supernatural life, hardly anybody will simply deny it, but some careful thinkers will have doubts about the theory of the gifts, and some may ask: "But what does it mean in terms of human experience or action? What noteworthy difference does it make in one's substantive kn6wledge and love of God?" If the thesis be interpreted also to signify that these effects of the gifts and what is essential in the experiences, say, of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross are one and the same reality, then there is the problem of determining what in empirical terms that essential is (the conclusions of others differ very widely from Father Garrigou- Lagrange's), of adequately accounting for it with the uncertain theory of the gifts, and thirdly of showing that it is in store for everyone whose spiritual life evolves as it should. The thesis is not that St. Weresa's or St. John's experiences in their integrity are part of the regular spiritual growth. Whether the principal contention of the work be true or not, 316 November, 1949 "WE ARE HIS MEMBERS !" it will, I think, because of the way in which it is presented, be mis-understood by many devout people and lead to much disillusionment and discouragement. Thus it seems, to conclude very briefly, that The Three Ages of the Interior Life is a great work, great in its faults as well as in its excellences. "We His Members!" M. Raymond, O.C.S.O. When men shall say to you: "'Lo, Christ is bete! Lo, Christ is there!'" Belieue them! And know that thou art seer When all thy crging clear Is but: "'Lo, here! Lo, tberet. Ah, me. Lo, everywheret."" --- ~RANCIS THOMPSON. IWANT every priest of God and every religious vowed to Him to be unalterably happy.I i know that they can be so if they will become rightly self-conscious and consequently acutely Christ-conscious. There is the ~vord that spells beatitude here as well as hereafter; for there is the ~vord that means sanctity. It was the great St. Francis de Sales, I believe, who said that one motto lived is enough to make a saint.IrvMay I suggest as a life-line and as a saint-making motto the thrilling truth that "We are His members!" To see any baptized person sad has always given me pain, but when that person wears the livery of Jesus Christ that pain becomes acutely agonizing; for it is so simple a matter to develop a Christ-consciousness that will preclude forever all possibility of real sadness entering the center of our souls! Now do understand me. I am not saying that there is a short cut to sanctity. There isn't. The road winds up hill all the way. But there are means of simplifying life, of unifying our efforts, of integrating our personalities ,~0 that the uphill climb is less difficult, our complex existences become intelligible wholes, and our every act or omission conspires to our grand objective. One such means is that 3!7 M. RAYMOND Review [or Religious offered in our day by Divine Providence--the doctrine of the Mysti-cal Body; or, as I put it above: living conscious of the fact that "We are His members." What happiness does not this consciousness bring to self! It tells you your dignity as an individual in a d;iy when individual dig-nity in every sphere of life from the economic and political to the military and social is utterly denied. It tells you, you are a member of Him who is Might and Majesty, Meekness and Marvel,' true God and true man. It tells you that you have been lifted from the insig-nificant to a position wherein you mean much to the all-independent Divinity. It tells you that you have a work to do for the Almighty, which, if not done by you, will remain undone forever. In letters that shine like gold against black velvet Plus XII made this truth real in his Mgstici Corport's when he wrote: "The Head needs His members." How can you be unhappy when you realize you mean so much to God and have so important a work to do for Him? The Cur~ of Ars once said: "Even if there were no hereafter, ' it is Heaven enough to work for God on earth." No religious, conscious of his calling, will question the Cur~'s statement. But that does not mean that you will not know difficulty. That does not mean that humiliations will not come your way; that you will not fail in many an enterprise; know shame, ignominy, defeat. That does not mean that you will not suffer both physically and mentally. It does mean that you will know what to do with all these things when they do come your way. It means that you will be happy not only in the midst of sufferings but precisely because you are suffering. For you will ever live conscious of the fact that you are to "fill up what is wanting to His Passion," as St. Paul so joyously states it; conscious of the fact that you can now "rejoice that you, in some slight degree, resemble your Lord and Master," as St. Ignatius so pointedly puts it; conscious of the fact that it ill becomes you to be a "weak member under a Thorn-crowned Head," as St. Bernard so boldly and beautifully expressed it. Let the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" batter and pierce you through and through, you can't be unhappy so long as you are con-scious of the fact that you are His member. And oh! how your attitudes toward all others change once you have this truth in your blood and being. How you love every human being just because he or she is an actual or a potential member of 318 Nooember, 1949 "WE ARE HIS MEMBERS !" your Christ; has a part to play in the Great Drama of the Redeem-ing; can complete the Passion of your Savior; has a work to do that no one but be or she can do; is dear to your Father, God; beloved of your.Mother, Mary; is, further, part of the same Body as you! How can jealousy, envy, bitterness, enmit3~, antipathy enter your soul? "The eye cannot say to the hand: I need not thy help; nor again the head to the feet'" (I Cot. 12:21). Your hand does not envy your eye because it caffnot see. Your. ear is not jealous of your tongue because it cannot taste. Then why should you be jealous or envious of some other member of Christ because he or she can do things you cannot do? You won't be. You can't be. Rather you will rejoice if this one has ten talents and you only one. You will exult over such a one's ability to do so much more for your Head than you are capable of doing. Yes, all smallness leaves your life as soon as you live the truth that "We are His members." And how kind you become! The great Flemish mystic, Ruysbroeck, once said: "Be kind. Be kind. Be kind. And you'll be a saint." Here's a motto that makes kindness not only easy but an urge. In times past, some of us have been unhappy because of the work assigned us. Had we been living the doctrine of the Mystical Body we should never have known anything but blessed content-ment, even exul~ant joy; for we would have realized that our every act done "through Him, and with Him, and in Him" was powerful beyond all expression! "Actions," philosophers tell us, "belong to the person," not to the members. We pay the typist, not the typist's fingers. We honor the hero, not his eyes, hands, or feet. For we know actions belong to the person, not to his members. Think, then, of your every act when you act as a member of Christ's Mysti-cal Body. Think of your tiniest deed: sweeping a floor, making a bed, washing a dish, dusting a chair--they are acts of.the Mystical Christ! Can any assignment, then, be a cause of unhappiness? Do you see how this doctrine covers everything: Yourself, others, your works, your sufferings, your triumphs and defeats. Will you allow me one short example of how it works? Last 2anuary I was out of my monastery for the first time in thirteen years. 2ust what such a strange experience would mean to others, I do not know, but I do know that for me it was something in the nature of a "vision." I saw Christ. For over a month I saw Him suffer, agonize, and die in a hospital called St. Joseph's Infirmary. 319 M. RAYMOND "Review t:or Religious I saw Christ in old Brother Hugh whose sight was dim, hearing gone, and power of speech paralyzed. In him I saw Christ agonize as cancer gnawed his vitals away. I saw Jesus even more clearly in an infant of two months whose rapidly growing brain tumor would soon bow that head in death, and Innocence would once again have "given up the ghost" because of sin. I saw our suffering, sacrificing Savior in two nurses, one just about to graduate, the other a gradu-ate of two years, who, standing star-eyed and eager, ready for life, learned that they had better make ready for death, since creeping paralysis had made its first appearance in one and cancer of the lymph had doomed the other. From dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn that hospital breathed for me, and it was the breath of Jesus Christ. For over a month I was witness to the Great Drama of the Redeeming as I saw Christ paying for sin in bodies that were His by right of baptism. I saw Salvation being won for the world; for that hospital appeared to me as a chalice and every pang of pain as so much blood being poured into it. How could I view it otherwise when I know that we are the "pIeroma of Christ" who are to fill up what is wanting to His Passion? (Cf. Col. ~:24.) . How could I or anyone else fail to see the crucifixion when I stood staring at bap-tized human beings on the cross? Yes, I saw Christ; for "we are His members'!" Do you see how easy it is? Do you see what a different outlook it gives, on life and all things in lif~, The late Archbishop Goodier, S.J., gave a formula for happiness in his brochure A More Excellent Wa~1. It is to "crawl in through the wound on Christ's side, go down deep into His Heart, then look out on the world and all things in the world with His eyes." Had we not the doctrine of the Mystical Body that formula might se~m impossible of fulfill-ment. How does Jesus look upon human beings? Does He not see them as either actual or potential members of His Body? Can't we see them in the same light? How does Christ see the "feeble" and "less honorable members"? St. Paul tells us. "Those that seem to be the more feeble members of the body, are more necessary" (I Cor. 12:22). Don't you see the utter impossibility of ever looking dgwn on anyone? of ever despising a single human being? of ever having a low or mean opinion of anyone who breathes? So long as I am Christ-conscious, I love; so long as I love, I am like God. The Archbishop's formula is possible of fulfillment, else God the 320 November, 1949 "WE ARE Ills MEMBERS !" Holy Ghost would never have commanded us through St. Paul: "Put ye on the Lord, Jesus Christ" (Rom. 13:14). Nor would He have told us to "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). Hilaire Belloc has rightly said, "A man is his mind." If we would be what God made us to be and our deepest instinct craves to be, we will acquire the mind of Jesus; for Dietrich yon Hildebrand stated truth truthfully when he said, "The essence of sanctity is transformation into Christ." Sanctity is made relatively easy, then, by the development of Christ-consciousness: for nothing is better calculated to work this transfo.rmation than the constant appreciation of the fact that "We are His members." There is not a true religious who does not long to "radiate Christ" pedectt~l. But that longing will be like the barren fig tree--a thing Of beautiful foliage but bare of fruit--until the Light of the World glows in the very core of our beings, until the last feature of.the Face iaf Christ is sealed into our souls, until every beat of our hearts synchronizes with the pulse of His great Heart. Baptism sufficed for incorporation in Christ, but it does not suffice for transformation into Him. No. For that we need to be im-mersed, absorbed, lost in Christ Jesus. All of which is possible by living the truth of the Mystical Body. But by living I mean living. Look!. There is not one of us who does not know that the life of Christ pulsates in the person of every-one who is in the state of grace; that down in the depths of those souls the Holy Trinity dwells; that thelight in their eyes tells the same tremendous truth as does the flickering flame of the Sanctuary Lamp: God is here. Yes, we all know that. .But how many of us live conscious of those facts? Which of us does not know that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the Mystical Body? that, being the soul, He is present "'totus in toto, et totus in qualibet parte'" ("entire in the whole, and entire in every part of the whole")? Who does not know that the soul elevates, unifies, identifies, and vivifies? But bow many of us make the appli-cations and draw the consequences? My fellow priest, my brother or sister in religion has been elevated to a dignity that astounds. He or she can not only be defined as a "creature composed of body and soul," but also may be described as "body, soul, and Holy Ghost!" He or she is more than human; has been made so by God the Holy Ghost. What respect, reverence, awe, and admiration I should have 321 M. RAYMOND ~evieu~ [or Religious for my fellow! But besides elevating, the soul identifies and unifies. The Holy Ghost unites all the cells of the Mystical Body to the Person whose Body it is. How close my fellow is to God! How close he or she is to me!. We know these mind-staggering truths. We even teach these marvels and mysteries to others. But how often do we live conscious of these facts? The rod of Aaron is in our hands. It is in beautiful flower. But we . May I suggest a plan whereby you can become wide awake to these joy-filled and joy-producing realities? Why not integrate your life by-means of this marvelous doctrine? Let your meditations for an entire year be on nothing but this wondrous truth. You know, M. Anger has proved in a masterly thesis that this doctrine is the white heart of the Kohinoor which is Dogmatic Theology. He shows that every light that leaps from those mahy facets has its origin in Christ who is the Light of the World. Our meditations should be on nothing that is not ioundly dogmatic. - But to make these meditations fruitful we needs must read. Thanks be to God, whole shelves can now be devoted to literature on the Mystical Body. After Anger-Burke one could read Emile Mersch, S.2., then John Gruden, and Edward Leen, C.S.Sp. Fol-low'these with Fulton Sheen, Raoul Plus, S.J., Daniel Lord, S.d., Carl Adam, and William McGarry, S.d.,--to name but a few. There is more than a year's reading matter for any religious, and reading that will make meditations throb. To integrate our lives we must add examen to our readings and meditations. Couldn't we spend a year--or even two--with this doctrine as our particular examen? The development of this Christ-consciousness would be a main objective. We could practice it in so many different ways: conscious of my own membership; of my neighbors; of all men; conscious of the soul of the Mystical Body throbbing in me--in others; conscious of the dignity and worth of my actions when done "through, with, and in Hfm." Variety would not be wanting and unity would be assured. If reading, meditation, and examen go together for a year promise a consciousness that will have you "looking out on the world and all things in the world with the eyes of Christ." I promise you an integration that will effect a transformation. I promise a happiness the world canfiot give"or take away. I am sure that most of you will see how this simplifies the spit- 322 Noaernber, 1949 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS itual life since it is a system that includes all other systems. In it abandonment, trust, detachment, purity of intention, presence of God, union with the Divine Will are all contained. I cannot be Christ-conscious without being or having all the others. It is a system that will unify one's entire existence; for there is nothing that I can think, do, or say legitimately that cannot be thought, done, and said "through Him, with Him, and in Him." It is a system from which all movements derive and to which they'all lead; for what is the Liturgical Movement if it is not centered in the Mass; and what is the Mass if not the Sacrifice of the Mystical Body, as Pius XII has so insistently proved in his Mediator Dei. What is Catholic Action if not begun, continued, and ended through, with, and in Christ 3esus? That is why I have dared to offer the motto and to say: "Try it and see if it doesn't simplify, unify, integrate your life, and make you what God made you to be and what I long for you to be--verd happy!'" The rod is in your hand. It is flowerin!! Ques Jons and Answers What is to be thought about the followlncj statement which appeared in the pubffe press last August: "Plans for a profound reform . . . likely the most drastic the cloistered monasteries and nunneries have undergone since the Council of Trent ended in 1563 . . . are in an advanced stage ¯ . . and are planned for promulgation in 19S0. The reform is designed in large part to make inmates of cloistered convents more effective as agents of the Church in its current world-wide struggle." Lik~ so many newspaper reports concerning religious events, this one, while having a foundation in fact, is grossly exaggerated. For-tunately an answer to the above statement was given by Father Arcadio Larraona, undersecretary of the Sacred Congregation of Reli-gious, on August 22, 1949. He explained that there is no question of a vast reform of cloistered orders, but of certain mitigations, required by the ~xigencies of modern times. He mentions two such mitigations. Modern conditions require that a mitigation in. the rule of cloister be made to allow nuns to leave the enclosure for medical and dental treatment, and for similar purposes. Again,.in the after- 323 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Revieu~ [or Religious math of the war, some monasteries of nuns are literally starving because they can no longer support themselves aft they did before the war. In such cases the Holy See has advised a modification of the rule of enclosure to permit the nuns to engage in activities providing an income for the communities, such as conducting schools, orphan-ages, and the like. However, in such cases, the essentials of the con-templative life must always be maintained. Father Larraona also indicated that there exists a tendency toward confederating cloistered communities of religious women in countries where economic reasons or a reduction in the number of cloistered nuns indicate the need for such a trend. There is however, no ques-tion of any imposed reform, but the spirit of the autonomous insti-tutions is always considered and preserved. Such federations are on a purely voluntary and very limited basis. In conclusion Father Larraona explained that papal directives to religious institutes, urging them to organize their activities in accord-ance with the changes in the social conditions of the world, do not signify any impending reforms to be imposed by the Holy Father. May a Sister on nursing duty in a hospital wear a gold and silver graduation pin on the religious habit? Is this contrary fo article 67 of the Normae of 1901 which forbids ornaments of gold or silver to be included in the rel~glous dress? Let us first quote article 67 of the Normae in full before answer-ing our question. It reads as follows: "With the possible exception of a small and simple cross or medal of silver, no gold or silver orna-ments should be worn. In those ornaments which are allowed new images or inscriptions not as yet approved by the Church are not to be tolerated. Silk garments are not allowed, nor silk ornaments or others which betray vanity and cause complaints or laughter." Generally speaking, graduation pins are not to be worn by reli-gious women except on special Occasions such as alumnae reunions and the like, provided superiors think it well to let the Sisters iden-tify themselves as alumnae. It can happen in a hospital that graduate nurses are required to carry on their person some sign of identification. In that case the superior could allow the Sisters to wear their graduation pins. But no Sister should take it upon herself to wear such a pin without the permission of her superior. What was forbidden by the Norroae was 324 Nooember, 1949 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS the wearing of ornaments as sucli, f~)r vanity's sake. The wearingof a graduation pin for purposes of identificationwould not come under that head. It may not be out of place Norrnae of 1901 were not laws a set of ideal constitutions for Sacred Congregation set up for constitutions submitted to it for article 67 of the Norrnae found tions during the course of the article 67 of the Norrnae, but as approved by the Holy See. here to remind our readers that the binding religious directly, but rather a religious congregation which the itself as a guide in approving new the approval of the Holy See. Thus its way into many sets of constitu-years. It obliges religious, not as an article of their own constitutions ~2-- Is there any ecclesiastical regulation that prohibits Sisters from holding the position of organist in parish choirs that have both men and women members.'; While there is no express prohibition to be found in the Code ot? Canon Law nor in the Councils of Baltimore, still anumber of diocesan statutes forbid Sisters to function as .organists in parish churches. To give but one example, Statute 184 of the Fourth Pro-vincial Council of Portland in Oregon (1934) reads as follows: "We forbid religious women to act as organists or choir directors, except in the case in which boys and girls still attending school make up the choir." Moreover, we think it is not in conformity with the general spirit of the religious life for a Sister to act as organist for a mixed adult choir and it may be a source of disedification to the faithful. In practice, no Sister should undertake to play the organ for a mixed choir of men and women without theexpress permission of the local ordinary and of her own higher superior. ---43-- May a religious teacher who has "class money" in his keeping, or extra-curricular funds, use these in whole or in part for personal reasons? Is his superior at liberty to give him such a permission? Or must such funds be used for the purpose for which they were collected, or for things to be used by the students for their betterment, such as charts, reference-books, and the I~ke? If we understand this question correctly, the "class money" 325 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious referred to is money that actually belongs to the class: not to the school as such, nor to the religious community. In o~her words, it is a common fund to which individual students have contributed with the understanding that the money be used for certain specific pur-poses. A religious superior has no power to give.permission to use such money for personal reasons; and neither the superior nor the teacher should use the money for any but the specified purposes unless the class freely consents to this. 1 oo1 Reviews THE DAY WITH JESUS AND MARY. By the Dominican Sisfers. Pp. 143. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1949. $2.50. This book seeks to help one develop a consciousness of God's presence during the day through recalling the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. The hour from five to six is dedicated to the Annunciation, from six to seven to the Visitation, and so forth. At the beginning of each hour one offers his own work bf that hour in union with the work of Jesus and Mary suggested by the mystery of that hour. And with the discussion of each mystery, this book gives'a few biographi-cal facts about two saints (one Dominican and one other) who were outstanding in the virtue suggested by this mystery. For instance, upon awakening in the morning, one recalls the Annunciation and offers the coming hour in union with the joy of all the saints, espe-cially St. Dominic or St. Philip Neri, in the blessings of the Incarna-tion. The moral reflections are the standard ones, the saints chosen are appropriate enough, the style of writing very plain. The value of the book will lie in the appeal of the idea of dedicating each hour of the day to a mystery of the Rosary. For those to whom it does appeal it has a double advantage; it makes the Rosary a living thing, and it gives one a clear center or focus for his spiritual thought~ of that hour. For how many would such a plan work? The Holy Spirit has many ways of aiding our growth; one way of finding out whether any plan will suit me is to give it an honest trial. That God wishes us to recall His presence habitually, that He wishes us to model our lives upon the mysteries of the Incarnation, that the hourly recollec-tion method has worked for some--all this is clear. It: the number 326 Not~ember, 1949 BOOK REVIEWS is comparatively small, I think the chief reason is that the number of those who have made persevering effort to live in God's presence is also comparatively small. God certainly wishes all religious to have a spirit of recollection through the day; theref6re He wishes us to use what natural means we find at hand to develop this spirit. The end is valuable enough to urge us to try various means until we find one suitable to us. This book could help many in this searching. --2T. N. JORGENSEN, S.d. SHE WHO LIVED HER NAME. By Marie Rene-Bazln. Pp. 208. The Newman Press, Wesfm~nsfer, Maryland, 1949. $3.00. "The ways of Providence are, as a rule, of a marvelous sim-plicity, but they are made intricate by man's timidity and blindness. When, however, God finds a soul childlike enough to trust Him unflinchingly and eager to follow wherever He leads, He enfolds it in the unity of His plan and mirrors in its depths something of His unique simplicity." Thus opens the biography of the Foundress of the Helpers of the Holy Souls. Mary of Providence, or as she was known in the world, Eugenie Marie Joseph Smet, was born on March 25, 1825, at Lille, France. Reared in a good Catholic home, she was struck by two important teachings of the Church: Divine Providence and purgatory. A woman of action, an enthusiast and organizer, she was driven by a spiritual life dominated by these two truths to found a congregation which by prayer and suffering would make its principal aim the release of the suffering souls from purgatory. Fearful of illusion on her part, Eugenie set up several "signs" by which she would know that her plan was pleasing to God. Among them was that the Holy Father would send her his blessing on the venture, prior to the sanction of the bishop of the diocese. All the "signs" were fulfilled. The Cur~ of Ars, when asked his advice, told her to found the order whenever she pleased. On July 1, 1856, the Helpers of the Holy Souls had their motto, "Pray, Suffer, Labor" (for the souls in purgatory), their name, their motherhouse, and not much else. By" 1867, they .were landing in China to establish the Seng-Mou-Yeu house near Shang-hai. At the same time in Paris, Mary of Providence was suffering much. The Helper of the Holy Souls felt that she was being con-sumed by fire herself. While Prussian shells whistled over the house-tops during the siege of Paris, she lay dying of malignant cancer. ,327 BOOK NOTICES She had always had a dread of five things: leaving her family, founding a community, seeing her daughters in want, getting into debt, having cancer. "Well, by the grace of God," she said, "all five happened to me." The heroic foundress died February 7, 1871, at the age of 46. The author of the biography, daughter of the late novelist Ren~ Francois Bazin, has written the work carefully enough, quoting heavily from the d, iary and writings of Mary of Providence. One could wish, however, for the personality traits, the telling touches which make a holy person flesh and blood.-~R. A. RUDOLF, S.J. THE HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN. By a Father of the Soclefy of Jesus. Pp. 372. The Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 1949. $2.50. After. having been hidden aw~y nearly eighty years in convents, monasteries, and novitiates, this gem is now dusted off and presented once more for the enjoyment of the Catholic reader. The author, Father Isidore Boudreaux, was a master of novices in the Jesuit novitiate at Florissant, Missouri, but his name was withheld from most of the early editions. The present edition is planographed and is presented without revision of the original. Besides. discussing the essence of heavenly happiness, namely, the beatific vision, Father Boudreaux also answers many little questions of interest to the earthbound. Is there a social life in heaven? What will our bodies be like? Will all be equally happy? Answering these and many other queries, the author has covered practically all that we can know about the next life. The subject matter, due to the its very sublimity, is quite diffi-cult. Father Boudreaux witl~out abandoning sound theology has treated heaven in.a way that should make The Happiness of Heaveb required reading for all priests and religious, and a source of great comfort and courage to Catholic laymen.--M. HAGhN, S.J. BOOK NOTICES Fatima is truly of great importance to us today. The passage of the "Pilgrim Virgin" through our country has led many hundreds o.f thousands to a deeper consideration and understanding of this importance. Wherever the statue went, great crowds flocked to venerate it and to fulfill Mary's desires by confessions, Communions, Masses, and rosaries., One of the highlights of the trip was the. week at St. Meinrad's Abbey, Indiana. A detailed history of the careful 328 Noeember, 1949 BOOK NOTICES preparation for the week and of the complete success of the celebra-tion is given in the book FATIMA WEEK SERMONS. A sixteen page introduction by. the Abbot (Rt. Rev. Ignatius Esser, O.S.B.) tells of the pre!barations, of the handling of the crowd of 125,000 that attended, and of that crowd's devout spirit. The thirty-eight sermons given in the book are the Marian talks delivered during the week. They treat of Fatima and of the Marian virtues most closely associated with the Fatima message. These talks were given by thirty-eight different priests and naturally vary in value, but a judicious assigning of topics to the speakers kept repetition of thought to a minimum. This is a valuable book for one studying the history of the Fatima devotion and for one who plans any big Marian celebration. (St. Meinrad, Indiana: The Grail, 1949. Pp. 170. $1.00 [paper].) THE MYSTICAL ROSE, by Father Hubert, O.F.M.Cap., is a small book of scarcely more than pamphlet size treating of Mary's hidden beai~ty and love through a discussion of her fullness of grace, her virginity, and her divine maternity. The style is fluent and poetic, but the book is often repetitious and verbose with a wordi-ness that hinders rather than heightens clarity. Despite this fault of style, the book has merits which lead one to a meditative reading and rereading of many passages which tease one to further thought. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Bookshop, 1948. Pp. 79. $1.75.) FAITH AND A FISHHOOK, by Sr. M. Charitas, S.S.N.D., is a book of thirteen chapters presenting in chatty style selected anecdotes from the lives of our Lgrd, eleven saints, and the Archangel Raphael. "It is unfortunate that the author attempts to attract youthful readers to the religious life by telling them that this life "asks far less sacrifices than any other state"! In fact, the religious life is so easy that "it takes huge courage not to become a religious" (p. 122). Not only are such statements false, but they are apt to dissuade, rather than to encourage prospective postulants. (Milwaukee: ~Fhe Bruce Pub-lishing Company, 1949. Pp: ix q- 164. $2.50.) HOT EMBERS, by Sister M. Charitas, I.H.M., devotes most of its short twenty-eight chapters to narrating and devoutly commenting on various episodes of our Lord's Infancy, Passion, and Resurrection. A special section makes observations on the lives of St. Theresa of .329 Book NOTICES Review for Religious Lisieux, St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Angelus, Simon Stock, Elias. The remaining chapters treat of the Scapular Feast, the Good Shepherd, the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred Heart, and the Feast of the Immaculate Hea.rt of Mary. (New York: The Scapular Press, 1948. Pp. 205. $2.75.) LITURGICAL ~VIEDITATIONS (Volume I: From Advent to the Ascension; Volume II: From Ascension to Advent), by the Sisters of Saint Dominic, Adrian, Michigan, provides daily meditations for an entire year. Each is in some way connected with the liturgy of the day. Three short points tie Scripture, meditations, and Mass together. The Sanctoral Cycle is naturally devoted to the Saints and. Blessed of the Order of Preachers, as. the work was originally intended by the anonymous writers for the members of their own Order. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1949. Pp. viii + 533: 479. $10.00 [set].) THE CURE D'ARS, by Abb~ Francis Trochu, is a reprint of the "standard" life of the great Cur~. The author drew upon the volu-minous records of the process of canonization for his. material. The life was done into English by Dora Ernest Gra.f, O.S.B., and was first published in 1927. As hagiography it is in the older analytical style with the saint's every virtue described in its own chapter. This is "bad" for the plot--but the wh6le plot here is the boundless love of God. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1949. Pp. xxiii -ff 586. $5.50.) TRANSFORMATION IN CHRIST, by Dietrich yon Hildebrand, will give many a new self-knowledge, a new surehess, and some "know-how" in their efforts at Christlikeness. The book has a solid, earnest, inspiring message for all who admit that "before all else, it is necessary for us to grasp the 'height, breadth, and depth' of our vocation, and fully to comprehend the message of the" Gospel which invites us not merely to become disciples of Chris't and children of God, but to enter into a.process of transformation in Christ." The somewhat technical vocabulary of the book will at times make heavy reading for those who have not enjoyed the opportunity of a classicaI education or philosopical training; but

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

Issue 47.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1988. ; A Spirituality of Suffering Issues and .Trends--1987 Advance Health-Care Directives Evaluating Chapters Volume 47 Number,2 March/April 1988 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (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 edito-rial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO. 63108-3393. REvmw FOR REL=G=OUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. ©1988 by REvmw FOR RELiGiOUS. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: U.S.A. $12.00 a year; $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail, add $5.00 per year; for airmail, add $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read M. Anne Maskey, O.S.F. Acting Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors March/April, 1988 Volume 47 Number 2 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW VOR REIoU;IOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REWEW VOR RE~olt;Iot~S; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Charism as E powerment to Discerff, to, De.cide,, tO Act, to Assess : F:intan D: Sheeran, SS.CC:. ' ~, Fathbr Fint~n D. 'Sheei'an'is a priest ih the" Congregation of, the Sacred Hearts. He works p~'esently as a.consultant.to religious communities and resides in his Congre-gatio, n's formatjo.,.n.~.c.ommunity, in Ch,everly, ,Ma.ryland: This is ,hi~s first contribution to our pages. He may:be addressed. ~ at Damien House; 6013 Inwood Stre~et;,. Chev-. erl~, Maryland 20785. harles de.,Gaulle.is supposed to have puzzled ove.r the possibility of.gov-erning a people who had more,t~.an three hundred diffeyent cheeses. Per-haps Church authoritie~s~are affli.cted with somewhat similar doubts as they cpntemplate the present state,of religiou~s life .and,especially the pre-sent state,of study and writing 9.n,the re.ligious life. ~Prior .to the CQuncil, a narrowly ju.ridic and0institutional~ u~nderstanding ~i'nd interpretation of re,ligious life0dominated practi.caily all writing and reflection on the sub-ject and there was consider~ible:hom.og.eneity in the field, even by pre-conciliar~ standards. Since the Council, there has been.a rich and continu-i, ng outpouring of reflection as atte,mpts have been and go on being made to understand and to.reinterpret,the religious life from various~vantage pojn~ts including in the light of.dev~eloping experience. The author of~one such ,r.ecent .i~nterpretatip.n, ,Sar~dra .Schnei.ders,. ob.serves about .this, "What a).l~ of t.hese attempts have demonstrated is the richness of the phe-nomenon of religious life and,.the,fecun~dity of approachi.ng its mean!ng fnraotemd b_trhoea dtheero.p.looignyt~s ooff 'rveileiwgi othuasn l itfhee a dt olegamsat tsiicn jcuer itdhiec aCl oounnec tihl.aotf h ~arde ndto. m~iz One fairl3~ prominent feature of all, of this.reflection has been the con-siderable ¯ attention given to charism the charism of, religious life, the charism of founders, the charism of particular congregations. This atten- 161 Review for Religious, March-APr~ il 1988 tion has included reflection by religious themselves, u~sually in a pastor-~ ally oriented way, as an element of such enterprises as rewriting consti-tutions, establishing apostolic criteria or mission statements and so on. Then, forthe first time, there have been statements on charism in offi-cial Church documents. These have been well noted. Evangelica Tes-tificatio speaks of the charism of founders (n. I I ) and Mutuae Relationes of the chai'ism of particular congregations (nn. I l, 12). Finally, charism has been touched on, to a greater or lesser degree, by practically every t.heologian writing comprehensively about the religious life since Vati-can II.2 Among theologian~ none has given more particular attention to the nature and role of charism in religious life than Tillard in line with his strong accent on the religious life as the "following of Christ." I will touch briefly on some of his reflections on charism referring in par-ticular to his There Are Charisms and Charisms.3 What I wish to speak about in this pres.ent article is Charism from a dynamic or "functional" perspective rather than from the point ofview of '~'content," meahing ho~ a charism is a particular Gospel orientation with certain evangelical accents and nuances. I am concerned rather with how a charism "func-tions" if one can speak in such a way, in the ongoing life of a congrega-tion, how it can be a source of life, of unity and of dynamic newness. A religious congregation is born of a Personal and particular experi-ence of Christ and his Spirit, a charismatic experience in the sense that it is the Spirit alone who initiates the encounter that leads to such a re-alization. ".the charism~of the religious life, far from being an im-pulse born of flesh and blood . ~. is the fruit of the Holy Spirit." (Evangelica Testifi~atio n. 11). "The 'charism ~f the founders' (ET n. 11) .appears as 'an experience of the Spirit'." (Mutuae Relationes n. 11). The person is ~eized by the Spirit. To iliuminate this experienc,e Til-lard turns to the New Testament narratives of apostolic vocation and re-sponse. 4 It is Jesus who invites; it is he;who takes the initiative, filling the life of the person ~ind leading them to the service of the kingdom. This divine initiative d0e~ not at :all depend upon any moral excellence on the part of the humarl partner in the encounter nor does it of itself im-mediately :add anything to their moral stature. (This point has larger im-plications with which we are not immediately concerned here with ref-erence to the truth that vocation to the religious life is in no way a call to any "higher" degree or form of holiness than the call of every Chris-tian in virtue of baptism.) It is an encounter with the Risen Lord which reorients the persoh's life creating a mysterious enthusiasm in which ex-planation for the otherwise inexplicably radical response is rooted. As Charism as Empowerment / 16~$ John Lozano remarks, commenting on the call of the apostles: ¯ . .They leave e~,erything--family and occupation--and go off with him. As an event in a chronicle, it would not make any sense. But it is not just any "unknown man" who passes through the account . The center of it all is relationship with Christ, understood, of cou~:se, in a post-resurrecti~on sense, when these accounts were shaped as an ex-pression of faith in theoSon of God.5 For the founder and for every religious, as for the apostles, this fol-lowing of Christ originates in an encounter'which is "charismatic"--it is of Christ and his Spirit. At the deepest level the reason a person be-comes a founder (or a member) of a religious congregation is ": . . not a for . . . but a because of. One does. not become a religious for something, ,with a view to something; one enters the religious life be-cause of JesUs Christ and0his ascendancy.''6 I make these remarks and references centering on the fundamental character of the charism of religious life because while my concern in this article is with the ongoing dynamism of charism in our religious com-munities this dynamism is inseparable from what charism is at root. Be-fore moving along it is also worth no~ting some of the marks of authen-ticity of the charism of a congregati6n, marks which continue to have considerable import for the life of a group. Mutuae Relationes mentions a number of the "true marks of an authentic charism" (12). One of these is a distinct quality of newness. "Every authentic charism brings an ele-ment. of real originality in the spiritual life of the Church along with fresh initiatives for action" (12). (The document does'not fail to note that this very newness may be a cause of difficult);. Most religious congregations can offer some testimony from their history to the truth of this. observa-tion. Nor need they always go back.to the archives to obtain it.) It is help-ful to look at something of the nature of this "newness." . The newness of charism is a n~wness of action and realization and not just of thoughts and words. The charism translates into pastoral life and action on behalf of God's people and not just into words and docu-ments. It is an originality which relates intimately and penetratingly to the reality of a particular time and place. Founders and foundresses are people of their own time, place, and culture, and they have a keen aware-ness of their environment. Moreover, they discover their vocation pre-cisely in the context of that environment. It is in terms of their percep-tion of reality and of their vision and articulation of a response that the newness of the Spirit is revealed. Their concrete pastoral response is a "fresh initiative for action"; ~it is new; it is other than the response (or 16~1 / Review forReligious, .March-April 1988 lack of response) customarily being made by'society .or tt~e Church to this part!cular need. In facL it frequently reveals the~pgvert~y of the percep-tion and the.ineptitude.of the response of the Church~and of society ~gener-ally. No wonder, as Mutua'e Relationes delicatel,y remarks, such re-sponses "~ay appear unseasonable to many." A further trem(ndously powerful element of the'freshness and :new-ness of c,harism is an aspect of which we are be(oming more awa~re. It is that the charism empo.wers the ,founders of religiou_s_:congregations to anticipate and to shape the,future in concretely effective~ways. Charism is, by its. very nature futtire-0riented. But it is an,orientation filled with purpose and with the power to achieve its purpose. This becomes clear when we read the histories.of our congregations in. the light of whatis for u~ arelatively recent perception: that history procee~ds, from, the choices, decisions and actidns 9f individuals'and particularly of groups, organized groups,of all osorts--politic'alo parties,, unions, corporations, churches, and so forth. Social realities are, the result, of human choices and decisions made in the context of economic, social,.political alterna-- tires and not simply the product~ of blind 'processes. and intractable natu-ral. forces. These actions ot~ individuals and groups create structures and systems 'whiCh in turn condition and limit our perception and options. The Shape of our society is chosen. The choi(es and action of the Church and its commuhities"fall within this complex. A~social history of eight-eenth- and nineteenth-century Europe."would surely show that society~as it was then constituted required .and secured the existence of large masses of illiierate poor in order to maintain itself as it actually was. When in-spired women and men commiited themselves to creating religious con, gregations who would,educate and care for the. illiterate poor, they did much ~more than perform an immediate work of mercy~--they became ef-fective ~gent.s of social transformation. They anticipated and shaped an alternate, future, a "new" future. The "newness" which has charism as its source is dynamic and creative; it "renews the face of the earth," "In realit.y, the charism of the religious life . . is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, who is always at work within the Church.'. It is precisely here that the dynamism pr.oper.to each religious.famil3) finds its origin" (ET, 11). My concern with charism ~is exactly with the dynamism proper to religious congregations not simply as regards their origins but more as regards their ongoing life and mission. Again the actual experience of the foundersand foundresses is illuminating. Orie significant practi, cal outcome o~f~a renewed .focus on~ charism in many congregatiQns has been the serious study given to the lives of the founders anti, also in some charism as Empowerment / 165 instances to congregations" initial or "'primitive" commt~nities. These studies have been motivat(d by a~desire to rediscover th~ originating his-tory of the community as it really was and especially to know the persoh oLthe founder or foundress freed from the m3~ths and apocrypha which had often accumulated over years of neglect of critical history. Almost invariably, the result has been someth.ing like the restoration or,rediscov-ery of the work of Michaelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Anyone who has had the opportunity to be present while the work of restoration in' the Chapel has been going on has to have been powerfully impressed by see-ing the ~"old" and the. "new" side by side. From behind the dust and debris of years thereoemerges into the light astonishingly rich and pow-erful portraits, far more striking and iml6ressive than the painting that had been accepted as authentic for years. Similarly, the women and men with whom we come into contact in recent studies of foundress~s and foun-ders ~re~p.eople'of'vividly living faith, of prophetic imagination and origi-nality; they are deeply human people with 'a'great stor~e of practicality arid common sense; men and women who were wholly, given to the Church'e~,en as they'had the insight and courage to name its needs and to confront its resistan~'eg.7 What had passed for authentic portraits had frequently~obscured a more~brilliant reality. Because of the ~i+ailability of many such Studies~ it is also possible to see, in very rough outline certainly, but perhii~ps more clearly than be-fore, something of a c6ifirhon pattern' of'movi~ment marking these jour-neys that culminate in the foundation of ~ congregation. What we are lo6k-ing at is the historical realization of charisms, their taking on concrete form and incarnation in real people, real groups. I beliexie that there is a movem6nt'inv01ved which has a typical~ rhythm, one marked by dis-tinct phases or "moments." There is an initial moment of sear6h~iSt dis: cernment with regard to the'authenticity of the call tO move in the di~'ec-tion of commencing a project; there i~ a moment of definite ch6ice 'or decision; there is a rn'oment.of action and finally a moment of assessment or evaluation. The word "moment" could be misleading. While deci-sion or choice is always in itself a m~tter of a moment'whatever the prece-dents, the actual history of ]~oundations shows clearly that the other so-called moments can be a matter of a Io,ng time, many years even; or of a relatively short period. It'varies greatly from one founder or foundress to another but these moments as such are, I believe, discernible in their histories. Obviously these moments are0quite ordinary in the sense that th~ey represent the elements of any careful decision-making and action process; in that sense they are to be expected,. Our interest in,them, how- 166 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 ever, is in how in fact they take on a distinctively "charismatic" char-acter, how they embody the "functional dynamics" of charism, how in this sense they. are utterly.di.,stinctive. . The moment of search or discernment is that period when the per-son begins to be aware of being called by God in a special way but as yet lacks assurance about this. They wonder, pray: seek counsel. Clearly there are instances where this moment stretched on for years, where the interval between the first intuition and the moment of decision was con-siderable. The time of search is followed by a moment of decision. The person now sets aside all doubts about their call and embraces the invitation of the Lord wholeheartedly and without reserve. Choice is made and com-plete commitment. One way that this new and profound option is mani-fested in the life of the person concerned i.s by an important change in their language. A confident assurance that their inspiration is from God, prev!ously absent, now marks their expression. What in other circum-stances might be regarded as simply pious phrases or even trite expres-sions take on a clear and undeniable authority and power. Such phrases as, "This is God's will" or "This is the will of ~Divine Providence" or "This is God's work" are now used in reference to their efforts. There is a new transparency of purpose; a clear~, simple and confident assurance marks their speech, as indeed a great courage,° freedom and enthusiasm marks their conduct, about the enterprise. These very quali-ties are, without doubt, key to their capacity to attract others to join them. The third moment is.the moment of actign, of doing the thing that they are called to do, gathering people together in a spirit of mission. The moment of decision and the moment of action are not the same. There c~an be instances where the decision has indeed been made but ac-tion is delayed. In the history of the foundation of my own congregation there is an example of the founder making a decision to commit himself to the project of foundation and then delaying to act on the decision. In the event he felt himself to be called to account by the Lord and repented of his delay. ~. The charism of founding a congregation comes to fruition and real-ity only when the group actually, exists and from,the beginning the un-folding of the project in fact will always involve the unforeseen and un-foreseeable. It may be better not to think of the charis.m of a founder as separated from fits realization in the original group. In a sense the foun-der or foundress must wait to 'see what God has wrought but there is ai- Charism as Empowerment / 167 ways an intuition and sense of what the new community must~be which is key to judgment on its development. While it is never a question of checking against a preexisting blueprint, there is a need to assess and to assure fidelity to the inspiration which called it into being. This moment has parti(ular significance for the founder and for the primitive commu-nity but it is a moment which must continue as long as the community endures. So indeed must all of these moments in their own way. They comprise the charism in action, the "dynamism proper to each religious family." What I wish to suggest now is that this same rhythm, these same mo-ments must continue to mark the "functional dynamics" of the charism as it exists and is exercised in a congregation. Mutuae Relationes (11) speaks of.the charism of the founders which ".hppears as 'an expe-rience of the Spirit' transmitted to their followers to be lived by them, to be preserved, deepened and constantly, developed in harmony with the Body of Christ continually in a process of growth." The charism enables" the group to search and discern what it must be and do, what must be its way of life and of pastoral action in response to the world in which it finds itselfand to do this with a certain perspective, a certain orienta-tion and point of view, a particular spirit. ~ The implication is that the group must actively.commit itself as a group to such search and discernment evdn as the founder or foundress did. It is a search by the group in such fashion that if must guard and foster that level of unity which alone makes corporate search possible. This search in turn deepens and strengthens the real unity of the group. A province, for example, needs to identify and tO sustain the processes and structures which make a group or corporate reflection and search pos-sible as a province in a stable rather than a merely elbisodic manner: Lead-ers need to'know how to promote and foster such processes of reflection and the structures they require. The charism of a group is riot "auto-matic" nor does it function in any magical way. It can remain virtually inoperative for want of sufficient cohesion within the group or for lack of sustained 6ommunal processes. The charism enables the group to search out what it must be and do and to what it must commit itself in the power of the Spirit, animated by precisely those attitudes and values which constitute the "content'" of the charism, meaning that particular Gospel orientation or accent which characterizes every charism. The grbup is enabled to make judgments which are inspired by the same spirit which animated the founding vision. More, they can experience a confi-dence in their capacity for authentic and profoundly religious newness 161~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 in their.:pastoral responses. As with the founder 9r f0undress, it is Jesus who in~,ites;.it is he who takes the init!ative.leading us in. service to the kingdom in,this time and this place. Nor is that initiative~depe_ndent on any spl.endid historic achievement b.y the congregation orieven on ;the measure of its present, resources: But process and structure are necess~ary. The processless,~ s~ructure!ess~co.ngregation or.province is a mirage, Which is not to say, ho.wever, that the processes and structures must.be t.his.or, that~type, an.d even less that there i~s only one acceptable _form. While the cultivation and sustenance of process and structure make~ par~ ticular demands on,!eadership, it is also one,area.where the real mean-i. ng o.f" membership"~_ is tested. Real living commitment, to the commu-nity demandsoand is .revealed in a real investment of time, energy and presence in. its pro.cesses and structur.e~. C, ommitm~nt ,to the,"spjrit of the. cgngregation. ," while h.a.ving no time for its. process.es, is commit-ment. to the dance w~hile disdaining the steps; it becomes increasingly, ethe-real. ~ ~. ¯ . ~., ~- .- .~ ~ Secondly,, the .charism enables a group to. make decisions and choices whic_h ar~e faithful expressions of the charism oitself. It is a.grace which leads to and-enables choices made for the sake of the kingd0m,and bear-ing the mark of a certain spirit and orientation. Some groups find it prac-tically impossible~ to make real decisi0.ns and diffiRult choices. People go through .the for.ms and moti0ns~of, decision-makin~g, 9t. chapte.rs ,for ex-a. rnple., only.to, discover in time that no real commitment had been gen-erated and that implementation is_ unlikely or impossi.ble.There had,been only the,~.utward app~earance.of dec.!sion. It is.not a questiQn of .bad faith but.of processes in, adequate to the challenge. Of eyoking commitment at deep level. One of the dynamic ':,fu.nctions" of charism is to empow~er and enable the group to truly choose and gen~uinelydecide; to risk, to surrender, .to be converted. At a time when all of our, congregation~.s.ar~e. confronted~ wit.h, chali,.en.ging choices of serious consequence,, this is, an area where we read.ily experience.both the neeod that, charism play its em-powering ¯ role and tha!0we be open. to .it. -The charism further enables the group,to act and to act corporately. This means that the charism enables in the.group that level of, shared per-ception and vision, of shared aspiration and intent, w, ithout which cor-porate choice and action are impossible. And it empower.s, apos.tolic 9c-tion. "Corporat.e action" js not a .question of everybody, doing the same thing but rather that the members.of t.he group act~by intent in .the~iight of a shared vision of, direction which can give uni.ty and .c.oherenceto quite varied _ministries. For example, a group .may-have achieved a Charism as.Empowerment / 1169 shared understanding of.what '.'evangelization" means in this particu, lar place and time and, though in the.service of that vision:the members. pursfie quite diverse ministries, they are aware that they pursuea com-mon goal,. On the contrary it can happen that people exercise th'e same ministry (even hll te~iching in the'same school; for example) withotit hav-ing any shared visionOf what, they are doing or even having quite 6p-posed perceptions of ~hat it is that.they are about. " ' ~ Finally the charism enables th~ "group to assess its decisions add choices~ i!,s orier~tati~ons and actions in terms of fidelity to th~ founding ifispiratio~i and ~esp~si.veness to current needs. I re~eat here without. ~ilab~ratii~n ~th~t all Of this does not happen aiatomatically. It demands susz' tained effd~t I~y the~r~tip p~ec.i~sely, as a group ~r~d it is ~,i~rtually !n~pos'- sible without having in pla.,Ce;oin a stable way, those processes and struc-tures which ~ak~e bngoin~or~orate rei'lection,~choice 'and'~actiofi the'nor-m'al way Of life of the group~.°These 'processes and structures will vary, greatly from gr6up~°to group depending on their h.~story and trad~tlon~s,. their niamb~rs, ~g~ographical dispersion, and so forth.- I must point Out that while i tiavetried in thi~ ~irticqb to k6ep the "c6n-tent'" of charism and°its' "dyna~aic functi~_.n" separate, in th'~ end this is, of cgurs6, impossible and it'seems more especially so now in these time's thah ever. The "functioning of a religious congregation ~s ~n-s'eparabl~ .from its id~n~ti.ty, 'fro~ the radical meaning of its ~li~;e in°the Chu~'~h "/~ffci just as the f'6under ~nd (o'undress discovered their v~ocation , . .~ ~,; ~ - _ , . ~ o , o "~ ~ . : . - and ~ts meamng and shaped what they d~d and how'they d~d ~t ~n the con-text df their envir6nment, so do we. A sh~arp aware~ness of the i'6ality of our world and of. our place in it is as much a par~ of out vocation's iri-" gredi~nts ~is it was that 6f our fo'u'fiders ~nd foundres'ses. And we have avail~ble to us by God;S gift~,inst~:uha'ents and r~6ans for awareness; for takir~ cri{icai dista~e and for critic~ii~nalysis whicl~ th'.ey did riot. Tti~se are means which can enhance our capacity for pt:ophEtic dis~ernmeni, choice and.action,, means~which are immeasurably deepened and sharp-ened by the charismatic gifts that root the life'of.the congregation. I~'wouli:l conclude with a brief comment on the relationship between the charism of a religious congregation and the place of the c6ngrega-tion in t~ local ChUrch. The first obedience owed by every religi6us ~con-gregati'oia tc~ tile Church isto be faithfully itself. As a ~ift' given by the Spirit io the Churcl~'a congi'~gati6n remaihs "useful" to the extent that it remains faithful to its charism. If it is authentic, this ~lways'r~eans deeper ~olidafity with the olife and' ministry of the Church.This deeper solidarity is not just a matter of rendering more services or of undiscrimi- 170 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 nated availability. Rather it is a matter of living and acting as a congre-gation in the Church more and more in virtue of the charism. "The re-ligious life is a state within the Church, not just in the sense that it op-erates within the Church, receives grace from the Church and is legally sanctioned by the Church, but in the sense that it shares in a.special way in the mystery of the Church, is one of her organs through which, the Chi~rch perfects her own life."8 The charism is the first medium of our solidarity with the Church as a congregation. And so we bring to the lo-cal Church, for example, not only ministers and services, but a particu-lar point of View, a particular capacity for discernment needed by the Church,~a. capacity for choices, actions~, assessments, illuminated by a definite Gospel inspiration. Solidarity with the Church, in turn, evokes and animates ih~e~charism of a congregation. A congregation can therefore be profoundly obedient to its charism and to the Church to the degree that it is integrated in the life of the Church. Where the local Church strives to be a Church which integrates all of its m~mbers in its life and mission, in its discernment and decision-making, it gre.atly facilitates the deepest obedience of religious congre-gations. Where the local Church integr.ates all of its members in a search for God's ,will for his Church, in choosing direction for its mission and in implementing, its decision~, in such a Church, the charism of the reli-gious congrega[ion, a gift given for the Church, will grow to full stat-ure. Such obedience must never be substituted by a mere rendering of services in an undisce,,rned way even---or especially when there is much regi~rd for service and little appreciation of the meaning of charism and of its role in the Church. I offer here a brief ~uote from Bishoia Stanley Schlarman of Dodge City. In January o~" thins year' I~e wrote a pastoral letter to his people in which he reflected on religious life in the light of the dialogue with the religious of his diocese. , Furthermpre because religious become even more skilled in searching out God's will together, they can initiate new ways of answering the needs of the times, even taking risks, when needed on behalf of the poor and oppressed . In the light of these reflections I want to invite each person in our dibc~san family into a Trinity experience of community through knbwl-edge and love, dialogue and respect, and the mutual s6pport of one an-other's vocation.9 For religious that is an invitation to charismatic life, dynamism and newness. Charism as Empowerment / 17'1 NOTES ~ Sandra M. Schneiders, New Wineskins, (New York: Paulist Press, 1986) p. 28. 2 For a very useful survey of writing on charism see M. Midali, "Contemporary Theo-logical Trends in The Charism of Religious Life: A Gift of the Spirit to Church and World" USG. (Rome, 1981). 3 j. M. R. Tillard, There Are Charisms and Charisms, trans. O. Prendergast, (Brus-sels, Lumen Vitae, 1977). '* lbid, p. 41 ft. 5 John M. Lozano, Life As Parable (New York: Paulist Press, 1986) p. 28. 6 j. M. R. Tillard, op. cit., p. 56. 7 Francis J. Maioney, Disciples and Prophets, (New York: Crossroad, 1986) pp. 161- 2. Maloney stresses especially the prophetic dimension of religious life and of the role of founders and foundresses. 8 Friedrich Wulf, Decree on the Ai~propriate Renewal of Religious Life: Commen-tary on'the Documents of Vatican II, Vol. !I (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968) pp. 669-70. 9 Bishop Stanley Schlarman, "Reflections on a Dialogue With Religious," Origins, March 5, 1987, pp. 669-70. ApostOlate of the Moment Frank Quinlivan, C.S.C. Father Quinlivan,is director of, his novitiate and,has served as a missionary. He may be addressed at Holy Cross Novitiate; P.O. Box 749;,Cascade, Colorado 80809. ~kctive religious life has a rootlessness to it. Religious are a truly pilgrim people. We move on. We are seldom anywhere long enough to put down deep and permanent roots. We enter.into the lives of others and they en-ter our lives, but we pass through each other's lives. It is not uncommon for us to long for more "normalcy" in our lives--what we see as some permanence and stability, a place to pitch our tent for more than a season, a set of relationships which endure. Min-istry today, however, seldom affords us this. Even those whose ministry allows them to be in one place for an ex-tended period of time still find a certain rootlessness because in our highly mobile and nuclear society the people ai'ound us move on. Hos-pitals and schools have a built-in turnover of people. Today urban par-ishes see a large and continuous flow of people in and out. The pace of change is rapid. Perhaps most disconcerting of all is to look back and see that we have left few, if any, permanent marks behind us. So many years and so much effort leave little to show. The things we began, the work we did has ceased to exist or else has been greatly altered. The lives we touched have moved on and changed. We quite literally "lose track." We enter into many lives. That is what ministry is. We enter into people's lives in significant ways. We are there in a special way, invited into the hearts and consciences of people in a moment of pain, of joy, of growth or healing. But where are those people now? Maybe we still get Christmas cards from a few of them. 172 Apostolate of the, Moment / 173 ¯ ' 'Did our ministry make a difference a long-term, lasting differefice? Sometimes we may know, but'usually we.don'-t., In-an effort to p¢ofessionalize our ministry we have learned to do a great deal of lo'ng-ran~e planning and goal setting, of clarification bf ob- ¯ jectives and intensive evaluations. Ou~: experience of ministry, however, is" often that we ehd up walking a path that we did not envision and through areas that w~ 'have not charted. We can take the tools of management and apply them to ministry. They cfin help; 15uttheir applicati6n is ne~r perfect. If we do not lobk at ministry~as often perhaps most often unexpected, unplann+d, mo-meritai'y ~ind without measurable long-term consequences, we will be building up gomething Which can 6nly be frustrated and frustrating. It is important that we see much of ministry as an ap.ostolate of the moment. We are here now in this place with this person and it has, made a difference at this time inthis iife and that is enough. Fieeting contacts between pe~pJe where something human happens, often unplanned and impo.s'sible to follow up on, are how the history of the kipgdom and of ministry are most often written. This pers~)n was min-istered to at this moment,, l,oved, served, ,forgiven, encourage~d. There was,, a pointof huma~n~ con, tact, a sharing, a totJ~hing,, ~eemingly not sig-nificant, nor planned and, perhaps, not even remembered, but,this was the building of the_ kingdom. We move through others' lives and they thro~ugh ours, often in a.jum-ble, but the.points of intersection and meeting are the way. We,do not know, where fully ninety percent of them are-now. It is enough that their Way and our way crossed. ~ When we have aplan, be it for our lives or for only the day; we tend. to get very upset by interruptions. The in,terruptions, perhaps, are what we are meant to be doing. As'ministers we~are meant to be interrupted. ~ This is not an argument against planning and evaluation, or against efforts to make ministers "more professional: It is an argument, however, fOrothe" need to realize that ministry'does not°often ,fit into these catego-ries. It ,is possible .for us, like so many people,, to so live and work in the past or in the future, that we fail to,understand the,importance of the present moment. Yet it is in this.very moment that ministry is done.:" Our very rootlessness, as disboncerting'as it can be for us, is a key factorin our ministry. It allox;vs us to be.present this moment, the time when ministry.is done. It allows us to'be true agents,of the kingdom which is built up by many cups of cold wate~ given~in Jesus? name., 174 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 The apostolate of the moment is tied to our definition of .success. The normal definition of success hinges on things which we can point to and count, marks left behind which are permanent and observable. Ministry affords us little of this. How are we to know that weare ~uccessful min-isters, ,when. we have so little to "show"? All of us have been to funerals in our community when an elderly religious is laid to rest. We can ihink:of the countless lives he or she has touched. We can think of the thousands of points of intersection where his or her life and works touched ~nother's. Yet when they die, other than the community, there is usually no one else there.~ Most of the peo-ple they ministered to, in those special moments, are not aware of their death, do not remember the moment of ministry, do not recall even their name. Success in ministry, in our apostolate of the moment, cannot be meas-ured by conventional standards of success. Lives, may hav~ been touched profoundly, deep change~ may have occurred, but our rootlessness will mean that we will often never even know this. Jesus speaks of salt and seeds and yeast: They "are little things, seem-ingly insignificant, that effect great works, u~ually unseen, transformed into something else, hidden from notice, known only if they are lack-ing. This is'~how the success of our apostolate of~the moment must be understood. Let us attempt to plan and .to evaluate, but let us also understand our apostolate of the moment. Each human life is God-given and precious, beyond all value. Each moment of each life is precious and invaluable. That we are there in this moment is tremendously important. If there be an enduring effect or long-range consequence, we may never know. It is enough simply that we were there at that moment. A final word. Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches. When we reflect on ~his and on our rootlessness, there is much to learn. A branch does not have rootsoof its own. Separated from the vine it will die, but it is rooted in and through the vine. What weexperi-ence as rootlessness is, in truth, deeply rooted in Jesus. All ministry is his. The branches may grow in all directions; but the vine ties them to-gether and ~provides them .with root and life. The branches are often pruned and cut back so that there may be new growth in new directions, but they are neveruproote.d or cut off from the vine entirely. Much of our ministry is momentary, but its significance is eternal. Jesus told us that even a cup of cold water, given in passing, was not without lasting, even eternal significance. Apos~tolate of"the Moment / 175 It is difficult ifor us to be content with an apostolate of the moment. It would be satisfying to be able to see enduring effect and accomplish-ment. Our planning actually accounts for little of what we end up doing and there is so little visible to evaluate. It is, in the end, a matter of deep faith that we will not show up empty-handed before the Lord, but rather loaded down with a great deal of fruit despite being so rootless. Thief You kissed me - a Child of five - and stole my heart away. You called me - a girl of fourteen - and became h~y "first love." You covenanted me - a young woman - and bound me to You, eternally. O, gentle Thief, never give me away, nor ever set rile free! Claire Mahaney, R.S.C.J. Valparaiso Community 140 Valparaiso Avenue Menlo Park, California 94025 Eoaluating General and Provincial Chapters Gerald A. A~buckle, s.M. Father Arbuckle continues to give workshops on "refounding" religious life and to write for this review. His "Beyond Frontiers: The Supranational Challenge of the Gospel" appeared in the May/June 1987 isSue. His permanent mailing address is: East Asian Pastoral Institute; P.O. Box ~1815; Manila 2800; Philippines. Come now, let us talk this over, says Yahweh (Is 1.'18). People differ about the effectiveness of general and provincial chapters they attend. In the evaluations of a general chapter held recently, par-ticipants varied in'their assessment. Some were thoroughly satisfied; oth-ers felt that it was a useless experience since ~participants were not.com-mitted to implement the chapter's mission statement and decisions. Oth-ers claimed the chapter ignored'realities, while some felt that they had been manipulated by well-organized groups. Who is right? Without some objective criteria to judge the chapter by, it is impossible to even begin to answer that~question. This article is an attempt to offer sonie ~ciological and faith criteria to help readers evaluate their chapters. It is not in, any way an exhaus-tive study on how to assess the effe~tiyeness of chapters. My aim sim-ply is to answer this question: Are there certain attitudes, ways of look-ing at the world, procedural methods,, and ideologies which hinder or facilitate the work of chapt6i's? I will concentrate on general chapters, but my comments will apply with only very minor adjustments to provincial chapters. To aid in ~y analysis I will list a selection of comments by participants of general chap-ters held from 1971 to 1985 and then use them as catalysts for my own 176 Evaluating Chapters /:177 evaluatiofi of,such gath6rings. Hopefully, readers will be able to iden-tify from their own experience with several of these comments and. then be helped by my .,a.ssessment. I will proceed by defining,the nature and aims of a general chapter; by recording various comments by participants of general chapters; and then by evaluating thes~,corfihaents in lighi 6f sociological and:faith, criteria. ', Aims ~f ~en~r~i,,c]t~pters ,.~ "; ~dd~lly,° 'a general chapter, "aft a ~'ign of unit~, in charity," ~ho~u.ld be "a moment of grace and of the action of the Hbly Spirit in an insti-tute. It should be a joyful, paschal,, and ecclesial'experience which bene-fits the institute itself and also the ,whole Church.-The,general chapter is meant to renew and protect the spiritual patrimony of the institute as well as elect the highest superior ahd councilors; conduct major, matters of business, and issue norms for the whole institute.''~ There are two key emphases in this. desc~ription: the apostolic .calls to w~tness h~r6 a'ntt now and to plan for the futur6. I ffill~expI~iin briefly what ~acl~ em a~is means. In order to ffitnes~ h'ere and now, 'ihe chapter is to I~ a faith experi-ence, a cooperative action of both the Holy Si~irit ~nd the" memb~i's of the chapter. It is to be to the.Church and to the,congregation a vivid com-munity expression of,g.osl~el°charity and joy;:.comm~union will .arise out of a pro~cess bf personal a~nd .corporate convers~ign. ~ , . In planning for the~future, t.he chapter is. to,c.a, II the congregation to be accountable to the ideals of the Gospel and its charism, praising crea-tive apostolic, initiatives' and correcting aberrations since the: last chap-ter. It should establish~policies that~ relate the congregation's-charism, ap-ostolic life, and personnel resources to the ever changing pastoral needs of the People of Gbd. It is to.elect,the,highes(officer and his or her~ as-sistants on the basis of their abiliti~e~ to4ead~and inspire ~the 6ongregation to conversion, to its faith-and-justice mission, and tb the implementation of the chapter's policies and decisions.~ It should, call p.a,~icipants to com-mit themselves to lead within the~pr~ovi~ces i'fi impl~m~i~ing thee policies and decrees of the chapter. The two calls'are" complementary. 0n~ m~st not e~i~t:without the other. If all the chapter does is to formulate polici.es for the coming years, it is no different.than a commercial board of directgr~ which meets to plan and choose its executive officers. If, on the other hand, the mem-bers believe that all they have to doAs pray and live in charity and thus fail to prepare theologically and in every,,other way necessary to make sound pastoral and religious-life policies,, ~then they gravely misunder- 178 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 stand the incarnational role of the apostolic Christian and so of their con-gregation; they are running away'from serious obligations, taking refuge in a false spirituality or supernaturalism (see Lk 6~46-49). Reflections on Reality Do chapters in fact realize this twofold.call? To help readers answer this question, ~ list some evaluative comments of the participants 0f sev-eral chapters; then I attempt to assess them in tile light of the ideals for cha~ters given above. i. "No outward conflicts, but~there was too much pressure for con-sensus .in all things. The time for divisions was over, we were told. The consensus just covered over deep divisions; I "and others became in-tensely angry because of this. The chapter was not a reconciling event that it is said to have been." 2. "The c~hapter was to be a time for dialogue, yet it was riddled with conflicts. Some group said they were out to bring reality into the chap-ter. They caused conflicts all the time, refusing to listen to contrary views. We agreed on nothing." 3. "I tried to raise the important initial-formation issue, but the emo-tional reaction and pressure of the group against it was so great that I had to drop it. I was marginalized for proposing a discussion. So we strug-gle in ignorance for. six mor6 years about formation." 4. "We had a good chapter, since we stressed the discernment pro-cess, downplayed debates and the study of reports on the congregation." 5. ~'I feel unhappy with our chapter. One national group effectively stopped the discernment process. 'We don't decide things by prayer! That's pre-Vatican pie.ty,' they said." 6. "Some participants held back from sha~ring their views until they had ihe right momeni for maximum impact; they would not listen to others. I thought they used their silence as power to manipulate us." 7. "People say that there sfiould never be conflicts, but only'consensus' on issues. This puzzles me. Perhaps disceinment might'help." 8. "I feel the chapter was an experience of grace. I did not feel the under-" ~urrent of ideological pressure groups, power movements, national/ cultural lobbying, that characterized our last chapter." Evaluating Chapters 9. "There was hardheaded debate, but a spirit of listening, openness to reports of the world we must be evangelizing, an experience 0f rec-onciliation and sisterhood. I believe there was a deep conversion to the Lord in all of us. Discernment, research, and prayerful preparation helped. Decisions are being now implemented." 10. "Every now and then our chapter made self-congratulatory expres-sions or decisions that were so unreal. You would think that the whole world was waiting on every word, yearning to be led by a dynamic con-gregation, well equipped for apostolic action. We wrote a mission state-ment,- but ignored priority of apostolic needs, the insights of theologi-cal e.xperts--anything, it seems, that would have embarrassed us to face the poverty of our spiritual and human resources. We had warm, comfort-ing liturgieS. It made people feel good. What a sad, escapist experi-ence!" I I. "'We wrote many documents, including a mission statement. We felt we had accomplished much because we did a lot of writing, but the real issue of conversion remains unconfronted." 12. "I was frightened by the repeated labeling of participants as 'right-ists' or 'leftists.' If you were classed as a leftist by one vocal group, there was nothing one could do wrong in the chap~ter. Groups, especially some national groups, spoke of 'winning or losing battles,' obviously rejoicing when rivals were 'conquered.' " 13. "It was a prayerful chapter. We got to the painful issues, and made good decisions. Now, several month~ later,participants are not inter-ested in doing anything about the decisions." 14. "Two sma!l, but vocal, groups struggled to dominate or manipu-late our chapter. One group wanted by force of law to restore the status quo, the opposite group wanted.change to be,imposed by law on all of us. Both were humorless, almost fanatical." Some of these comments are optimistic, but, overall, respondents are uneasy about the effectiveness of'their chapters. Given the frequent, un-critical 'use of such value~charged sociological terms as "conflict" and "consensus," I estimate that their unease is justified. I suspect that sev-eral chapters described by participants were insensitive to how power can be manipulated, sometimes by people with immense goodwill but with little knowledge of the social sciences, in ways that are quite contrary to gospel values. Review for Religious, March-April 1988 Because of the confusion that Can exist about how a culture or group functions?internally, a, confusion evideht in the comments listed, my task is now to, ex.plain the n'ature-and function of two popular models of so-cieties: the confliCt arid ~the consensus models; this will necessitate an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses'oUsociological models in gen-eral. Also, after showing how these two models can be misused w~hen applied to the'an, al.ysis of r~li~iOus~congregations., I,shali ~xialain the role of di~ce~'nment in m~k.ing'decisions. Models of Society , - A model, o~: ideal-type, analysis denotes a~particular and popular method of sociological investigation of society. An idea.! type i~ an "ex-aggerat! on',' .of cert,/in features which tend to be present in society; once the type is constructed by ttie researcher; ~i°concrete s'ittiation can then be better understood by means of comparison with the ideal type. For ex-ample, the researcher concludes that a particu, lar society is like, or di-verges from,~the ideal type in this or that way. Ideal-types have been con-structed, for example, of capitalism, communism, bureaucracy, and pre- Vatican II religiouscongregational governments.3 In summary, an ideal type has the following qualitieS: First, it is not "ideal" ir~ an ethical way. Secondly, it is rather "ideal" in a logical sense;it is freely d~signed by the researcher in an effort to better ~om-preh~ nd reality by isolating, accehtuating or emphgsi~ing, arid artiCulat-ing the elements of a recurrent social phenomenon (bureaucracy~ for ex-ample) into an internally consistent system of relationship. Thirdly, an ideal~type in no way em.b~.~ces all details of the~rea!ity; the aim, as opted, is to emphasize or highlight "significant" recurrent social phenomena. This means that various aspects of society are not included in the model because they do, not fit its Overall purpose or focus~ Hence, to get the best possible analysis of a social situation~, it would be.important to construct several ideal types for analytical use. The response can then be integrated to give a fuller picture of the sit'uation. ~ Fourthly, ideal types are not hypotheses; they are not falsified if they are not, fully substantiated in a particular situation or even,at all, but they are research aids in the building of hypotheses, Fifthly, ideal types gen~ erally are~really scientific refinements of~ common sense. ,For example, the fact!that people use,(even correctly) the two models we describe be-low (consensus and conflict models) does not necessarily mean,~they°are trained social scientists. It ma~, mean that they instinctively.feel, for.~what-ever~ reason~ comfortable, with the emphases that .the models describe~ Moreover, some models, such as the two we are to describe, have.~be~ Evaluating. ~hapters / 181 comepopular!zed in all l~inds of literature, so that the nonexpert" readily absorbs the language particular to the models ,and thus uses it in ways that may or may not be sociologically exact. Finally, an ideal type or model is not a caricature of reality. A cari-cature, when made of a person, consists of a graphic distortion of the s~a-lient points of his or her appearance or habitual costume so as to excite amusement oro.contempt; a caric,ature of a society or. group has the same deliberate distortion.An ideal type does not distort reality, but only high-lights particular details to facilitate a better knowledge of a situation. Of course, if an ideal type is ,wrongly, used, it can well become a caricature. Consensus and Conflict Models of Society Cooperation or Consensus and conflict are two basic processes of group life. Consensus is that general agreement in thought a~d feeling which~tends to l~roduce order where the~e was disorder. Conflictu~l'i'ela-tionships c~n be~=ategorized in terms of competition (mutually opposed efforts to obtain the sa~ne objectives), rivalry (conscious competition be-tween particular groups), or~conflict (the struggle over val~es and claims to scarce resources in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure, or eliminate their rivals). Two commonly used~ideai types have been constructed~ around'these two words: consensus and conflict (see Fig-ure ~1) 4 . Inthe cQnsensus model the.assumption is that people generally agre~e on values and norms; soqial life.is.basically.stable becausecooperatipn is rewarding.A spirit, of interdependenc,e pervades the society. Conflic-tual situations do ,emerge (~r~iters on this-model then tend to speak of "strained," "otense," "rival ".or, "competitive" relationships rather than "conflictual" o.nes), but they, do not threaten the dominant, consen-sus; .conflict resolutionS°in which equilibrium or harmooy 'i~ resto~r.ed, is achi.e~ed othr.~ugh trust :~n~ di,alogue and with ~'he aid of legitimate lead-ershi. p.,5 Maj.or social change comes very siowly and .depends on signifi-cantly large shifts in a~t.itud.e, and belief. The model therefore is conser-vative 'about change; many su~ggestions for chang~e are considered unre-alistic because people hold so firmly to their existing attitudes, vaiues~ and customs. ' In.the conflict model the key characteristic is the domination of some groups~by others, and actual or.potential conflict is at the heart of all so-cial relations. If~consensus exists-it is only a.facade. Behind this mask of.harmony the powerful, including ;the legitimate authorities, in order to maintain their-positions of .influence, manipulate or oppress othi~rs through the use of coercive power. ,Change comes about when existing 112 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 Key Points I. Basic qualities 2. Social life involves is essentially and depends on or produces 3. Leadership through 4. Social systems are and tend to Figure 1. Models of Society Consensus or Integration Model no'ms/values commitments cohesive consensus, solidarity,. reciprocity, coopera-tion, dialogue legitimate authority integrated remain Conflict or Coercion Model interests inducement and coercion divisive structured conflict, op-position, exclusion, and hostility power ¯malintegrated 9nd con-tain "contradictions" change conflictual situations are further exacerbated and new groups or individu-als emerge who manage to challenge the power structures in a confron-tational manner. Adversaries in conflicts generally judge the outcomes in terms of victories and defeats, wins or losses. In brief, at the heart of the conflict model is the assumption that conflict is the indispensable force in society. Ali relationships are coloreffby' it. The model empha-sizes the role of structures in society and how the powerful can use them to their advantage, and hence emphasiz,es'that change comes about through the alteration of structures through various forms of coercion. The roots of the conflict model go back to .people like Machiavelli and Hobbes. Karl Marx helped to refine the conflict model; conflict leads to revolutionary change rather than fi~aintenance of the system and, in the end, to what Marx claimed Would be a better society. His influence in the social sciences is considerable, though supporters tod~y do not nec-essarily agree with all that he said.6 Uses and Abuses of Models of Society As pointed out above, models are human constructs that articulate emphases in society. The models help us measure particular societies or cultures; enabling us to get a better understanding of their structures and dynamics. Most social scientists today would avoid adopting exclusively either the conflict or the consensus model; depending 9.n the nature of the particular group being studied, they would draw. on the.~trengths of Evaluating Chapters both models. Cultural anthropologists, whose task it is to study in depth a cultural situation, generally feel more comfortable with the consensus rather than the conflict model; they discover that people are more apt to resist change, often vigorously,~ because it threatens their critical need for cultural identity, security, and sense of belonging. People may adopt the jargon of the conflict model and yet remain at heart most unwilling to change. The process of facilitating change is more complex than the en-couragement of conflict; that may have quite the opposite effect. Abuses of the models occur inseveral ways. (A) One way is through the unscientific and exclusive application of one or other of the models to reality. People are then blinded to wider realities and values that may significantly influence the behavior of people. For example, as regards the mainline Filipino culture, it is .unwise to apply the cohsensus model exclusively, even though most key aspects of that model are evidently present. The emphasis is on the external maintenance of smooth, inter-personal, cohesive relationships and consensus in decision, making. If the enforcing of justice endangers harmony, then justice may have to be sac-i'ificed~ However, if theconsensus model is uncritically applied to the culture, it will not bring to light the intense conflictual anger and°resent-ment that can build up within individuals, for example because human rights are being ignored. A pointcan be reached when the anger cannot be contained, and it then breaks out with a feroc!ty and intensity that can stun the.unwary observer.7 On the other hand, the exclusive use of the conflict model blinds peo-ple to the existence of values, held in common and to the attitudinal re-sistance to change that generally exists at any level. The mere change of power structures, without attitudinal change or a chaiige of values, will lead to new forms of oppression. (B) Another abuse of the models occurs through the conscious or un-conscious desire to deny uncomfortable or embarrassing realities. There is the urge in all of us to deny awkward truths about ourselves or others, for if we acknowledged their existence we would have to do something about them. (C) A.-third abuse is the turning of either model into an ideology. By ideology I here mean (I am defining it in its pejorative sense) an action-oriented understanding of the person, of history, and of the world. The understanding is dramatic; the individual identifies ~vith it, is emotion-ally and totally gripped by it; one's :personal identity is constructed around the ideology and one accepts a role within the action drama. An ideology is apt to become for its adherents a dogmatic faith, blocking out 184 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 all challenge~ to it; people believe.,in it, then they~beheve in beliex;ing in'it.8 Ideologists readily use emotion-'ch~rged'labels.ofithemselves and others, for example; "libei-als, . conservatives," . ~ rightists,"~ "left-ists," o "radicals.",' An ideology is a caricature of an ideal type of soci-ety.~ My e.xperience'is that ideologists can,,~become so fanatically con-sumed by the rightness of their cause that. humor is beyond them, most certainly~,:t~he gift. of being~able to laugh at themselv.es.9 Ideologists are blinded to anything that threatens to undermi~n.e their assumptions. Take the conflict ideologlst. Situations and people are sim-plistically categorized, fo~xample, into '~pEre.ss~rs.and t.he oppressed, so that no gray ar,~e,a in the.a, nalys.is is. perm, itted. A.nyone who .~lares to doub! the analysi.s is lqgically (and emotively) assigned to the category "oppressor." ~0 Sigilarly, the consensus ideologist will not tolerate ai~y-thing~ but "harmony,," so that even ~enuine 90nflictual sitt]ations ar.e cov-ered over.~,,. Consensus/Conflict Model Analysis and'the Church Interest in the conflict perspective ih social'relations revived~ ht least in the Ehglish-speaking 'hations, in the. 1960s: In ~r~ceding decades, the dominant" sbc°ial-science theori~'s a~d:m0del~°d'eiaicted societie's~as founded and maintained o~ consensus ar~l ~ooperatiori. Howe~ier, the po-litical upheavals~ of th~ 1960s, 'botli domestic and international; focused attent~oh;ofi~)cial coffflicts and'~h6ir r~solution~ through ye~hlore con-flicts. For example, as concern for world poverty gi'6~v, people 6~ed the cbnflict rno~l~i to'better appreciate how pbwer (~conomic, l~olit'ical, and military) ~otild be i~ed to'impose unequal'exchanges which lead toga ~vorld system ina?ked by dependency arid pb~?erty. : : ~ ~ At the same time as the conflict"fia-6del was being revitalized and re-fined in the secular world, the Church began to ekperience the impact of'the incarnational and social-justice thrust of Vatican II.'Papal social documents 'and'synodal statements reflected,this trend. Proponents of lib-eratidn theolo~gy pointed'out that the philosophy of'cohsensus was being twisted, into an ideology in South America by the powerful minority to oppress the poor. Structural poverty must be tackled in order to briffg genu-ine relief. The.bishops~-'conference at Medellin in 1968 shocked partici-pants. into an awareness of this fact, and thereafter the small ~eed of lib: eration.theoiogy'sp~routed and grew rapidly. The documents of Medellin clearly show thd powerful influence of~the conflict-model in aiding the bishops to grasp the efiormity of the injustices being experienced by their people. On the wider intbrnational scene,.,Paul VI in his~landmark 197.1 document Octogesima Adveniens and in his Ef;ang~lii Ntintiandi (30-39) . Evaluating. Chapters o.f L975.and the bishops; 1971 ,synod on Justice in the World pinpointed ~he~caus.es of. world pox~erty in terms of the sgci.ological conflict model; but cle.arly rejecte.d ~both conflict and ,~consensus ideologies. , In the late 1970s there developed among concerned pastoral workers what became.known as Structural Analysis. This is a heightened criti-cal~ iselfrawareness of. .the wgys in which we c.an be. biase.d~ oLlimite.d in 9ur own thinking by our soqial, e.conom!c, cultural, or religious-life con-text. Advocacy, for the poor is a~critique of conservative-establishment power, domination, and wealth ideology. Identification with the poor and the oppressed is pictured as a "war waged on a more or less clearly iden-tifiable enem~,. The model is essehtially a conflict one where the promo-tion of a good ~s ,~nextrlcably hnked to a fight w~th a known adversary. ~ Unfprtunately, Structural'Analys~s, when it is used by tl~e amateur so-cial scientist, can r~adily t'~:n into a conflict~ ideology and'~hus"b~ the. cause of inj~Jst'ic~rather than an ~nstrument for its'removal. There are example~ of this in the evaluative coinment~ of genei'al ~ch~l~ters gi~,i~ri above. ' ~: :" " In summary, in the main Church documents that set out evangeliz, a, tion's preferentia! option for the poor: 1. The conflict/coercion/consensus models are used as ins, t.ruments of ~ocial/power ,analy.sis. 13 ,o 2. The limitations a,nd.~the dangers of misusiog the conflict mode!,in pa~rticular are pointed out: (.A) The,model cannot embrace theotransce_~n~ de.n,t; concern for just~ice mustoembrace the fullness of the ggspelme, s.- sage: "the prophetic~proc~l.amation of a herea.fter, man's profound and definitive calling, in both cofltin~uity and dis.cgntinuity with the present situation." 14 o~ ~ (B) The model must not be turned into a violence or conflict ideol-ogy;~ 5 "the action which,[the Church] sanctions is not the struggle of one~ class agai.nst an.other !n ord.er to eliminate the foe. She does not.pro~ ~ce.e.d from a mistaken acceptance of an alleged la~ of history: . . . The~ ~Chris.t~ian :wil~l always prefer the path of dia!ogue and joint action.' ,.~6 Nor should the conflict model be turned.into an °ideology that interprets the special option for the poor as embra~cing evaong.el.ically only;one section of the population: "This option excludes no one. This is whyothe Church cannot express this option by means of re.ducti.ve sociological and ideo-logical categories which would make this preference a partis.an choice and~ a.sourc~e of conflict." ~7 0 (C) Sociological models, 0.r ideologies that use these models, do not take into account the reality of sin; efforts at attitudinal or structural 11t6 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 change that ignore our proneness to sin are d6omed to failure. The urge to dominate or neutralize one's opponents, and the culpable escape from the realities of mortality, find their causes within our desire to deny God and replace him with gods of our own making.~8 (D) True dialogue between individuals or groups is not based on the ability to dominate, but on a spirituality of powerlessness born of char-ity; charity moves us to be open to others in order to respect and listen to them. 19 iE) E~vangelizers must watch lest they use the models in an amateur, but osten.sibly scientific~ way ~ manipulate and oppress people.2° 3. The~commitment to the social-justice apostolate must come out of a deep spiritual conv6rsion nourished by pra~yer. Prayer brings us to un-derstahd, how injustice is rooted in the sinfulness and selfishness of our hearts, it is prayer which calls on th~ Spirit to create within us both the courage and the love to bring about a conversion in people's hearts and the renewal of all structures of society.2~ Understanding Discernment "Discernment" is another frequently used term in the chapter com-ments noted ~bove. Discernment is a prayerful reflection on a human situ-ation in the light of faith. I must discover and root out all the attitudes, ignorance;, and prejudices that obstruct ~y ~penness to the Holy Spirit. Hence, I turn to whatever can hell~ me sharpen my grasp of truth--to the-ology, to social sciences, to discussion. But for discernment I need more than skilled human insights. I need the openness of a converting listener of the Lord. Discernment is not so much a skill as a presence with the Lord. It is being a Mary, "who sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him speaking" (Lk 10:38). Father Thomas Green, S.J., points out that there are three presuppo-sitions of genuine discernment in the life of a Christian. First, discern-ment assumes that a person sincerely desires:to do what the Lord wants; secondly, this desire involves an openness to what God wants without reservations. Thirdly, the discerner must know the~ Lord in love, an ex-perienced intimate knowledge of God that a converted person has espe-cially through prayer. Discernment assumes conversion or the fact that the person has responded to God's grace and abandoned himself or her-self to the Lord. As Green says, "Discernment is.a function of a lov-ing, pe~rsonal relationship to the Lord. It can normally be only as deep and as solid as that relationship itself. The true discerner must be a pray-ing, loving person."22 Evaluating Chapters The presuppositions for communaLdiscernment are the logical exten-sion of the requirements for individual discernment.23 Every person of. the community must desire God's will; there must already be that open-nes, s, that intimate union of friendship in Christ. Without these qualities, communal'and individual discernment-remain human actions or tech-niques, not movements .in faith. Only'an individual or,group that has ex-perienced "that peace of God which is so much greater than we can un-derstand," and which ought to "guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus" (Ph 4:7), can identify what the Lord is asking. Discernment does not dispense with the need to use every human method possible--for exa~nple, sociological research, theological discus-sion-- to clarify the options that one must choos~ from. At tim6s this may require vigorous debate Or discussion. This is indispensable preparatory activity. To neglect it is to ekpect the Lord to work miracles, and'because of our laziness this he will not do. However, despite the perfection of our research, there are limits to our insights. We are relating to a God and Savior whose ways~ can be humanly inconceivable and unpredic.table; so, once the background material has been clarified, then we take it in a prayerful way, to the Lord and with him we contemplate the options. Evaluation of General ~Chapter Comments In view of the above explanation, many of the evaluative comments on several general chapters are not at all surprising. ShOrtly after the end of Vatican II, congregations initiated a series of provincial and general chapters of renewal aimed at updating legislation arid approving new con-stitutions. In the 1970s and 1980s the j.argon of ihe consensus, and espe-cially the conflict, mode~ls of analysis became increasingly popular and acceptable in secular and theological circles. Participants at congregaz tional chapters merely reflected ~hat was happening in the wider Church and society. Our formation p~ograms unfortunately had not adequat~ely prepared us in the social-gcience disciplines always to use sociologica~l or anthropological models with the needed professional caution. We have used sociological terminology, especially of the conflict model, but have frequently failed to grasp the technical ramifications of the language. In very recent years, as congregations have slipped more and more into the stage of chaos,24 religious have grown suspicious of the simplis-tic use of the conflict model and more aware of the attitudinal and spiri-tual dimensions needed i~ charige. Structural changes have not had the desired miraculous effect. Now the terms "consensus" and "discern-ment" are the "in" words though there is frequent confusion about their 188 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 meaning, as is evident in the following analysis of the chapter evalu- ¯ ations. Mis'use of tl~e Conflict Model (Reread Con~ments 2, 3, 5, ,,6, 12,~ 14) Delil~erately or otherwise~people coerced other participants. Com-ment 3 p,oints to an~,,atmosphere of subtle,.but effect!ve, coercion; the in-dividual feltemotionally pressured io withdrawoa mgtteroof considergble importance to the congregation~--initial formation. In comment 5 one na-tional group r~efuses to cooperate in the discernment process, so the only option ope.n is the ~use of power politics~ pressure grouping, wins and losses. In comment 6 some manipulate the group through orchestrated sile~nc,e.s; they will not risk shar!ng views~ntil they are in a positio,n to d~minate the g~roup with their own decisions. Christi.an mutuality.d~es np.t. ex!.s,t: In comment ~2 i.ndividuals are thor~ughgoin~g ideglogists; they openly proclaim that nothing will be done except through confhcts initi-ated by .them. MisUse~%f the Consensus Model (Comments 1, 7) In comment 1 participants Were using corisensus ideologically, though they may not have been aware of it. Obviously, they had experi-enced in the past the disruptive b,!tt, erness and failure of.the conflict ide-ology. and wanted to~ avoid it at all-costs., They the.n misunderstood the meaning of consensus. People of comment 7 are se~rc,hing to grasi~ the meaning of discernment. Misufider~.tanding of Discernn~ent (cpmments.4, 9, i3) Comment 9 ~vould suggest that a positive chapter was held; not so with .the chapters referred to in comr~efits 4 and 13. A l~'ey presupposi-tion in dis~ernmen(is, the willingness to do what God wants ~f us, no matter h~ow Oistastefql it may be. The fact that "nothingohas been d~)ne about th6 Chapter decrees" shows that this effective willingness was not present. ~, Escdpism/Denial (Comments V,~' 2,, 3;~ 4, 5, 6, 7) ~ . Ernest Becket claims that the root cause of human evil is that our "natural and inevital~ie .urge" is "to deny mortality and achieve a he-roic self-image."25 Discernment demands that we admit our mortality, our,absolute need~of God. This means f.acing ~up constantly to the reali-ties of our 'own sinfulness and our need to be dying to ourselves in order that we rise in Christ, This is painful. It attacks that which we so enjoy-- our .pride and~ self-sufficiency, ., ' ~ EvaluaiingChapters / t89 ~There are examples and hints of participants denying their own per- ,sonai and corporate mortality and thus avOiding reality, for example'; through the misuse.of conserisus and conflict models and the failure to have the openness to one another that.comes 6nly through the risk of faith. Power, as commonly understood in:the comments, is unilateral; that is, people are out to impose their influenc~ on others while cloging then~selves to the'insights of the'latter. RelationalpoWer is precisely the ability t~O listen to others as well as being available to influence the same people (see comments 2, 3).26 InSistence on conflict or c6nsensus at all costs overlooks, the fact that ultimately there can be nor worthwhile change unless it springs out of one's conversion to the Lord'~ his love, his meekness. Fine documents do not effect conversion (comment~l l')~. In response to.grace we must turn wholehe~rtedly to the Lord. No culture must ever be the norm for the Christian.-A cultu;e may or. ma3? not facilitate dialogue, but ultimately dialogue for tl~e Christian must=have its roots in faith and in imitation of Christ.'He is the exemplar of relational power, the power of mutuality and risk' in .~harity. He thtis teaches us what genuine dialogue means. Ponder how often he asks peo-pie wh~it, they wish of him. He does not tell them what hE thinks they need: "'What do ~,ou want me to do.for you?" he said to the blind man. "Master, let me see again'~' (Mk 10"51). Or take that in~ident~in which Jesus enters into dialogue with the Canaanite woman who persistently begs him to heal her daughter. She does not take no for an answer, and Jesus listens (Mr 15:21-28), just as he does with the Samar.!tan woman at the well and his perplexed follow+r.s on the rgad ,to Emmaus. Then the touching interchange on the cross itself, when Jesus in his agony listens and responds to the repentant thief. The ultimat~e~source of his gift of lis-tenir~ g is the divine/human e£change bf th( incarnation itself:"'Hi~ State was divine, yet he did not cling to his equa!ity with~God, but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave" (Ph' 2:6-7). Conclusion " Chapters are called to be witnesses of charity to the Church and to their own congregations and to apostolically relate their ~institutes to the needs of a changing world: In order to know these needs, "participants must break through the'barriers of their own pr6judices and ignbrance. An amateurish use of the social sciences, for exampl.e, through the mis-use, of sociological models of analysis, only iincrease~ these barriers. St. Paul was never a trained social scientist, but he had a shrewd in-sight into how people could misuse power. He detested those who sought to divide the Church into exclusive, conflictual, unlistening po~er blocks "191~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 that aimed to dominate one another--all in the name of Christ: "What could be~more unspiritual than your slogans, 'I am for Paul' and 'I am for Apollos'?" (1 Co 3:4), That approach, he insists, traps.people and deprives them of their freedom and openness to the Spirit; it. is a "sec-ondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ;' (Col 2:8). Paul then is condemning ideologies, or any action-oriented beliefs, which claim to legitimize the domi~nation or manipulation of people. At root, "feuds. and wrangling, jealousy, bad temper and quarrels, disagree-ments, factions . . . and similar things" are the fruit of "self-indul-gence," which "is the opposite of the Spirit, and the Spirit is totally agaipst such a thing" (Ga 5:20, 17). The sign of the converting, therefore listening, person or group is love, for "Love is always patient and kind; ~t is never jealous., never rude or selfish., not resentful . [It] delights in the truth; it is al-ways ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and .to endure whatever comes" (I Co 13:4-7). Such ~people will do all they can to discover God's will, for they take to heart the ever pressing invitation of the Lord: "Come now, let us talk this over, says Yahweh. Though.your sins are like scar-let, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool" (Is 1:18). NOTES t Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life, May 1981, par. 51. 2 See G. A. Arbuckle's Strategies for Growth in Religious Life (New York: Alba House, ! 986), pp. I 16- I 19. 3 See Max Weber, TheMeth~gdology of the Social Sciences (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1949), passim. 4'See P. S. Cohen, Modern Social Theory (London: Heinemann, 1968), p. 167. 5 See presentation of model by Talcott Parsons, The Social System (New York: The Free Press, 1949), passim. 6 See Steven Vago, Social Change (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1980), pp. 39-44. 7 For a Japanese parallel see lan Buruma, A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984), pp. 219ff. 8 See Antonio B. Lambino, "Ideology, Social Change and the Christian Con-science," in Loyola Papers, Manila, 1976, nn. 7/8, pp. I If. 9 See Arbuckle, StrategieS, pp. 67-87. t0 See insights by Renato A. Ocampo and Francisco F. Claver in Pulso, Institute on Church and Social Issues, Manila, voi. I, no. I (1984), pp. 7-16, 48-63. t t John L. Seymour, "Social Analysis and Pastoral Studies: A Critical Theological Assessment," in Pastoral Sciences, vol. 4 (1985), p. 58. Evaluating Chapters / 191 12 See Joe Holland and Peter Henriot, Social Analysis: Linking Faith and Justice (Ma-ryknolh Orbis, 1984); pp. 14-44. 13 See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, 22 March 1986, par. 42; also Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching (Maryknoih Orbis, 1983), pp. 175,244- 250. 14 Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975, par. 28. 15 Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens, 1971, par. 28. 16 Instruction, op. cir., par. 77. ~7 lbid, par. 68. ~8 lbid, pars. 38, 39. ~9 lbid, pars. 55-57. 2o Octogesima Adveniens, pars. 38, 39. 21 Evangelii Nuntiandi, par. 15. 22 Weeds Among the Wheat: Discernment--Where Prayer and Action Meet (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1984), p. 64. 23 See John Futrell, "Communal Discernment: Reflections on Experience" in Stud-ies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, vol. 4, no. 5 (1972), passim; and Brian P. Hall and Benjamin Tonna, God's Plans for Us: A Practical Strategy for Communal Discern-ment of Spirits (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), passim. 24 See Arbuckle, Strategies, pp. 23-66. 25 Escapefr~om Evil (New York: The Free Press, 1976), p. xvii. 26 See Evelyn Woodward, "Uses of Power in Community," in Human Develop-ment, vol. 4, no. 2 (1983), pp. 27-29. The "Active-Contemplative" Problem in Religious Life by David M. Knight Price: $.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell~ Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The ,Relevance of Life Review tO the Vowed Life James J. Magee, D.S.W. ~ ~o' Doctor Magee has, done extensive research and consultative work in the j'ield of re-tirement programs for religious women~ His last article in these pages, "Confidants Help Older Religious with Life Review," appeared in the issue of March/April 1987., He may be addressed,at the College of New Rochelle; New Rochelle, New York 10805. ¯, ~ ¯ , In response to the "graying" of their membership, many religious com-munities have begun to draw upon the reminiscences of their older mem-bers as a valued resource. Communities have sponsored groups to tape oral histories of the personalities, geographical sites, institutional crises, and developmental issues for which only the older members can give first-hand accounts. They have asked members whb are retired from their pri- ~ mary mini, str~!e~s~i'tg~.feiz.0.~d ~th.~zhaile~i'~es t,h~t iin~ar)'~.bly cbn.fro~t those who succeed them. Ttiey have, encouraged them, too,. to value the in- . creaseo ~nvo~vemento~n~4tte rewew that accompanies'aging:as occasions for healing memorie_s and di.sce~rning God's gracious intervention through-out their lives. Life review is a fo£m of reminisce.nce,~in whic,h persons recall long-forgotten incidents, dwell on them, and re6apture the emotions that origi-nally accompanied them, often while trying to convey these felt experi-ences to a listener. Thes'e.re~zollections are:usuhlly clear and vivid, ac-' companied by pleasant or uncomf6rtabl~ emotions varying in intensity. Life review increases dra~atie~ll~ in middle age and continues un-abated among older adult~':~In, life~re~,iew:ifii:li.vidfi~als reflect upon their personal history and accept responsibility for it. It is a process in which reviewers gradually r.ecpns~truct and assess their past, using their current 192 Life Review and the Vowed Life / 193 values to weigh behavior that memories progressively retum to conscious-ness. It focuses attention upon the connectedness of their: past with their current sense of themselves, evoking memories of formative experiences that influenced their personal development (Merriam, 1980). Life Review and the Daily Examen This description of life review overlaps several of the functions of the daily examen. A critical evaluation of life experiences with a goal of integrating them in an acceptance of oneself here and now is common to them both. Life review, however, is seldom a structured progression of memories. Usually it proceeds circuitously through reverie, reflection, dreams, diary or journal entries, correspondence, and storytelling. More significantly, life review enhances the fruitfulness of the daily examen by focusing upon the vowed lifestyle as a way of life that can release its members from compulsions that impede their self-actualiza-tion and intimacy with God. Like everyone who engages in life review, older religious become enmeshed in memories which join their own per-sonal history with the history of their family. They particularly recog-nize the ways in which they have mishandled in their own lives some is-sue( s) that they know various family members have mishandled over gen-erations. In a previous article in this journal (Magee, 1987), I indicated that these intergenerationai issues characteristically include the fol-lowing: WEALTH. (How much is enough? Who has access to it? What is sup-posed to be done with it?) HEALTH. (Use/avoidance of preventive and rehabilitative services, hy-pochondria, phobias) SEXUALITY. (Knowledgeability, scrupulosity, homophobia, premari-tal and extramarital activity) WORK. (Workaholism/inertia, process/product orientation) ANGER. (Forms of ex.pression, targets, repression, degrees of openness to resolving differences) RELIGION. (Freedom to participate/disaffiliate, questioning institutional teaching) AUTONOMY. (What decisions are mine to make? Where can I live? How often am I expected to contact kin?) These issues recur in families over generations because they have never been resolved. Instead of coping with them when they arise, fam-ily members react with a heightened anxiety which spurs demonstrations of denial, projection, and somatic symptoms. One authority refers to such issues as "islands of sensitivity" in a family. When family mem- Review for Religious, March-April 1988 bers even approach one of the "islands," no more than a particular kind of look, gesture, word, or tone of voice is needed to arouse an emotional explosion (Fogarty, 1977). ¯ Life Review and the Vowed Life How appropriate, then, that the lifestyle of living in community un-der vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience should lead religious to con-front the very issues which hold such intractable control over most peo-ple's lives. Texts concerning formative spirituality consistently em-phasize the inevitability of the vowed life engaging religious with their tenacious, problematic attitudes toward status, sexuality, and autonomy. It is to be .expected, then, that life review will elicit memories that reit-erate the difficulties religious had in observing their community's way of life precisely because that lifestyle addressed issues of exquisite sen-sitivity in their families. Consider the situation of a son who intervened between his parents who were estranged over any subject involving finances. The mother, in turn, invested in a compensatory relationship with her son, while the fa-ther maintained a deprecatory attitude toward him. The son rallied to-ward his mother, but experienced increasing anxiety over the intensity of their relationship. Later, after entering his religious community, he remained sensitized to expressions of anger, even disagreement. He was unable to resolve arguments, felt drawn to one member against another, and yet believed he must work everything out between them. Finally, he remained particularly scrupulous about observing the letter of his vowed poverty, and alert to any apparent laxity in the observance of other com-munity members. A second example concerns a woman religious who was raised in a patriarchal household in which daughters were assigned, without right of protest, the least challenging and most wearisome chores. Although she demonstrated exceptional organizational abilities in her community, she participated only reluctantly whenever her superior asked her to co-ordinate retreats conducted by a priest rather than by another woman re-ligious. In fact, whenever community liturgies involved several male cele-brants, she suffered symptoms severe enough to keep her from attending the services. A final example concerns a friar who grew up in a tradition-oriented family in which the eldest son for four consecutive generations had as-sumed direction of the family business. In this man's case, however, he entered his community even though he was the firstborn and had been christened with his great-grandfather's name. He maintains that his Life Review and the Vowed Life choice of vocation was the only discontinuity with his family of origin. For the family's entrepreneurial orientation and expectations for his as-gendancy continued throughout his life to compound his difficulties in sharing in the give-and-take exchange of community living and in ob-serving prescribed consultations with his superior. Life Review and Depression For most older religious, life review affirms their self-esteem as saved sinners, "in Christ, a new creation." Insight into the heritage of their family-based compulsions demystifies so much of their dysfunc-tional behavior. With faith, they see their frailties of character as graced opportunities "to boast of nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." For a troubled minority, however, life review, like the examen it-self, can lead to depression instead of peace. For three groups, life re-view can precipitate a crisis of conscience and faith. One group consists of religious who "have consciously exercised the human capacity to in-jure others" and cannot imagine that they could be forgiven by those whom they have injured or by God (Butler, ! 963). They feel that no re-course exists to undo whatever harm they have inflicted. Often they ap-pear obsessed with a theme or event, discussing it with one listener after another. Somerset Maugham's (1959) observation about reminiscence is poignantly relevant to members of this group: "What makes old age hard to bear is not a failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories." Members of the second group.are those charact.eroiogically arrogant and proud. They use life review not to appreciate the gratifications that their memories recall, but to accentuate that their accomplishments and sources of life satisfaction are now behind them. Moreover, because they have built their self-esteem upon recognition for their achievements and affiliations rather than on their inherent worth as human beings, they view aging as distancing them further from the bases for their self-worth. Life review may also lead to depression for a third group who have tended throughout their life cycle to live in the future. Their memories surface a lifetime of opportunities missed because they were focusing uport tomorrow rather than upon today. Feeling powerless to modify their future-orientation and seeing death as foreclosing further opportunities, they become disconsolate over a life that appears to them as wasted. These three groups are in crisis about their spiritual life and their men- Review for Religious, March-April 1988 tal health. Their depression requires professional mental health attention. Conclusion Increased investment in life review is a developmental attribute of aging. As members of religious communities age, life review becomes a more potent resource. It enhances the quality of the daily examen. It helps religious to understand lifelong difficulties they may have had with their vowed community lifestyle. Finally, it helps in identifying relig-ious who need mental health services as well as spiritual direction. REFERENCES Butler, R. (1963). The life review: An interpretation of reminiscence in the aged. Psychiatry, 26, p. 70. Fogarty, T. (1977). Fusion. The Family, 4(2), p. 56. Magee, J. (1987). Confidants help older religious with life review. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 46(2), p. 235. Maugham, S. (1959). Points of view. Garden City: Doubleday. Merriam, S. (1980). The concept and function of reminiscence: A review of the re-search. The Gerontologist, 20(5), pp. 604-609. The Cross Reconsidered William F. Hogan, C.S.C. Father Hogan's last article, "Eucharistic Community of Disciples," appeared in the issue of November/December 1985. He continues to reside at the generalate of the Christian Brothers: Fratelli Cristiani; Via della Maglianella, 375; 00166 Roma, Italy. History points to the virtual impossibility of maintaining balance between all the facets of the mystery of Christ, his person and his message. Theo-logical controversies over the centuries bear witness to this; current spiri-tual movements, as in the past, similarly offer testimony. ~ In the present day, emphasis on the Cross would appear to be one aspect of theology-spirituality that has receded in the light of other stresses, and a variety .of reasons could be adduced, not the least of which would be a reaction against some of the negativism in the past associated with the attention given= to the cru~ifixiofi in the Paschal Mystery and the insufficient ac-cent on the resurrection. Further, the broader view of the theology of crea-tion and incarnation has been seen .as necessary for a better appreciation of the basic concept of mission and our part in it today. It is not surprising that the recent extraordinary synod pointed to the need of recognizing "that in today's difficulties God wants us to teach more profoundly the value, importance, and :centrality of the cross of Je-sus Christ."2 These words assume a particular importance when we re-flect on the many kinds of life-struggles in our world and the areas need-ing redemption. What the synod said concerning teaching the Cross should not be restricted to ministerial actions toward others, for the mes-sage touches life and spirituality and needs to be integrated therein. But how a person approaches the centrality of the Cross in ministry as well as in personal life is very important, for there is need for integration as such. We cannot just let the. Cross remain outside ourselves as a reality 197 Review for Religious, March-April 1988 to be looked at. (While this may seem obvious, in fact, in our daily liv-ing we may well find ourselves looking at the Cross disinterestedly as an object.) The Cross is not simply a thing, static; rather it involves and expresses a relation of personal self-emptying love and total giving for us. Unless seen in that perspective, it will not touch us concretely and we will find much more comfort in concentrating on the Risen Jesus, avoiding the starkness and pain of the Cross. Touch us it must, for the Cross is at the core of Christian discipleship and reveals the mystery of divine love in the gift of the person of Christ, who invites us to follow him into the Paschal Mystery. Discipleship entails such a preferential love for Jesus as to demand that we go after him all the way into the mys-tery of his death-resurrection and not be deterred by lesser preoccupa-tions. The integration of the mystery of the Cross into our lives is inti-mately associated with the whole question of our human sinfulness and brokenness and how we own that as part of our lives. Often we would prefer not to look at that side of ourselves, since it can be discouraging and depressing. Some past approaches of spirituality urged people to re-flect on sin in such a way as to foster morbidity and gloom because of insufficient attention to the love of Jesus and that of the Father in send-ing him to humankind. As a result, instead of a deep spirit of sorrow for sin, a sense of guilt took its place, accompanied by feelings of shame, where the attention is at least unconsciously on self and not on God-- "I thought I was better than that." And then for many the next logical step is the loss of a meaningful sense of sin out of a flight from guilt and shame. No doubt, it can be frightening to see some aspects of ourselves, when at times we catch a glimpse of our dark side or it catches us by surprise; and we would prefer not to acknowledge to ourselves our sin-fulness, brokenness, and weakness. Yet a major factor in this reluctance may be how we look at this part of our lives. Do we view it separately in itself or in conjunction with the Cross and the healing power of God's love? Do we at the same time see God's power operative in the midst of our human frailty, using it as an occasion to break into our lives? A basic call is given to each of us to accept ourselves as we are if we are to grow to maturity. This includes acceptance of our dark side as well as the brightness of gifts, talents, and admirable qualities. However, the acceptance of one's sinfulness must be against the background of the re-ality of the Cross and divine love eager to lead us through our b~oken-ness towards wholeness, analogous to the felix culpa message proclaimed The Cross Reconsidered / 199 in the Exsultet of the Easter Vigil Service, We are not to cling to our sinfulness in a wrong way, trying to hide it from ourselves and from God, but let him use it and operate through it--sincerely believing that "for those who love God all things work together unto good" (Rm 8:28). A correlated sense of sin and of the Cross leads to greater convic-tion of need for, dependence on, and openness to the God who loves us in our weakness; simultaneously there is a breaking down of the exagger-ated kind of personal autonomy that lies at the root of so many personal and societal problems. And the human person gradually becomes steeped in the gratefulness to God that is the antithesis of the ingratitude of sin. Joyful dependence on God should overflow into a sense of dependence on others, enabling us to more intensely live Jesus' message of interde-pendeiace. We need each other, as we all need God and his redemptive love, because of our mutual brokenness and sinfulness. And in a very real way it can be said that God uses individual frailty as a means of be-coming a life-giving channel for others when we accept them and need them in their sinfulness. God ministers to them through us when we com-mune with them in our mutual need for healing and strength; and at the same time we receive God ministering to us. The Cross is not an isolated reality, for it extends to all aspects of individual and social life in touching what is most fundamental in hu-man nature. Each season of the liturgical year, while concentrating on one or other dimension of the mystery of salvation in Christ, must ulti-mately be viewed from the perspective of the Paschal Mystery. The Cross and resurrection are present in all of them even as they were pre-sent in the lifelong discipleship of Jesus. His self-emptying in following the will of the Father and seeking the Father's glory in all the phases of his life led to the culmination of kenosis in laying down his life. Any-one who would respond to Jesus' call of discipleship must necessarily make the same journey from self to the Father, and the Cross is inescap-able. We may~not like the manner of expression of the Imitation of Christ, but the message still holds true: The cross is always ready and everywhere waits for thee. Thou canst not escape it, whithersoever thou runnest; for whithersoever thou goest, thou carriest thyself with thee and shalt always find thyself. Turn thyself up-wards, or turn thyself downwards; turn thyself without or turn thyself within thee, and everywhere thou shalt find the cross.3 Various spiritualities in the past emphasi~.ed practices related to the Cross and some of them have been dropped. Perhaps this was wise and 900 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 even necessary because the devotions were not sufficiently well grounded for some people and even, in fact, became ends in themselves. Now may be the opportune time to take another look at the values these devotions and practices were meant to instill and deepen and to seek to reincorpo-rate them with new expressions and emphases, especially making a more explicit link to discipleship and our human brokenness. This could be help-ful in enabling us to perceive life and ministry struggles in terms of the Cross and drinking the cup (see Mt 20:22). Similarly opportune would be ongoing personal reflection on God's personal redemptive love for the individual--a truth that can never be deeply enough engraved on our hearts, a truth intellectually admitted but so often not interiorly believed such as to affect our lives. In the awareness of the pilgrimage of our lives, we need to see the already attained as having been reached in terms of God's love and the power of the Cross and the "not yet" element as something to be faced in the light of the same. Throughout the centuries the Cross has been a symbol of Christ, point-ing backward through history to the salvific event and at the same time forward with a prophetic call. It speaks to the world and to individuals about love, unlimited love, the love to which we are still challenged to-day: What I say to you is: offer no resistance to injury. When a person strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other. If anyone wants to go to law over your shirt, hand him your coat as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him two miles. Give tqthe man who begs from you. Do not turn your back on the borrower. You have heard the commandment, "You shall love your countryman but hate your enemy." My command to you is: love your enemies, pray for your persecutors. This will prove that you are sons of your heavenly Fa-ther, for his sun rises on the bad and the good, he rains on the just and unjust (Mt 5:39-45). The disciple of Christ, even in his/her sinfulness, is empowered to take up the challenge of Christ through the power of the Cross operative today and, in trying to witness to this love, will be living out the Pas-chal Mystery. How important it is that we seriously reconsider the Cross and its im-plications in our lives today, for it is so easy to forget or at least take it for granted. The Cross Reconsidered NOTES ~ See John Dalrymple, "Not Peace but the Sword," in The Way, January 1986, where the author indicates how some elements of charismatic spirituality tend to cloud over some disturbing aspects of Christ and his message. 2 L'Osservatore Romano, December 10, 1985, Documents section, Relatio Finalis D. 2. 3 Thomas a Kempis, My Imitation of Christ, Confraternity of the Precious Blood," Brooklyn, New York, 1954, p. 147. A Sister's Passing I watched the sunlight touch the corners of the sky and softly climb the hills, while you-- so still-- let the light fade in your room and quietly went.away to another mansion where mysteries are no more, and the Son-light never dims. I shall not question your going. R.LP. Sistei" Dorothy Clark, R.S.C.J. 2/6/85 Claire Mahaney, R.S.C.J. 140 Valparaiso Ave. Menlo Park, CA 94025 Advance Directives for Health Care: A Proposal for Priests and Religious Ruth Caspar, O.P., Ph.D. Sister Ruth, recently returned from a sabbatical devoted to research in bioethics, is a consultant in biomedical ethics along with being Professor and Chair of the De-partment of Philosophy at Ohio Dominican College; 1216 Sunbury Road; Colum-bus, Ohio 43219. The events surrounding the recent death of Monsignor.Thomas O'Brien will put clergy and members of religious congregations on notice that they should enact directives concerning their preferences regarding medi-cal treatment well in advance of the age of 83. ~ This was the age of Mon-signor O'Brien at the time of the severe stroke that left him paralyzed, unable to swallow and take nourishment, and incapable of speech. It was also the age of Brother Charles Fox when he suffered cardiac arrest and anoxia during routine surgery.2 In both cases, medical technology was available to sustain the lives of these patients, and in both cases persons close to them--friends who could have been expected to know their val-ues and preferences--sought the removal of these medical interventions. A review of the medical, legal, and ethical aspects of these cases, which differ in significant respects, will be instructive in providing a con-text for the discussion of Advance Directives "for members of the clergy and of refigious congregations. Brother Fox In the literature of bioethics, the case known in law as Eichner v. Dillon stands as one of the precedent-setting decisions regarding proxy consent authorizing termination of treatment for an adult incompetent pa-tient. 3 Father Philip K. Eichner, S.M., secured in that decision judicial 202 Health-Care Directives / 903 approval from the Appellate Court, Second Department, of New York State to remove respirator support from Brother Joseph Charles Fox, di-agnosed as suffering from "permanent or chronic vegetative coma." This petition had initially been approved by a trial court order, but was appealed by Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon. Both Father Eichner and Brother Fox were members of the Society of Mary, and both at that time belonged to the community at Chaminade High School in Mineola, N.Y. When Brother Fox entered Nassau Hos-pital for routine surgery for a hernia in October 1979, he had spent 66 of his 83 years as a Marianist Brother, the last ten of them in retirement at Chaminade, where his longtime friend Father Eichner served as relig-ious Superior and president of the high school. Their relationship, beyond that of friendship, was also established on the trust and respect that are part of the structure of religious community life under vows of obedi-ence. In 1953, Eichner had been a novice under the guidance of Brother Fox, then prefect of novices; in 1979 this role was reversed, and Fox lived and worked as a member of a community under the direction of Fa-ther Eichner. Why did this case make legal and bioethical history? Removal of a respirator from a patient in chronic vegetative state, with no hope of re-covery of cognitive functioning, is now fairly well supported in legal precedent and moral consensus; the debate in the courts and among bioethicists today focuses on the withdrawal of a further and more con-troversial intervention: tube feeding, which is at issue in the O'Brien case. But this was not the agenda in 1979 when Quinlan was foremost in the consciousness of the courts and the public as a result of media ex-posure. The Fox case was not finally resolved until March 31, 1981, when a decision of the New York Court of Appeals, highest court in that state, consolidating Eichner v. Dillon with Storar, upheld the decision of the lower court regarding Fox. It had opened on October 2, 1979, when Brother Fox, in relatively good health but advanced age, went in for sur-gery to correct a hernia he had suffered while gardening. In the course of the surgery he suffered cardiopulmonary arrest. Heart massage even-tually restored a heartbeat, but not before oxygen deprivation tothe brain had reduced Brother Fox to dependence on a respirator to sustain even the most basic ~of vital functions, with no hope of regaining conscious-ness. When this prognosis was confirmed by neurosurgeons, Father Eich-ner requested that the hospital remove the patient from interventions that 204 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 were clearly "extraordinary" under the well-articulated moral teaching of the Catholic Church. He was supported in this request by Brother Fox's nieces and nephews, all of whom concurred in this decision. More-over, Father Eichner and the provincial, Father Keenan, could report that they had heard Brother Fox express his preferences regarding the mat-ter. In discussions surrounding Quinlan he had said that he would not want to have his life prolonged by such extraordinary and artificial meas-ures, a conviction he reiterated immedi~ately prior to his own s.urgery. He had, however, no written document stating his position. When hospital officials refused, alleging both legal and moral qualms, Eichner was left with no alternative but to go to court if he wished to honor the known preferen.ces of his Marianist brother. He sought a court order appointing him as proxy for the incompetent patient with authority todecide whether life-sustaining equipment should be with-drawn. This was granted by the trial court on December 6, 1979 (Brother Fox had by now been in deep coma for two months); the order was im-mediately appealed by Dillon. Before the subsequent decision in favor of Eichner was rendered, Brother Fox died on January 24, 1980. Citing the far-reaching impact of the issues contested in the case, the Appellate Division proceeded with the case, announcing its decision two months later (Eichner v. Dillon, March 27, 1980). Dillon appealed once again, to the highest court in the state; once again Father Eichner's right as proxy to authorize the termi-n~ ition of treatment for Fox was upheld in the 1981 decision In re Storar. Though vindicated at every level of court review, the progress of the Fox case nevertheless incurred $20,000 in legal fees and over $80,000 in medi-cal costs. Monsignor O'Brien If the Fox case seems relatively clear and straightforward in spite of the difficulties encountered in its progress, that of Monsignor Thomas O'Brien, had it proceeded through court review, would have been a storm center. Nevertheless it presents an even stronger argument for a need for Advance Directives on the part of clergy and religious. Father Thomas O'Brien, ordained a priest for the archdiocese of New York, served over the many years of his priestly ministry at St. Paul's in Harlem, St. Anastasia's in the Bronx, and St. Malachy's, the "Ac-tor's Chapel," in Manhattan, where in retirement he held a position as Pastor Emeritus. He is described in the court record as "a lively, gre-garious loving man, an avid reader, a rapt conversationalist, and a good friend to the members of his parish."4 Health-Care Directives / 905 At the age of 83, he was severely disabled by a stroke suffered on May 25, 1986. As a result of the stroke~and subsequent paralysis, he was restricted in his movements, unable, initially, to swallow or take notir-ishment, and incapable of speech. In response to the medical emergency, a nasogastric tube was in-serted for the provision of nourishment. As the name suggests, these tubes are inserted through the nose and pass to the stomach. No consent form was required for this "noninvasive" intervention. Alth6ugh there was some difference of expert opinion about Father O'Brien's degree of competence, the record indicates that "he was not happy with the tube that was inserted and would have preferred to have it out." This he com-municated clearly by attempting to remove it fifteen times. At this point, hospital officials at Frances Shervier Home and Hos-pital in Riverdale, N.Y., petitioned the court for a conservator for pur-poses of consenting to the surgical insertion of a feeding-tube directly through the abdomen into the stomach: a gastrostomy.Such a procedure would allow the continued provision of life-sustaining nourishment with-out the irritation and discomfort associated with the nasogastric tube. It would also, from the perspective of the hospital, "buy time" for the reso-lution of the question bf competence. With the consent of a court-appointed guardian, "there being some conflict in psychiatric testimony.as to whether Msgr. O'Brien was or was not competent to make a decision as to the continuation of life-sustain-ing procedures," the surgery was performed on September 17, 1986. The issue, now that the stomach tube was in place, was whether it could be removed. To determine this, the court sought additional psychiatric testimony and heard the opinions of those most closely associated with the patient. There were no family members in a position to speak for Father O'Brien, nor had he personally authorized anyone to make decisions regarding his health care. No living will was available. One fellow priest is mentioned in the court record--the director of the residence where Father O'Brien livi~d--but he did not act as proxy decision-maker. The person who seemed to be best able to speak for the patient was a Iongtime friend who had initially requested removal ofthe NG tube. His opinion is noted in the record with respect ("His integrity and concern define what true friendship is all about"), but it was not held to be binding. Four psychiatrists, examining the patient who now had the stomach tube in place, found that he "was not so depressed or withdrawn as to render him incapable of making a rational decision affecting his life." 906 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 His method of communication, however, was limited to affirmative and negative responses which he communicated by squeezing the .hand of the speaker or nodding his head. In this way he indicated that he was not happy with the tube. He understood that it was necessary to sustain life. Did he want to live? No. Did he want to die? No. Hearing his testimony, Judge Greenfield found it necessary to visit the patient himself and to conduct his own assessment of competency and patient preference. Once again he found the evidence unclear and the mes-sages ambiguous, leading him to conclude that the court could not order the removal of the tube. "It will not order the discontinuance of a life-support mechanism without the clearest and most compelling indications from the person most directly involved. Whenever there is doubt, a court must opt for the affirmation of life." For some weeks after the insertion of the stomach tube, Monsignor O'Brien seemed to improve. Attorney for the Shervier Home, Thomas Ford, reported that he took some food orally, attended physical therapy, and prayed the rosary with his nurse.5 He died on December 8, 1986, three months after surgery for the gastrostomy. No further legal action was taken with respect to his case. Who Speaks for the Incompetent Priest or Religious? In the wake of~ Eichner v. Dillon major superiors of religious con-gregations in the United States commissioned a study of the legal issues surrounding treatment decisions in terminal illness, patient rights, and sur-rogate decision-making for their members. Prepared in 1983 by Mary Cos-grove Consentino, Esq., for the Leadership Conference of Women Re-ligious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (LCWR/CMSM), Health Care Decision Making for Incompetent Patients: Who Decides? provided an analysis of these issues, a review of rulings in the six states that had, at that time, acted on matters regarding who might decide whether life-sustaining equipment might be withheld from a terminally ill or permanently unconscious incompetent adult, and a set of recom-mendations for effecting surrogate decisi0n-making. Although this paper was not addressed specifically to clergy who are not members of religious institutes, many of its suggestions could be adapted for their use, and indeed for anyone contemplating the designa-tion of a proxy for health-care decisions. In the case of sisters, brothers, and priests who are members of religious communities, the analogy with the family offers strong support for the recognition of a fellow-member as the person best able to speak for an incompetent patient. Health-Care Directives / 207 Religious communities and dioceses will be concerned about these matters for a number of reasons. The individual person's rights of self-determination, privacy, and dignity in dying will be of paramount im-portance. In addition, there are legitimate concerns regarding the finan-cial costs of unnecessary and. futile treatment, the desire to avoid litiga-tion, and a need to clarify the roles of family and community members in decisions regarding medical treatment for priests .and religious sisters and brothers. The LCWR/CMSM paper recommends oral discussions--both for-mal and informal--as one means for bringing these concerns to the sur-face within a religious congregation. It had been this type of discussion that provided the occasion for Brother Fox to articulate his personal pref-erences regarding life-extending technology, remarks that were accepted as evidence by the courts. Increasingly, however, a more formal vehicle for the expression of directions concerning terminal care in the event of incompetency is advised. Referred to generically as Advance Directives, these may take the form of a living will or a durable power of attorney for health care. The living will is a directive executed by an individual while com-petent, specifying preferences concerning the types of treatment that one would wish in the event of incapacity. Typically these directives, antici-pating a condition of terminal illness and incompetency, request the with-holding of life-extending measures that would have the effect only of pro-longing the dying process. Durable powers of attorney are legal docu-ments authorizing an agent (the "attorney in fact") to make decisions on behalf of another person, even a~ter that person becomes incompe-tent (hence "durable" since traditional powers of attorney terminate with the incapacity of the principal). In each jurisdiction th'e binding force of living wills and durable pow-ers of attorney will depend on legislation (Natural Death Acts), compli-ance with statutory regulations, and the interpretation of the courts. As anyone familiar with the d~iily news will know, this is one of the most rapidly developing fields in medico-legal affairs. The LCWR/CMSM'pa-per reflects the state of the question on these matters only for ! 983 and must be updated. Highly recommended for this purpose is the recent publica~tion, A Mat-ter of Choice: Planning Ahead for Health Care Decisions, prepared in 1986 by attorney Barbara Mishkin for the U.S. Senate Special Commit-tee on Aging and distributed through the Special Projects Department of the American Association of Retired Persons.6 A Matter of Choice pro- 208 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 vides essential information that will greatly assist anyone contemplating the preparation of an Advance Directive for health care, as well as those charged with planning and implementing policy on these matters. Included in this report are the statutory provisions for the enactment of living wills in the 38 states that had legislated Natural Death Acts by September 1986, and a complete discussion of the durable power of at-torney, now recognized in all 50 states. Information regardingfamily con-sent statutes in the 17 states that have specific legislation regarding the rights of family members to make health-care decisions for incap.acitated adults is also provided, as are the provisions for making donations of bod-ily tissue or organs through the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. Sample forms for living wills and durable powers of attorney are provided in an Appendix. The Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care There are some clear advantages of the DPA, making it preferable to a living will, and reflected in the recommendation and endorsement by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medi-cine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1983.7 As an Advance Directive it is more flexible and more personal: phy-sicians and others involved in health care will be interacting with a per-son who is cognizant of the actual condition of the patient, rather than with a document drafted at some time in the past. The agent, chosen by the patient with a view to being able to speak in his or her behalf, will be in a better position to authorize either continuation or termination of treatment, in consultation with physicians and others responsible for the patient's care. DPAs can be used in behalf of persons not terminally ill (someone with permanent loss of consciousness or with degenerative ill-ness) and can be drafted to authorize a variety of services. A further advantage over the living will is the fact that, with the leg-islation by the District of Columbia in January 1987, 50 states and the District now have DPA statutes. There is great variety among them, how-ever, and only the most recently enacted were designed explicitly for use in medical-treatment decisions. Since most were enacted primarily to authorize decisions regarding property, they are silent with regard to their possible use for health care. Increasingly, however, they are being rec-ommended for this purpose. Attorney Mishkin's report for the Senate Committee is optimistic regarding their application to this field: No court has ruled on the validity of powers of attorney in this context, however; therefore no one can say with absolute certainty that a power Health-Care Directives / 20~ of attorney for health care would be implemented by a court, if the ques-tion were posed. Nevertheless, since courts generally will accept clear and convincing evidence of a patient's wishes in matters concerning health care, the probability is high that a court would accept an incapaci-tated patient's designation of a proxy health care decision maker through a durable power of attorney.8 For members of religious congregations, the DPA seems best suited to one very important function: clarifying who may speak for the com-munity member when physicians and courts, in the absence of such a des-ignated proxy, may tend to assume that it would be next of kin. This is not to say that family members might not be involved in the consulta-tion, but that the designated spokesperson would be a member of the re-ligious institute. An Education Program for Priests and Religious In recent years many religious congregations, provinces, and dio-ceses in the U.S. have begun the process of widespread education of their members regarding these matters. In some instances these programs are well underway or nearing completion, with all members aware of their rights and responsibilities, in consultation with the legal, medical, and ethical expertise needed to facilitate the implementation of an effective policy. Others have just begun. The rapidly developing fields of biome-dical ethics and the law surrounding terminal care will assure that this will be an ongoing project for all groups. For those who have not yet fully considered these issues, a program for community education is sketched in broad outline. Whatever ap-proach is taken, the design should enabi~ members to come to g~:ips with the,major theological, ethical, legal, and medical questions raised by the new life-extending technologies. For members of communities under vow, these will be considered in the cohtext of congregational expecta-tions with respect to a common life, simplicity, and justice in the alloca-tion of resources. Theological Reflection Priests, brothers, and sisters who have chosen to live in dedicated service within the Roman Catholic Church will want to ground their re-flections on the long and well-articulated tradition of that Church regard-ing the sanctity of life, the ministry of healing and caring that defines Catholic health care, the redemptive role of pain and suffering, and the reality of human finitude and mortality. No document better summarizes 210 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 that tradition and addresses the pressing moral questions t~aised by new forms of treatment than the Vatican Declaration on Euthanasia.9 The 1980 Declaration, prepared by the Congregation for the Doc-trine of the Faith, carefully distinguishes the terminology used in the eutha-nasia debate: actions and omissions, intentions and consequences, ordi-nary and extraordinary means-~clarified in this document in terms of treat-ments offering "proportionate" or "disproportionate" burdens and bene-fits. Its principles are clear and offer realistic guidelines. While affirming the.sanctity of life and God's sovereignty, the Dec-laration speaks also of the unavoidability of death. Seen in the light bf faith, death provides entrance into eternal life. We may not hasten the hour of death through suicide or murder, but we are not required to sub-mit to treatment that "would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as normal care due to the sick person in simi-lar cases is not interrupted." Care-givers act conscientiously when they "administer the remedies that seem necessary or useful." Medical in-terventions that are normally optional, are those in which "the investment in instruments and personnel is disproportionate to the results foreseen" or" those that "impose on the patient strain or suffering out of propor-tion with the benefits which he or she may gain from such techniques." Some Catholic religious may be initially hesitant regarding the legiti-macy of enacting advance directives, having read of the opposition of their bishops to living wills. In this regard it will be important to clarify that the opposition of Conferences of Bishops to state legislation of cer-tain Natural Death Acts was directed at the legislation and not at an indi-vidual person's right of self-determination in writin~g such a directive. Foreseeing the rapid development of law (39 states now have such legis-lation), the National Conference of Bishops, through its Committee for Pro-Life Activities, issued on November 10, 1984, "Guidelines for Leg-islation On Life-Sustaining Treatment." ~0 These guidelines, reflecting the Vatican Declaration, propose "ways of respecting the moral principles ¯ . . as well as related concerns of the Church, whenever there is a de-bate on whether existing or proposed legislation adequately addresses the subject. ' ' The Catholic Health Association distributes a directive, the "Chris-tian Affirmation of Life: A Statement on Terminal Illness," that provide.s an opportunity for a person to state his or her wishes regarding treatment in terminal illness, in full compliance with the principles of the Church. ~ In states that have legislation regarding living wills, some, but not all, Health-Care Directives / 911 allow departures from the statutory form, and this document might be used as an alternative. Women and men whose lives have been lived in faith will also ap-proach sickness and death inspired by the same faith, identifying with Jesus in obedience to the call of the Father. They will appreciate the min-istry of their brothers and sisters who care for them in their illness, and will be concerned to act as responsibly with the resources of their com-munities in their illness as they have done in good health. Belief in res-urrection and eternal life places decisions regarding medical intervention within a faith-context. It will be inappropriate to deny death by insisting on medical interventions that are futile and that only prolong the dying process. Ethical Principles Ethical discussion of the issues raised by new developments in medi-cine and life-extending technologies, when addressed to a broader pub-lic than the Catholic community, is frequently framed in terms of cer-tain principles that must be honored and balanced in the delivery of good health care. Among the principles most central to this debate and to the matter of advance directives are these four: self-determination (or auton-omy), beneficence, justice, and fidelity. The principle of autonomy is derivative from a recognition of the in-herent dignity of the person as a free and self-determining individual. As such., competent adults have a right to control what will be done to them regarding medical treatment, and others have a responsibility to respect their reasonable wishes. This right holds, also, for previously competent adults who have indicated what their preferences would be in the event of incompetency andlor who have designated a proxy to make decisions for them. The full exercise of this right requires adequate disclosure of information--the risks and benefits of alternative procedures--as foun-dation for truly informed consent or refusal. The right to self-determination is not absolute and may be overrid-den in certain circumstances. Patients, thus, may expect that their pref-erences will be honored unless they are in conflict with "compelling state interest," the stated policies of the health-care facility, or the pro-fessional integrity of the care-givers (who are also persons with the right to self-determination). For the religious who has freely joined and re-mained as a member of a community guided by the teachings of the Catho-lic Church, choices will be further limited by fidelity to those teachings. The more extreme interpretations of autonomy assume a radical individu- Review for Religious, March-April 1988 alism that is contrary to the commitment that members of a voluntary com-munity have with respect to one another. The principle of beneficence, or patient benefit in this context, re-quires that one do good and avoid doing harm. The negative requirement (nonrrialeficence) is a more stringent duty than is the need to provide posi-tive benefit to improve the lot of the patient. In fact, these two aspects of o

Article by Morris Arnold on the Arkansas Legal System during the Colonial Period. ; THE ARKANSAS COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM, 1686-1766 Morris S. Arnold* Except for the silence of its final letter, there is nowadays noth­ing very French about Arkansas. Yet before the American takeover in 1804 the great majority of the European inhabitants of the area presently occupied by the state were of French origin. There is s9me visible proof of this in the names, many now mangled beyond e:asy recognition, which eighteenth-century voyageurs and coureurs de bois gave to a good many Arkansas places and streams; 1 and there are, as well, a number of Arkansas townships which bear the names of their early French habitants .2 While these faint traces of a remote European past survive, ab­solutely nothing remains of the laws and customs which the ancient residents of Arkansas observed. This is no accident. It was a favor­ite object of Jefferson to introduce the common law of England into the vast Louisiana Territory as quickly as he could. In the lower territory he waited too late. New Orleans had had a large French population and a somewhat professionalized legal system for some time, and the civilian opposition, given time to congeal, proved to * Ben J. Altheimer Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock. B.S.E.E. 1965, LL.B. 1968, University of Arkansas; LL.M. 1969, S.J.D. 1971, Harvard Law School. This article is the first chapter of Professor Arnold's book, UNEQUAL LAWS UNTO A SAVAGE RACE: EUROPEAN LEGAL TRADITIONS IN ARKANSAS, 1686-1836, which will be published later this year. l. See generally Branner, Some Old French Place Names in the State of Arkansas, 19 ARK. HIST. Q. 191 (1960). The etymology of some of these names is difficult and interesting. Who would guess very quickly, for instance, that Smackover in Union County is Chemin Couvert (covered road) in disguise? Id. at 206. Tchemanihaut Creek (pronounced 'Shamanahaw") in Ashley County is a good deal easier: Chemin a haut (high road) must have been its original name. Its initial letter, one local historian has plausibly suggested, is probably attributable to "a misguided attempt to derive the name from the Indian lan­guage." Y. ETHERIDGE, HISTORY OF ASHLEY COUNTY, ARKANSAS 17, 18 (1959). Other names should on sight be instantly intelligible to a modern Parisian, though their current pronunciation might cause him consternation: Examples are the Terre Rouge (red earth) and Terre Noire (black earth) Creeks in Clark County, the L 'Angui!le (eel) River in north­east Arkansas, and La Grue (crane) township in Arkansas county. 2. Vaugine and Bogy Townships in Jefferson County, Darysaw (Desruisseaux) Town­ship in Grant County, and Fourche La Fave (Lefevre) Township in Perry County are good examples. 391 392 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 have sufficient muscle to win a partial victory.3 As a result, as to substantive civil matters the state of Louisiana is today a thoroughly civilian jurisdiction. In the upper territory, however, by a piecemeal process beginning in 1804, the English common law was insinuated into the legal system, until, in 1816, it was at last adopted virtually wholesale by the General Assembly of the Missouri Territory.4 The purpose of this article is to explain why civilian legal institutions proved so weak in Upper Louisiana and especially in Arkansas. It turns out that the smallness and character of the European popula­tion in Arkansas was the main cause for the vulnerability of Euro­pean legal norms there. The reception of the common law in Arkansas was simply one element in a more general exchange of cultures which occurred following the Louisiana Purchase. I At ten o'clock on the morning of March 12, 1682, Robert Cava­lier, sieur de la Salle, having been commissioned four years earlier by Louis XIV of France to explore and take possession of the Mis­sissippi and its tributaries, drew near the Quapaw Village of Kappa. The village was located on the right bank of the Mississippi River about twenty miles north of the mouth of the Arkansas. From the war chants emanating from the Indian town, La Salle judged that he was in for a hostile reception; so he hastily constructed a "fort" on an island opposite the village and awaited developments. Soon, however, the Quapaw chief sent the calumet of peace, and La Salle and his men went to Kappa where they were received with every possible demonstration of affection both public and private. Asked by the Quapaws for help against their enemies, La Salle promised that they could thenceforth look for protection to the greatest prince of the world, in whose behalf he had come to them and to all the other nations who lived along and around the river. In return, La Salle said, the Quapaws had to consent expressly to the erection in their village of a column on which His Majesty's arms were to be painted, symbolizing their recognition that he was the master of their lands. The Indians agreed and Henry de Tonti, La Salle's lieutenant 3. See generally G. DARGO, JEFFERSON'S LOUISIANA: POLITICS AND THE CLASH OF LEGAL TRADITIONS (1975). 4. 1 LAWS OF A PUBLIC AND GENERAL NATURE, OF THE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA, OF THE TERRITORY OF LOUISIANA, OF THE TERRITORY OF MISSOURI, AND OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI, UP TO THE YEAR 1824, ch. 154 (1842). 1983) COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 393 and commandant of one of the two brigades in the company, imme­diately caused the column to be fashioned. On it was painted a cross and the arms of France, and it bore these words: Louis the Great, King of France and of Navarre, rules. 13th of March, 1682. Tonti then conducted the column with all the French men-at-arms to the plaza of the village, and, La Salle taking up a position at the head of his brigade and Tonti at the head of his, the Reverend Fa­ther Zeno be Membre sang the hymn 0 crux, ave, spes unica. The company then went three times around the plaza, each time singing the psalm Exaudiat te Dominus and shouting vive le roy to the dis­charge of their muskets. They then planted the column while re­peating the cries of vive le roy, and La Salle, standing near the column and holding the king's commission in his hand, spoke in a loud voice the following words in French: On behalf of the very high, very invincible, and victorious prince Louis the Great, by the grace of God, King of France and of Navarre, the fourteenth of this name, today, the 13th of March, 1682, with the consent of the nation of the Arkansas assembled at the village of Kappa and present at this place, in the name of the king and his allies, I, by virtue of the commission of His Majesty of which I am bearer and which I hold presently in my hand . , have taken possession in the name of His ffi.ajesty, his heirs, and the successors to his crown, of the country of Louisiana and of all the nations, mines, minerals, ports, harbors, seas, straits, and roadsteads, and of everything contained within the same . . . . After more musket-firing and the giving of presents the Indians cele­brated their new alliance throughout the night, pressing their hands to the column and then rubbing their bodies in testimony to the joy which they felt in having made so advantageous a connection. Thus did France gain sovereignty over and ownership of Arkansas. The reason that we know all these details and more about La Salle's activities in Arkansas is that he had requested, and received, from Jacques de la Metairie, the notary who was in his company, a lengthy proces-verbal describing the events at Kappa and officially attesting their occurrence.5 This was Arkansas's first exposure to civilian legal processes. It would be almost 150 years before the influence of the civil law ceased to make itself felt there. 5. 2 P. MARGRY, DECOUVERTES ET ETABLISSEMENT DES FRAN<;:AIS DANS L'0UEST ET DANS LE SUD DE L'AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONALE, 1614-1754 (1881). 394 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 II Arkansas Post was the first European establishment in the lower Mississippi valley. It was first located about twenty-seven miles by river from the mouth of the Arkansas on the edge of Little Prairie at what is now called the Menard Site. (See Figure 2). Set­tled in 1686 by six tenants of Henry de Tonti to whom La Salle in 1682 had granted the lower Arkansas as a seignory, 6 it was to serve as an Indian trading post and as an intermediate station between the Illinois country and the Gulf of Mexico.7 Tonti's plans for the place had been large indeed. In 1689 he promised the Jesuits to build a house and chapel at the Arkansas and to grant a resident priest a sizeable amount of land; while there, Tonti confidently asserted, the priest could "come and say mass in the French quarter near our fort."8 No priest in fact established himself during Tonti's ownership of the Arkansas and his French quarter and fort never materialized. When in an undated grant of land to Jacques Cardinal, one of his men at the Post, Tonti styled himself seigneur de ville de Tonti (lord of the town of Tonti),9 he was in the grips of an excessive enthusi­asm. There is no evidence that the European population of the place ever exceeded six. In fact, when Joutel arrived there in 1687 there were only two Frenchmen remaining in residence; 10 and the single log house he descpbed is apparently the only structure ever erected at Tonti's Post. Joutel remarked of Tonti's two traders that "if I was joyous to find them, they participated in the joy since we left them the wherewithal to maintain themselves for some time." Indeed, he said, "they were almost as much in need of our help as we of theirs." He ridiculed the whole idea of a post at that location. "The said house," Joutel noted sarcastically, "was to serve as an 6. See Faye, The Arkansas Post ef Louisiana: French Domination, ;26 LA. HIST. Q. 633, 635-36 ( 1943). 7. Such was the view of Father Douay, a Jesuit who described Tonti's post in 1687. See M. THOMAS, THE ARKANSAS POST OF LOUISIANA, 1682-1783 (M.A. Thesis, University of California, 1948). 8. Tonti's grant to the Jesuits is quoted in 1 M. GIRAUD, A HISTORY OF FRENCH LOUI­SIANA 8 (J. Lambert trans., 1974). 9. The grant is translated in THE FRENCH FOUNDATIONS 396 (T. Pease & R. Werner eds., 1934). 10. Faye, supra note 6, at 735. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM Henry de Tonti, lieutenant of La Salle. He founded Arkansas Post in 1686 and in the late seventeenth century styled himself seigneur de ville de Tonti. He was the first European to possess judicial authority in Arkansas. (Courtesy of the Museum of the History of Mobile). 395 396 UALR LAW JOURNAL · [Vol. 6:391 entrepot [way-station] for the French who travelled in these parts, but we were the only ones whom it so served." 11 Short of supplies and virtually inaccessible, the tiny outpost never prospered. The war with the Iroquois closed the route to Ca­nada and made trade to and from Arkansas impossible much of the time until 1693.12 By 1696, Jean Couture, Tonti's lieutenant and commandant at the Post, had deserted to the English, 13 and in 1699 Jesuit missionaries to the Quapaws found no trace of a French set­tlement. 14 By then the French had evidently abandoned the Arkan­sas, though there may have remained behind a "few white savages thereabouts as wild as red savages." 15 However grandiose and ambitious had been the schemes of Tonti, they would soon come to seem tame. In 1717 the Mercure de France, a Paris newspaper, began advertising the riches of Louisi­ana to its readers: Gold and silver could be mined there "with al­most no labor." The mountains situated on the Arkansas River would be explored, and there, one correspondent exuded, "we shall gather, believe me, specimens from silver mines, since others al­ready have gathered such there without trouble." When Cadillac sensibly protested that "the mines of the Arkansas were a dream" he was promptly committed to the Bastille "on suspicion of having spo­ken with scant propriety against the Government of France."16 The man behind the propaganda campaign was John Law, a Scot, who owned a bank in Paris and who had in 1717 succeeded in securing for his Compagnie d'Occident a monopoly on Louisiana trade. Law's company recruited thousands of colonists to settle in Louisiana and the king granted it authority to grant land from the 11. Joutel Remarques sur /'Ouvrage de Tonti Re/at(( a la Louisiane ( 1703), Archives Service Hydrographique (Paris), vol. 115-9, no. 12 (Typescript in Little Rock Public Li­brary). The translation in the text is mine. 12. Faye, supra note 6, at 638. 13. IBERVILLE'S GULF JouRNALS 144 at n.98 (R. McWilliams ed. 1950). 14. 18 COLLECTIONS OF THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 427, at n.37 (1908). 15. Faye, supra note 6, at 646. See also I M. GIRAUD, supra note 8, at 8: "When d'Iberville reached the Mississippi [i.e., in 1699] the post had been abandoned." Some writ­ers are reluctant to say that the Arkansas was completely devoid of Europeans at this time. See, e.g., P. HOLDER, ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD RESEARCH ON THE PROBLEM OF THE LOCA­TIONS OF ARKANSAS POST ARKANSAS 4 (1957): "The French occupation of the general area along the lower courses of the Arkansas and White Rivers was virtually continuous from the 1680's onward." The truth is that the sources simply fail to mention any Europeans in Ar­kansas, except Jesuit missionaries, between 1699 and 1721. It is, however, hard to resist believing that a few hunters and trappers ventured from time to time into the area and established temporary camps there. Almost certainly no real settlement existed however. 16. Faye, supra note 6, at 653. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 397 Royal domain. Proprietors of the company's land grants (conces­sionaires) were given considerable latitude in choosing the spots for their settlements, since the interior of Louisiana was not well known; and they therefore exercised much discretion in locating their colonists on arrival. 17 However, the company early on had recognized the Arkansas River as an important spot, since it was thought that it might well be the best route to the Spanish mines of Mexico. Thus the company specifically directed where the Arkansas concession should be located and ordered that it be the first occu­pied. 18 It granted this concession to Law himself. In August of 1721, a group of Law's French engages (perhaps as many as eighty) took possession of land on Little Prairie at or near the site of Tonti's abandoned trading post. 19 (See Figure 2). Although Law was by then bankrupt and had fled France, the news did not reach Louisiana until after Jacques Levens, Law's director in Louisiana, had caused the Arkansas colony to be established under the command of some of his subordinates.20 By December of that year Bertrand Dufresne, sieur du Demaine, replaced Levens as director for Arkansas, and in March of 1722 he took possession of the concession and began an inventory of its effects and papers.21 On his arrival he found only twenty cabins and three arpents (about 2.5 acres) of cleared ground. He reported a total of about fifty men and women resident,22 tristes debris, Father Charlevoix called them,23 of Mr. Law's concession. They had produced only an insig­nificant harvest. Lieutenant la Boulaye was nearby with a military detachment of seventeen men.24 (See Figure 1). Despite the existence of a company store at the Arkansas con­cession, both the colony and the military establishment were in con­siderable difficulty.25 Dufresne therefore immediately released twenty of the engages from service and gave them lots to cultivate in the hopes that a better harvest of corn and wheat would be realized in 1722. In February of the following year there were only forty-one colonists remaining, divided now into two small farming communi- 17. 4 M. GIRAUD, H!STOJRE DE LA LOUISIANE FRANc_;;AISE 198 (1974). 18. Id. 19. Id. 20. Id. at 199. 21. Id. at 271. 22. Id. at 272. 23. 6 P. CHARLEVOIX, JOURNAL D'UN VOYAGE FAIT PAR ORDRE DU Roi DANS L'AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONNALE 164 (1744). 24. 4 M. GIRAUD, supra note 17, at 273. 25. The following paragraph is based on Id. at 273-74. 398 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 ties: Fourteen men and one woman at Law's concession under Dufresne, and sixteen men, some with families, two leagues down the river with the troops. Among this latter group there lived six black slaves. 26 Benard la Harpe, while exploring the river in 1721, had predicted, or at least hoped for, a turn in the fortunes of the struggling colony, but that hope proved false and in 1727 Father Paul du Poisson, the Jesuit missionary to the Arkansas, reported that only about thirty Frenchmen remained behind.27 The military post had been abandoned two years previous. 28 Village des Arcan~as ---N Poste francais commande par le S. la Boulaie 0 - - - -, ·: ·Concession de M. Law I I L. --- ' MISSISSIPPI Figure 1 Sketch of the location of Law's colony by Du­mont de Montigny,Archives Nationales, Paris, 6 JJ-75, Piece 254. All this seemed worth recounting in some detail because for generations historians of Arkansas have believed that a colony of Germans once occupied their river. Law did recruit many Germans for settlement in Louisiana, and they were destined for the Arkan­sas, but as soon as the news of Law's bankruptcy reached the colony 26. Recensement General des Habitans Estab!ys,,.SoteJouy Arkansas et d~s Ouvrier~ ~e la Concession cy devant Apartenant a M. Law, 18 February, 1723. (Transcnpt at Lomsiana History Center, Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans). 27. Du Poisson to Father___, translated in Falconer, Arkansas and the Jesuits in 1727-A Translation, 4 PUBLICATIONS OF THE ARKANSAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 352, at 375 (1917). 28. Faye, supra note 6, at 670. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 399 in June of 1721, the Compagnie des Indies took over the direction of his concession;29 and when the time arrived to transport the German immigrants to Arkansas, the company, in an economy move, de­cided instead to send them to Delaire's grant in Lower Louisiana.30 In short, none of Law's Germans ever reached Arkansas. This is a pity, as the prospect of discussing, or at least imagining, a group of German immigrants living under French law on the Arkansas River was an intriguing one--one of which the facts have now unfortu-nately deprived us. · III Before 1712, the colony of Louisiana, with a population of only a few hundred, had been entirely under military rule and regular civil regulation was altogether lacking. On September 19, 1712, the Crown granted a trade monopoly to Antoine Crozat but he was given no governmental authority: As Henry Dart noted, the charter was "only an operating contract with the duties of government re­tained in the Crown."31 However, the charter did adopt as law for the colony "nos Edits, Ordonnances Et Coutumes Et !es usages de la Prevoste Et Vitf/omte de Paris--our edicts, ordinances, and customs, and the usages of the Provostry and Viscounty of Paris."32 The Cou­tume, despite its name, was actually a small code of some 362 titles first reduced to writing in 1510,33 and treating both substantive and adjective law. It was itself terse, indeed epigrammatic; but the com­mentary on it by the time of its adoption in Louisiana was volumi­nous. 34 Annotated versions of the Coutume were therefore very popular in France and in time they found their way to Louisiana.35 Also in 1712, by a separate instrument, a new and important institution was created for the colony, the Superior Council of Loui­siana. 36 Modelled on the governmental arrangements already in 29. 4 M. GIRAUD, supra note 17, at 216. 30. Id. at 248. 31. Dart, The Legal Institutions of Louisiana, 3 SOUTHERN LAW Q. 247 (1918). This article also appears in 2 LA. HIST. Q. 72 (1919). 32. The charter is printed in 4 PUBLICATIONS LA. HIST. Soc. 13, at 17 (1909). 33. For a precis of its provisions, title by title, see Schmidt, History ef the Jurisprudence of Louisiana, l LA. L. J., no. l, l (1841). 34. The most useful eighteenth-century commentary is C. FERRIERE, CoMMENTAIRE SUR LA CouTUME DE LA PREVOTE ET VICOMTE DE p ARIS. It is available in several editions. 35. Dart, The Law Library ef a Louisiana Lawyer in the 18th Century, 25 REPORTS OF THE LOUISIANA BAR ASSOCIATION 12, at 22 et seq. (1924). 36. See Dart, supra note 31, at 249 et seq. See also, for some discussion of the work of this body, Hardy, The Superior Council in Colonial Louisiana, in FRENCHMEN AND FRENCH 400 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 place in other French colonies, the Council had original and exclu­sive jurisdiction to decide disputes arising anywhere in Louisiana. It consisted of the Lieutenant General of New France; the Intendant of the same; the Governor of Louisiana; a first councilor of the king; two other councilors; the attorney general; and a clerk. Judgments in civil cases required the concurrence of at least three members and in criminal cases at least five. The Council was originally created to exist for three years, but on September 7, 1716, it became by virtue of a Royal Edict a permanent institution.37 In 1717 a fundamental change occurred in the government of Louisiana. In that year Crozat, having lost an enormous sum under his operating charter, surrendered it, and John Law's Compagnie d'Occident was given a monopoly over trade in the colony. In addi­tion, unlike Crozat's company, the Compagnie d'Occident was granted extensive governmental authority: It had the power to ap­point the Superior Council, to name governors and military com­mandants, and to appoint and remove all judges. The charter also provided that "Seront tous !es juges Etbalis en tous !es d. Lieux tenus de juger suivant !es Loix Et ordonnances du Royaume Et se Con-former a la Coutume de la prevoste Et Vicomte de Paris. . . ."; that is, that "all the judges established in all the said places shall be bound to judge according to the laws and ordinances of the realm, and [shall also be bound] to conform to the customs of the Prevostry and Viscounty of Paris."38 This portion of the charter obviously provided for the reception of general French legislation and the Custom of Paris. In addition, it has been shown that subsequent French legislation, as soon as it was registered in the colony, and the legislation of the Superior Council itself, formed part of the body of colonial Louisiana law.39 The subsequent French legislation was of three distinct sorts: (a) general legislation; (b) special colonial legis­lation; ( c) colonial legislation passed specifically for Louisiana. 40 Two years later we hear for the first time about inferior courts for outlying portions of the colony. On September 12, 1719, the king noted the need to appoint persons to act as judges "to facilitate w A YS IN THE MISSISSIPPI v ALLEY 87 (J. McDemott ed., 1969); Micelle, From Law Court to Local Government: Metamorphosis of the Superior Council of French Louisiana, 9 LA. HIST. 85 (1968). 37. The edict is printed in 4 PUBLICATIONS LA. HIST. Soc. 21-23 (19CS). 38. Id. at 48. 39. Baade, Marriage Contracts in French and Spanish Louisiana: A Study in "Notarial" Jurisprudence, 53 TUL. L. REV. 3, 9 (1978). 40. Id. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 401 the administration of justice in places distant from the place where the Superior Council holds it sessions."41 The "heads or directors" of concessions along with "other of our subjects, capable and of pro­bity" were to "exercise both civil and criminal justice." The edict went on to provide that, even in these inferior courts, "three judges shall sit in civil matters and in criminal matters five judges . " The plan, evidently, was to have a kind of provincial council at each settlement. The king further provided that an appeal from these lo­cal tribunals would lie in all cases to the Superior Council.42 All this was being done, of course, to make ready the way for Law's coloniz­ing schemes. In 1720 or 1721 Louisiana was for the first time divided into districts (or counties). Arkansas was one of the nine districts origi­nally created, and a local commandant and a judge was assigned to each "to put justice with greater ease in reach of the colonists."43 Presumably, and understandably, the plan to establish local councils outside New Orleans was abandoned at this time. The sources sim­ply fail us on the question of whether more than one person was expected to sit on local courts, but it could not have proved worka­ble in remote places like Arkansas to assemble a multi-member ju­dicial body. In May of 1722 the Regent issued an order creating a provincial council for Illinois, the jurisdiction of which supposedly extended from "all places on and above and Arkansas River . . . to the boundaries of the Wabash River." The commandant of the Illinois, Lieutenant de Boisbriant, was to serve as "chief and judge" of this so-called council, which in fact had only one other member.44 It thus seems to have been the plan to abolish the Arkansas district and annex its territory to its nearest northern neighbor; and the Illi­nois provincial council was directed "to hold its sessions at the places where the principal factories of the company shall be estab- 41. The edict is printed in 4 PUBLICATIONS LA. HIST. Soc. 63 (1908). 42. The translation in the text is mine. The entire edict is translated and discussed in Dart, supra note 31, at 261 et seq. Further discussion of this edict can be found in Dart, The Colonial Legal Systems of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, 27 REPORTS OF THE LOUISIANA BAR ASSOCIATION 43 at 52 (1926). 43. Id. at 267. The other districts were New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Alibamous, Natchez, Yazoo, N atchitotches, and the Illinois. 44. Translated extracts from this order appear in 2 J. WHITE, A NEW COLLECTION OF LAWS, CHARTERS, AND LOCAL ORDINANCES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND SPAIN, RELATING TO THE CONCESSION OF LAND IN THEIR RESPECTIVE COLO­NIES . 439-40 (1837). 402 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 lished."45 This language could have been construed to require the Illinois council to sit at the Arkansas. It is, however, very much to be doubted that such a session was ever held, and certainly it is not believeable that anyone would repair from Arkansas to Illinois to settle a grievance in 1722. It seems probable, then, that whatever judicial functions were exercised at the Arkansas were entrusted to its resident directors even after the supposed creation of the council of the Illinois. The only resident director that the Arkansas ever had was, as we saw, Bertrand Dufresne, sieur du Demaine, who arrived at the Post March 22, 1722, and he was evidently the judge from that point on. Prior to that, Jacques Levens had been director, but as he never took up residence in Arkansas we have to presume that if judicial func­tions were undertaken by anyone, it was by one or more of the three subordinates to whom Levens had entrusted the management of the struggling colony: Jean-Baptiste, Menard, Martin Merrick, and Labro.46 When Dufresne left the Arkansas around 1726 we can hardly guess the means resorted to for the settlement of disputes. Probably Father Paul du Poisson, the Jesuit missionary resident from 1727 to 1729, used his good offices to maintain order among the approximately thirty Frenchmen who had remained behind.47 It seems probable, therefore, that Arkansas's first sustained ex­posure to European legal proceedings and principles occurred in the period during which Law's Company held sway in Louisiana. Tonti's seventeenth-century feudal seignory no doubt carried with it the right to render justice. Though his charter from La Salle has not as yet come to light,48 other conveyances of La Salle's are extant; and in them he gave his grantees judicial power over small cases ("low justice" this is called) while specifically reserving important cases ("high justice") to himself. (Cases of the latter type he di­rected to be heard by the judge "who shall be established at Fort St. 45. Id. at 440. 46. 4 M. GIRAUD, supra note 17, at 272. Menard left the Arkansas in 1722 (jd., 275) and was in New Orleans in 1720. Index to the Records efthe Superior Council of Louisiana, 4 LA. HIST. Q. 349 (1921). 47. Dufresne appears in the Arkansas census of January !, 1726; but on October 21, 1726, he is described as a "settler in Arkansas, but now domiciled with Mr. Traguidy [in New Orleans]." Index to the Records of Superior Council of New Orleans, 3 LA. HIST. Q. 420 (1920). In 1727 there was no director at the Arkansas, as Father Du Poisson tells us that he took up evidence in "the India Company's house, which is also that of the commandants when there are any here . " See Falconer, supra note 27, at 371. 48. For a charter from Tonti to Jacques Cardinal, one of his men at the Arkansas, see THE FRENCH FOUNDATIONS, supra note 9, at 396. 'Fhla is tlae Olll)' grant gf Tgati's eKtastF 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 403 Louis.")49 We do not know whether Tonti's charter contained iden­tical provisions but it certainly would have contained similar ones. But during the fifteen years or so that Tonti held the right to dispose of certain cases arising in his seignory, it hardly seems credible that he or his deputies ever held anything resembling a court, or even executed many instruments or documents.50 IV In 1731 the Compagnie d'Occident surrendered its charter to Louis XV, and for the rest of the period of French dominion Louisi­ana was a Crown Colony. Late that same year a military garrison was re-established in Arkansas; it consisted of twelve men com­manded by First Ensign de Coulange and was located again on the edge of Little Prairie. 51 (See Figure 2). It was apparently during the reorganization of the colony in 1731 that civil and military authority at the outposts of Louisiana were combined in the commandant of the garrison-an arrangement that would survive into the Spanish period and even for a short time during the American regime. Part of a post commandant's civil authority was to act as notary and judge. The exact scope of his judicial jurisdiction during the French period is obscure, there being no document of which I am aware which describes it specifically. Parkman, writing of condi­tions in the Illinois in 1764, says that the "military commandant whose station was at Fort Chartres on the Mississippi, ruled the Col­ony with a sway as absolute as that of the Pasha of Egypt, and judg­ed civil and criminal cases without right of appeal."52 Captain Phillip Pittman, an English engineer and Mississippi explorer who was writing at almost exactly the same time, gives a slightly different version. According to him, the Illinois commandant "was absolute 49. Concession in fee by La Salle to Pierre Prudhomme, in id. at 32. 50. When Tonti petitioned for confirmation of his charter, he was evidently refused. The petition is printed in E. MURPHEY, HENRY DE TONTI, FUR TRADER OF THE MISSISSIPPI 119 (1941). It is possible that La Salle did not have the power to make permanent grants and that may be the reason that Tonti needed confirmation. The Letters Patent of May 12, 1678, giving La Salle the right to explore "the western part of New France" in the king's behalf, gave him the power to build forts wherever he deemed them necessary; and he was "to hold them on the same tern1s and conditions as Fort Frontenac." See T. FALCONER, ON THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 19 (1844). La Salle said expressly in 1683 that this allowed him to "divide with the French and the Indians both the lands and the commerce of said country until it may please his majesty to command otherwise . " See THE FRENCH FoUNDATio~;upra note 9, at 43. The language is ambiguous, but on one permissible read­ing it indicates a specifically reserved power in the king to revoke grants made by La Salle. 51. Faye, supra note 6, at 673. 52. Quoted in Dart, supra note 31, at 249. 404 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 in authority, except in matters of life and death; capital offences were tried by the council at New Orleans."53 Of course, the Arkan­sas commandant's judicial jurisdiction was not necessarily as exten­sive as that possessed by the commandant of the Illinois. He may very well have been subordinate to the Illinois commandant during most of the French period. Some fitful light is thrown on the judicial authority of the Ar­kansas commandant by an interesting proceeding which took place at the Post in 1743.54 In October of that year, Anne Catherine Chenalenne, the widow of Jean Francois Lepine, petitioned Lieu­tenant Jean-Francois Tisserant de Montcharvaux, whom she styled "Commandant for the King at the Fort of Arkansas," asking him to cause an inventory and appraisal to be made of the community property in her possession. The object in view was to make a distri­bution to the petitioner's son-in-law and daughter who had the pre­vious May lost all their goods when attacked by Chickasaws on the Mississippi not far below the mouth of the Arkansas. They had nar­rowly escaped with their lives.55 Widow Lepine had decided to make a distribution to "her poor children, at least to those who have run so much risk among the savages." She was preparing to marry Charles Lincto, a well-to-do resident of the Post, and she wished to dissolve the old community which by custom had continued after her husband's death in her and their children. The commandant informed Madame Lepine that on 26 Octo­ber, 1743, he would inventory the "real and personal property de­rived from the marital community" and would bring with him two persons to look after the widow's interest and two to represent the children. The idea was that each party in interest should have in­dependent appraisers present to insure the impartiality of the inven­tory and evaluation. De Montcharvaux in the presence of these and other witnesses caused the inventory to be made on the appointed day. The estate was fairly sizeable, being valued at 14,530 /ivres and 10 sols. It contained a great deal of personalty, including four slaves, a number of animals, 1600 pounds of tobacco, and notes and accounts receivable; the realty noted was "an old house" with three small outbuildings. Interestingly, no land was mentioned. There are two possible explanations for the absence of land in S3. P. PITTMAN, THE PRESENT STATE OF THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT ON THE M1ss1s­SIPPI S3 (1770) (Reprinted with intro. by R. Rea 1973). S4. The relevant documents are translated in Core, Arkansas through the Looking Glass ef 1743 Documents, 22 GRAND PRAIRIE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 16 (1979). SS. This incident is reported and discussed in Faye, supra note 6, at 677-78. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 405 the inventory. One is that land may not have been actually granted to Arkansas settlers but only given over temporarily to their use. The other possibility is that the land on which the house was built had belonged to Lepine before the marriage and had remained his separate property under his marriage contract or under the general provisions of the Coutume de Paris. The Coutume, which, as we have seen, was in force in French Louisiana, provided that all mov­ables (personalty), belonging to a husband or wife, whenever ac­quired, became part of the community; but only certain immovables (realty) acquired after the marriage were so treated.56 This rule could be altered by contract, but in Louisiana, as in France, the Cou­tume was often specifically incorporated into marriage contracts by future spouses in defining the regime that would rule their prop­erty; 57 and if there was no contract provision creating a property regime, the Coutume of course automatically applied. The inventory is said to have been made "Pardevant nous Jean Francois Tisserant Ecuyer Sieur Demoncharvaus Commandant pour le Roy au Fort des Arkansas." The formulapardevant nous ("before us") is Parisian notarial boiler-plate and indicates that the comman­dant was acting in his surrogate notarial capacity. To an American common lawyer, the notary is not a member of the legal profession, not even a paralegal. But in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France he enjoyed a much more elevated status, as indeed he still does in that country. Originally an official of the medieval Euro­pean ecclesiastical courts, the notary developed into a nonconten­tious secular legal professional in France. In England, partly because the canon and secular laws were not on speaking terms, "the notarial system never took deep root."58 For one thing, an im­portant aspect of the notary's duties, his authority to "authenticate" documents, was of little use to the English. The whole notion of a state-sanctioned authenticator of private acts was entirely foreign to the common law: Whereas in France we see notaries "making" and "passing" contracts, the common law left that to the parties. The state was very much in the background in England, and was called upon only to enforce obligations that arose by force of nature. The other aspect of the French notary's duties, the drafting of instruments, conveyancing, and the giving of legal advice, was per- 56. See Baade, supra note 39, at 7, 8. 57. Id. at 25. 58. l F. POLLOCK & F. MAITLAND, A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW 218 (2d ed., reissued with intro. by S. Milsom 1968). 406 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 formed by the regular legal profession in England. It is true that there was a scriveners' company organized in London in the six­teenth century which was granted a charter in the reign of James l.59 Members were empowered to draft legal documents, especially obli­gations (or bonds), and they gave a certain amount of low-level le­gal advice particularly in commercial and banking matters. 60 The few secular notaries who practiced in London at that time con­cerned themselves mainly with drafting documents relevant to inter­national trade, and they were members of this company.61 But in the eighteenth century the company lost its effort to keep common­law attorneys from competing, and in 1804 parliament made con­veyancing the monopoly of the regular legal profession.62 In con­trast, the French notary's duties by the eighteenth century had come to include not only the familiar ones of administering oaths, taking acknowledgements, and giving "authenticity" to "acts" of private persons by attesting them officially, but they also ran generally to the drafting of documents, conveyancing, and the giving of practical legal advice.63 It is not surprising, therefore, that notaries would 59. See 12 w. HOLDSWORTH, A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW 70 (1938). See generally on the notary in England, Gutteridge, The Origin and Development ef the Profession of Notaries Public in England, in CAMBRIDGE LEGAL ESSAYS 12 (1926). 60. 12 w. HOLDSWORTH, supra note 59, at id. 61. 5 w. HOLDSWORTH, supra note 59, at 115 (3d ed. 1945). 62. 12 w. HOLDSWORTH, supra note 59, at 71-72; T. PLUCKNETT, A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE COMMON LAW 227-28 (5th ed. 1956). 63. As draftman of wills, marriage contracts, and conveyances, Mons. le Notaire has survived in France as a much respected person, especially in the country villages. He is a general non-forensic legal practitioner, his part in the legal scheme "being confined to vol­untary as distinct from contentious jurisdiction." Brown, The office of Notary in France, 2 INT'L & COMP. L. Q. 60, at 64 (1953). Indeed, the French notary is close to the equivalent of the English solicitor, except for the latter's participation in litigation. Thus one modern-day commentator opined that "a solicitor would feel much at home in the etude of the French notary, though he would be surprised, and perhaps disappointed, by the cordiality of the morning post." Id. at 71. Today in Louisiana as well the notary enjoys considerable powers. See Burke & Fox, The Notaire in North America: A Short Study of the Adaptation of a Civil Law Institution, 50 TUL. L. REV. 318, at 328-32 (1975); Brosman, Louisiana-An Accidental Experiment in Fu­srim, 24 TUL. L. REV. 95, 98-99 (1949). The Louisiana notary has the power "to make inventories, appraisements, and petitions; to receive wills, make protests, matrimonial con­tracts, conveyances, and generally, all contracts and instruments of writing; to hold family meetings and meetings of creditors; . to affix the seals upon the effects of deceased per­sons and to raise the same." LA. STAT. ANN.§ 35:2 (1964). When the Louisiana legislature defined the practice of law, and prohibited all but licensed attorneys from engaging in it, it therefore remembered to except acts performed by the notary which were "necessary or incidental to the exercise of the powers and functions of (his] office." LA. STAT. ANN. § 37:212(B) (1974). A walk through modern-day New Orleans will reveal a number of signs proclaiming the existence of "Law and Notarial Offices", a combination having an odd ring in the ears of an American common lawyer. The Louisiana notary is simply "a different and 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 407 make an appearance in eighteenth-century Louisiana. In New Orle­ans, of course, there was much work for them, but there were also provincial notaries operating in Biloxi, Mobile, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, and Kaskaskia.64 Since De Montcharvaux acted as notary for the Lepine inven­tory, it is reasonably clear that there was no provincial notary resi­dent at the Arkansas at that time. This comes as no surprise since in 1746 there were at the Post only twelve habitant families, ten slaves, and twenty men in the garrison, 65 hardly a sufficient European pop­ulation to require or attract a law-trained scrivener. When it was time to have their marriage contract made, the widow Chenalenne and her future spouse executed it in New Orleans. No doubt there was available there legal advice on which they might more comfort­ably rely.66 Besides, there was at that time no resident priest at the Post to perform the marriage. v On May 10, 1749, an event occurred that considerably reduced the European population of Arkansas and also made it difficult to attract settlers there for some time. On that day, the Post was at­tacked by a group of about 150 Chicaksaw and Abeka warriors. Their coming was undetected67 and thus they caught the small habi­tant population altogether unaware. They burned the settlement, killed six male settlers, and took eight women and children as slaves.68 The census taken later that year shows, not surprisingly, that the population had decreased since the previous census. Seven more important official person than is the notary public in other jurisdictions of the United States." Brosman, supra at 98. 64. See Baade, supra note 39, at 12. 65. Memoire sur /'Eta! de la Colonie de la Louisiane en 1746. Archives des Colonies, Archives Nationales, Paris [hereinafter cited as ANC], Cl3A, 30:242-281, at 249, (Typescript of original document available at Little Rock Public Library). As the average family size in Arkansas in the middle of the eighteenth century was about four, this would put the number of habitant whites at the Post at about forty-eight. 66. For an abstract of this marriage contract, see Records o.f the Superior Council o.f Louisiana, 13 LA. HlsT. Q. 129 (1944). 67. However, the habitants may have had a warning that something was afoot, for on May l, Francois Sarrazin had written from Arkansas that "two savages have killed a man and a woman and burnt a man in the frame." Records efthe Superior Court o.f Louisiana, 20 LA. HlsT. Q. 505 (1937). This incident may have been connected with the attack nine days later. 68. Vaudreuil to Rouille, September 22, 1749, calendared in THE VAUDREUIL PAPERS 59-60 (B. Barron ed., 1975). See also Faye, supra note 6, at 684 et seq. W. BAIRD, THE QUAPAW INDIANS: A HISTORY OF THE DOWNSTREAM PEOPLE 34 (1980), gives the number taken as slaves as thirteen. 408 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 men, eight women, eight boys, and eight girls remained, a total of only thirty-one white habitants at the Poste des Akansa .69 Nor did all this mark an end to serious trouble. When in June of 1751 First Ensign Louis-Xavier-Martin de Lino de Chalmette, the comman­dant of the Post, went uninvited to New Orleans to consult with the governor, his entire garrison of six men took the opportunity to de­sert. 70 Things were obviously at a critical juncture. When later in 17 51 Lieutenant Paul Augustin le Pelletier de la Houssaye took command at Arkansas he found there a post recently rebuilt by its habitants and _voyagij,tfrs and probably already relo­cated to a spot ten or twelve miles upriver at the edge of the Grand Prairie. (See Figure 2). It is clear that Governor Vaudreuil had determined to hold the Arkansas even if the cost proved high, for he assigned to De La Houssaye a large company of forty-five men.71 The lieutenant was also authorized to build a new fort; government funds being lacking, he undertook the construction at his own ex­pense in return for a five-year Indian trade monopoly.72 This new beginning could, in the nature of things, have given only a slight lift to the prospects for sustained settlement in the Ar­kansas country. Late in 1752 Governor Vaudreuil was informed that the Osages had attempted an attack on Arkansas Post but had failed. 73 While this indicates a stability of sorts for the l?ost, thanks no doubt to the size of the new garrison, still the perceived danger must have been so high as to discourage all but the most intrepid from taking up residence at the Arkansas. Mentions of Arkansas in the legal records tend to emphasize the dangerousness of the place. For instance, a couple from Pointe Coupee, on the verge of leaving for a hunting trip to the White River country, thought it best to deed their property to a relative, with the stipulation that the deed was to be void if they returned.74 It is not surprising, therefore, that even as late as 1766, the last year of French dominion, only eight habitant families, consisting in all of forty white persons, were resident at Arkansas Post.75 69. Arkansas Post Census, 1749, Loudon Papers 200, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. There were also fourteen slaves resident at the post and sixteen voyageurs who had returned after their winter's work. There were five hunters on the White River and four on the St. Francis. Thirty-five hunters had failed to return from the Arkansas River. 70. Faye, supra note 6, at 708. 71. Id. at 211. 72. Id. 73. THE VAUDREUIL PAPERS, supra note 68, at 136. 74. Index to the Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, 24 LA. HlsT. Q. 75 (1941). 75. See Din, Arkansas Post in the American Revolution, 40 ARK. HIST. Q. 3, at 4 (1981). 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 409 All of these difficulties, and others, made for a place in which it might be regarded as too polite to expect the presence of much which corresponds to a legal system. In addition, political exigen­cies sometimes interfered to such an extent that the application of even-handed legal principle became inexpedient and thus entirely impracticable. For instance, the continued existence of the Arkan­sas settlement depended heavily on the loyalty of the Quapaws and their wishes were therefore relevant to any important decision made there. Their influence could extend even to the operation of the le­gal system as the following incident demonstrates. On 12 September, 1756, a meeting was held in the Government House in New Orleans to hear an extraordinary request from Guedetonguay, the Medal Chief of the Quapaws.76 His tribe had captured four deserters from the Arkansas garrison and had re­turned them; but the chief had come on behalf of his nation to ask Governor Kerlerac to pardon the soldiers. One of those captured, Jean Baptiste Bernard, in addition to having deserted, had killed his corporal Jean Nicolet within the precincts of the fort. The chief, obviously a great orator, said that he had come a long distance to plead for the soldiers' lives despite the heat and the demands of the harvest; and in his peroration he said that his head hung low, hi~ eyes were fixed to the ground, and his heart wept for these men. He knew, he explained, that if he had not come they would have been executed, and this was intolerable to him because he regarded them as his own children. He recited many friendly acts of the Qua paws to prove the fidelity of his people to the French. Among them was the release of six slaves (perhaps Chicaksaws cap­tured by the Quapaws) "who would have been burned" otherwise, and the recent capture of five Choctaws and two trespassing Eng­lishmen. He himself, he noted, had recently lost one son and had had another wounded in the war against the Chickasaws; and he . counted this "a mark of affection for the French." In recompense he asked for the pardon of the soldiers. The chief added that this was the only such pardon his nation had thus far requested, and he promised never to ask again. He did not doubt that Kerlerac, "the great chief of the French father of the red men," charged to govern them on behalf of "the great chief of all the French who lived in the 76. What follows is based on a memorandum entitled "Harangues faites dans /'assemb/ee tenue a /'hotel du gouvernment cejourdhui, 20 Juin 1756," found in ANC, Cl3A, 39:177-180 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). The translations are mine. 410 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 great town on the other side of the great lake," would listen and do the just thing. Guedetonguay left his best argument for last. He maintained vigorously that, under his law, any criminal who managed to reach the refuge of the Cabanne de Valeur where the Quapaws practiced their religious rites was regarded as having been absolved of his crime. It was their custom everywhere that the chief of the Cabanne de Valeur "would sooner lose his life than suffer the refugee to un­dergo punishment for his crime." Evidently the soldiers were claim­ing this right; and Ouyayonsas, the chief of the Cabanne de Valeur, was there to back them up. This last argument was an excellent one because it called upon the French to recognize an established Indian usage not dissimilar from the European custom of sanctuary. And the argument carried with it a threat of violent reaction if the cus­tom were not allowed. Kerlerac answered the chief that he was not unmindful of the past services of the Quapaws, nor was he ungrateful for them. "But," he said, "I cannot change the words declared by the great chief of all the French against such crimes, and . . . it would be a great abuse for the future" to pardon the soldiers. So, he continued, "despite all the friendship that the French have for you and your nation, these men deserve death." The great chief stood for a long time with his head down and finally answered ominously that he could not be responsible for the revolutions which the chief of the privileged house might stir up-­revolutions which he said ''would not fail to occur." The argument continued and the governor offered to grant the chief "anything else except these four pardons." But Guedetonguay stubbornly main­tained that "the sole purpose of his journey was to obtain the par­don of the four men." In the end the Governor extracted from the Quapaw chiefs "publicly and formally their word . . . that they would in the future deliver up all deserting soldiers as malefactors or other guilty persons without any restriction or condition whatso­ever, and that . pardons would be accorded at the sole discretion of the French." No immediate decision was reached by the Governor, but later that day some of his advisors, having reflected on what they had heard, reckoned "that a refusal of the obstinate demands of these chiefs . . . the faithful allies of the French would only involve the colony in troublesome upheavals on the part of the said nations who have otherwise up to the present served very faithfully." They con- 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 411 eluded that "saving a better idea by Monsieur le Gouverneur it would be dangerous, under all the present circumstances, not to sat­isfy the Indians with the pardons which they demanded." The governor took the advice but evidently did not write to Berryet, the French Minister of the Marine, for some time to tell him about it. From the comfort of Versailles it was easy for Berryet to pick at Kerlerac's decision.77 In responding to Kerlerac, Berryet first made the point that Bernard's case was different from that of the other captured soldiers since he was accused of homicide in ad­dition to desertion. Then, too, the minister had a lot of questions. Could not the difference in Bernard's case have been urged on the Arkansas chiefs to get them to relent in his case? Where was the record of the legal proceedings which should have been conducted relative to the killing? If this was a wilfull murder the pardon had been conceded too easily. "It would be dangerous," the minister warned, ''to leave such a subject in the colony, not only because he would be an example of impunity but also because of new crimes that he might commit." (The arguments of general and specific de­terrence are not very recent inventions.) Finally, the governor was sternly admonished "not to surrender easily to demands of this sort on the part of the savages . If on the one hand it is necessary, considering all the present circumstances, to humor the savages, it is also necessary to be careful of letting them set a tone that accords neither with the king's authority nor the good of the colony." Nevertheless, the minister talked to the king and he ratified the governor's decision. Writs of pardon were therefore issued under the king's name for each of the Arkansas soldiers. Because the homicide committed by Bernard was not a military crime and was cognizable therefore by the Superior Council of Louisiana, his par­don was directed to the Council. Interestingly, though Berryet ad­mitted knowing nothing of the circumstances surrounding the killing, the pardon recited that a quarrel had arisen between Ber­nard and Nicolet, that they had beaten each other, that Bernard : "had had the misfortune to kill the said Nicolet," and that the death "had occurred without premeditated murder."78 Thus Louis XV pardoned Jean Baptiste Bernard for killing by mischance when there was no evidence adduced as to the facts resulting in Nicolet's 77. What follows is based in Berryet's letter to Kerlerac and Bobe Descloseaux dated July 14, 1769. ANC, B, 109:487-88 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). The transla­tion is mine. 78. The pardon (brevet de grtJce) was enclosed in the letter and is ANC, B, 109:489 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). The translation is mine. 412 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 death. The decision was generated simply by a desire to accommo­date an important ally. Faithful adherence to legal principle some­times had to take a back seat to the more compelling demands of politics. VI Father Louis Carette, the Jesuit missionary who came to the Post of Arkansas in 1750, nevertheless attempted to bring some or­der to the legal affairs of the place. As he noted in a procuration (power of attorney) dated at Arkansas in 1753, he was "authorized by the king to make in every post where there is not a Notary Royal all contracts and acts . "79 There is no evidence that he had any formal legal training, but he was a Jesuit, and thus a learned man, one of a handful of such who would make their residence in eight­eenth- century Arkansas. The 1753 procuration is itself of some interest, as it sheds light on how litigants whose cases were technically beyond the jurisdic­tion exercised by the Arkansas commandant (whatever that was) might have had their cases heard if they wanted to resort to regular methods of dispute settlement. As incredible as it seems, it is prob­able that the only court of general jurisdiction in the entire colony was the Superior Council of Louisiana. Now, in 1763 La Harpe said that it was a two-week boat trip from the Arkansas to New Orleans, and six to eight weeks back.80 Obviously, the procuration was an important device for people in remote posts like Arkansas, for it enabled them through their attorneys, in the language of the docu­ment under discussion, "to act . . . as though they were personally present."81 Convoys or individual vessels travelled down the Mis­sissippi frequently enough to make this means of tending to legal affairs more tolerable than it might otherwise have been. In this case, the attorney chosen was Commandant de la Houssaye, and he was deputed to act in a probate matter at Pointe Coupee for Etienne de Vaugine de Nuysement and his wife Antoinette Pelagie Petit de Divilliers. An interesting feature of procurations which increased their utility and flexibility was that they were assignable. This fea­ture came in handy in this instance since De La Houssaye, having 79. Index to the Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, 22 LA. H!sT. Q. 255 (1939). 80. La Harpe to Chosseul, August 8, 1763, ANC, Ci3B, 1 (Typescript in Little Rock Public Library). 81. Records, supra note 79, at id. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 413 been detained at the Arkansas due to illness, simply transferred the power of attorney to a member of the Superior Council "to act in my place as myself."82 Perhaps one of the reasons that Carette had acted as notary in this instance was that the only other person in the little community authorized so to act, the commandant, was a party to the instru­ment. But in the French period priests were given general notarial powers and could act even in the absence of circumstances disabling the commandant. For instance, Carette acted as notary, and thus probably draftsman, for a marriage contract in which the comman­dant was not interested. This was the marriage contract of Francois Sarrazin and Francoise Lepine, executed at Arkansas Post on Janu­ary 6, 1752. Marriage contracts have no exact parallel in common-law prac­tice, and it thus seems worthwhile, before discussing the particulars of the Sarrazin-Lepine contract, to devote some time to their expla­nation and description. In a recent seminal study, Professor Hans Baade has outlined the provisions which one typically finds in mar­riage contracts executed in accordance with eighteenth-century Pari­sian notarial practice.83 The first and invariable undertaking by the future spouses was a promise to celebrate their marriage in facie ec­c! esiae. The parties would then choose the regime which would govern their property during the marriage. Next would come a dec­laration that the ante-nuptial debts of the parties were to remain their separate obligations; this was followed by a disclosure of the parties' assets, a requirement for the validity of the previous provi­sion. The dowry brought to the marriage by the wife was next re­cited; and delineating preciput, the right of the spouse to specific property in the event of dissolution of the community, frequently followed. Finally came the donation clause, usually a reciprocal grant of all or part of the predeceasing spouse's estate. In Louisiana, this donation, in order to be valid, had to be registered with the Superior Council in New Orleans. An inspection of the Sarrazin-Lepine marriage contract reveals that it very clearly drew on these French notarial precedents, and it reflects, moreover, an awareness of the practical requirements of the Louisiana registration provisions. It contained a promise to cele­brate the marriage in regular fashion, the creation of a community property regime, a clause stating the amount of the wife's dowry, a 82. Id. 83. What follows is taken from Baade, supra note 39, at 15-18. 414 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 mutual donation to the survivor of all property owned at death, and an undertaking to have the contract registered in New Orleans.84 While there was no clause dealing with ante-nuptial debts and no mention of preciput, it is quite obvious that the good Jesuit knew more than a little about French notarial practice, and may well have had at his disposal a form book on which he could draw. He was, for all practical purposes, for a time the "lawyer" of the post as well as its cure. Before we leave this interesting document there is an aspect of it which bears detailed attention. The property regime chosen by the parties included in the community "all property, movable and immovable"85-as common lawyers would say, all property, both personal and real. In this respect the contract departs from the Cus­tom of Paris which included in the community all movables but only certain immovables (conquets) acquired after marriage. 86 Par­ties were allowed in Louisiana to contract almost any property ar­rangement they wanted, 87 and Sarrazin and Lepine had elected a somewhat unusual variety of community. Curiously, however, the contract reckoned that this regime was "in accordance with the cus­tom received in the colony of Louisiana." A few months after the execution of this contract Commandant de la Houssaye wrote to the governor to say that Monsieur Etienne V augine, a French officer, was of a mind to marry Madame de Gouyon, the commandant's sister-in-law, and he sent along "the proposed conditions for the contract of marriage."88 This was a draft of the contract, as De La Houssaye asked the governor to pass "/'exemplair du contra!" along to the New Orleans notary Chantaloux if the governor decided to give his permission for the marriage. Chantaloux was "to make it as it should be."89 Three weeks later the governor wrote to say that the contract would be sent back soon and that Chantaloux had left it intact except for one rea­sonably minor alteration.90 In 1758 Father Carette, dismayed by the irreligious inclination of his flock, left the Arkansas and no replacement was sent. In 17 64, 84. Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, 25 LA. HlsT. Q. 856-57 (1942). 85. Id. at 856. 86. Baade, supra note 39, at 15. 87. Id. 88. La Houssaye to Vaudreuil, Dec. l, 1752, LO 410, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. 89. Id. 90. THE v AUDREUIL PAPERS, supra note 68, at 152. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 415 Captain Pierre Marie Cabaret Detrepi, commandant at the Arkan­sas, after Madame Sarrazin had found herself widowed, passed a second marriage contract for her which was extremely unsophistica­ted and rudimentary.91 It contained only a promise to marry regu­larly and a mutual donation. Perhaps the good widow had by this time tired of long-winded formalities. Just as likely, the Post was feeling the absence of Carette's drafting skills. VII As tiny, remote, and inconsequential as the Arkansas settle­ment was, then, it is nevertheless clear that at least some of its peo­ple were part of the time adherents to French legal culture. Of course almost everyone who lived at the Post during the period of French domination was either a native of France or French Cana­dian; and by the end of the French period a substantial number of native Louisianans were there. It is most interesting to find the sur­vival of civilian legal form in so remote an outpost of empire. Obvi­ously, not all of Arkansas's residents lapsed into a kind of legal barbarism. There were, however, circumstances at work which would make it impossible for some time to establish a community which could be expected to value the observance of legal niceties very highly. As we have already seen, the Post could not have been very attractive to the more civilized settler owing to its dangerous loca­tion. Arkansas Post, moreover, over the years experienced an ex­treme physical instability since it was necessary to relocate it several times due partly to flooding. (See Figure 2). The Arkansas River was in the eighteenth century "a turbulent, silt-laden stream, subject to frequent floods which were disastrous along its lower course."92 This proved to be a considerable disincentive to settlement. Add to that the enormous expanse occupied by the alluvial plain of the Mississippi and the difficulty becomes plain enough. Almost any site within thirty miles of the mouth of the Arkan­sas carried with it a considerable risk of floods. Law's colony, on the Arkansas twenty-seven miles or so from its mouth, was said in 1721 to be "in a fertile sector but subject to floods."93 The success of the attack by the Chickasaws in 1749, when the Post was at the same 91. Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, Feb. 11, 1764, Louisiana History Center, Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans. 92. P. HOI.DER, supra note 15, at 152. 93. 4 M. GIRAUD, supra note 17, at 273 (1974). 416 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 location, was made possible by the absence from the neighborhood of the Quapaws: Because of recent floods they had abandoned their old fields for a more promising place upstream.94 This place, called Ecores Rouges (Red Bluffs) by the French, was about thirty-six miles from the mouth of the Arkansas and was at the present loca­tion of the Arkansas Post Memorial.95 After the attack, the Post was moved to join the Indians at Ecores Rouges so as to provide for mutual protection.96 The new spot was free from floods but proved unsatisfactory from a strategic standpoint because of its distance from the Missis­sippi. The location delayed convoys and Governor Vaudreuil ex­pressed the view that "a post on the Mississippi would be more practical."97 Therefore in 1756 the Post was moved back downriver to about ten miles above the mouth. But the inevitable soon oc­curred. In 1758 heavy flooding, graphically described in a letter of Etienne Maurafet Layssard the garde magasin (storekeeper) of the Post, caused heavy damage, almost undoing the work of builders and architects who had been at work for the better part of a year. The houses were saved by virtue of being raised on stakes against such a day as this; but the habitants' fields, everything but Lays­sard's garden for which he had providently provided a levee, were entirely inundated.98 It was in fact a small enough loss. From the beginning, and understandably, the attempt to make a stable agricultural commu­nity of the Arkansas had failed miserably. There is no doubt that the European population of Arkansas during the French period con­sisted almost entirely of hunters and Indian traders. In 1726 the reporter of the Louisiana census remarked of the Arkansas that "all the habitants were poor and lived only from the hunting of the Indi­ans." 99 A 1746 report said of the twelve Arkansas habitant families 94. Faye, supra note 6, at 717-19. 95. See figure 2. 96. For details, see Appendix II to my forthcoming book, UNEQUAL LAWS UNTO A SAV­AGE RACE; EUROPEAN LEGAL TRADlTIONS IN ARKANSAS, 1686-1836. 97. THE VAUDREUIL PAPERS, supra note 68, at 118. 98. Faye, supra note 6, at 718-19. A detailed description of the repairs made in the summer of 1758, evidently necessitated by these floods, is in ANC, CBA, 40:349-50 (Type­script in Little Rock Public Library). In addition to making repairs, the builders constructed a house 26 feet long and 19 wide just outside the fort for the Indians who came there on business. It was of poteaux en terre construction, was covered with shingles, and was en­closed with stakes. The report describing the renovation and construction work of 1758 is signed by Denis Nicol~s Foucault, chief engineer of the Province of Louisiana. 99. ANC, GI, 464 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM • DeWitt ARKANSAS COUNTY • Dumas I I I 0 1. 1686-1699; 1721-1749 N 1 DESHA COUNTY T I I 4 I 8 mi Figure 2 Locations of Arkansas Post, 1686-1983 2. 1749-1756; 1779-1983 3. 1756-1779 JB Based on a map drawn by John Baldwin which appeared in Arnold, The Relocation of Arkansas Post to Ecores Rouges in 1779, 42 ARK. HIST. Q. 317 (1983). Used with permission of the Arkansas Historical Association. 417 418 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 that "their principal occupation is hunting, curing meat, and com­merce in tallow and bear oil." As for cultivating the soil, the same source reported that the habitants grew "some tobacco for their own use and for that of the savages and voyageurs." 100 In 1765 Captain Phillip Pittman, an Englishman, said that there were eight families living outside the fort who had cleared the land about nine hundred yards in depth. But, according to him "on account of the sandiness of the soil, and the lowness of the situation, which makes it subject to be overflowed," their harvest was not enough even to supply them with their necessary provisions. Pittman noted that "when the Mis­sissippi is at its utmost height the Lands are overflow' d upwards of five feet; for this reason all the buildings are rais'd six feet from the ground." Thus the residents of the Arkansas, he said, subsisted mainly by hunting and every season sent to New Orleans "great quantities of bear's oil, tallow, salted buffalo meat, and a few skins." 101 Both Layssard102 and Father Watrin103 hint that the discour­agement produced by the frequent flooding contributed to Father Carette's decision to leave. However that may be, it must be clear that during the period of French dominion the Post did not provide fertile soil for either crops or religion. Would regular bourgeois le­gal procedures have generally been afforded a more cordial accept­ance? Even absent direct evidence, this would in the abstract seem most unlikely. Unsafe, unstable, and uncomfortable, the Arkansas Post of Louisiana during the period of French dominion must surely also have been largely unmindful of bourgeois legal values. It is true, as we have seen, that some of the Post's residents tried to maintain a connection between their remote outpost and Euro­pean legal culture. But the few legal records that chance has al­lowed to come down to us from the French period are remarkable not only for their small number but also for the social and economic characteristics they reveal of the people who figured in them. They were an elite, related by marriage and blood, struggling under the difficult circumstances of their situation to participate in regular le- 100. Memoire, supra note 65 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). 101. P. PITTMAN, supra note 53, at xliv, 40-41. 10+. See ANC, Cl3A, 40:357 (Transcript in Little Rock Public Library). Layssard there remarks that the inhabitants at Arkansas were too poor to build a levee, and that "the Father would rather leave than go to such an expense. He is very poor." 103. See J. DELANGLEZ, THE FRENCH JESUITS IN LOWER LOUISIANA 444, where Watrin is quoted as saying that, despite there being little hope for conversion of the Quapaws, Fa­ther Carette "nevertheless followed both the French and the savages in their various changes of place, occasioned by the overflowing of the Mississippi near which the post is situated." 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 419 gal processes. The probate proceeding of 1743 was instituted by one of the most well-to-do residents of Arkansas in the person of Anne Catherine Chenalenne, widow of Jean Francois Lepine. The com­munity property inventoried included four slaves. 104 Her future husband Charles Lincto became the most substantial civilian resi­dent of the Post. The 17 49 census, if one excludes from it for the moment the commandant and his household, reveals that Lincto's household accounted for eight of the twenty-nine white habitants and seven of the eleven slaves at the Arkansas. 105 Etienne de Vau­gine de Nuysement who executed the procuration of 1753 was a member of one of the most distinguished French families of Louisi­ana; 106 and he granted the power to Commandant de la Houssaye who would soon become a Major of New Orleans and a Knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis. 107 Vaugine and De la Houssaye married sisters. The marriage contract executed at the Arkansas in 1752 was entered into by the Post's garde magasin and Francoise Lepine, a daughter of Anne Catherine Chenalenne the petitioner in the probate proceeding of 1743; and the bride's dowry had resulted from the dissolution of the community which had been the aim of that proceeding. Finally, Francoise Lepine's second mar­riage contract, passed by Detrepi in 1764, was prelude to her mar­riage to Jean Baptiste Tisserant de Montcharvaux, officer and interpreter at the Post and son of the commandant who executed the 1743 inventory. We are dealing with a propertied and intercon­nected gentry here, a tiny portion of what was anyway a very small population. How the other, the major part of the Arkansas populace regu­lated their lives during the French period will, in the nature of things, be difficult to document. But there is some evidence on this point and it indicates that there was a good deal of lawlessness on the Arkansas. According to Athanase de Mezieres, the Lieutenant Governor at Natchitoches, the Arkansas River above the Post was inhabited largely by outlaws. "Most of those who live there," he claimed, "have either deserted from the troops and ships of the most Christian King and have committed robberies, rape, or homicide, 104. For a translation of this inventory, see Core, supra note 54, at 22. 105. Resancement General des Habitants, Voyageurs, Femmes. En.fans, Esclaves, Clzevaus, Beufs, Vaclzes, Coclzons du Foste des Akansas, 1749. Lo. 200, Huntington Library, San Ma­rino, CA. 106. On the Arkansas Vaugines, see Core, T!ze Vaugine Arkansas Connection, 20 GRAND PRAIRIE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 6 (1978). 107. Faye, supra note 6, at 709. 420 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 that river being the asylum of the most wicked persons, without doubt, in all the Indies." 108 On another occasion, De Mezieres sin­gled out as a particularly heinous offender an Arkansas denizen nicknamed Brindamur, a man "of gigantic frame and extraordinary strength." Brindamur, De Mezieres complained, "has made himself a petty king over those brigands and highwaymen, who, with con­tempt for law and subordination with equal insult to Christians, and the shame of the very heathen, up to now have maintained them­selves on that river." 109 He had been resident on the Arkansas for a long time, as his name appears in the census of 1749. Interestingly, it is placed at the very head of a considerable list of "the voyageurs who have remained up the rivers despite the orders given them." 110 All persons hunting on the rivers were supposed to return every year as passports were not issued for longer periods. But there were large numbers of hunters who lived for twenty years or more in their camps without ever reporting to the Post. They constituted a large proportion, indeed sometimes a majority, of the European popula­tion in Arkansas during the French period. The 17 49 census, for instance, lists a habitant population of only thirty-one, including the commandant and his wife. But there were forty hunters on the Ar­kansas River whose passports had expired, and nine on the White and St. Francis Rivers. Sixteen hunters were said to be at the Post being outfitted to return to the hunt. Brindamur, the bandit King, was murdered by one of his men after the end of the French period, "though tardily" De Mezieres reckoned, and "by divine justice."111 In the Spanish period an effort was made to rid the river of these malefactors. VII Since no records of litigation initiated at the Arkansas during the French period have survived, if indeed any were ever kept, very little can be said directly on how lawsuits were conducted there. However, in 1747 Francois Jahan initiated a suit in the Superior Council in New Orleans against one Clermont, a resident of Arkan­sas Post, claiming damages for the conversion of a cask of rum at Arkansas. 112 The Superior Council, as we have shown, had jurisdic- 108. 1 ATHANASE DE MEZIERES AND THE LOUISIANA-TEXAS FRONTIER, 1768-1780 166 (H. Bolton ed., 1914). 109. Id. at 168-69. 110. Resancement, supra note 105. 111. t\. BOLTON, supra note 108, at 167. 112. Index lo the Records of the Superior Court of Louisiana, 17 LA. HIST. Q. 569 (1934). 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 421 tion throughout Louisiana, and this case reveals how it was exer­cised against a defendant in the hinterlands. The summons was served on the Attorney General of Louisiana; thus, as Henry Dart pointed out, "it would seem . . . that a resident of the Post of Ar­kansas could be sued in New Orleans by serving the citation on the Procureur [Attorney] General."113 How the case would have, in the ordinary instance, proceeded from there is difficult to say. Probably the Arkansas commandant would have been asked to act as a master to gather facts and to report to the Superior Council. But it seems that the commandant had already ruled independently on the matter. Commandant de Monbharvaux's statement on this case, which is entered in the record a'few days after the suit was initiated, indicates that he had held a hearing on the matter at the Arkansas, had taken testimony as to the rum, and had "sentenced Clermont to pay for it."114 Apparently he had kept no record of the proceeding, as none was offered: The good lieutenant bore his own record. It is interesting to note, however, that this case was evidently not brought to enforce the commandant's judgment but was an independent action. How did the justice provided by the Post commandant during the French period measure up? In the absence of litigation records, this is the hardest kind of question to answer. We know, however, that whatever jurisdiction was exerciseable by the commandant, he acted alone, without official advisors and without, of course, a jury. To say that rule is autocratic is not to say

Issue 61.1 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; ,2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER'1 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faitlsful to God's universal call to tsoliness by making available to them the spiritual legades tbat flow from the cbarisms of Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ° Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be consi~tered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. .for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisot7 Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Jame~ and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymohd Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hen,sell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla sJ Miriam D. Ukeriti~ CSJ JANUARY FEBRUARY 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 1 contents 6 religious culture Teresa: Story Theologian and Transforzner of Culture Mary Frohlich HM provides a different lens for reading The Book of Her Foundations by Teresa of Avila in order to find some of Teresa's most profound teaching about the potential fruits of the contemplative life. 23 Instilling Christian/Religious Culture: Instinct and Connaturality Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR envisages a rationally planned and directed program for the transmission of the "subculture" of religious life and the "culture" of the Christian life to new entrants. 39 Conversion: A Summons from the Word of God 51 Kathleen McMpin RSM explores how the word of God comes to us through daily life experiences, calling us to an ongoing conversion that leads to mercy as justice. Seminary Formation and Lonergan's Conversion Theory Steve Wlusek uses Bernard Lonergan's theory of conversions to illuminate personal development in seminary formation. Review for Religious 57 moral insight The Workers in the Vineyard: Insights for the Moral Life Patricia Ann Lamoureux and Paul Zilonka CP reflect on one Gospel parable as an example of how to develop moral theology in accordance with biblical vision. 70 Creative Response to Racism Mary Alice Chineworth OSP shares her experiences of racism within the religious-life context. adaptive prayer 75 Lectio Divina: A Means to Wholeness Mary Ren~e Nienaber SND reviews the six parts that make up the practice of lectio divina, which fosters a spiritual-life wholeness. 84 St. Albert's Method: 19th-Annotation Retreats at Parishes and Schools Hank Hilton SJ shares an adaptation of the retreat method according to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius for larger group settings in a parish or school situation. departments 4 Prisms 97 Canonical Counsel: Transfer 104 Book Reviews January-February 2002 prisms ¯ I .l.s we enter into the second year of this new millennium, the world presents us with a different face. The September 11, 2001, events that took place in the United States brought about a coop-erative stance of many of the world's nations against a terrorism grown to huge and horrendous proportions. Many agree in perceiving that terrorism breeds in behav-iors that denigrate others, in poverty that dehumanizes, and in politics that canonizes a status quo. Throughout history, there have been wars of religion, but today peo-ple question whether any war can be valued as religious or justified as just. No one could have suspected that the call which Pope John Paul II made only a year ago in his apostolic letter "At the Beginning of the New Millennium" would ring out with even greater challenge. The pope signaled our approach to this new age in the gospel words of Jesus "duc in altum," "put out into the deep" (Lk 5:4). He saw the new millennium as a vast ocean onto which the world's peoples were setting sail. We needed to hear God's call to set forth--fearlessly--because we often prefer to live with what is known, the past and the pre-sent. It is truly difficult, and sometimes fearful, to move into a future unknown and uncontrollable. Beyond our imagining, this is where we find ourselves as we begin the new year. John Paul II talked about a new face of Christ with which we refamiliarized ourselves as we entered into this Review for Religqous new millennium--a face that we had been contemplating in three preparatory years. When the pope had us focus on the face of Jesus in sorrow, we little realized that we would see that face in image after image during the final months of this past year. Where the pope turned our attention also to the face of Jesus who is risen, we found many weary faces of hope and help that became a part of our international drama. Beyond all our imaginings, we have been given a Pauline conversion moment in seeing Christ. This face arouses no fear, but rather leads us only to new ways of living, loving, and working. The pope challenged all Christians to be, and so to act as, "agents of communion." Being agents of communion is a necessary identity of being Christian in this age calling for a new evange-lizatiofi. The continuing public cooperation of many leaders of the various world religious traditions, especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, concretizes for us what an agent of communion attempts. Never have Jesus' directions about praying for our ene-mies and for those who do us wrong been writ so large and clear on the screen of our consciousness. Religious services, both in the public forum and in the neighborhood .church, have incarnated Jesus' injunction and continue to feed personal ways of praying. Humanitarian efforts to help the Afghan people in the midst of a wartime effort against their nation's ruling power are also an action of agents of communion. If images played out so vividly on the world stage call forth such prayer and action, we cannot fail to examine ourselves anew in our own little world of prayer and relationships. How does our prayer need to be enlarged beyond our narrow focusing on self, those dear to us, and our local concerns for well-being? What are the deeds we do that bring about a greater sense of community, of people working together, of a reaching out to the forgotten and neglected? Yes, the face of our world has changed, we say. But does this new face not give us the opportunity to see the face of Christ more clearly and to act, like Christ, as agents of communion? The Greek word kairos signified not ordinary measurement of time (chronos) but rather the special time of encounter with God. This kairos moment challenges us to set out fearlessly into the deep, "duc in altunl. " David L. Fleming SJ January-February 2002 MARY FROHLICH Teresa: Story Theologian and Transformer of Culture Even among fans of Teresa of Avila, comparatively few have read The Book of Her Foundations. Why has Foundations been comparatively neglected in relation to Teresa's other works? Probably because it has a rather different character. Although Teresa can never be accused of being a "systematic thinker," her other three books (the Book of Her Life, the Way of Perfection, and the Interior Castle) offer more or less organic overviews of contemplative life and development. If one looks for the same in the Foundations, one is likely at first to be disappointed. Here, however, I will pro-pose that, by reading with a different lens, we may find in this book some of Teresa's most profound teaching about the potential fruits of the contempla-tive life. ¯ Through the lens I experiment with here, Teresa can be seen as what Terrence Tilley calls a "story the-ologian." In 1972, when Teresa was named one of the first two female doctors of the church, the question arose how someone who was clearly not a systematic theologian, but rather an image-smith and a story- Mary Frohlich HM is associate professor of spirituality at Chicago Theological Union; 5401 South Cornell Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60615. Review for Religi'ous teller, could attain this title. Since that time, awareness has grown that, in fact, stories and images are at the grass roots of all the theology that has ever been created and communicated. The example par excellence of "story theology" is the Bible. In his book Story Theology, Tilley proposes that theology in this genre has three major tasks: (1) to tell new and flesh stories which show a new era what the key Christian words mean, (2) to transform creatively the narratives handed down by tradi-tion, and (3) to proclaim and manifest the Good News in a way that speaks to and transforms the heart of a culture) In this article I explore Teresa's Foundations as an example of story the-ology that has a remarkable capacity to transform the heart of her culture and, as a classic, all cultures. The Text and Its Context The thirty-one chapters of the Foundations recount, in vary-ing degrees of detail, the circumstances and efforts pertaining to the founding of seventeen Discalced Carmelite monasteries. The text consists mainly of stories--some humorous, some poignant, some edifying, some pretty incredible--interspersed with shorter or longer asides of sage advice for her nuns and especially for her prioresses. Other features include several hagiographical accounts of the remarkable lives and deeds of individual nuns, friars, and benefactors and, of course, a good deal of autobiographical information about Teresa's attractions, friendships, physical sufferings, and moods. In short, the Foundations is decidedly not an organic presentation of spiritual principles, but rather more of a "down and dirty" chronicle of what happens when one tries to do God's work in this raucous and resistant "real world" in which we live. And that, I think, is why at this time in my life I am so strongly drawn to the Foundations. It is certainly not because I am any less interested in the interior life, but because I am now even more interested in what difference it makes. By that I do not mean taking a utilitarian approach to prayer, as if it has no value unless one can immediately see its fruits. I mean something more like what Teresa says at the end of the Interior Castle (VII.4.6): "This is the reason for prayer, my daughters, the pur-pose of this spiritual marriage: the birth always of good works, January-February 2002 Frohlich ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian The Foundations is the "first fruit" (literarily speaking) of Teresa's spiritual marriage. good works." In the Foundations we see what that statement meant, concretely, in Teresa's own life. Like the apostles in Acts, Teresa in the Foundations is a woman of mission, sent forth into the hurly-burly of the real world to Fooperate with the Holy Spirit in the construction of multiple "dwelling places of God," places that are not only interior but also physical and social and political, places in which deep interiority can find a home and can continue to be propagated far and wide. In view of this, it is helpful to note where the writing of the Foundations occurred in Teresa's life. Teresa was forty-seven years old when, in 1562, she made her first Discalced founda-tion at St. Joseph's in Avila. Over the next four years, she wrote her Life and the Way of Perfection and ¯ then began the whirlwind of founding activity that would continue until the end of her life. Nine new Discalced monasteries had already been established by the time Teresa received the grace of spiritual marriage on 18 November 1572 at age fifty-seven. It was about nine months after this breakthrough spiritual event that she began to write The Book of Her Foundations. Work on this text con-tinued intermittently until November 1576, by which time she had completed twenty-seven chapters and made four more foundations. Between June 1577 and November, right in the midst of one of the most intense periods of squabbling and harassment related to her reforming activity, she wrote the entire text of the Interior Castle. Finally, between 1580 and 1582, she made four more foundations and added their stories to the text of the Foundations. Chapter 31 and the epilogue were completed only a few months before her death on 4 October 1582 at age sixty-seven. Two things are interesting to note here. One is that this book, the Foundations, is the "first fruit" (literarily speaking) of Teresa's spiritual marriage. The other is that the first and last parts of the Foundations form a kind of sandwich around the Interior Castle. These two books are closely related to each other. Together--not separately--they are the fully developed fruit of -o°-j Teresa's human and spiritual maturity. And so, before delving Review for Religqous more deeply into the Foundations, let us review what Teresa says about the spiritual marriage in the Interior Castle. Spiritual Marriage: At One with God, Sell and World In the Seventh Dwelling Places of the Interior Castle, Teresa teaches that the soul that receives the culminating grace of the spiritual marriage is brought fully into its own center, where God alone dwells. Like a river that has flowed into the ocean, the soul now is completely and unchangeably at one with God. This differs from earlier stages of union and rapture in that here the faculties are not lost. That is, one retains the ability to understand what is happening and to carry on external activities even while in this form of union. This latter is especially impor-tant: Teresa repeatedly emphasizes that the purpose of the spir-itual marriage is not rest and delight, but to be joined to the sufferings of Christ and to spend oneself on behalf of souls. She describes the typical condition of such a person as consisting of deep interior peace while enduring extremes of exterior per-secution, struggle, and hard work for the sake of the gospel. When we put the stories told in the Foundations next to this, Teresa's astute but rather decontextualized description of spir-itual marriage takes on life. The stories reveal to us how Teresa's transformed interior self was united not only with God, but also in a transformative way with the physical, social, cultural, and ecclesial world in which she lived. In other words, the stories both depict and enact the way persons in spiritual marriage gain the capacity to transform their cultural world at its heart. Most obviously, the stories about Teresa herself depict a union of the divine and human, played out in this feisty, witty, and indomitable woman's adventures in living her gospel mission amidst the gritty reality of business affairs, human squabbles, stress, and struggle that looks a lot like what we all deal with in our day-to-day lives. But it is in Teresa's minibiographies of holy Christians--most of them women--that she expresses most fascinatingly for the heart of her culture the explosive truth of the gospel. It is by a deep reading of these stories that we may begin to get a glimpse of what it means to call Teresa a "story theologian and transformer of culture." January-February 2002 Froblicls ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian A "Little Story": The Testimony of a Female Infant Let us listen, then, to Teresa's stoW about Dofia Teresa de Layz, founding benefactress of the monastery at Mba de Tormes. As the fifth daughter of parents who desperately wanted a son, she was such a disappointment to them that--although they took care to have her baptized at once--they left her alone all day "as if she mattered little to them." The stoW continues: When at nightfall a woman came who was taking care of the baby and found out what was going on, she has-tened to see if the child was dead . Weeping, the woman took the baby into her arms and, complaining of the cruelty, said: "How is it, my daughter, are you not a Christian?" The baby girl lifted her head and answered, "Yes, I am," and spoke no more until reach-ing that age at which all children begin to speak. (20.4)2 At first glance we may find this story a bit. incredible. It is what Alex Garcfa-Rivera, in his recent book about the mulatto saint Martin de Porres, calls a "little story.''3 While "big stories" aim to speak universal truth and are acclaimed by those belonging to dominant cultures, "little stories" like this give the appearance of just being naive or superstitious tales aimed at the poor and uneducated. For example, many "little stories" about St. Martin de Porres tell of the saint healing animals and speaking with them as if they were human persons. Garcfa-Rivera shows how, despite their lowly appearance, "little stories" like those may actually convey potent gospel messages of the reversal of values. In a culture where those (such as Martin) with Indian or African blood were regarded as "like animals," the stories of him treat-ing animals "like humans" imaged a shocking upending of all-too- common assumptions. Garcfa-Rivera shows how in such popular "little stories" marginalized people not only express their conflicted position within cultural and religious systems of power, but also challenge and reinterpret those systems within a faith context. Tellers of "little stories" are ci'eatively working out painful personal struggles for meaning and identity and at the same time are offering their culture something new and potentially transformative.4 In view of this, there may be a lot more being conveyed by Teresa's "little stow" of the abandoned infant who speaks up Review for Religious for herself than we would see with only a superficial reading. Teresa is graphically expressing what was probably the most painful fact affecting her own struggle for meaning and identity, namely, the extreme devaluing of the female sex within the Spanish culture of that time. This poignant story of child aban-donment impresses readers with the death-dealing consequences of that devaluation more than any bare assertion ever could. There is more, however, in this story. The newborn female child miraculously speaks, testifying that she is a Christian. Teresa expresses deep irony here, for within the cultural mentality of the time it was as incredible for any female to speak in the name of the gospel as it would be if a newborn infant spoke intelligibly. Thus, through her "little story," Teresa artfully but quite potently affirms women's God-given vocation to proclaim the gospel. In fact, she is claiming that females and others who are cultur-ally regarded as valueless may be even more gifted by God than those who have been accorded an approved voice.5 Tellers of "'little stories" are offering their culture something new and potentially transformative. The Challenges of Teresa's World The stow, then, indirectly but powerfully presents a gospel perspective on the sociocultural and historical situation in which Teresa found herself.6 Let us review the characteristics of that situation and the very serious risks it posed for Teresa and her mission. Throughout the 16th century the Spanish Roman Catholic hierarchy was becoming increasingly rigid and con-trolling towards a series of perceived thi'eats to its authority. The first perceived threat was that of "judaizing" tendencies among those whose ancestors had been forced to convert from Judaism to Catholicism in 1492. Teresa came from such a con-verso family, a fact she always had to conceal, but which was probably known or suspected by many of her contemporaries. In this milieu those with Jewish blood were always considered sus-pect, regardless of their personal belief and behavior. Teresa, January-February 2002 Frohlich ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian The pain that led to Teresa's transformative storytelling was the spiritual anguish of one with a soul-hunger for God. therefore, was deeply sensitive to all forms of marginalization. The story of the child unwanted by people but gifted by God is about women, but it is. also a basic gospel message applicable to all who are devalued in human eyes. The second perceived threat of that era was the so-called "Lutherans," a category that expanded to include anyone who appeared to express any lack of respect for the pope, the priesthood, or the sacraments. It is noteworthy that, in the story of the infant Teresa de Layz, Teresa makes a point of saying that she was baptized, thereby depicting the child's amazing testi-mony not as a random outbreak of the supernatural, but asthe miraculous fruit of sacramental initiation. This is an important nuance, and typical of Teresa's careful balance in relation to the concerns of her environment. The third perceived threat of the time was a growing wave of illuminists or alumbrados, who claimed special spiritual author-ity on the basis of their mystical experiences and visions. Many of the alumbrados who were prosecuted by the inquisition were women; in the mentality in Spain at the time, women's assumed inferior intelligence made them particularly susceptible to being seduced by the devil. This pr6blem was exacerbated by the Index of 1559, which made most Spanish-language books on prayer and spirituality unavailable and thus prevented women--very few of whom were trained in Latin--from having access to the technical vocabulary and the theology of the spiritual life. Thus, throughout her life but espe.cially during the peak period of her activities of founding and writing, Teresa faced a huge personal and political challenge. Her culture insisted that no mujercita or "little woman"--particularly one of converso back-ground-- should be teaching others about the spiritual life, let alone doing so on the authority of her own spiritual experiences. In view of this, the.seemingly innocent "little story" of the baby Teresa de Layz speaks volumes to those who can read between Review for Religious the lines. Far from being merely a cute and improbable anec-dote suited to the low intellectual capacities of the mujercitas, it is a subtle and explosive parable aimed directly at the very heart of the antigospel forces that impinged upon Teresa's vocation to live out the full effects of her spiritual marriage. What Fueled Teresa's Imagination? In the story of Teresa de Layz, we see Teresa doing exactly what Terrence Tilley describes as the mandate of "story theol-ogy," namely, creatively telling the gospel story for her own culture. But where did Teresa's creative genius as a "story theologian" come from? Elaine Scarry's book The Body in Pain proposes that the basic motivator of creative imagination is pain? A simple, everyday example is the pinch of hunger, which moves us to creatively find a way around any obstacle that is preventing us from getting food. Several recent feminist inter-preters have taken a similar perspective on Teresa, proposing that her creative activity as writer and foundress was primarily a way of subverting the painful limitations imposed on her by her status as a woman in a repressive patriarchal milieu.8 There is an important element of truth here, yet it only goes halfway. The pain that led to Teresa's transformative sto-rytelling was not only social and cultural; it was the spiritual anguish of one with a soul-hunger for God. Above all, Teresa felt herself called to pursue the life of mystical union in its fullness, and to cooperate with God in creating the best possible condi-tions and guidance for others to do the same.9 Yet, as we have seen, there were many serious cultural obstacles to her doing this. She contended, then, with two sources of pain: both the interior rending that resulted from her hurtling into God and the exterior conflict stirred up by her determined efforts to live out her call to be a woman of God, a preacher of the gospel, and a foundress. Let us look at another story to see bow Teresa wrestled creatively and imaginatively with these inner and outer conflicts. "Uppity Women": Catalina Godlnez and Teresa This is Teresa's account of the sudden conversion of Catalina ~1~3~ .~anuary-February 2002 Froblicb ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian Godfnez, founding benefactress and one of the first to enter the monastery at Beas: [Catalina] had been thinking of a marriage that was being sought for her, which was better than she could have hoped for, and saying to herself: "With what lit-tle my father is content, that I.become connected with an entailed estate; I am thinking of becoming the ori-gin of a new line of descendants." She was not inclined toward marriage, for she considered it demeaning to be subject to someone; nor did she know where this pride came from . The moment she read the inscription [on a nearby crucifix], it seemed to her that, just as sunshine enters a dark room, a light came into her soul by which she understood the truth . Thus she began to despise herself, to have .great desires for penance, which after-ward she put into effect. She at once promised chastity and poverty and wanted to see herself so subject that she would have rejoiced to be carried off then to the land of the Moors and remain there. All of these virtues lasted in her, so that the experience was clearly seen to be a supernatural favor from our Lord. (22.5-6) The story continues on for many pages, recounting an uproar of demons disturbed by Catalina's conversion, then her conflicts with her parents, who refused to give her permission to become a nun, her extreme penances and illnesses, and finally her dra-matic challenge to her relatives and to God that, if she were healed by a certain day, she should be permitted to become a nun. Sure enough, on the appointed day she rose from her bed, ready to assist Teresa in founding the monastery of Beas. Some feminist interpreters have pointed out the fascinat-ing tension he?e between Teresa's delight in portraying Catalina's feisty statement of her desire to "found her own lineage" and not to be subject to anyone and her equal delight in portraying Catalina's conversion to fervent desire for suffering and sub-jection. The dramatic tension between willfulness and obedi-ence continues to play out in the story as Catalina steadfastly refuses to be subject to the wishes of her parents or relatives and then endures years of extreme physical suffering while stub-bornly holding out for fulfillment of her personal vision. It is a Review for Relig4ous great story in itself, and it is a prime illustration of a tension, at the heart of Teresa's story theology, between her culturally sub-versive claim for female authority and her acceptance of abso-lute obedience to God. In the eyes of her culture, Catalina Godfnez was, like Teresa, an "uppity woman." When Catalina dares to say in so many words that she wanted to "found her own lineage" and be sub-ject to no one, one can hardly help hearing Teresa behind her saying, "And look at me! In making these foundations I am actually doing it! I am founding my own female lineage!" Yet, in the next few lines, Teresa successfully dissociates her-self from the "pride" of such a statement as she affirms that God has supernaturally transformed Catalina so that she now desires to be subject to everyone and to be humiliated with Christ cruci-fied. It is as if Teresa is saying, "This is the way my new female lineage will be founded: not in pride, but in humble union with God." While some feminist interpreters have presumed that Teresa's frequent protestations of humility and obedience are largely a smokescreen thrown up to obscure her real goals of female power, my interpretation would be that her commitment to humility and obedience in relation to God was indeed radi-cal. For example, at the heart of all Teresa's stories about her founding activities is the conviction that God is the real founder. She repeatedly says things like "I want our Lord to make known to everyone how in these foundations we creatures have done next to nothing. The Lord directed all by means of such lowly beginnings that only His Majesty could have raised the work to what it now is" (13.7). Although her words about doing "next to nothing" are somewhat hyperbolic, her core conviction is clear: both the initiative and the ultimate success of her found-ing activity come from God. Indeed, it is exactly because she believed her commission for this work came from God that she was willing and able to take such great risks on behalf of estab- At the heart of all Teresa's stories about her founding activities is the conviction that God is the real founder. January-Februa~y 2002 Froblicb * Teresa: Story Theologian lishing the authority and lineage of women. Radical Obedience and the Lineage of Women The next story is one example of these linked commitments to radical obedience and to the spiritual lineage of holy women. In chapter 28 she recounts at great length the story of Dofia Catalina de Cardona,who left her life among the nobility for a hermitage, where she wore coarse cloth, ate only every third day, took the discipline with a heavy chain, and practiced many other harsh austerities and virtuous acts. Later on she suffered greatly in order to found the Discalced friars' monastery at Pastrana. One day Teresa, after Commu'nion in the church there (which was on the site of Dofia Catalina's original hei'mitage), experienced a "suspension." She states: In this suspension, through an intellectual vision, this holy woman appeared in a glorified body and some angels with her. She told me not to grow weary, but that I should strive to go ahead with these foundations. I understood, although she did not indicate this, that she was helping me before God. She also told me something else, but there is no reason to put it here in writing. I was left very much consoled and with a great desire to work hard, and I hope in the goodness of the Lord that with help as good as these prayers of hers I will be able to serve Him in some way. (28.36) In this story Teresa not only explicitly claims the patronage of a holy female spiritual ancestor in her work of founding, but also implicitly affirms what Gillian Ahlgren calls the "visionary epis-temology" that, for at least four centuries before Teresa's time, had been the primary path to spiritual empowerment for women,l° A visionary epistemology asserts that real knowledge of God and real wisdom in relation to the world are conveyed through visionary experience. Throughout the Middle Ages, when women were systematically denied access to theological education and to positions of ecclesial power, the main route by which women could gain religious status and voice was by claim-ing to have visions or locutions in which God communicated directly with them. This was always a dangerous path, subject to suspicion and curtailment from powers that felt threatened. But Review for Religious in Teresa's time it was even more dangerous because of the inten-sive inquisitorial campaign that was being waged against the alumbrados, who claimed special religious experiences. It is quite remarkable that Teresa and her claims to special knowledge through visions not only survived in this atmosphere, but actu-ally thrived. To see how she did it, let us look again at her account of her vision of Dofia Catalina de Cardona. Teresa states, first, that the vision took place immediately after Communion, thus affirming an intrinsic connection between her experience and the church's sacraments. She states, second, that it was an intellectual vision, not an imaginative or bodily one. Although all visions were suspect, those involving less of the sensual component were slightly less so. Over time Teresa became increasingly adept at making this kind of tech-nical distinction, helping to allay the fears of her learned cen-sors. Third, her main emphasis in this story is on the good effects of the vision: it encourages her to dedicate herself even more firmly to serving God and building up the church through making monastic foundations. Gillian Ahlgren notes that, while in her earlier writings Teresa lingers longer over the experien-tial aspects of her visions, in later writings she focuses much more on how to discern their authenticity; and her key test was usually to note their effects)1 Thus we see in this story, written very near the end of Teresa's life, the masterful way in which she tiptoes through the minefields of criticism that could easily have doomed her and her projects. And once again we see how she manages to accom-plish two seemingly contradictory goals at once: reaffirming her humility and obedience to the purposes of God and the church and presenting herself as a uniquely favored female apos-tle and heir to a powerful female spiritual lineage. Troubling and Transforming the Status Quo With hindsight we kntw that, despite her radical and auda-cious vision, Teresa not only succeeded in her life's mission but even became a canonized saint and a doctor of the church. Yet, as the Foundations makes abundantly clear, Teresa's founding activities faced formidable obstacles and often stirred up intense opposition. There is high drama in the stories of Teresa push- January-February 2002 Froblicb ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian ing indomitably forward while bishops and religious superiors balk, wealthy people or town councils demand conditions she cannot accept, the owners of desired houses refuse to negotiate or their tenants refuse to vacate the premises, nuns and friars lose heart or get into squabbles with one another, and even the weather, the roads, and her aging body seem increasingly to conspire against her. In all this, Teresa usually attributes any form of suffering or resistance to the devil's opposition to her "good works." But, as Alex Garcfa-Rivera notes in relation to St. Martin de Porres, stories about troublesome demons always seem to appear exactly at the place where the symbols most cherished by cult-oral and political powers are being challenged. In Teresa's case, as we have seen, both her activity of founding and her written works artfully contested some of the key assumptions of the cultural and ecclesial status quo: namely, that women cannot teach or lead, that knowledge of God must come in an institutionally approved package, and that money, pedigree, and "pure blood" are the determinants of honor. It seems that in her spiritual marriage Teresa's ability to speak troublesomely and transfor-matively to the very heart of her culture came to fullness. "Water for All Our Needs" As a way of summing up the gist of the perspective pre-sented here--and, more importantly, of Teresa's key spiritual insights--let us listen to one more "little story" from the Foundations. Teresa recounts what transpired when, in the newly founded monastery at Medina del Campo, the nuns suffered from lack of good water: When I called some workmen to dig a new [well], they laughed at me as though I were wanting to throw money away. I asked the sisters what they thought. One said that it should be tried, that since our Lord would have to provide someone to bring us water as well as food, it would be cheap.er for His Majesty to give us the well on the grounds of the house and that thus He would not fail to do so. Observing the great faith and determination with which she said it, I became certain. And, contrary to the opinion of the Review for Religious one who understood all about founts and water, I went ahead. And the Lord was pleased that we were able to put in a conduit which provided enough water for our needs, and for drinking, and which we now have. (1.4) Once again, we see the mujercitas, the foolish little women who have nothing but their faith, being justified over those who sup-posedly "understood all about founts and water." But there may be more in this "little story," particularly when we recall the importance of the imagery of water, wells, and founts in each of Teresa's major books.~3 Given my original premise that the Foundations needs to be interpreted as a sort of"first fruit" of Teresa's spiritual marriage and as having a special relation to the Interior Castle, around which it forms a sandwich, I think we need to place Teresa's "little story" of the well next to this text from the Seventh Dwelling Places: For from these divine breasts where it seems God is always sustaining the soul there flow streams of milk bringing comfort to all the people of the castle. It seems the Lord desires that in some manner these oth-ers in the castle may enjoy the great deal the soul is enjoying and that from that full-flowing river, where this tiny fount is swallowed .up, a spurt of that water will sometimes be directed toward the sustenance of those who in corporeal things must serve these two who are wed . For just.as a great gush of water could not reach us if it didn't have a source, as I have said, so it is understood clearly that there is Someone in the interior depths who shoots these arrows and gives life to this life. (VII.2.6)14 This text from the Interior Castle is clearly talking about the mystical life. Teresa mixes several biblical images with long his-tories of use by mystical writers, such as the "divine breasts," "streams of milk," and "arrows." But Teresa's central image for the welling up of God's lif( in our interior depths is, as usual, water. Here she proclaims that the water of mystical union does not simply remain in the center of the soul, but gushes abun-dantly outward to sustain, enrich, and heal the whole bodily and psychological person. Yet I believe we can take the image one step further, especially if we understand the human person as an intrinsically relational and social being. After all, it is only January-February 2002 Froblicb ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian a few pages further on that Teresa makes her well-known affir-mation that the purpose of the spiritual marriage is not simply to rest in delightful interiority, but to share those riches with others through "good works." The "little stow" of the well at Medina del Campo is a very concrete, down-to-earth vignette of how the life of mystical union which it is Teresa's mission to promote bears fruit. Here it is physical water that gushes up because of the nuns' faith, providing abundantly for their bod-ily needs. The "spiritual marriage" is complete: divine and human, mystical and physical, are at one. Yet this reading of the Foundations suggests that the outflow of the spiritual marriage goes even further. The nuns' miracu-lous well is also a public testimony to the presence and activity of God in those whom society regards as mere mujercitas, foolish little women. The water of God that gushes up in the spiritual marriage works to sustain, heal, and transform not only the indi-vidual person, but her whole social and cultural world as well. For a perspective on this that is from a completely different tradition, yet is remarkably consonant with Teresa's spiritual insight, listen to this poetic text fromthe Chinese Tao-te- Ching:ts The highest motive is to be like water. Water is essential to all living things, yet it demands no pay or recognition. Rather it flows humbly to the lowest level. Nothing is weaker than water, yet, for overcoming what is hard and strong, nothing surpasses it. It seems that in The Book of Her Foundations Teresa teaches, through her consummate "stoW theology," that the gift of union with God in the ~piritual marriage indeed makes a person like water. Such a person flows humbly to the lowest level and is rad-ically obedient to the direction of her own and others' thirst for God. In this way she unites herself intimately with the heart of her culture and can ov4rcome that in it which is hard and strong. Notes Terrence W. Tilley, StoO, Tbeolog~ (V~lmington: Michael Glazier, 1985), pp. 11-16. All quotations from the Foundations are from The Collected Works Review for Religious of St. Teresa ofAvila, Vol. 3, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1985). 3 Alex Garcfa-Rivera, St. Ma~-tin de Porres: The "Little Stories" and the Semiotics of Culture (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995). 4 As several commentators have noted, Teresa's style of rhetoric is "women's language"; that is, not only is it the vernacular instead of Latin, but it is conversational, imagistic, elliptical, and aimed at the general populace rather than an elite. See, for example, Elias R. Rivers, "The Vernacular Mind of St. Teresa," Carmelite Studies 3 (1984). In recent years feminist analyses have revealed how this "women's lan-guage" is far more sophisticated than it first appears; it often functions as a sort of "Trojan horse" strategy that lets Teresa speak in places and ways that would otherwise be closed to her. See especially Alison Weber, Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), and Carole Slade, St. Teresa of Avila: Author of a Heroic Life (Berkel.ey: University of California Press, 1995). s See Antonio P~rez-Romero, Subversion and Liberation in the Writings of St. Teresa of Avila (Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996). 6 For an overview of these trends, see Te6fanes Egido, "The HistoriCal Setting of St. Teresa's Life," trans. S. Payne and M. Dodd, Carmelite Studies 1 (1980); also Gillian Ahlgren, Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), especially chap. 1. 7 Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Maki~zg and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 8 See Weber, Slade, Ahlgren, and P~rez-Romero. 9 Among the above commentators, Ahlgren and P~rez-Romero offer an interpretation of Teresa's motives that is similar to my own. 10 Ahlgren, chap. 7. On the tradition of women visionaries, see Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 1, See Ahlgren, especially p. 10 I, for discussion of Teresa's devel-oping theology in relation to visions. ,2 Garcfa-Rivera, p. 36. ,3 In the Life, chaps. 11-22, she wrote of the "Four Waters," and in the Way, chaps. 19-21, of the "fount of living water." In the Interior Castle the same imagery appears, most prominently in the First, Fourth and Seventh Dwelling Places. 14 The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1980). ,s Having been given this quotation on a prayer card, I consulted several English versions of the Tao-te-Ching without being able to locate this specific translation. I was able to determine, however, that .~anuary-February 2002 Frohlich ¯ Teresa: Story Theologian the first half of the quotation comes from poem 8 and the second half from poem 78. The Beast of Contemplation I walked past someflattened grass behind the house this morning, where an animal had lain in the night, touching a mystery by touching the fringe of the turf where something wild had passed and paused and passed again. What did the animal lying in that place think (or not think) in the otherness of its sojourn there? I ask this, even as I know the wild creature lying behind the house to be none other than myself. This, after all, is the patch of grass where I sprawl under the stars each night, sometimes lost in contemplation, other times in sleep. Them is an animal of God that makes its lair in me, some distance, often,from my mind. It comes as stranger, glimpsed in a vestige of presence, a pressed-smooth swath ofunmowed lawn. I marvel at the wildness of this elusive beast, leaving only the bay of its body at the place where God has passed and paused and passed again. Belden C. Lane Review for Religious NIHAL ABEYASINGHA Instilling Christian/ Religious Culture: Instinct and Connaturality At on the Internet, there is a link to Chimpanzee Cultures Website. Accustomed to speaking of culture as a human creation, one wonders how it might apply to the animal world. In fact, given that there are certain characteristics common to an entire species in the ani-mal world and that there are variants identifiable within the species, there is some evidence that one animal's "discovery" can gradually spread to other animals of the same species) The key words here--common, variants, spread--contain concepts to consider in discussing culture in human societies. The pre-sent article will use those concepts in looking at the culture of religious life. Religious or consecrated life has not been of a single mold through history. Common to it always and everywhere is the following of Christ in accord with one's baptismal commitment. Variants include hermit life and common life, enclosed monas-tic life and mendicant life, institutes of apostolic life and secu-lar institutes. Religious life that sprang up in one set of circumstances has often spread to other circumstances, and today religious life cannot hold itself entirely aloof from the many rapid changes occurring differently all over the world. Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR wrote for us twice in 1999. His address is 454/9 Piachaud Gardens; Peradeniya Road; 20000 Kandy; Sri Lanka. ~-2~ --- 2- January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture The present article makes two proposals. First, if there is transmission of a common way of life all through a group and if innovations can be spread within a given species in the animal world, one can envisage a rationally planned and directed pro-gram for transmitting to new entrants the culture of the Christian life and the subculture of religious life. Second, I pro-pose certain "settings" where new entrants might be placed, where their religious instinct and sense of connaturality could be fostered. How Transmit Culture? Culture can be considered as the behaviors, skills, and knowl-edge that you acquire from and share with others of your species, but that differ from the way of life lived by members of your species elsewhere. This culture is neither acquired genetically nor compelled by the environment, but neither can it be taught-- it has to be caught. In odaer words, there is a memory (one could call it "institutional memory") that the older generation of a species embodies and carries. In associating with that genera-tion and experiencing various of its devices, the younger gener-ation comes to share in the culture. These younger members do so not by compulsion, but because that way of doing things is "connatural" to them. They do it because they want to do it. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) suggested "that our most natural mode of reasoning is, not from propositions to propo-sitions, but from things to things, from concrete to concrete, from wholes to wholes.''2 He says that, as regards "the great fun-damental truths of religion, natural and revealed, and as regards the mass of religious men, these truths, doubdess, may be proved and defended by an array of invincible natural arguments, but such is not commonly the method in which those same logical arguments make their way into our minds. The grounds on which we hold the divine origin of the church and the previous truths which are taught us by nature--the being of a God and the immortality of the soul--are felt by most men to be recondite and impalpable, in proportion to their depth and reality.''3 Animals seem to have this concrete kind of "reasoning." Endowed with a natural sense, they learn their "culture" by liv-ing it and doing the things that accord with it. People are born Review for Religious with natural instincts and reason; they learn to be human beings within a culture somewhat as animals do. But, because of their reason and free will, they are not determined by their instincts. Yet--and here we enter the sphere of religion--the human being cannot be satisfied with the material. "Our hearts are made for you, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you" are the famous words of Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Religion provides for the restlessness of the heart. Some indi-viduals experience that restlessness more intensely, and often with particular nuances. This leads them to seek rest for their restlessness not only in Christian living within the broad framework of the church, but along a specific way of following Christ closely. This they find instinctively in a par-ticular religious congrega-tion. When asked why they entered this one and not that, they have their own idiosyncratic modes of saying so. But most impor-tant is that they feel at home in the institute and are happy in its life and apostolate. Today's religious come from a different social background from the religious of the first half of the 20th century. Ministering to Today's World Feeling at home and happy does not mean that they have reached the end of their journey. In fact, they have only begun. And that is why I suggest that there must be some way in which they can be helped to grow. Instinctively and by way of con-naturality, they should be assisted to grow, incorporating what is in accord with their quest and rejecting what is contrary to it. Today's religious come from a different social background from the religious of the first half of the 20th century.4 They bring with them a certain culture and the popular piety with which they have grown up in their homes. During the training period they are filled with a whole range of knowledge. But, once the period of training is over, they try to use as the basis of their ministry the popular piety they carried with them at their entrance.~ This does not work. ~tanuary-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture Change (rapid, radical, in almost every sphere) and diversity (abundant and bewildering) are unavoidable present-day reali-ties, but Christians have no cause to fear them. By baptism (see Rm 6:3-11) we are participants in the most radical of changes, the death and resurrection of Christ, phenomena that express themselves in a never-ending variety of ways. This reality, how-ever, needs to be instilled more and more into the life and min-istry of religious. In other words, in their response to problems related to all the change and diversity in the world, Christians and especially religious are continually called to return to the Christian mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. Popular piety is inadequate to face the modern world. Popular piety can be seen as "contractual": if one fulfills certain set obligations, then one will grow as a Christian and attain sal-vation. Sometimes this piety may border on the magical: if one does certain things in a certain way, then various desirable results will follow. This approach, still present in the life of many peo-ple, has helped many on the path of holiness. But is it the answer to today's problematic of change and diversity? Is going with the practices of many a help or a hindrance for religious in their life and work with and for others? Today's change and diversity have far-reaching effects. The Christian perspective on this situation might be stated briefly as follows: Human freedom is used and abused, but, no matter what, God remains faithful. The death and resurrection of Christ shows this, and Christians share in it. Their share is in what they do, not merely what they talk about. Jesus, knowing who would betray or deny him, shared a special meal with them. The church continues to remember that, on the night he was betrayed (by his disciples and by us), he took bread and said "Take and eat . " This meal shared with his betrayers--and continued by the community of believers--is the place where we learn how to handle the world in which we live. We learn, not by study, but by doing.We learn, not bj~ logical reasoning so much as by a kind of instinct and connaturality. This doing (in memory of him) is the source of knowledge, knowledge of a unique opportunity for us to turn to the pure victim of our betrayal and find both salvation for ourselves and cordial reciprocity with one another. If we learn by what we do, it follows that there can be no Review for Religious predetermined curriculum. We can only seek or provide set-tings where connaturality and the religious instinct can be evoked and then try to adopt or inculcate a "rationalized asceti-cism," that is, a commitment to continual self-control and dis-cipline over what does not serve our vocation as religious--in other words, engagement in ongoing discernment. The religious instinct and discernment need to work in har-ness. In a variety of settings, rationalized asceticism is only a means. What is primary is the goal, namely, following Christ according to the particular focus of one's institute. A kind of rationalized asceticism, however, could function, not so much by logical reasoning as by instinct and connaturality. The one who joins an institute feels "at home." In that situation, one is helped to rationally understand and discern one's way in the actual world where one lives. Gradually, feeling at home takes on a focus and content. Settings Where Connaturality Can Function By a setting I mean something on the lines of the Santiniketan, the school established in 1901 by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). That school was meant to be a place where students could absorb the Indian spirit. It was out of the ordi-nary; it had eminent teachers, but few pupils. Yet those few learned something which others did not and made a contribu-tion to India as a whole. Times have changed, but the need remains for us to experience the world existentially and to work out our response in accord with the gospel and the charism of our institute. The extraordinary, if it happens, is something to be thank-ful for. Normal growth takes place in the ordinary situations of life. Growth in religious life occurs best, I think, when religious envision their own life stories (with their own memories, behav-iors, skills, and knowledge) against their faith-vision of their baptism--which made them sharers in the mystery of Jesus Christ dying and rising again. A certain interpretation and synthesis of his own life can perhaps be detected in Pope John Paul's first encyclical, Redemptor hominis (§ 14): Man in the full truth of his existence . . . --in the January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture sphere of his own family, in the sphere of society and very diverse contexts, in the sphere of his own nation or people, and in the sphere of the whole of mankind--this man is the primary route that the church must travel in fulfilling her mission: he is the primary and j~tndamental way for the church, the way traced out by Christ himself, the way that leads invariably through the mystery of the incarnation and the redemption. In 1979 (within the first year of his pontificate), during the Mass celebrated in the Oswiecim-Brzezinka (Auschwitz- Birkenau) concentration camp, he said: Can it still be a surprise to anyone that the pope born and brought up in this land,, the pope who came to the See of St. Peter from the diocese in whose territory is situated the camp of Oswiecim, should have begun his first encyclical with the words Redemptor hominis and should have dedicated it as a whole to the cause of man, to the dignity of man, to the threats to him, and finally to his inalienable rights that can so easily be trampled on and annihi-lated by his fellow men?6 John Paul II lived and was educated in the West. Naturally his categories of thought are derived from the Western tradition. Is it not possible, though, for people of the East as well as the West, to see beneath these thoughts of his the process by which he worked through various situations and reached a synthesis that was connatural to him? That is, to see his experience of life in Poland (as worker, stage actor, writer, and so forth), the experience of the concentration camps, the search for the "causes" of the concentration camps, the articulation of the principles of his life, and finally, the synthesis of Christ, the church, and man as all interrelated.7 And this in the first year of his papacy! And now the evening of his life is filled with sym-bolic gestures flowing from that same synthesis--attempts to bring about reciprocal relations among human beings, Christ, and the church--a visit to a synagogue in Rome and to a mosque in Syria, asking pardon of God and of fellow human beings for the sins committed by the church and tendering apologies to the Greek and Ukrainian churches. Review for Religious Experience and Exemplary Religious Behavior Popular piety, as I have said, cannot respond to the present world with its change and diversity. No matter how much one repeats this to new entrants, the response is to point to how well popular piety is doing in pilgrimage centers, among a high percentage of regular churchgoers, among the Christian right, and in various emerging movements. Perhaps they are correct. The majority of Christians are rooted in popular or traditional piety. But is that the climax and high point of the following of Christ? Hardly. Without the interaction of popular piety with its roots in the Christian tradition in a context of continual conversion, does popular piety not dete-riorate into the justification and ratio-nalization of the baser instincts? Well-known preachers advocating a pop-ular and populist piety have been dis-covered to have been leading double lives. Corruption and violence are known as much among "practicing" Christians as among the general population. Religious, too, may experience a dichotomy between their piety and their work, between what they do in church and what they do outside. It can be valu-able to experience it, to have an ordinary job while at the same time trying to fulfill the obligations of a religious.8 This is a common situation for ordinary Christians-- the need to combine work with family life. In ordinary work-places, individuals claim no privileges, but simply share the lot of the others. In such circumstances, people discover the pres-sures that flow from the pace of change and the range of diver-sity that has to be confronted. Confronting the real world of jealousy, fraud, cutthroat com-petition, and intrigue provides an opportunity to reflect care-fully on one's behavioral response in the light of one's Christian commitment. In a study of the attitudes of people working in several private-sector companies in Sri Lanka, the following atti-tudes were measured (on a scale of ten): Among superiors: authoritarian 8, egalitarian 2, and permissive 5; among subor-dinates: rebel i0, cooperation 1, ingratiator 5.9 It is highly likely Popular piety, as I have said, cannot respond to the present world with its change and diversity. January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Cbristian/Religious Culture that Christians and religious in similar work situations have adopted similar behavioral patterns. How does such behavior fit in with gospel norms? Is equality not implied in baptism, the root of the religious vocation and of cooperation in the mission of a religious institute? Does the high score for authoritarian attitudes not imply that Jesus' exhortation about the greatest and the least, about the master washing the feet of his disciples, has been forgotten? The question arises: Can a process of"con-scious reflection" for religious be initiated on these lines? Conscious Reflection When young people tell Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee that they are having a difficult time understanding what it means to be a Catholic,-he tells them to participate in the Eucharistic celebration with the same parish community every Sunday for six months and, during the same six-month period, to work in a soup kitchen. If they follow these two prac-tices, they will see for themselves what it means to be a Catholic.1° The question posed is conceptual ("understanding"); the remedy suggested is an existential commitment (the Eucharist in the same community, the same soup kitchen, for six months). It leads to a realization that Christian life is about worship and service. Commitment to the same group--but why? Because then one works one's way beyond immediate emotions (sense plea-sure), beyond the true-false dichotomy (intellectual pleasure), and beyond control-or-be-controlled situations (the pleasure of power), towards accepting realities for which no words can be found and tasks which are not directly pleasurable--but all of which, at a deep level, give satisfaction and joy. Following that advice, one avoids a "shopping" mentality; one learns through the drudgery and happiness of one's commitment. Oliver Goldsmith implies this about the parson in his "Deserted Village": "All his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. / As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, / Swells from the vale, and mid-way leaves the storm, / Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,/Eternal sunshine settles in its head" (lines 188-192). The "eternal sunshine" 6f a holiness that brings joy and fulfillment is for all. Religious are meant to pursue holiness Review for Religious with great intensity in the service of all Christians. In the Middle Ages, religious were more prominent in the guidance and accompaniment of the faithful in holiness than priests were.~L "All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the holiness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity" (LG §40). "Mother Church rejoices at finding within her bosom men and women who more closely follow and more clearly demonstrate the Savior's self-giving by embracing poverty with the free choice of God's sons, and by renouncing their 6wn wills . . ." (LG §42). The point of the "specialized" pursuit of holiness is to bear witness among the followers of Christ that everything should not be cut down to the size of the self, but rather that the self needs to be expanded to recognize and embrace the glory of God man-ifested in the world, in one's fellow humans, and in Christ. Religious Cultural Literacy In the Catholic tradition, faith is a personal adherence to God that involves, inseparably, "free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed" (tides quae). It differs from faith in the Reform tradition, which emphasizes trust and commitment (tides fiducialis). Sometimes the distinction is forgotten. It is important to maintain the difference if one wants to remain rooted in the Catholic tradition. Thus a first requirement would be cultural literacy~2 within the Catholic tradition--in church doctrine, in religious life in general, and in one's own institute in particular. What is needed is a clear and accurate understanding of the truths that one's community shares and the standard of behavior that community members together endorse, as approved by the church. This is not expert knowledge, but simply accurate knowledge. Accuracy is, I think, not too much to ask in an age of computers, where email addresses and Web sit~s have to be keyed in without an error of even a single letter. Beyond an accurate minimum, one can and should, of course, increase one's knowledge, while not necessarily claiming that one always practices the behavior that one endorses. This knowledge and these standards of behavior must, however, be understood as constituting the bottom line without which the present collectivity will not survive as a group. January-February 2002 Abeyasingha ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture This minimum has to be learned by rote. "Learning by heart" is one of the most popular techniques of education in Asia. It has to be tested not just once but periodically. This knowledge and these behavioral standards should be the content of discussions, decisions, and vision statements. Otherwise, indi-viduals might interpret the words to mean exactly what serves their own personal interest within the existing network of roles and relationships. Before entering the novitiate, candidates should be able to move easily and accurately within the idiom and grammar specific to the Catholic tradition. Afterwards, in the novitiate, they can learn the idiom, grammar, and standard of behavior specific to the institute. The Eucharist as Cultural Activity The great formative influence in Christian living and a for-tiori in religious life is the Eucharist and the other sacraments. There is a constant danger in Asia that these sacramental rites may be reduced to the level of popular religion and sometimes even of magic. Two aspects of the Eucharistic celebration are relevant here. First, people should have a basic knowledge of the elements that come together in the liturgy.~3 Second, but far more important, is the actual celebration of the Eucharist. Every Eucharistic celebration includes the great metaphors and images of Christianity. Every celebration has at least seven points of reference--assembly and gathering, table of the word, memo-rial, sacrifice, food for the journey, eschatological reality, and cosmic transformation.~4 Every celebration cannot highlight all these, but the meaning of the celebration is in the reality that is done by the group of believers. The liturgy is not an act of per-sonal piety or a situation for personal devotion. It is of its very nature community building. Even these ordinary actions and realities are sacred, binding the group together in Christ as they do. In Christ, the Eucharist makes the church and the church makes the Eucharist. This imposes a certain style and spirit on the participants.~5 Linked to this style and spirit is a rationalized asceticism, a renunciation of self in order to share the celebration with others. This elementary structure, idiom, and grammar of the liturgy needs, then, to be understood and the liturgy's forma- Review for Religious tive process realized. This formation is also a journey. Its out-line is the Rite of Initiation of Adults,16 which consists of our personal pilgrimage to know ourselves, reflection on the story of other Christians, purification and enlightenment, accepting the mystery, reflecting on the mystery and renewing our lives. Here, in the context of the metaphors and images of the Christian faith remembered and celebrated in the liturgy, can-didates move to total conversion: intellectual (without which there is no growth in under-standing the Christian mystery), moral (with-out which one does not seek to improve one's life), and religious (without which one makes no judgment about the condition of one's own faith). One learns from what one does (the way of action). This has a knowledge dimension in which the memory is recalled and cel-ebrated, a pledge of future glory is given, and devotion is nour-ished for continued Christian living. Christian cultural literacy provides one with the language and communication needed to be part of the Christian tradition as it is at this time in history. Lamentation about what might have been serves little purpose. What possibilities exist within the Asian tradition for carrying the Christian tradition further? While the idiom and grammar of the Christian tradition can be stated and understood briefly, there is a richness of imagery that aims at evoking faith beyond some brief concepts. Take the language of the creed: "I believe in Jesus Christ, [the Father's] only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead." Clearly, this profession of faith includes more concrete images than abstract Before entering the novitiate, candidates should be able to move easily and accurately within the idiom and grammar specific to the Catholic tradition. January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture concepts. It is perhaps, in this area that Asia would be most com-petent to make a contribution. Possible Asian Enrichments The "text"--the idiom and grammar--remains untouched. Without denying the text, Asia is supremely gifted to enrich the imagery. Jacome Gonsalvez (1676-1742), who is considered an important writer in Sinhala (the local language of Sri Lanka), did not try to reexpress theology in the Sinhala idiom: his the-ology repeats the Scholastics. But, relying on the apocryphal tradition (as regards details of Mary's early years) and on an abundance of imagery drawn from local sources, his work evokes an attitude of respect for the Christian faith even among read-ers of other religious persuasionsY Given the technique of learning the idiom and grammar by heart, the specific Asian contribution would be faith reflection in love--not by negating that idiom and grammar, not by lamenting the shortcomings of history, not by challenging or seeming to defy authority, but by being rooted in our tradition and proposing to our countrymen, especially fellow believers, images and perspectives that serve to enrich their faith. Another element of enrichment is the liturgy. Here we are to find meaning in what we do within our community of believ-ers. But there is the danger of making the liturgical action (com-munitarian of its very nature) an act of private and personal devotion. This is a real danger, and not only in the Christian religion. In Sri Lankan Buddhism, certain innovations, espe-cially the inclusion of the vernacular in a form of devotion (Bodhi Piija), have become popular in a short time. But other (quasi-magical) rites and patterns of popular thinking that were in no way in the mind of the innovator have found their way into the rite.L8 This development has taken place within some twenty-five years. Similarly, Christian Asian religious can offer new perspectives. Most p~:obably, in the Eucharistic prayer of Addai and Mari, there was no narrative of the institution. Would evi-dence of such a liturgical tradition give indication (for the uni-versal church) that the meaning of the liturgical action is in what is done? Asian celebration could give the liturgy an enrich-ment (and sometimes, unfortunately, a deformation). Review for Religious If cultural literacy is an "understanding that follows love and commitment," the liturgy is the celebration that "faith and promise are correlative." The word of God proclaimed to the liturgical assembly is received in faith; its promise is fulfilled today in the midst of the assembly. It is not a question of con-cepts so much as the reality of the commitment. Ever Searching for God The present article considers religious life as a search for God. That search is intense--as intense as the desire of a drown-ing person for air. Growth in the religious life is giving focus and content to that desire in accordance with the Christian tradi-tion (particularly the idiom and grammar of doctrine and litur-gical celebration) and th~ specific charism of the religious institute. The process is within the realm of the ordinary, and the manner is by way of instinct and connaturality. The search occurs in a world permeated by both sin and grace. The vision always involves the death and resurrection of Jesus. In this search, reli-gious in Asia, after identifying the specific contribution they can make, need to make it with courage without jeopardizing com-munion with the universal church. As St. Irenaeus (c. 130-c. 200) wrote, "though languages differ throughout the world, the content of the tradition is one and the same. The churches estab-lished in Germany have no other faith or tradition, nor do those of the Iberians, nor those of the Celts, nor those of the East, of Egypt, of Libya.''19 Yet there has to be a distinct element in the manner in which the faith is lived, celebrated, and expressed as spirituality. As Francig de Sales (1567-1622) has said, "the prac-tice of devotion must differ for the gentleman and the artisan, the servant and the prince, for the widow, young girl, or wife. Further, it must be adapted to their particular strength, cir-cumstances, and duties: . True devotion never causes harm, but rather perfects everything we do."2° Notes ~ It was reported in Newsweek (21 May 2001) that scientists dis-covered in 1981 a humpback whale creating waves with its tail to trap fish. That innovation of a single reported case is now said to have spread to half the humpback whale population. January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture 2 John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Garden City: Image Books, 1955), p. 260. Some examples provided by Newman of how this sense of natural inference works are worth recording: "A peasant who is weather wise may yet be simply unable to assign intelligible reasons why he thinks it will be fine tomorrow; and, if he attempts to do so, he may give reasons wide of the mark, but that will not weaken his own confidence in his prediction. His mind does not proceed step-by-step, but he feels all at once and together the force of various combined phenomena though he is not conscious of them. Again, there are physicians who excel in the diagnosis of com-plaints, though it does not follow from this that they could defend their decision in a particular case against a brother physician who dis-puted it. They are guided by natural acuteness and varied experience; they have their own idiosyncratic modes of observing, generalizing, and concluding; when questioned, they can but rest on their own authority, or appeal to the future event" (pp. 261-262). 3 Newman, Grammar, p. 264. Thi~ "feeling" of which Newman speaks is "a feeling in the human mind., allied perhaps to that sense of danger which animals exhibit when placed in the vicinity of natu-ral enemies of their race, and which makes birds cower when the hawk is in the air, and beasts tremble when the tiger is abroad in the desert" (p. 264; read pp. 260-299 for a better understanding of this natural inference and illative sense, as propounded by Newman). 4 See N. Abeyasingha, "The Next Generation of Religious in Asia" in Review for Religious 58, no. 6 (November-December 1999): 621-629. 5 Some years ago I was asked by a boy whom a religious in a lead-ing Catholic school was preparing for First Holy Communion whether it was true that, if he were to bite the host, it would bleed. In fact, he asked me this after he had observed me biting the host at a Mass I cel-ebrated. 6 L'Osservatore Romano (English edition, 16 July 1979), p. 6. 7 "In recent times--particularly during the Second Vatican Council--there have been long discussions whether this relationship is theocentric or anthropocentric. There will never be a satisfactory answer to this question if we continue to consider the two terms sep-arately. In fact, Christianity is anthropocentric precisely because it is theocentric, and simultaneously it is theocentric, thanks to its extraor-dinary anthropocentrism. But it is just the mystery of the incarna-tion which, in itself, explains this relationship" (John Paul II, L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 7 December 1978, p. 1). 8 I am the only Catholic priest working in a state university that has a large majority of Buddhists among staff and students. Over the years I have had to make certain decisions and adopt certain behav-ior patterns in order to practice a minimum degree of Christian wit-ness. Review for Religious 9 See Gunapala Nanayakkara, Public Administration: The Socio- Cultural Milieu (Study Series: Public Administration 88-2, Jayawardenepura: Postgraduate Institute of Management, 1988), p. 10. 10 Cited in William C. Spohn, "The Need for Roots and Wings: Spirituality and Christian Ethics," Theology Digest 47, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 329. 11 See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §927. See also Sacramentum Mundi, Vol. 4, p. 394: "In Palestine, for example, in the 6th century, the abbot of a monastery exercised penitential discipline even in regard to capital sins. Sometimes little attention was paid to whether the monk-confessor was a priest or layman (as early as the 5th and 6th centuries), but this drew protest from Pseudo-Dionysius. After the Iconoclast controversy (8th century) only the priest-monks had in practice the right to hear confessions." ,2 See E.D. Hirsch Jr., Cultural Literacy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987) and The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (1988). 13 See Dennis C. Smolarski, Liturgical Literacy from Anamnesis to Worship (New York: Paulist Press, 1990). ~4 See Kevin Irwin, "Models of the Eucharist," Origins 31, no. 3 (31 May 2001): 33-44. ~s See Aidan Kavanagh, Elements of Rite: A Handbook of Liturgical Style (Bangalore: NBCLC, 1996); Dennis C. Smolarski, How Not to Say Mass: A Guidebook for All Concerned about Authentic Worship (New York: Paulist Press, 1986). 16 See J.D. Dunning, "The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: Model of Adult Growth," Worship 53 (March 1979): 142-156. See N. Abeyasingha, Towards Contextualizing Theology with a CSsR Bias (Bangalore: Joint Secretariats, 1990), pp. 80-95. ~7 There is a precedent for this kind of reading, reflection, and interpretation of the Christian tradition. Very early in the New Testament, there was a Christological interpretation of the Exodus (1 Co 10:1-4). Aphraates (260/275-345), the oldest Syrian father, wrote: "Jesus the son of Nun led the people over to the promised land. Jesus our Savior promised the land of life to all who, passing over the true river Jordan, have believed and are circumcised in their hearts" (Dem 11, 12). The title "physician" is applied to Jesus by Ignatius of Antioch (+ c. 110): "There is one Physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and not born, who is God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first able to suffer and then unable to suffer, Jesus Christ our Lord" (Letter to Ephesians 7.2). The early fathers were so rooted in their faith and commitment that their understanding and interpretation of Scripture and doctrine fol-lowed that faith and commitment. Perhaps their interpretation of the January-February 2002 Abeyasingba ¯ Instilling Christian/Religious Culture Scriptures and the tradition may not be endorsed by modern exege-sis, but they still remain a "faith reading in love" of the Scriptures and the Christian tradition. Through narrative, drama, allegory, allit-eration, and other literary devices, they contributed to the faith by evoking it in their fellow believers. It was in this particular and lim-ited way that they contributed to the enrichment of the tradition of other churches. It was a "pedagogy" in the sense that "nothing exists except what God causes to be. "There is nothing, therefore, that is hated by God, nor is there anything hated by the Word. Both are one, both are God" (Instructor of Children 1.8.62.3-4). 18 See Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 348-410. 19 Adversus Haereses 5.20.1. 2o Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 1, chap. 3. "Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul" Nicolas de Malebranche A new resident in the yard: pink stars, in clusters, growing in the hollows of the lawn where the old copper beech roots sank. Four-petaled blossoms, a tube, perhaps, slit four ways and splayed to points, each crayoned pale magenta on the vein, centers barely green, white stamens half an eyelash thick, white pollen feet in the air, visible only an inch from the eye. The buds are tight pink dots, slightly gray, sand-grain small. Alone they'd be invisible. They grow in clusters, three or four rising frrom a claw of six petals, green and spiked as cosmos seeds, opening like orange slices around the straight, slightly furred stem. Doretta Cornell RDC Review for Religious KATHLEEN MCALPIN Conversion: A Summons from the Word of God All conversion happens through a summons from the Word of God. There is an intensity about the word summons ("called with authority or urgency"l) that heightens it beyond a simple call. It poises us to respond. In this instance the summons calls us to a journey of conversion. God's Word comes to us in special moments and in ordinary and unlikely places. The word of God comes in Scripture. It summons us as a personal and communal call to encounter the Mystery of God. The gospel readings abound in calls to deeper faith and more confident hope and to ever effective love of God, neighbor, and all creation. The word of God is God's self-communication, God's love.2 The ultimate word of God's self-communication is the paschal mystery--the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ--a mystery that remains in God's ongoing self-communication. The Letter to the Romans assures us that God's love is poured forth in our hearts (Rm 5:5). We know this mystery as grace, a pers6nal encounter with God. Grace is the word of God, the self-gift of God, telling us of a God with us and3'br us.3 Kathleen McAlpin RSlVl works with theological students at Regis College in its integration-for-ministry and spiritual-direction programs: Regis College; 15 St. Mary Street; Toronto, Ontario; M4Y 2R5 Canada. January-February 2002 conversion process . 40 McAlpin ¯ Conversion The Word of God in Ordinary Places How does the word of God have its origin in natural events and forces? The movie Chocolat offers a good example of how conversion comes in ordinary and unlikely places. For the inhabitants of a storybook town in France, conversion comes in the form of the stranger who opens a chocolate shop. This myth is set in a sleepy but rigidly conservative village in southern France in 1959. Vianne, a young woman of multiethnic background (Latin American and French) arrives in town, her young daughter in tow, hoping to establish a chocolate shop using some secret Mayan chocolate recipes with strange mystical properties, recipes handed down to her by her mother. Vianne has a great compassion for people and a capacity to listen to them. She becomes a catalyst for change. For some in the village, she becomes a healing presence. In others' eyes, however, because she does not share in the Jansenistic spirituality of the Catholic community, she appears scandalous and represents temptation. The word of God has summoned Vi~nne to conversion--in her relationships with the townspeople, through her involvement in the joys and sorrows of the lives about her, and through love. For Vianne also finds love and support in Roux, yet another stranger, whose arrival in town is a further catalyst for conversion not only for Vianne but also for the townspeople. The word of God comes from love. It calls people to love. The word of God came to me in a similar way. At a liturgy at Romero House, a center for refugees in Toronto, I met a refugee couple from Uzbekistan, a country of the former Soviet Union, near Afghanistan. They left because of the extreme religious and political persecution they suffered. Circumstances forced them to leave their two teenage daughters behind. They hoped to bring them to North America soon after their own arrival, but were unaware of all the protocols involved. They now realize they may have to wait for more than a year--if the plan works at all. The deep empathy I felt was a call to be in prayerful solidarity and close community with this couple as they wait in their political dark night. As we prayed at Mass, their presence, their story, haunted me. I united with them as whispers of translation occurred between them during the liturgy. The word of God comes to us in the everyday world of our relationships, in society, and in the mystery called church. The Review for Religious summons to conversion comes in the word of God: from a friend asking for prayers during struggles, in the news of family grief, in the snow falling on cedars, in the call to be patient with an irritating person, in delight at the sun breaking through darkness, in the efforts of racial reconciliation, in the call to reuse and recycle, inthe faith exerted in a trial of doubt, in the hopeful efforts of a community trying to respond to the reign of God. The summons is God's self-communication that reveals what we love. The summons to conversion is a call to find God in all things, and to fall forever in love. "Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.''4 In finding God, in falling in love, our lives hope to be changed in a permanent way. In times of doubt and anxiety, we may have many questions about the darkness or seeming nothingness of the world, and the powerlessness of our lives. In times of hope and joy, we often find it simple to seek and to know the living God and discern our response to God with full hearts. In other words, "what you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evening, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything." s What or whom do we love? What seizes our imagination as women and men, as religious, in the church, in the world? What gives us hope in our relationships and in our decisions? Falling in love is more about relationships than it is about issues or agendas. We are seekers of God on a mission. Our God is a living, loving God. Our mission is the dream of God, the reign of God. Our very lives reveal what we have found and with whom we have fallen in love. In grace, a living and loving God is present with us when our hearts are encouraged to respond in trusting relationships. God is with us when our hearts are broken over the unending wars and disasters that envelop our world, the universal suffering of women and children, the oppression of the Our mission is the dream of God, the reign of God. January-February 2002 McAlpin ¯ Conversion earth, and the prejudice regarding those who are "other" by race or culture, poverty or status. God is with us and for us as we endure personal grief with our families and friends. Grace abounds in sorrow and in the amazement of love. God embraces us as we embrace others and our own conversion in the unfolding events of our daily life. Conversion in the Experience of Religious Life The history and the wisdom of our Christian tradition have led us to believe that the only reason for religious life is the experience of God. This experience can come through other forms of life, and ~o there is wisdom in being mutually supportive in our search for the living God. We search for this mystery explicitly in relationships with associates and partners in ministry. This can be done only with oil in our lamps. In her recent book Finding the Treasure, Sandra Schneiders reminds us that religious life is about our quest for God. Our life is about the "one thing necessary":6 being in a loving relationship with God, living our sorrows and joys in the embrace symbolized by the religious vows. As I understand it, the early vow formulas of religious were simpler. Women and men dedicated their lives to the love of God and neighbor and professed this love in one vow. For almost a thousand years, the vow for this self-donation-in- love was "ongoing conversion of life." This vow was a deepening of the first call to conversion, baptism. .Religious life has always been influenced by developments in the world community. By the high Middle Ages, the centuries-old practice of special dedication to God as hermits or cenobites was being carefully studied by Scholastic theologians. They focused especially on three principal practices that had long been identified with that special dedication: celibacy or chastity, poverty or unpossessiveness, and obedience or consciously seeking God's will in one's life. Some of this study went into much detail, sometimes enough to distract people from the original intent of their dedication, namely, seeking God exclusively or following Christ closely. Consecrated life itself came to be thought of and ceremonialized as the life of the (three) vows. For almost eight hundred years now, most orders and congregations have expressed their consecration in terms of those vows. In the early history of Review for Religious the Sisters of Mercy, a fourth vow, service, was included--a vow to care for the poor, the sick, and the uneducated. Similar modifications have occurred in other congregations. Over time the idea of the ongoing conversion of life was lost in some communities of religious life. Or was it? Ongoing Conversion Religious life is an ongoing drama of individual and communal experiences of conversion. Most religious have had numerous experiences summoning them to conversion. They have known the limitations and graces of ministry, personal prayer, friendships, deaths in families and communities, political struggles, retreat experiences, natural disasters, personal and community griefs and joys. In communal conversion they have known the power of the whole gracing them with more ene.rgy than any individual could have imagined. They have experienced a call to a deeper awareness of the connection between Christ and the cosmos. They have known chapters calling for renewed faith in the paschal mystery. They have experienced charisma and resistance in this continuing mystery. Each event summons a response to new life. The life, death, and resurrection moments of our lives continue to reveal the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. An early example of my particular experience of this mystery was the use of the word justice in our community. It was quite a political term in the 1960s and early 1970s; born of revolutionary stands, it was quite controversial. At a 1975 prechapter meeting, a vote was taken on the issue. By the grace of God, the acceptance of justice as a topic slipped through by a narrow margin. It was a resurrection moment: the chapter document was ritled "Mercy Looks at Justice." More than twenty-five years later, we gathered to reimagine a new justice structure. It is clear now that justice is not a peripheral issue, but rather the heart of the matter for us. Justice is the very term for the slow, developmental process of conversion in our life of faith. The paschal mystery is interwoven with the conversion of the community. Our current chapter is calling us, as women of the church, to ongoing conversion at the very roots of the spirituality of .~anuary-February 2002 McAlpin ¯ Conversion religious life. We are called to our own conversion as we face the concerns of the earth: multiculturalism, racism, solidarity with the poor. This call comes from no other source but the Source of life, of wisdom, of sophia. Our response connects us with all the religious figures who have gone before us; through them we seek courage and grace. The Spirit of God desires integrity of word and deed even more than we do. We are called and graced--and we are limited by our own weakness--to renew the very structures of our community with the wisdom of justice. Conversion is initiated by God and given as gift. A gift presumes a giver, and for persons of faith the giver is ultimately God. The initiative, the invitation, the summons to conversion is with God. Simply stated, conversion is the movement away from evil and toward good or from one good to a greater good. We trust that through discernment we will learn how to move away from such evils as racism and consumerism and grow in appreciation of all creation and of other cultures, grow in compassionate and just relationships in society and with creation. Three images found in theologies of conversion are helpful when reflecting on a desire for conversion: conversion as God's flooding of hearts through the Holy Spirit, conversion as the awakening of the gifts of the Spirit, and conversion as the loving, compassionate life of Jesus. All three images lead to radical religious conversion of Christian conscience, which ultimately leads us to the loving compassion of the life of Jesus. 44 God Flooding Our Hearts Bernard Lonergan uses the image of God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit given us in Christ (Rm 5:5).7 He considers conversion as the heart of the Christian life. Conversion, through the work of the Spirit, enables persons to make new judgments and decisions and to .move beyond established horizons into new horizons of knowing, valuing, and acting. Conversion transforms and affects all relationships. "It is not merely a change or even a development; rather, it is a radical transformation on which follows, on all levels of living,~ an interlocked series of changes and developments. What hitherto was unnoticed becomes vivid and present. What had been of no concern is a matter of high import. So great a change in one's Review for Religious apprehensions and one's values accompanies no less a change in oneself, in one's relations to other persons, and in one's relations to God." 8 These changes can be dramatic or slow, intimate but never solitary, concrete and communal, dynamic and ongoing.9 This is consistent with our experience as a community of faith and of the reflections of many of the people encountered in ministry. Conversion "can happen to many, and they can form a community to sustain one another in their self-transformation, [to] help one another in working out the implications and in fulfilling the promise of their new life. Finally, what can become communal can become historical. It can pass from gen-eration to generation. It can pass from one cultural milieu to another. It can adapt to changing new situations, survive into a different age, flourish in another period or epoch." 10 This conviction about conversion engenders hope in current experiences of communal conversion--as a community, among our associates, and with our collaborators. We trust that this grace influences all those in relationship with us from one generation to another. Conversion is initiated by God and given as gift. Awakening to God The second image of conversion is the awakening of gifts of the Spirit that challenge relationships to be mutual and courageous. Awakening is the empowerment of the Spirit of Wisdom. Sophia releases the capabilities of giftedness in the individual and in the communal experience of conversion. Elizabeth Johnson places empowerment and relationships central to her understanding of conversion: "A permanent process of both turning away and turning inward--turning away from all that intellectually, morally, and spiritually keeps one mired in abusive relationships characterized by domination, inti~nidation, fear, or dishonesty and turning toward the unlimited grace of God ever calling us to relationships characterized by mutuality, respect, courage, and truthfulness." ~ January-February 2002 McAlpin ¯ Conversion In this image, conversion is empowerment and affirmation of one's strength and responsibility. It is rooted in women's experience of an excess of self-denial in following the call to conversion. Conversion is the movement toward the discovery and appropriation of the potential gifts within an individual, group, or society. As women of the church, we are summoned to discover the gifts necessary to be converted in solidarity with the poor, to value multiculturalism, to eliminate racism, and to act in harmony with all of creation. Our summons is a word of God calling us to appropriate our gifts in the name of Christ for the sake of the reign of God. The Loving, Compassionate Life of Jesus From the conversion experience of Thomas Merton, it is clear that Christian conversion reorients a person's whole life to the truth, value, love, and experience of God as brought to us in Christ. The fruit of conversion in the life of Merton was a transformation of conscience to loving compassion. As Walter Conn says, "the personal measure of Christian living, therefore, is the conscience which has experienced a Christian conversion at once cognitive, affective, moral, and religious. Only a person thus converted is fully and concretely sensitive to the loving life of Jesus. In Merton's life we discovered again the fundamental gospel truth that lies at the heart of Christian tradition: The radical religious conversion of Christian conscience finds its fullest realization in loving compassion--the self-transcending perfection of human empathy and justice. In its total surrender such religious conversion radically relativizes the moral autonomy of Christian conscience." 12 As followers of the gospel, we are summoned to a life of self-transcendence lived in a life of empathy and justice. In the life of Merton, we see that contemplation liberates the conscience for conversibn. Self-transcending love is found to be at the heart of the holistic development of the converted Christian. The fruit of conversion is compassion born of reflection on the life of Jesus. In community we hear of many who are willing to surrender to the needs of the others and thus be a part of the struggle for world freedom. The mystery of Christ is seen through contemplation of suffering and through reflection on the cross Review for Religious and the resurrection of Christ. Though we retain the freedom to refuse God's summons, any movement toward conversion is already the movement of God's grace within us. As I listen to stories in ministry, I frequently hear of how people are changed through events not of their own making, through persons and situations that were beyond their control. Conversion is grace. Conversion as Grace In Sacred Scripture we see grace offered in the prophetic calls to repentance and intimate love. John the Baptist made such calls, and, of course, Jesus did too. In Mark the first words of Jesus are a proclamation of the good news and a call to conversion: "The time is fulfilled and the reign of God has come near. Be converted and believe in the good news" (Mk 1:15). Matthew speaks of "seeking" God, or the reign of God, as the beginning of conversion. Jesus may have sought this experience at his baptism: "Jesus was not renouncing his sinfulness, but was taking his place with all those in. Israel who were saying: 'We are ready, Lord; please make this the moment of your Messianic salvation.'" ,3 In this, Jesus may have been responding to a call to a kind of conversion: "Jesus' experience at his baptism, so far as it can be recovered from the gospel records, seems in many respects akin to the effects of a sudden conversion. There was a sudden and intense personal experience of God. There was a new awareness of personal status with God, a call to a new way of life and acceptance of that call. There was, in fact, a reorientation of his whole personality.''14 Such an experience of God can have a transforming effect on a person's life.'5 While contemplating his baptism, Jesus heard the Spirit of God assuring him, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with whom I am well pleased" (Lk 3:22). Through this prayer, Jesus experienced an unconditional acceptance of God. Grounded in this religious experience, Jesus reorganized his life for the sake of Matthew speaks of "seeking" God, or the reign of God, as the beginning of conversion. January-February 2002 McAlpin ¯ Conversion the .reign of God. He moved from one way of living to another: "He gave up an earlier aiad long-standing way of life as no longer satisfactory, in order to take~ up a new and perilous way of life that now seemed to him imperative.''16 Through the conversion at his baptismal experience, Jesus turned to his mission of public ministry by affirming the reign of God. Elaine Wainwright notes that the reign of God is "the just and righteous purpose of God for all humanity.''~7 She says that after his baptism Jesus continued the mission of announcing this vision of God, which entails hearing, understanding, and doing God's word (Mr 13:23). Jesus enfleshed this vision in his compassionate encounters with those considered least (Mt 25:40).18 Called to a prophetic role, Jesus proclaimed a confidence in God's activity and lived within the reign of God. Jon Sobrino describes his acts and gestures: "His most fundamental gesture is taking sides with human beings in a concrete situation where the existing political religious structure has dehumanized people . Jesus does all he can to concretize and make present real love as the quintessence of the kingdom." 19 The story of the Canaanite woman illustrates a conversion in Jesus' public ministry (Mt 15:21-28). This woman is an ethnic and religious outsider in Israel. She pleads with Jesus for mercy for herself and healing for her daughter. At first Jesus does not respond to her; he understands his mission to be to the Israelites. The disciples, lacking understanding and compassion, want Jesus to get rid of her. Persistent, she continues to appeal to Jesus for help. As he listens to her, he is moved to enter into deeper discussion and uses a familiar parable to oppose her request. He refuses her plea for help with the image of the family's bread not being meant for dogs. Picking up on the image, the woman asks for crumbs from the master's table, thus boldly claiming a share in the reign of God that Jesus proclaims. Jesus is moved by her faith and expands the boundaries of his ministry to include the Gentiles. And so it is that Jesus, through dialogue with an outsider and a woman, sees his God-given mission changed to a greater inclusiveness. This decision of compassionate love comes from a summons through relationship. God is revealed through-others. In relationships we know and experience God. In his relationship with the Canaanite woman, we see Jesus Review for Religious emotionally engaging the spirit of the woman as she challenges his position. He realizes that he has to be responsible to this new interpersonal relationship. His decision is a moral choice within a sociopolitical and religious setting. His discernment is based on a wider understanding of the reign of God. This story gives evidence that even Jesus had a kind of conversion upon receiving a word-of-God summons through someone else's plea for mercy. The Principle of Conversion When we engage in a life of merciful love, when we place ourselves in situations where we work for and develop relationships with others, such relationships begin to include compassion. As this compassion deepens, it leads us to a greater justice. When systems and strategies meet an impasse, we are led into the deeper mystery of Christian love. Conversion to mercy is not primarily about doing specific works. It is an attitude, a horizon of being, or what Jon Sobrino calls a principle. The "principle of mercy is a fundamental attitude at the root of every human interaction," which then "affects all subsequent interactions." The principle of mercy "becomes justice" by engaging all levels of energy: intellectual, religious, scientific, and technological.2° Mercy animates a conversion that leads to changes in relationships, changes in thinking, acting, and believing. Sobrino learned an amazing truth through the martyrdom of his brother Jesuits and the women who worked with them. He now believes that nothing is as "vital in order to live as a human being than to exercise mercy on behalf of cn~cified people, and that nothing is more humanizing than to believe in the God of Jesus.''21 The exercise of mercy becomes a quality of being in all who engage in merciful justice. In discerning mercy as justice, we are summoned to share in the life of the Word of God, to fall in love, and, through ongoing Christian conversion, to live forever. Notes Gage Canadian Dictionary (Toronto: Gage Publishing Co., 1983). Karl Rahner, Foundations, trans. William V. Dych (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), p. 127. January-February 2002 McAl~in ¯ Conversion 3 Karl Rahner, Nature and Grace (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), pp. 24-26. 4 Attributed to Pedro Arrupe, superior general of the Jesuits from 1965-1983. s Attributed to Pedro Arrupe. 6 Sandra M. Schneiders, Finding the Treasure (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000), pp. 37-39. 7 Bernard J.E Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), p. 105. 8 Walter E. Conn, Conversion: Perspectives on Personal and Social Transformation (New York: Alba House, 1978), p. 13. 9 Conn, Conversion, p. 45. 10 Conn, Conversion, p. 45. 11 Elizabeth Johnson, She l.Vho Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1993), p. 64. 12 Walter E. Conn, Christian Conversion: A Developmental Interpretation of Autonomy and Surrender (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), p. 268. 13 Demetrius Dumm, Flowers in the Desert: A Spirituality of the Bible (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), p. 28. ~4 Donald Gray, "Was Jesus a Convert?" Religion in Life 43 (Winter 1974), citing Hugh Montefiore, Awkward Questions on Christian Love (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964), p. 449. ,s Conn, Conversion, p. 215. 16 Gray, "Was Jesus a Convert?". p. 449. ,7 Elaine Wainwright, "The Gospel of Matthew," in Elizabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, ed., Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary (New York: Crossroad, 1994), p. 636. ~8 Ibid, p. 637. 19jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads (New York: Orbis Books, 1978), p. 92. 20 Donald L. Gelpi SJ, The Turn to Experience in Contentporary Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), p. 134. 21 Jon Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross (New York: Orbis Books, 1994), p. 10. Review for Religious STEVE WLUSEK Seminary Formation and Lonergan's Conversion Theory i~arpe~P diem! Seize the day! Make your lives something ~ remarkable!" With these words Robin Williams's char-acter in the movie Dead Poets' Society begins to inspire his students not to just go through the paces of the educational system, but to make something of their time in school and of their very lives. He evokes their conversion from apathetic docil-ity to active participation in their own education. At turning points such as this, people begin to discover their own identity and mission. Bernard Lonergan's theory of conversions can illu-minate such personal development, anyone's, but here my focus is on seminary formation. Lonergan identifies four main conversions in life: moral, affec-five, critical moral, and religious.1 Each of these conversions opens people to a deeper awareness of their true self and brings about greater self-transcendence, allowing true relationships to develop with other people and especially with God. Lonergan bases his theory of conversions on the concept that everyone is self-cen-tered to some degree and that everyone's growth must begin from that point.2 From my perspective of ministering to many people in both parish and seminary, I have seen a number of degrees of self-centeredness. Steve Wlusek, a diocesan priest, is a faculty member of his diocese's St. Peter's Seminary; 1040 Waterloo Street; London, Ontario; N6A 3Y1 Canada. January-February 2002 Wlusek ¯ Seminary Formation A brief description of these conversions of Lonergan's will, I think, elucidate the validity of his theory for the ministry of seminary formation. Lonergan defines conversion as a fateful call to a dreaded holiness, an about-face by which we move into a radically new horizon, a personal entrance of God into our life and history, a communication of God to us.3 A person's con-version does not just happen; rather, it is a fundamental choice: "Conversion is a change of direction and, indeed, a change for the better. One frees oneself from the unauthentic. Harmful, dangerous, misleading satisfactions are dropped. Values are apprehended where before they were overlooked. Scales of pref-erence shift."4 Moral conversion is "choosing value as the criterion of one's life.''s In undergoing this form of conversion, one realizes that there is more than oneself that needs to be protected and respected. One's sensitivity is changed from wanting one's own life to be fair, to wanting justice for others and realizing that one has an obligation to work toward providing that justice. Moral conversion, therefore, is an impetus to move outside of oneself, which stretches that self to becoming other-conscious. Lonergan likens affective conversion to falling in love. Whereas moral con-version moves a person to be concerned for the well-being of others, affective conversion arouses one to be so moved regard-ing the other's well-being that one's entire orientation shifts to a concern which is expressed in action. Affective conversion involves not only the possibility of committing oneself to a course of active servi~e of another, but also the ability to execute that decision over the long haul.6 Lonergan identifies critical moral conversion as changing one's standard for personal orientation. Those who undergo this conversion come to a healthy sense of the sacred within themselves. They do not need to look somewhere else beyond themselves to discover what is real or valuable; they accept the validity of their own judgment. During the gradual process of their personal development and their prudently increasing autonomy, they reach a crucial point. They discover that their own judging and deciding affect them no less than the objects of their judgments and decisions. They realize that they are respon-sible for what they make of themselves, and that their choices are crucial in the process of becoming authentic persons.7 Review for Religious Through religious conversion, one falls in love with God and surrenders oneself completely to God. This conversion moves one to live with this attitude: "Whatever you want for me, God, I want it too." Lonergan portrays the one who has been trans-formed through this religious conversion as being "a subject in love, a subject held, grasped, possessed, owned through a total and so an other-worldly love.''8 Religious conversion creates a basic consciousness that enables one to appreciate all as gift from God. This consciousness impacts how one views oneself, one's situation, and one's role in the human condition.9 In mov-ing out of oneself to embrace God in religious conversion, then, one also lovingly em-braces other people, sensing their Beloved dwelling therein. Lonergan's theory of con-versions can have constantly renewed application, for the Christian life is one of ongoing conversion, with people's lives seldom following his theory once and for all, neatly, step-by-step. Ongoing conversions, relevant as they are for people in general, are relevant also for seminar-ians and those who assist in their discernments on their path toward the priesthood. Using composite portraits of three sem-inarians, I hope to show how Lonergan's theory may be of help. The first of these three, John, had a sense of conversion at around the age of twelve. He had for several years been a server at parish Masses and had a deep admiration for his parish priest. John saw in him a man of Eindness and deep faith and love for God. As John served at the altar with this priest, and watched him minister, he came to a growing awareness that he wanted to be a priest just like his pastor, dedicating his life to serving God. His parents were eager about the prospect of their son becom-ing a priest. John entered the minor seminary at age thirteen. John has completed his college studies and is now studying the-ology in the major seminary. Although John is ardent in his prayer and during liturgies, he seems deficient in some of his relationships. He comes late for class and other formation group Lonergan identifies critical moral conversion as changing one's standard for personal orientation. January-February 2002 Wlusek ¯ Seminary Formation events, and he shows little respect for his peers. He and a friend from his hometown talk exclusively to each other at meals, ignoring the other seminarians nearby. Lonergan's theory reveals that John may have experienced a moral conversion, which set him on the path to serving God as a priest, but he still seems to need an affective conversion so as to have much more respect and compassion for others. Peter, another seminarian, was very much involved in his parish before entering the seminary. He experienced conver-sion through youth retreat weekends, which seemed to change his life. Since these weekends, he has served in many ways through his parish youth ministry: visiting nursing homes, vol-unteering at a soup kitchen, and packing boxes in his local food bank. In his seminary activities he does tremendous service at his field-education placement. His supervisor reports that he is looked up to by everyone at the center and that the physically challenged people he works with look forward to his visits with them. Although all of this is true and highly commendable, Peter's behavior in the seminary community is less than could be desired. He forgets his duties to read or serve at Eucharist, he gives people who disagree with him the silent treatment, and he snubs those who are not in his select group of friends. Peter seems to have undergone moral and affective conversions: he has been moved to work for the care of others and for justice towards them. Peter, however, has compartmentalized this awareness; it pertains only to those outside his immediate com-munity. He is eager to go out of the building to do outreach, yet he fails to recognize opportunities for outreach right in the hall-way where he lives. The third seminarian, Mark, entered the seminary after graduating from university and working in a respected career for several years. While engaged in this career, which involved help-ing others, he came to a realization that what he was doing was not enough. Even though he was helping pgople, he felt he could help them only materially. He came to understand deeply that God was calling him to use his intelligence and ability to help people not only materially but spiritually. Currently, in the seminary, Mark quietly serves others and looks after the needs of sick seminarians and those overly stressed by their studies. He does so in a quiet manner, seeking no recognition or praise. He Review for Religious goes to his parish field-education placement eagerly, seeing an opportunity for the kind of service to which he feels God is calling him. While others complain around the meal table about the food or about the workload they are under, never is "heard a discouraging word" from Mark. He has lived on his own and has done plenty of work in his former career. In the chapel he is often found in prayer or reading books from the spiritual masters. Mark is a man of self-assuredness, maturity, and desire for God. He seems to have undergone moral, affective, and crit-ical- moral conversions. I believe that Mark and the other semi-narians mentioned have experienced different degrees of religious conversion as well. All of them, however, still need further growth toward a complete yes to God (as we all do). Understanding the level to which seminarians have under-gone these conversions is crucial in the role of seminary for-mation. Part of the role of seminary formators is to discern, with other faculty members, candidates' readiness to progress further in the formation program. Lonergan's theory of con-versions can help tremendously in this work. Awareness is the first step towards action. By being more aware of the levels of seminarians' conversion, we will be able to identify areas in which we can help them grow. The saying that "faith is caught and not taught" is good to remember when reflecting on our seminarians' conversions. It is not simply the teaching of the-ology that will evoke a personal about-face. We need to foster various circumstances wherein conversion may be experienced: in supportive and nurturing encounters of spiritual direction, in open and mutually respectful formation-group dialogues, in teaching filled with dynamism and conviction, in field education and theological reflection which help students reflect on the needs of people in their community, in experiences of working with the poor, and in celebrations of liturgies that are inspiring and affectively moving. The teacher in Dead Poets' Society took seriously his respon-sibility to motivate his students to make their lives remarkable. Through the insight gained from Bernard Lonergan's theory of conversions, we can appre.ciate in a new way our role in priestly formation to discern the status of candidates' conversion life and to present them with opportunities for deeper conver-sion, so they can make of their lives what they were made for. January-February 2002 Wlusek ¯ Seminary Formation Through these experiences of faith, nurture, and co~nmunity, seminarians will be able not only to come to deeper conver-sion, but to embrace more fully their true identities in union with God. Notes 1 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), p. 238. 2 Walter E. Conn, The Desiring Self(New York: Paulist Press, 1998), p. 67. 3 Lonergan, p. 113. 4 Lonergan, p. 52. s Conn, p. 118. 6 Conn, p. 121. 7 Mary Kay Kinberger MSC, Lonergan on Conversion: Applications for Religious Formation (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), p. 38. 8 Lonergan, p. 240. 9 Kinberger, p. 46. January January blizzards on the heels of Christmas. Winter grips the snow-encrusted land with the iron determination Grandma whipped egg whites into stiff miniature Alpine peaks. The time of rushing has passed. No birds sing joyously. Nor do dogs bark with gusto. Last year's wild roses have long gone into seed. It is a season for me to listen: maybe to a heartbeat, an old man fingering his worn beads. Or, in my moments of stillness, hear the whisper of the Epiphany Child inviting me go out into the cold and visit those who are old, grieving, sick, and forgotten. Richard Heatley Review for Religious PATRICIA ANN LAMOUREUX AND PAUL ZILONKA The Workers in the Vineyard: Insights for the Moral Life Bracelets with the letters WWJD are popular these days. They are meant to remind the wearer and others to keep asking What Would Jesus Do? This practice assumes that we can fairly quickly see or reason to what Jesus would do in response to the moral dilemmas of life in 2 lst-century America. It ought not surprise us that these bracelets are promoted more by evangelical groups than by those who take more seriously the challenge of modern biblical exegesis and hermeneutics. In light of the Second Vatican Council's call to develop moral theology in accordance with the biblical vision, Catholic moral theologians have given the relationship of Scripture and ethics increased scholarly attention.1 Increased knowledge, however, has led to greater appreciation for the complexity of the task. Although constructive proposals for relating Scripture and ethics are still only being tested, many people nowadays are better prepared to avoid facile answers and improve inadequate ones. In this essay we try to discern ethical implications of the parable about the workers in the vineyard (Mt moral insight Patricia Ann Lamoureux teaches moral theology and Paul Zilonka CP teaches Scripture at St. Mary's Seminary and University; 5400 Roland Avenue; Baltimore, Maryland 21210. ~tanuary-February 2002 Lamoureux and Zilonka ¯ The Workers in the Vineyard In Galilee at that time, there were three types of relationship pertaining to work: patronage, exploitation, or cooperation. 20:1-16). The story disconcerts many people's sense of jusfce. We undertake this task with recognition of the danger of selecting one text from "a rich symphony of literary forms . . composed of a chorus of voices speaking out of a variety of historical and cultural contexts and a number of theological perspectives and addressing a broad spectrum of moral questions.''2 While focusing on the vineyard parable, we are not attempting to reduce this "rich orchestration" to a "simple melody line.''3 Nor are we suggesting that this story somehow contains all that Scripture has to say about morality in general or justice in particular. We approach the parable in three steps: (1) investigating the original set-ting and meaning of the parable (the exegetical task); (2) assessing how to appropriately employ this parable within the various levels of moral reflection (the methodological task); (3) interpreting the meaning of the parable for our contemporary situation (hermeneutical task).4 Let us begin with the parable: For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, "You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is just." So they went off. When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same. And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, "Why are you standing here idle all day?" They said to him, "Because no one has hired us." He said to them, "You also go into my vineyard." When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, "Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first." When those hired about five o'clock Review for Religious came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat." But he replied to one of them, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last." (Mt 20:1-16) Exegetical Task In this section we explore what the parable meant to the people who first heard or read it. It is possible and even likely that Jesus' original audience, and Matthew's community too, included people of the social class of the vineyard .owner (landholders, merchants, entrepreneurs) as well as employed and unemployed workers. In lst-century Galilee, harvest time in a vineyard was fraught with tension. When the crop was ready, there could be no delay. All hands were needed to bring in the fruit at the peak of maturity. Also, the condition of day labor in the Hellenistic-Roman world was dreadful. The employer of the ancient world was master of his money; he could do with it as he chose. Commonly, employers looked in the marketplace of the city for unemployed men hoping to be hired. The agreement with those called at dawn was for "the usual daily wage" in that agrarian context. These men worked for whatever the employer was willing to pay, usually subsistence wages at the lowest level for a day's work. As the day went on, more laborers were needed. Thus we can understand the repeated excursions of the owner of the vineyard back to the town square seeking extra workers, even as the day waned. These others were promised what was "just," but the amount remained unspecified.5 In Galilee at that time, there were three types of relationship pertaining to work: patronage, exploitation, or cooperation. The January-February 2002 Lamoureux and Zilonka ¯ The Workers in the Vineyard latter would seem to explain the parable in regard to the workers of the first hour and those of the subsequent hours too. They agree to cooperate in doing the work for a stipulated amount, "the daily wage" for the first group and "what is just" for the latter groups. They are day workers rather than those enjoying the pati'onage relationship, which has a more permanent quality. Nor are they being exploited as slaves.6 Yet they grumble when workers hired at the 'end of the day receive the full daily wage. Over the years many people have been upset by the logic of the landowner, startled by what seems to be his "unbusinesslike" behavior. Those hired in the last moments of the workday could hardly have hoped for more than a small fraction of what the first would receive. After all, they had worked so little. The vineyard owner's payments take

Issue 50.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1991. ; Review for Religious Volume 50 Number 2 March/April 1991 Beyond the Liberal Model Exiting from Religious Life Thoughts about Science and Prayer The Death of Dearly Loved~Friends 50/~INIVERSARY VOLUME REVIEW FOR RELIGIOIJS (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus; Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428: St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to REVIEW I:Oa REI.IGIOUS; |~.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Subscription rates: Single copy $3.50 plus mailing costs. One-year subscription $15.00 plus mailing costs: two-year subscription $28.00 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for subscription informa-tion and mailing costs. © 1991 REVIEW FOR REt,mloUS. David L. Fleming, S.J. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Michael G. Harter, S.J. Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Edito'rs Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors David J. Hassel, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Wendy Wright, Ph.D. Advisory Board Mary Margaret Johanning, S.S.N.D. Sean Sammon, F.M.S. Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. March/Api'il 1991 Volume 50 Number 2 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor should be sent to RF:\'mw FOR RF:LtGtOt~S; 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" shnuld be addressed Io Elizabeth McDonough, O.P.; 5001 Eastern Avenue; P.O. Box 29260; Washington, D.C. 20017. Back issues should be ordered from REVtEW ~'o~ REt.mto~Js; 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of Print" issues are available from University Microfilms International: 300 N. Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to: Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS. When we Christians refer to the centrality of the paschal mystery, we mean that Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection somehow remain the necessary pattern for our human living in relation to God. In the gospels, Jesus often uses nature images or parables of human activity to point us towards the pattern of his dying and rising--a pat-tern in which we all who are his followers profess to share. Today it seems that we easily turn to the seed dying to bring forth life or to the metamorphosis of caterpillar to butterfly to gain insight into our way of human growth or maturity. Yet we find it hard to go from the dark beauty of nature imagery to the stark reality of Christ on a cross. So, too, the contemporary patterns of various psychological growth models can be-come so enlightening for our understanding of human development that they seem to transfix our gaze. We may stop short of viewing our mod-els through the stronger lens of a Christian optic. We should not be ungrateful that we can make use today of helpful imagery from nature and models from psychology in order that we may better understand and respond to a particularly confusing time in our world and in our Church, in religious life and in priesthood, in the fam-ily and in the parish. But the pattern of Christ--with his presence en-abling us to enter once again into his paschal mystery--remains central to our Christian focus on life issues. Rather than being confronted with a transition darkness relieved only by images and metaphors, we as Chris-tians believe that we are always being summoned into the mystery of God's transforming action breaking into the vagaries of our natural and human worlds. We struggle neither as victims nor as "Rambo" fight-ers. Instead, we are invited once again to ally ourselves with the Lord in bringing about God's reign more fully into our own lives and into the world we affect. Because our God is a God always actively working with our created world, we live and pray and work in a loving relationship with God--always developing and being purified, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad. The elements of passion, death, and resurrection are touched upon in various ways by various articles in this issue. Our first article, "A Personal Memoir: The Arrupe Years," by Roland Faley, T.O.R., is a unique tribute to the former Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe, who died on February 5, 1991. Arrupe provided leadership and gave hope to 161 162 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 many religious congregations through much of the paschal-mystery times for religious life following upon Vatican II; he himself suffered his own paschal mystery through a debilitating stroke in 1981, then through the difficult time when a papal delegate was imposed upon the Jesuits, and finally through his lingering half-life over.the past seven years since his resignation as general. In the darkness of religious-life renewal, an image of reweaving has captured the imagination of many. From her perspective of working with many religious groups in renewal efforts, Elizabeth McDonough, O.P., in "Beyond the Liberal Model: Quo Vadis?" assesses some of the strands of reweaving efforts and makes her own effort to suggest ways towards deeper faith realities that remain unrealized at present. Grappling with the reality of the paschal mystery in the hard deci-sions about existence facing some religious congregations is the subject of the article by.Marie Beha, O.S.C. Eileen O'Hea, C.S.J., considers the dying process of the individual who considers leaving a religious com-munity and the needed response of the community. Renee Yann, R.S.M., reflects on the power of community in the special moment of the death of dearly loved friends. Three articles on pray,.: may shed some light as we move through some dark passages in our ever developing love-life with God. Benedict Auer, O.S.B., expands the Benedictine lectio approach with some in-sights into the use of videos. Edgar Bourque, A.A., inculturates an Augustinian way of praying into our American context. Some refresh-ing ways of understanding prayer are presented through the medium of science by Dennis Sardella. Helpful and comprehensive describe the treatment of vocation min-istry by Jeanne Schweickert, S.S.S.F., in her "Co-creators of History: United States Vocation Ministry." The same words apply equally well to the article by Kenneth Davis, O.F.M.Conv., "U.S. Hispanic Catho-lics: Trends and Recent Works." May the Lenten and Easter season~ guide us all further into the pas-chal mystery which focuses our life with the Lord. David L. Fleming, S.J. A Personal Memoir: The Arrupe Years Roland J. Faley, T.O.R. Father Roland J. Faley lived in Rome as vicar general of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis, i 971 - 1977, and superior general 1977- i 983. In December 1990 he completed his term as executive director of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM). His mailing address is St. Thomas More Friary; 650 Jackson St., N.E.; Washington, D.C. 20017. The time was the early seventies. Rome was still caught up in a spirit of postconciliar excitement. Pope Paul VI's inherent caution in the face of the untried was tempered by an unfettered spirit in the air which wanted to let things happen. The present writer was returning to Rome after an absence of more than a decade, having been elected to the general gov-ernment of his Franciscan Order. I had been a student in Rome at the time of John XXIII's election. Those had been heady days of great prom-ise, at that time more a hope than anything else. It was only after the council, years later, that the real struggle of aggiornamento could be felt. Pedro Arrupe was the general of the Jesuits. Vibrant and spirited are adjectives that hardly do him justice. He was also president of the Un-ion of Superiors General (USG), the organization made up of the heads of men's religious institutes in the Church: It was a job for which Ar-rupe was ideally suited although one always wondered how he found the time. It was often said that the first time he was elected to the office by his peers, it was because he was general of the Jesuits. His subsequent reelections (and there were at least four) were because he was Pedro Ar-rupe. The story says a great deal about the man, quite apart from his of-fice. It was not long after I became active in the USG that Arrupe asked me to serve on the Justice and Peace Commission and later named me 163 164 / Review for Religious, March-April 1990 to be the press officer for the Union. It was in the latter capacity espe-cially that I came to know Arrupe the man. The Justice Agenda Arrupe steered the Society of Jesus through a very difficult period in its history. The thirty-first and thirty-second general congregations had set the concerns of the world's neediest at the center of the Society's mis-sion. A strong emphasis on social justice permeates the documents of these general congregations. The passage from documents to im-plementation was marked by an inevitable reaction, not all of it positive, within the Society itself. Arrupe was undaunted. The new direction reso-nated with his whole life as a missionary. The evil of the arms race was eminently clear to one who had survived the first use of the atomic bomb in Japan, 1945. For Arrupe this postconciliar direction of his institute was not a ques-tion of personal choice. It had been mandated by the Society's highest authority, a general congregation; for the general of the institute, im-plementation was simply not an option. In that spirit of obedience, he charted a new course which made strong demands on the whole Society of Jesus. On the level of general government alone it required personnel and resources not easily commandeered. He never wavered in the pur-suit of a course that for him bore the faces of countless deprived and suf-fering people. In responding to any issue, Arrupe's enthusiasm was infectious. He was the idea man, the animator, willing to leave details and implemen-tation to others. At times he seemed unrealistic, but he never left one un-inspired. The great picture was always there. An unforgettable moment occurred during the refugee crisis of the late seventies. The movement of peoples was felt in many parts of the world, with Rome affected by a large influx of people from Ethiopia. A visit to Arrupe from Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank, proved to be a real catalyst in moving the refugee project forward. An urgent response was called for by the sheer volume of people arriv-ing in Rome after the revolution in Ethiopia. The greatest need was for housing and food. The Jesuits opened their own refugee office to address the problem internationally and in Rome. At the same time Arrupe gal-vanized the forces of men and women general superiors. Through the built-in network of the two Unions of Superiors General, housing was found for the Ethiopians throughout the city, especially in the genera-lates themselves. A hot meal was served each evening to hundreds of per-sons in the basement of the GesO, the main Jesuit church in the heart The Arrupe Years of the city. It was always interesting to meet religious leaders of interna-tional congregations ladling soup or serving pasta at the refugee center. Arrupe took an active interest in the work of the USG's Justice and Peace Commission. He urged its members to respond to known viola-tions of human rights anywhere on the world scene, to become involved in the Year of the Woman (1976), and to sensitize members of religious institutes on the role of justice in religious life, especially in the wake of the 1971 Synod of Bishops. His leadership in social justice was firm and steady, but never abrasive or confrontational. He had, for example, an unusual sensitivity for diplomatic concerns and was a strong believer in the power of persuasion. But his commitment to the thesis of justice as a constitutive element of the Gospel message was total. This was jus-tice in the service of faith, an idea integral to Arrupe's thinking. There was no divorcing faith and justice; it was, moreover, a justice rooted in love. For Arrupe, it was unthinkable to speak of a struggle for justice apart from a belief in that justice for all people willed by God himself. Christian Unity Ecumenism was still a fledgling enterprise on the Roman scene when Arrupe moved the USG toward a better understanding of men and women religious of the other churches. In the early seventies, Michael Fisher, provincial of the Anglican Franciscans from England, and Ar-rupe decided to initiate a permanent consultation on religio,us life among religious of the Catholic, Reformed, and Anglican communions. The con-sultation continues to meet on a biannual, basis and is now in its second decade of life. During those Roman years it became common to have non- Catholic religious present for the assemblies of the USG; on many lev-els, the participation was reciprocal. This was a new venture, largely un-tested, the success of which was by no means guaranteed. To a great ex-tent it was Arrupe's breadth of vision and the warmth of his personality that carried the day. There was an immediacy and directness about him that broke down resistance. In the ecumenical field, he was willing to leave the doctrinal differences to others; it was the faith that was shared which excited him. In the area of religious life, the understanding of the vows, community, and prayer differed little from one denomination to the other. I remember vividly the bonding that quickly developed among the participants of those early years. When discussion centered on the nu-merical difference in the size of the communities, it was often very amus-ing. It was fascinating to see Arrupe, whose religious institute numbered close to 35,000, engaged in intense conversation with an Anglican su- 166 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 perior of some forty religious. Numbers mattered little; it was the mean-ing of the life that counted. Conversation with the World Vatican II's Church in the Modern World fit perfectly with Arrupe's sense of church. While not unmindful of the dangers present in the meet-ing between faith and culture, he remained a strong proponent of incul-turation. A spirit of withdrawal or disengagement from the world, or even worse, a siege mentality, was alien to Arrupe. Nowhere was this more evident than in his dealing with the media. It was during these same Roman years that Donald Campion, S.J., had been named the Jesuit gen-eralate's chief communications officer. Arrupe had long been keenly aware of the necessity for a high-level spokesman and worked to make it possible. Campion was privy to discussion and decision-making at all levels and, therefore, in the best position to deal effectively with the me-dia. Such openness was a quantum leap forward from the spirit of reti-cence, even fear, which was so much a part of religious officialdom. The latter was a spirit well symbolized by the small sliding window at the por-ter's office of the Jesuit generalate and countless other Roman headquar-ters. It was a far cry from an "open door" policy. As press officer for the USG, I enjoyed the same latitude. I was en-couraged to be present for all meetings, even when the most sensitive issues were being discussed. I was free to share the views and activities of the Union with both the secular and religious press. If discretion was called for, I was expected to exercise it, but the prevailing climate was one-of as much openness as possible. This was Arrupe's style, and it proved right more often than not. By the same token, he expected a sense of responsibility from a well-informed media. He was both angered and offended by unfounded specu-lation or an inordinate interest in the sensational or controversial. This was very evident at the time of the 32nd General Congregation, at which he presided. What seemed like a concerted effort to magnify conflicts between the Jesuits and the Vatican caused him no small measure of pain. And yet it never soured him or changed his basically positive out-look. For him the best way to deal with such a situation was through con-tinued efforts at supplying accurate and intelligible information. It was a Church in progress, moving through history, aided and abet-ted by the world around it, that fashioned Arrupe's thinking. If the mes-sage of the Church were to be heard, it would only be through outreach and dialogue. In the important position which he held, he lent the full weight of his office to obtain that goal. The Arrupe Years / 167 The Man of God It is hard to speak of a person's spirituality. In its intensely personal character it remains ultimately untouchable. And yet it becomes trans-parent in a person's life. In having a certain closeness to Arrupe and lis-tening to the views of others who were his peers, I noted certain quali-ties that mirrored a remarkable spirituality. He comes to mind im-mediately as a man of hope and faith-filled action. It is small wonder that he had such close personal ties with Cardinal Edward Pironio, the Argentinian head of the Vatican Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes. There were any number of reasons why relations between the Jesuits and the Vatican department responsible for religious life might well have been strained at that time. But Pironio's sense of hope and his very open and warm personality matched Arrupe's. They became close personal friends. Hindsight has led many people to comment favorably on Rome in the seventies. Religious life was being fashioned by an interesting trio. There were the challenges to religious given by Paul VI, coupled with the positive leadership bf Pironio and Arrupe. It was an exciting decade; for some of us, unforgettable. Arrupe's spirituality was marked by a deep sense of history and tra-dition. He was part of a Church and a religious institute whose patrimony truly humbled him. The picture of Arrupe as a man wed only to the pre-sent and largely indifferent to the values of the past is caricature at best. He knew that new wine required new skins and articulated that vision well. But he linked that vision with a real sense of the importance of con-tinuity. Some examples come quickly to mind. He had a profound es-teem for the insights of his institute's founder, St. Ignatius Loyola. While some argued that many of those insights were time-bound and no longer valid, Arrupe would be the last to be convinced. He said repeatedly that the longer he lived the more he appreciated the spiritual genius of his foun-der. In those years there was considerable discussion about the need for greater democracy in religious life. The question of the appropriateness of electing superiors, rather than appointing them as was the custom in many religious congregations, was very much to the fore. Arrupe re-mained throughout a strong proponent of the appointment method, fixed so strongly in Jesuit tradition. He was never persuaded that democracy produces the best leadership, and many of those who belonged to orders or congregations of a more democratic bent could recognize a certain va-lidity in his position. 161~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 His understanding of the vow of obedience was not rigidly tradi-tional; his thinking had been enhanced by contemporary theological in-sight into the Gospel sense of the vow. And yet he was deeply imbued with appreciation for the ascetical value inherent in accepting the deci-sions of those placed in authority. A case in point. When Arrupe com-municated to Robert Drinan, S.J., the decision that the latter would have to relinquish his seatin the U.S. House of Representatives, it was a very difficult moment in the life of both men. But it made a lasting impres-sion on Arrupe. The priority that Drinan gave to his Jesuit calling in ac-cepting that decision was, in Arrupe's mind, as important for the Soci-ety and the Church as anything Drinan might have otherwise accom-plished. It was an example to which he would repeatedly return. In retrospect, however, one would have to say that it was the man's openness that remains so vivid to the present day. He was never threat-ened by new ideas, even if he found them ultimately unacceptable. He could see the value in some elements of a Marxist social analysis, even though he was against its use. He could espouse~the Jesuits' new social ministries and still be a strong believer in the traditional ministry of edu-cation. He was a champion of legitimate pluralism, almost by instinct. While mindful of the importance of magisterial teaching, he wanted theo-logians to have as much freedom as possible in the pursuit of their task. It was his deep-rooted faith that lent him serenity in facing [he contem-porary scene. Not intimidated by the risk of possible failure, he realized that all was ultimately in God's hands. And then there were the trials, known best by those who worked with him closely. A number of those he shared with me. In his later years, the media was asking hard questions. Was Arrupe going to resign? Was he under pressure from the Vatican to do so? Was a dissatisfied segment of the Jesuits pressing for his resignation? Was his relationship with Paul VI as strained as rumored? Were there conflicts with John Paul II? Arrupe was always candid. He respected the media and realized that there was much to be gained through cooperation. But he was disturbed by attempts to exacerbate situations and exaggerate differences. There were certainly very difficult issues which he faced in the latter years of his term of office. He was fully aware that there was a conservative seg-ment of the Society which opposed him. In addition, during the thirty-second General Congregation, his was the task of interpreting the mind of that worldwide assembly to the pope, and vice versa. It was a sensi-tive and often painful task. That he did it so well is a tribute to his con-ciliatory gifts. But he was beset by rumors, which, like a room full of The Arrupe Years / 169 gnats, gave him no peace. That there were differences between the gen-eral congregation and the pope in certain areas, he never denied. Yet his personal relationship with Paul VI was never the question. He was sym-pathetic to the concerns of the pope and realized the weight of his cross. Moreover, he hailed the pope's social teaching as a landmark in the Church's life. But the perception of a wall of conflict between the "black" and "white" pope persisted, even though it was inaccurate. Arrupe was the first to admit that the sentiment among the Jesuits for the direction .taken after the thirty-second Congregation was not unani-mous. He was acutely aware of a vocal conservative opposition. But he saw the implementation of the general congregation's decisions as an obe-dience and there was no turning back. He always stressed the strong sup-port that came from so many quarters, the enthusiasm which the con-gregation's decisions had generated, especially among the young, and the fact that the Holy See had given its approval. But the fact is that the positive is just not that newsworthy, and so he would be inevitably ques-tioned about the "dark side" of any given situation. This always caused a certain measure of dismay, but it was followed by a remarkable resil-ience. In the wake of any setback, there was always his eventual phone call with a new idea or project. Early in the summer of 1981, Arrupe, his trusted vicar and confi-dant Vincent O'Keefe, and I talked at length about a possible article on the burning question of Arrupe's resignation. There was extensive specu-lation in the press, and we were discussing the best way to deal with it. However, it was more than a public question; it was a matter internal to the Jesuits at a time in which any public communication would have been inappropriate. Arrupe looked upon his eventual resignation in a very posi-tive light, as setting an important precedent for the future of the Soci-ety. His thinking was centered on the good of the religious institute to which his own interests were completely subservient. We decided to do nothing at that time. But that evening he assured me that once he was no longer in office and had the freedom to speak more openly, he would do an extensive interview with me and answer the questions that I felt should be addressed. That proved to be our last conversation. Upon his return from a trip to the Philippines some weeks later, he suffered the stroke from which he never recovered. The rest is history. I subsequently left Rome upon completion of my term of office. My occasional return visits were always marked by a brief visit with the man who had affected my life so deeply. Few words were exchanged. It was 170 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 usually a prayer and a blessing; he would then kiss my hand before I left. His sufferings proved to be one of the most powerful messages of his life. As one of his confreres put it: "He led us in life and has offered himself for us in death." His immolation was total. It has been an un-usual life. To have been touched by it is a rare gift. Father Pedro Arrupe was superior general of the Jesuits, 1965-198J~. He died on Tuesday, February 5, 1991, in Rome. Beyond the Liberal Model: Quo Vadis? Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. Sister Elizabeth McDonough, O.P., J.C.D,, Canonical Counsel Editor of REVIEW FOR RELIGtOUS and author of Religious in the 1983 Code, writes and consults extensively about consecrated life. She is a canonical consultant and tribunal judge for the Arch-diocese of Washington, where she may be contacted at P.O. Box 29260; Washing-ton, D.C. 20017. For background information on this article, see endnote i. ]t is no secret that active religious life for women in America has experi-enced progressive decline in the quarter century since Vatican II. Evi-dence of the decline is clear and overwhelming, and its effects are felt and observed in the entire Church. When one looks for causes, one real-izes that distinguishing them from the effects is both complicated and deli-cate. Nevertheless, from my experience as a woman religious during the last quarter century and as a canonical consultant for numerous women's communities over the last decade, I have come to the conclusion that many religious have not recognized or have not acknowledged some clear causes and effects of the current decline for what they really are. Effects of progressive decline are there to be seen in the current po-larization within and among women's communities along conservative and liberal ideological lines. The decline is also evident in most com-munities in their relative inability to attract or to keep vocations, as well as in their related inability to maintain significant institutional commit-ments. It is manifest in the near invisibility of women religious in con-temporary apostolic works, as well as in the frequent reluctance of clergy and laity alike to work with women religious in various apostolates. Pro-gressive decline is experienced by religious themselves as the uninten-tionally created and uncomfortably experienced loss of identity follow- 171 Review for Religious, March-April 1991 ing early and rapid postconciliar abandonment of traditional symbols and services, customs and norms. And, to those who are not religious, its ef-fects are all-too-obvious in the polarized, apparently directionless, plu-ralistic potpourri of ministries and attire, lifestyles and mindsets among women religious today. The progressive decline stems in part from the pervasive sociology of liberal individualism in America and in part from the cultural preva-lence of a psychology of selfism. But causes of the decline are also evi-dent in the predominantly social-justice agenda that has been adopted by most women's institutes, as well as in the revisionist versions of vowed life and in the generally antiauthority and often feminist stances currently espoused by not a few active women religious. Again, a major cause of decline can be traced to the reality that, in seeking their roots after the council, many women's institutes dating their foundations to frontier America discovered--but probably did not admit--that they actually had no genuine, unique charism to renew and adapt. The decline can also be traced to the systematic and progressive de-construction or deliberate abandonment of fundamental juridic structures and roles during the postconciliar constitutional revision processes. In most women's institutes, general chapters have now abandoned legisla-tion in favor of direction-setting, with their goals programmed by pre-chapter steering committees and subsequently adopted through member-ship participation in consensus formation that is shaped by outside facil-itators. In most women's institutes, lower-level superiors are now either nonexistent or nonfunctional, while major superiors have abandoned gov-ernment in favor of business management and have surrounded them-selves with middle-level, appointed, administrative personnel whose num-bers have steadily increased over the years in bureaucratic disproportion to the continuing decrease in membership. Functionally, the net effect of juridic deconstruction has been the crea-tion of business-management-style bureaucracies which filter informa-tion upward and decisions downward, from and to members of women's institutes, primarily by means of bulletins, newsletters, special-interest mailings, and occasional phone calls or visits. As a result individual re-ligious deal almost exclusively with middle-level personnel over a long period of time and even in personal and sensitive matters. Many would prefer to describe this reality quite differently by saying that communi-cation (not mere information) is facilitated inward and outward (not up and down) between the empowered membership and the visionary lead-ership in the concentric circles of participative government that have re- Beyond the Liberal Model / 173 placed the hierarchic pyramid of authority. Whatever the terminology, the following experiences are common: (1) Individual members or groups of members can seldom effect change in policies and agendas that are programmed and prepackaged at upper (or inner) levels of the struc-ture; (2) religious are both structurally and functionally more removed from their elected, responsible superiors than previously; and (3) the right of individual religious to personal privacy is, at times, not ade-quately protected. Most women religious would admit that, in the quarter century since Vatican II, the rather short-lived euphoria of the "nun in the world" has been replaced by a long-suffering, quiet frustration at the lurking possi-bility of permanent extinction. While increased relevancy and effective-ness were focal points for altering lifestyles and practices during renewal, many wonder now if women religious in America have ever been more irrelevant and less effective. To be frank, most clergy and laity and male religious have been thinking for quite some time that religious life for women in America is "going nowhere fast," even if few have verbal-ized this publicly. More recently, at least some--if not many--women religious have cautiously begun to acknowledge the same apparent real-ity to themselves and others. A haunting, unresolved question about the entire experience of re-newal is: How did all this ever happen to us? In seeking answers, con-servatives seem tempted to respond: "Surely an enemy has done it!" In kind, liberals seem inclined to say: "I am making all things new!" From the perspective of experience, my response to the question looks to what might be a deeper problem, namely: "All this did not just happen, We did it to ourselves." Indeed, I would suggest that, on the part of women religious, major factors contributing to the current decline have been a certain lack of knowledge of both theology and history, as well as a cer-tain lack of maturity in responding to newly discovered postconciliar re-alities. And, from current experience, I would suggest that an apparent lack of humility in admitting previous mistakes and an apparent lack of honesty regarding present reality or future prospects are probably has-tening the permanent demise of many active institutes of women reli-gious in this country. Lack of Vocations An obvious sign of the progressive decline of women's institutes is the staggering decrease in their membership since Vatican II. In 1965 there were slightly more than 180,000 members in active communities in America, but by 1990 that number had fallen to slightly more than 174 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 100,000-~a decrease of nearly 45%. Simultaneously, since few women have entered while many have been departing at a slow but steady pace, the median age in women's institutes has risen rapidly and is now com-monly sixty-five or higher. Marie Augusta Neal, in her recent book From Nuns to Sisters, sug-gests that the "radical risks" involved in the Church's new mission to the poor may be the prime factor limiting the response of women to a call to religious life. She thus inadvertently trivializes that call--which, on practical and theoretical as well as human and theological levels, has its appeal within risk or without any particular concern about risk. Neal does not seem to recognize that there is---~r ought to be--a substantive difference between a vocation and a career. And, if experience tells us anything in the matter, it tells us that--with rare exception--the single, most compelling human reason why anyone responds positively to a re-ligious vocation is her (or his) direct, personal awareness of religious who are happy together doing something that they perceive as worth-while and who are clearly motivated by and committed to the love of Je-sus Christ. Currently, many not-yet-retired women religious have become increas-ingly absent or invisible in apostolic activities of the local Church. In other words, for the most part they simply are no longer seen. Moreover, many no longer live in community, even when they live in geographic proximity, sometimes even when they exercise the same ministry or work in the same place. In other words, they are no longer seen together except possibly at work. Again, perhaps too few women religious are to-day perceived as being genuinely happy, and perhaps even fewer as be-ing happy together. Further, the current wide diversification of minis-tries seems sometimes to have led to trivial apostolates ~hile simultane-ously rendering institutional apostolic, witness unsustainable. And, though many may reject the suggestion, perhaps love of Jesus Christ is simply not perceived as the underlying or determining factor in the life of many women religious in America. In short, perhaps because the posi-tive image that women religious tend to have of themselves bears little resemblance to the not-so-positive image that others have of them, it may be unrealistic--if not grandiose--to expect vocations to increase in the near or distant future. Pluralism and Polarization An initial cause and increasing consequence of decline in religious life for women is the currently a~knowledged division into conservative and liberal categories both within and among most congregations. Beyond the Liberal Model / 175 In general, conservative-model institutes tend to favor external authorities, institutional endeavors, traditional theologies, and hierarchi-cal structures; liberal-model institutes generally favor inner freedom, in-dividual endeavors, postconciliar theologies, and collaborative struc-tures. Liberal institutes are inclined to accuse conservative ones of at-tracting emotionally immature candidates, while conservative institutes are inclined to accuse liberals of having nothing that attracts. Conservative religious are often summarily categorized as oppressed, unrenewed, and psychologically dependent; liberal religious are just as often summarily categorized as progressive, feminist, and pseudosophis-ticated. Conservatives seem to read history and Scripture in so selective and so polemical a fashion as to render them an inadequate basis for or-dinary discourse. Conversely, liberals seem to read history and Scripture in so simplistic and so revisionist a fashion as to render them insignifi-cant. From my experience, liberals and conservatives alike seem to have worked very diligently at destroying whatever common symbols they had, so that now they possess no common language for constructive com-munication. Each side seems to have been mutually successful in trans-forming both the concept of God and the experience of worship into sources of division. And neither side seems able to lay untainted claim to any "moral high ground," any bridgehead that addresses the ever wid-ening chasm between them. Currently the majority of women's institutes in America express or espouse a liberal model of religious life. However, it is becoming more and more evident that many religious themselves do not ascribe to the tenets or direction of that model, while many religious also have at least some (and sometimes serious) concerns about its functioning and future. As conservatives attempt to build a future by returning to the past and liberals attempt to build a future by rejecting the past, the categories are becoming increasingly distant and distinct. Most religious realize that any previous potential "middle ground" is fast disappearing, thus leav-ing little hope for future cooperation or reconciliation in or among insti-tutes. Mary Jo Leddy in her recent book, Reweaving Religious Life, ac-knowledges that the current liberal model of religious life is not adequate for facilitating and sustaining genuine adaptation and renewal, even though she has previously been both a proponent and facilitator of that model. Leddy suggests that the liberal model of religious life has become "unraveled" and that it should be replaced by a choice for "creative 176 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 disintegration" in favor of even more radical pluralism. She suggests, further, that liberal-model institutes might take as an example of her "reweaving" thesis Teresa of Avila's reform of Carmelite monastic life in the sixteenth century. But Leddy seems not to recognize that her sug-gestion for the future is humanly problematic and that her analogy from the past is historically inaccurate. As regards "creative disintegration" for a more radical pluralism, the current experience of most American women religious is that the de-gree of pluralism already present in their institutes is straining the limits of not just the weave but also the inner fiber of religious life itself, indi-vidually and collectively. In short, Leddy seems unaware that going be-yond present degrees of pluralism in ministries and lifestyles will most likely be more destructive than creative, both in the beginning and in the end. Regarding Teresian reform of Carmelite life, I.eddy does not recog-nize that Teresa's version of "reweaving" was actually a return to ba-sic structures and religious observance from an "unraveling" that oc-curred precisely because fundamental elements of the original charism had been abandoned or abused. In short, she seems oblivious to this his-torical fact: that Teresa accomplished the genuine renewal of Carmelite religious life not through programmed disintegration but rather through a concerted effort by all to embrace its fundamental structures and heri-tage in order to live them and preserve them in a pristine manner. Deconstruction of Structures and Elimination of Distinctions The current deconstructed functioning of general chapters as parti-cipative consensus-formation assemblies in most women's institutes has engendered both a feeling of members' being "empowered" for gov-ernance and a strong sense of "ownership" of chapter decisions. On the other hand, the new style of general chapters also tends to lessen critical assessment of options and to avoid substantive decisions that distinguish delegates from participants. Simultaneously, such chapters commonly en-act global, carefully crafted, blandly diluted statements whose content can hardly be opposed in theory and can scarcely be assessed in implemen-tation. Currently some women's institutes have so little sense of their own identity and of the role of chapters that they involve nonmembers extensively in chapter proceedings, and some have even suggested that nonmembers may be elected to governance roles. The distinction between major superiors and councils, as well as dif-ferentiation of their roles, has also undergone postconciliar deconstruc-tion. With the advent of collaborative decision-making, major superiors Beyond the Liberal Model / 177 and councils are commonly referred to as leadership teams: their mem-bers share equally the governance/management of the religious institute and are functionally distinguished, if at all, only at the infrequent mo-ments of final decision.,required by law. In relation to actual decision-making, in most institutes there has been a concomitant radical limita-tion or complete elimination of instances in which a supreme moderator or major superior can act without the consent of the council. Most of these alterations seem related to questioning the possession of personal authority by superiors, combined with an all too real (and often all too painful) remembrance of abuse of authority by superiors in the past. The deconstruction of juridic structures and the blurring of gov-ernmental functions apparently meet a need to limit the authority of su-periors through "leadership" language and apparently also reinforce the new participative consensus-niodel chapters in a stance of visibly and ver-bally rejecting whatever has been perceived as hierarchic or patriarchal. Overall, however, the new bureaucratic, business-management model of governance operated by middle-level appointees and committees seems to have produced no overwhelmingly positive verifiable results other than the fact that many members feel very good about it. In other words, it does appear that most people like the feeling of having a part in run-ning the business even if business is not getting any better. Obedience and Mission Closely related to juridic deconstruction and elimination of distinc-tions are postconciliar views espousing dialogical obedience and justice-oriented missions. The seed for a dialogical understanding of obedience was firmly planted by the affirmations of Perfectae Caritatis 14 that superiors should foster an active and responsible obedience in addition to listen-ing to and promoting cooperation among the members of the institute. But after twenty-five years that seed has produced, in many religious in-stitutes of women, a strong undergrowth of resistance to any exercise of personal authority by any superiors. As a result, some prevalent revision-ist versions of vowed obedience consider it to be so personal and dialo-gical that it apparently can never involve a decision made by someone else which must be obeyed. In this framework, attributing final decision-making power to a superior is simply rejected as representing an archaic, unjust sacralization of hierarchic notions about authority, commitment, and obligations, all of which are now considered as negotiable. Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world were affirmed by the 1971 Synod of Bishops as "constitutive 171~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 dimension[s] of preaching the Gospel" and "of the Church's mission for redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppres-sive situation." And these affirmations quickly became a mandate for religious to work with new or renewed vigor in justice-and-peace endeav-ors throughout the world. However, many religious who recognize action on behalf of justice as a constitutive element of the Gospel appear to have fallen into the er-ror of thinking that action on behalf of justice is also exhaustive of it. There is ample indication that some religious erroneously assess the Church's mission as only or primarily one of unbridled activity in the marketplaces of contemporary society. They frequently quote as a source the document Religious and Human Promotion, but one seldom hears any mention of the document on The Contemplative Dimension of Re-ligious Life. In addition, a selective reading of conciliar texts and post-conciliar documents seems to have created for some religious an urgent mandate for political action and systemic change to the exclusion or ne-glect of any other manner of transforming the world or of preaching the Gospel. In connection with contemporary views of authority and obedi-ence, the mandate for systemic change of oppressive structures seems to be directed increasingly to the internal structures of the Church and of one's own religious institute rather than to the wider world. The social-justice orientation in the revised constitutions of most in-stitutes is primarily the result of an ongoing series of sociological sur-veys initiated in 1965 by the Leadership Conference of Women Relig-ious to provide an information base for resources on renewal. The sur-veys were formulated, distributed, interpreted, and implemented by Marie Augusta Neal, who has written numerous articles and books in the last two decades in order to explain, expound, expand, and defend her work. In her writings Neal admits that the entire purpose of the research surveys had a social-justice orientation. She also acknowledges that con-troversy over the surveys contributed directly to splintering of the (then) Conference of Major Superiors of Women in the early 1970s. And she herself states that the pre- and post-Vatic~in II belief scale contained in the "Sisters' Survey" involving 139,000 women religious in the mid- 1960s "became the most controversial and most discriminating variable, which accounted for the pace and direction of changes in structures of the religious congregations involved in the study."2 Yet Neal has con-sistently defended the soundness of her survey instrument as well as the accuracy of her interpretations, and has increasingly extended her find- Beyond the Liberal Model / 17'9 ings beyond the realm of sociology. Critics of Neal's work point to survey questions formulated in quali-tative language, to information reported in questionable categories, and to Neal's apparently subjective interpretations expressed in her follow-up. memos as being especially problematic. The surveys engendered even more controversy as findings originally proposed as an information base on resources for renewal began to function instead as LCWR's single, central source for pursuing social-justice agendas, for questioning eccle-siastical authority, and for picking up the the pace of renewal. Indeed, the quarter-century survey project that coincided with the postconciliar constitutional revision in women's institutes may arguably be the single most significant factor that can account for the systematic and progres-sive deconstruction evident among so many institutes of women religious today. Abandonment of Common Symbols and Practices Regardless of whether one recognizes or acknowledges an underly-ing internal juridic deconstruction in religious institutes of women, the visible, gradual, and progressive alteration of attire for women religious since Vatican II cannot be denied. The transition in habits has been a pain-ful and emotionally charged issue and is a prime example of the whole-sale abandonment of symbols and symbol systems by women religious since the council. No one is at liberty to argue about whether or not the external identity symbol of the habit has been fundamentally abandoned by numerous women religious, and most agree that whatever has hap-pened is irreversible. Moreover, the "habit issue" represents a nexus of sociological, psychological, behavioral, historical, and theological fac-tors that relate directly to the progressive decline of religious life in Amer-ica. Transformation in the attire of women religious from outdated and unhealthy medieval costumes, to makeshift modified habits, to bought and borrowed secular clothes, to contemporary business suits with com-munity logos, to the stylish garb of modern professionals is reflected in and among women's institutes today. The visible choice of attire, though not completely indicative ofa conservative or liberal model as such, is a somewhat reliable sign of the institute's (and person's) location and di-rection on the spectrum of post-Vatican II transition. The attire worn by the major superior and council of an institute tends to indicate both whether attire choices are possible within the institute and what the most progressive of possible choices might be. These indications, along with when the attire choices became operative, rather accurately reflect 1~10 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 whether the institute operates primarily from a liberal or conservative model (or somewhere in between) and tend to show a transition towards the liberal model. Be that as it may, my reason for discussing the choice of attire is that it is never the only issue being addressed. The attire issue also places in sharp relief a functional distinction between institutes of men and of women. That is, for members of nonmonastic institutes of men, the habit--if they had one--was traditionally a significant form of clothing occasionally donned for community and liturgical exercises or for pro-fessional and pastoral services. In .contrast, for all institutes of women-- with rare exception--the habit was traditionally their primary identifi-cation symbol and was also often the only clothes they had to wear. Ad-ditionally, the habit issue highlights a significant difference in response to legal norms on the part of men and of women, namely: The 1917 code required that habits be worn by all members of all institutes at all times, both inside and outside the religious house; women consistently did what the law said, while men rather consistently did not. Thus, ~the almost vis-ceral reaction (of some) to the matter of the habit should not be surpris-ing. More fundamentally, however, numerous other unifying and mean-ingful symbols and practices disappeared along with the habit in religious institutes of women after Vatican II. Common meals and lodging, com-mon prayers and songs, common recreation and study, as well as com-mon moments of joy and suffering, were generally minimized, mildly disdained, or summarily abandoned in a veritable onslaught of Ameri-can, postconciliar, egalitarian, pluralistic individualism and activism. Some would suggest that in this process women religious have become less oppressed, more mature and free for service. Many others would sug-gest, in contrast, that the primary result of abandoning symbol systems and common practices has been a pervasive and overwhelming experi-ence of inner emptiness and outer loneliness made more acute by recog-nition that there simply is no longer any "common glue" to hold insti-tutes of women religious together at simple, fundamental, indispensable levels of human relationship. Transformations in Community Life and Ministry Additional consequences Of postconciliar deconstruction in women's institutes concern: (1) how members live together and relate to one an-other, or--in other words--the change in what was formerly referred to as common life or community; and (2) how members happen to arrive in a particular place doing a particular job, or--in other words--the Beyond the Liberal Model / 1~11 change in what was formerly referred to as receiving an assignment or being missioned. Without detailing here the canonical requirements for common life and its broad and strict interpretation, it was obviously common prac-tice in.the past for religious to live with other members of their commu-nity in the same residence with at least relatively equal access to food, clothing, shelter, and furnishings. Exceptions to common life were al-ways possible and sometimes actual but generally remained just that: ex-ceptions. Since the council, however, more religious now live "outside a house" of the institute for extended periods of time and for a variety of reasons, including apostolate, health, and study. Moreover, it is cur-rently common for a woman religious to live outside a house of her in-stitute either (1) because she cannot find a house in which she is collec-tively "accepted" by sisters already in the house according to their es-tablished expectations of community, or (2) because the sister herself can-not find a house in which she feels she can live comfortably and con-structively according to her already established expectations. Since Vatican II, members of religious institutes have been forced to deal regularly with high degrees of constant uncertainty, and simulta-neously they have had great demands for intense interpersonal relating placed on them. Religious institutes and individual women religious have devoted varying amounts of time, energy, and resources to bemoaning or extolling postconciliar relational developments and demands. And at present many institutes and their members are so caught up in personal relational issues and self-help programs as to convey the impression that, if only every sister would study her Myers-Briggs profile and identify the consequences of her Enneagram number and join the appropriate recov-ery or codependency program, then community life would irreversibly begin to get out of the present morass of personal malaise and interper-sonal dysfunctionality. Meanwhile, however, most members of liberal-model institutes no longer live in community, but merely relate to it functionally. It is usu-ally easier for major superiors to allow members to live outside a house of the institute than to deal constructively with problems in houses of the institute. Those members who continue to live in community seem, in most institutes, to have circumstantially or preferentially sorted them-selves into relatively permanent subgroups by age differentiation or work relations or ideological orientations or dyad/triad dependencies. And quite a few women religious depend regularly--and sometimes exten-sively--- on professional colleagues or family members for ongoing per- 1~12 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 sonal support and meaningful human interaction rather than on their re-ligious community. Related to changes in community living is the alteration since Vati-can II of how most women religious arrive in a particular place doing a particular job. A process of "open placement" now predominates, which usually means that the religious works with the institute's person-nel director or board in following previously established community cri-teria for seeking apostolic involvement or other gainful employment. Fre-quently in this system contracts are negotiated between the sister and the employer and are then submitted to the personnel director or board for review and informal approval. Eventually, finalized arrangements are rati-fied by the competent major superior, and the sister is missioned or as-signed to her new apostolate or job with, if possible, some form of rit-ual solemnization of the process. Some provision for housing is neces-sarily connected to the missioning, but living in community is not usu-ally a priority among the criteria for seeking employment, and so excep-tions to common life proliferate. The Sociology of Liberal Individualism Recently Robert Bellah and several other sociologists published a re-vealing analysis of the phenomenon and failure of liberal individualism in America, entitled Habits of the Heart. Among other things, this analy-sis suggests that American culture reflects a radically liberal society of psychologically sophisticated but morally impoverished individuals who demonstrate a "narcissism of similarity" by associating in "lifestyle enclaves." These enclaves are composed of the like-minded who share comparable desires for leisure, recreation, and consumer goods and who, by their self-chosen values, have been freed from traditional ethnic and religious boundaries while simultaneously justifying their own prefer-ences. Further, Bellah and his colleagues suggest that, in American so-ciety, people's felt need for personal fulfillment---ever elusive--has re-sulted in their substituting short-term "therapeutic relationships" be-tween "self-actualized" individuals for the genuine, creative relation-ship of love. This, in turn, has resulted in replacing obligation and com-mitment with a new "virtue": open and honest communication in which everything at all times is considered negotiable except the individual's self-chosen objectified values. The study suggests, further, that American society lacks the identity which should have or could have emerged from the ordered freedom of practical rituals and moral structures which it has abandoned. Moreover, it seems unable to return to the "constitutive narrative" of its tradition, Beyond the Liberal Model because that would be perceived as opting for once-jettisoned oppressive structures. Consequently, the lonely, self-actualized, rugged individuals of the late, great American Empire--still not comprehending what it is that might assuage their longings--have taken collective refuge in a cor-porate bureaucracy of professional managers, therapists, and other ex-perts whose task it is to foster administrative centralization, to facilitate reciprocal tolerance, and to "empower" all citizens for institutional par-ticipation and creative innovation. The problem is, however, according to Bellah and his colleagues: It simply has not worked, and the seriously ill "social ecology" of American culture is very much in danger of per-manent demise. There are striking similarities between this sociological analysis of American culture and the current liberal model of active religious life for women. Tradition has been abandoned, and the past is perceived as op-pressive. Institutes have become business corporations, and governance has become collaborative administration. Structures have become parti-cipative, and superiors are now primarily managers. Formation person-nel and spiritual directors now function primarily as therapists. Facilita-tors are experts for achieving consensus formation, as well as catalysts for creative innovation. All members are becoming empowered for de-cision- making, although not many members claim responsibility for any particular decision. Obedience is increasingly negotiable, and personal fulfillment dominates most choices. Communities have become lifestyle enclaves composed of occasionally present, like-minded individuals. Eve-ryone is now somehow accountable, but few (if any) religious are called to accountability by anyone for anything. Communication is the cardi-nal virtue, and everyone is progressing towards greater self-actualization. The problem is, of course: It all simply does not work. American women religious today still seem not to have discovered what it is that might as-suage their longings, and the seriously ill social ecology of their lives is very much in danger of p~rmanent demise. The Psychology of Selfism Directly related to the sociological phenomena that seem to parallel the deconstruction of religious life is the psychological phenomenon that contemporary American culture, according to Bellah, is basically impov-erished by an insatiable preoccupation with self. In most cultures reli-gion is considered a primary source for character formation and for the development of social mores. However, in the psychology of selfism which seems to permeate American culture, the primary reality is the self that one's own unique choices have created. The isolated, self-created 1 ~14 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 individual then commits himself or herself to self-defined and self-defining decisions. In this ambiance, personality development and be-havior modification replace the character formation and the social mo-res that are ordinarily provided by traditional religion, because preex-isting principles for character or mores are perceived as either non-existent or unimportant. For selfism in America, the psychological myth of the intrinsically good Utopian self parallels and supports the social and political myths of the intrinsically perfect Utopian state, while the psychological ten-dency to self-indulgence both rationalizes and celebrates the consumer society. When the interior fiber for duty, patience, suffering, and self-sacrifice is absent or wanting in the individual, the psychology of selfism conveniently shifts a locus of responsibility for the vacuum or the defi-ciency to the failures and foibles of parents, siblings, associates, and cir-cumstances. Selfism also legitimizes and perpetuates the late-adolescent attitudes of routine rebellion, rejection of authority, and preoccupation with sex. In short, it appears to be a ready-made, perfect internal sup-port for the sociology of American liberal individualism. Obviously, in relation to religious life, the once-hidden issues of psy-chological development and emotional maturity have been a rather pub-lic part of the transition in institutes of women (and of men) since Vati-can II. It may be that women religious really were not emotionally well-prepared for so many drastic, rapid-fire changes in their lives and, fur-ther, that they have not handled them all that well in the long run. To be sure, the recent deluge of books, articles, programs, and apparent pana-ceas produced by religious and for religious on topics of maturity related to religious is overwhelming. Patently, the popularity of this genre among women religious is not indicative of merely occasional light read-ing for the already self-actualized and emotionally mature. Thus, it seems reasonable to suggest that American women religious might be suf-fering not only from the effects of American liberal individualism but also from some lack of maturity as a consequence of its underlying psy-chology of selfism. Absence of Charism Genuine charisms for consecrated lifeforms are windows on the Gos-pel that provide a vision So clear that founders and foundresses --and then their companions--seem compelled to "do likewise" and follow Jesus. Or, again, charisms might be described as good seeds growing in fertile ground in a particular time and place and having the capacity to Beyond the Liberal Model multiply and bear fruit and also to be transplanted successfully to other ages and other cultures. True charisms of religious life are founded on sound but supple structures, are surrounded by long-standing and forma-tive customs, are nourished by deep-rooted and healthy spirituality, are manifest in valuable and long-term ecclesial service, and are--most es-pecially-~ expressions of a meaningful and compelling way of following Jesus. Charisms are not constituted merely by being a particular-apos-tolic expression of a particular corporal or spiritual work of mercy, how-ever necessary and valuable such endeavors may be; nor can charisms be humanly built by "refounding" or personally manufactured by "reweaving." They are gifts received, embraced, and lived--with re-ceptive and responsive elements indispensable to their basic rea~].ty---or they are not true charisms at all. Unfortunately, when active institutes of women religious went in search of their roots in the mandated renewal subsequent to Vatican II, most were confronted with the absence of a genuine, unique charism. And most women's institutes apparently either could not or would not recognize that absence for what it really meant, namely: They actually had no sound structures, no formative customs, no deep-rooted spiritu-ality, no long-term ecclesial service, no meaningful and compelling way of life they could call their own. In short, they had no genuine spiritual patrimony or religious heritage to which they could return and from which they could move into the future. The absence of a genuine, unique charism in most women's:institutes explains in part why intercommunity living and common novitiates have been so readily initiated and so successful. One cannot imagine, for ex-ample, Jesuit men and Dominican men opting for total intercommunity living situations and sharing totally common novitiates as if there were no deep and visible, distinctly different elements in their charisms. Yet many women religious whose institutes claim unique charisms share com-munity living and novitiates on a regular basis and consider it a wonder-ful sign of progress in collaboration. Lack of charism in many :women's institutes also explains in part why they have been so readily eclectic in the process of spiritual renewal and why most supposedly pristine house-of- prayer movements have been so short-lived and superficial .3 Further, lack of charism explains in part why it has been so difficult for these in-stitutes to adapt and renew successfully in the postconciliar era. Indeed, the provinces of some men's institutes are actually more distinct in ex-pressions of their charism than are many independent institutes of women who attempted after the council to rewrite constitutions and fashion mis- 116 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 sion statements unique to them on the basis of their supposedly unique charisms. Though the fault for lack of charism was not theirs, the consequences for these institutes have been nearly fatal. Most--but not all--active in-stitutes of women religious founded in, or transferred to, this country in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were either New World adapta-tions of ancient and medieval monastic communities, such as the Bene-dictines and the Dominicans, or groups of dedicated pioneer women re-sponding generously to the practical needs of an immigrant Church in frontier America. Some, such as the Ursulines and the Daughters of Char-ity, had never been allowed to embrace or live the authentic, original ex-pression of their charism, which is now recognized as the forerunner to the consecrated lifeform of secular institutes. All active women's insti-tutes in frontier America were forced by circumstance or mandate to adopt a semimonastic, conventual style of religious life whether or not this was appropriate to their current function or past experience. Struc-tures, as well as theology and spirituality and apostolate and customs, are integral to the authentic expression of a genuine, unique charism. Thus it is not surprising that progressive deconstruction in women's in-stitutes has been so rapid and so complete for those institutes which, when seeking their roots, found only a monastic heritage adapted to the structures of conventual religious life or found no heritage that ever re-ally fit into the structures of conventual religious life in the first place. Possibilities for the Future Suggestions have been made that, in order to survive, women reli-gious should respond more fully to the risks of opting for the poor, or expand their pluralistic polarization even further, or revitalize for the sake of mission, or manage systemic change more constructively, or com-bine judiciously with other institutes of similar heritage. But no degree of social-justice activity, no amount of pluralism, no programmed revitalization, no constructively managed change, and no combined mem-bership will supply for the absence of a charism, which simply cannot be summarily manufactured and without which no institute has any fu-ture. It is possible, however, that active institutes of women religious in America can consciously decide about their future in honest relationship to their past. Some may feel they have actually been successfully grafted into an ancient or medieval charism expressed in conventual form and may wish to continue that expression of religious life. Some may find Beyond the Liberal Model it more realistic to return to what was originally intended by the founder/ foundress even if that choice would place them today in a different ju-ridic category of consecrated lifeform, such as secular institutes. Others may find it more realistic for members to form totally different commu-nities in accord with the prevalent spectrum of conservative and tradi-tional ideologies among their membership. Still others may decide quite honestly that their time of existence and service in and through the Church is actually past and that their greatest present witness might be to go out of existence with dignity and grace. From my experience, those in positions of authority in many women's institutes either do not recognize or simply will not admit the above possibilities, just as they either do not recognize or will not admit that the present course of supposed renewal is toward eventual demise. And, from my experience, the members of most women's institutes either are unaware of what is actually happening or, being aware, sim-ply wish to stay the course because it appears or feels advantageous to them at the moment. In either case, the result is that members tend to choose for leadership only those persons who will perpetuate the status quo, which in turn continues the present direction of programmed decon-struction. Unfortunately, most women's institutes seem deaf to suggestions that current, supposedly great refounding trends are futile, not only because they are based primarily on product-oriented business-management mod-els, but also because there is--in most cases--actually nothing to re-found. Though most seem enthralled by distant visions of supposedly "new forms" of religious life, they seem not to see before their eyes the current practical drift of religious life in America to the practices and lifestyle of the already well-established category of secular institutes. Io fact, opting for secular-institute status might be a more honest way for some institutes to become what they were originally and are meant to be than is their present path of deconstruction under the ~uise of creating "new forms" of religious life. Finally, many women's institutes seem heartened by prospects of increased membership through mergers and un-ions as a recipe for survival. Although combining institutes may be a ju-dicious course of action in view of practical needs, those who look to this for survival should reread carefully the story of Gideon: There is no safety in numbers if you are not doing God's will in God's way; and if you are, numbers really do not matter very much at all. Although, from my experience, most active institutes of women re-ligious in America simply do not have the slightest idea where they are 1111~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 going or why, there are many members of many institutes who do want to go somewhere with meaning. While not wishing to return to the past, they also do not wish to abandon it, and they still hope for a future of renewed religious life somehow rooted in it. Unfortunately, current modes of participative consensus-model governance not only edit out such voices but also make it nearly impossible to know about or be in constructive contact with those who have similar desires. Perhaps, then, some hope for the future also can be found in more grassroots, intra- and inter-congregational communication by those who are both weary and wary of the present programmed deconstruction they experience. All that is really necessary for continuation in the present path of increased po-larization and progressive decline to the point of extinction is that enough women religious continue to say or do nothing about it. NOTES i The substantive content of this article is taken from a book chapter of the same ti-tle and is used with permission of the editors. See lus Sequitur Vitam: To Pier Huiz-ing in Recognition of a Life Dedicated to a Living Law in the Church, edited by James Provost and Knut Wall and scheduled for publicatiofl by Peeters of Leuven i.n February 1991. The book chapter is much longer, has a definitely canonical ori-entation, and contains numerous, lengthy, substantive footnotes. 2 See Marie Augusta Neal, From Nuns to Sisters: An Expanding Vocation (Mystic, Conn.:Twenty-Third'Publications, 1990), for her positions in general and pp. 126- 127, n. 9, for this quotation. More detailed comments on the survey are contained in the book chapter cited above, especially at footnotes 12 and 29-34. 3 See J.M.R. Tillard, "Vingt ans de grace?" in Vie Consacr~e 58 (1986): 323- 340. The S.P.E.A.K. Model: An Approach to Continuing Formation Mary Mortz, D.M.J. Sister Mary Mortz, D.M.J., serves as a provincial councilor for her province of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph. With her degree in rehabilitation and religious stud-ies, she teaches mentally and emotionally disturbed children. Her address is 419 East Lancaster Boulevard; Lancaster, California 93535. Continuing formation means that the work of God has begun, and we con-tinue to cooperate with his work in and through us. Many of our consti-tutions state that each of us as a perpetually professed religious is respon-sible for our own continuing formation, though we are accountable to com-munity leadership. We have workshop opportunities extended to us, but there still seems to be a void in terms of specific steps to take to know that we are really growing as much as the Lord is calling us to grow. Many articles written for us today in religious journals seem to re-flect a growing need for focus in this area of continuing formation. They address issues of the compulsions and codependency in our society and in our religious lives. These issues are influencing us spiritually, emo-tionally, relationally, physically, and in our ministry. Many of these ar-ticles conclude with the suggestion that the reader investigate the 12- step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. The S.P.E.A.K. model begins where these articles conclude, Many religious men and women are finding the 12-step journey to be a power-ful resource. This model comes from reflecting upon the experiences which many have shared with me--priests, religious men and women, and lay persons. It is a summary of what we have found to be helpful for us. It is offered as a resource tool for anyone looking for more spe-cific help in this deepening journey of spirituality and ministry. 189 190 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 Summary of the Model There are three parts which serve as the basis for the S.P.E.A.K. model. First, the 12 steps are used as concrete steps or tools for continu-ing growth. Second, it is holistic. It includes the aspects of our lives as people who are Spiritual, Physical, Emotional, Apostolic, and relational (Koinonia). Third, each person selects a formation companion. The reason for basing the model upon the 12 steps is that they have proved to be very effective for thousands of people as a tool for us to use to evaluate our level of trust in God, to examine our lives, to make changes when we see we need to do so, to maintain an abiding attitude of balance and prayer in our lives and in our ministry and relationships with others. As we look at these 12 steps taken as a group, it is very apparent that we are returning to all that has been best for us in our previous routines of the spiritual life: regular daily examen, confession and extraordinary confession, retreats, daily spiritual reading, prayer, community sharing of our growth with each other, and profound dedication to sharing the Good News with a troubled world. The reason for basing the model upon a holistic view is that it is very easy for us to allow one or two areas of life to receive our attention. The challenge of life is to live in such a wholesomely balanced way that we proclaim Jesus, his Spirit~-and his Father's love by being the wonder-fully created person we are called to be spiritually, physically, emotion-ally, relationally, and in our ministry. The reason for basing the model upon having a formation compan-ion is twofold. It is a privileged thing to have someone who loves us un-. conditionally, even when we let the other person really know us. This frees us to grow even more. Secondly, it helps us to become very, very honest with ourselves and with our God when we agree to share what is happening in our lives at a deep and personal level with at least one other human being. This facilitates an attitude of openness and honesty which is an essential prerequisite of continuing formation. The Twelve Steps It is important to remember that even though one of the areas of the S.P.E.A.K. model is the spiritual, all the areas of our life are permeated by the principles of the spiritual journey. We keep taking these steps over and over in all areas of life, and new insights become revealed to us. Per-haps it is no coincidence that there were 12 tribes, 12 apostles, and now the foundation of 12 steps! Sometimes it is said that a coincidence is a miracle when God chooses to be anonymous. The S.P.E.A.K. Model / "191 Orginally there were six steps as part of a spiritual movement called the Oxford movement, but those using these steps in A.A. realized they needed a little more guidance and expanded them to 12. The basic sense of these 12 steps can be divided into three groups. In steps 1-3 we come to a profound sense of what it means to really trust God. In steps 4-11, we clean our house, and continue to keep it clean. In step 12 we work to practice these principles in all our affairs, all as-pects of our lives. It can be a temptation for us to approach the steps rationally, to ana-lyze why they work. This is not the issue for those using the S.P.E.A.K. model. The issue is to walk these steps personally, humbly with heart, gut, and head. An analogy might be that we can read inspirational arti-cles about exercise and walking until the cows come home, but if we do not put one foot in front of the other and go walking, we cannot go very far or get in very good shape. Step One. We admitted we were powerless over life's conditions, that our lives had become unmanageable. (In the A.A. literature, this step reads, "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable." This is the only step that is changed in the S.P.E.A.K. model.) Even though other steps may seem to be more threatening in the be-ginning, it seems that the hardest step for us to take is step one. This is also the first be-attitude (Beatitude). The journey begins when we can finally be at a point in our lives where we are ready to surrender, to let go, to realize that there is something in our lives over which we have no control. Then we are ready to let God in to take over, to begin again in a new and deeper way this thing called his continuing formation. Our "something," our life condition, may be other people who are in our lives, some part of work, our relationships, our predominant com-pulsions, our health, our behavior, our self-perceptions, our resentments, fears, anxiety, our sin, our habits, our way of being "off the mark." There are many resources available to help us see our personal pow-erlessness. Some of these ways are: meditation using available schools of spirituality, or we might just sit, as in Zen guided ways, or use ap-proaches to centering prayer. We might pursue the insight into our par-ticular compulsions through the study of the Enneagram. We also might just listen to our own lives if we are having pain. Pain is a wonderful catalyst to growth! If we really want to take this step honestly, it is much easier if we share our "muddling through it" with another person. Whatever means Review for Religious, March-April 1991 we use, it is important to know that this S.P.E.A.K. model is not possi-ble until we take step one. Step Two. "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Sanity means wholeness. It means balance. Once we find ourselves in real need of change, our challenge is to allow ourselves to "come to," to wake up as if from the slumber or self-delusion we were in. The only assent required at this step is to believe that we are not the center of our universe, that there is a power greater than ourselves, that we are loved, and that we can become powerfully renewed. Ephesians 4:22-24 is one of many texts which comes to mind at this step. You must give up your old way of life; you must put aside your old self, which gets corrupted by following illusory desires. Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God's way, in the goodness and holiness of truth. Step Three. "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him." This step leads us to accept God's power in our lives. In step two we may want the revolution to happen. We might believe it possible, but it is in step three that we make a specific decision to let go and to let God take over. Revolution means change, and that is what we give consent to in step three without controlling any part of it. When we speak of such trust, we are using our own words, our own sense of who, at this time, God is for me. We make a prayer of this step and share it with another hu-man being. These steps are not done in the dark, but we bring them to the light and speak them to another. Step Four. "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our-selves.". We all have instincts. Most fall into the areas of social instincts, secu-rity instincts, and sexual instincts. Again it seems no coincidence that our vows are in the areas of obedience, poverty, and chastity. In this step, we accept to look at our lives as the beginning of a lifetime prac-tice. We look in a searching way at fears, resentments, harms, and hurts we have done, and which have been done to us. We name the instincts which are threatened, and our responses to them. We come to see our not-so-good patterns, our character defects, and our gifts, our assets as well. We see how we have been growing, and how we have yet to grow. The word, "fearless" is very important~ If we find ourselves resist-ing this inventory, then there is nothing wrong with staying at steps one, The S.P.E.A.K. Model / 193 two, or three. When we have become tired of life's condition, when we can believe that we can change, when we have really taken step three, then step four will follow comfortably without fear. Step Five. "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human be-ing the exact nature of our wrongs." In this step we invite another human being to be with us as we say out loud what we have learned in step four. There are many ways to do this, but as we come to name our patterns, our ways of responding, we gain insights, especially if the other person has taken this step, and truly loves us. To bring awareness before God is one thing, and it is beauti-ful. To bring awareness before God and another human being, to share it, to own it in the light is both beautiful and a blessing. This step helps us to stop isolating, to experience many profound les-sons in humility, to experience a whole new sense of kinship, of one-ness with others and with God. This kinship opens us to a connected-ness with whole new insights into the human condition, our place in the world, and a God consciousness which becomes a personal experience. Step Six. "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. ' ' After the insights are gained in step five, more action is required. We do not only gain insight on this spiritual journey, but we use the in-sights. We made a decision in step three to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him; now in this step we real-ize that we are still very resistant people. We have worked hard to de-velop the defects we have. We wonder, "Who am I if I let go of them?" We even let ourselves chuckle at how we are as self-centered little chil-dren, and pray to get ready to let go of those defects of our character which we have learned about. Sometimes we say, "Of course I want them taken away," and this step is easy, but if that is not our experience at any given time, we accept to admit this is the step we are taking. Step Seven. "Humbly asked him tO remove our shortcomings." When we feel we are in charge, we try to use willpower, or positive imaging instead of taking this step. This step calls for us again to admit our powerlessness, our need for God. It is ego puncturing because we admit we cannot do this of ourselves. As St. Paul says. "I do the things I do not want to do." This step frees us from the trap of pride and fear. Little by little after we take this step, we find ourselves thinking differ-ently, feeling differently, r.esponding differently. People and situations around us change, if we have prayed our own seventh step prayer out loud with another human being. 194 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 Step Eight. "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became will-ing to make amends to them all." In religious life many of us were trained to forgive., forgive. forgive. This is essential; however, the eighth step helps us to focus on the resentments, the fears, the harms, and the hurts of our lives by paying attention to our responses. We can forgive and fester externally or internally for a long, long time! As we shared our fifth step, we became aware of ways in which our responses might have "needed improvement," or perhaps we were out-and- out vindictive. This step is best taken with another person to help us be thorough, to help ourselves not to hide, to isolate, or to be too hard on ourselves. Again, if this becomes fearful, perhaps there is a need to look at how badly we want this growth, the quality of our surrender and trust, and the reality of our seventh step. But we can also remember we are only making a list in this step. Step Nine. "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, ex-cept when to do so would injure them or others." This step is also best discerned with another person, both to keep us honest as well as to help us figure out the best way to go about this ac-tion. Sometimes a person has died. Sometimes the person has moved, or we moved away. A letter might be enough, or we might need to wait to see her or him again. Sometimes it is best to let it go, and our forma-tion companion can help us decide when this is really true. Regardless, the freedom which comes inside us as we become ready to take responsibility for the consequences of our behavior is very exhilarating. Step Ten. "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." In order for the spiritual revolution to continue, we need to remain ready. Step ten is really a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual review of steps two through nine. There are many ways and resources available to us to use in this step. One way is to allow our dreams to happen, to write them down, to "mull over" their meaning with our formation compan-ion. Another is to be faithful to writing in a notebook of some sort a mini-fourth step, a summary of the good and the not-so-good of the day, to share it, then to do steps six through nine with what we learn. The more we do this, the easier and more comfortable it becomes. Step Eleven. "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our con-scious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowl-edge of his will for us and the power to carry that out." The S.P.E.A.K. Model I 195 As we do the preliminary steps and work this step, we find that every-thing else is also "falling into place." We work this step as humble, empty vessels who know our need for God. We accept to be still, to lis-ten, to receive. Just as we could use the many resources available to us in the Church to take step one, we can also draw upon these resources to help us deepen in step eleven. There are three centers out of which we operate--the gut, the head, and the heart. Our predominant sin is located in there somewhere, and so is our growth. Perhaps centering prayer, the prayer of nothingness, is our vehicle. Perhaps more head-centered meditation on Scripture and spiritual teach-ings is our vehicle. Perhaps contemplation of images and affective re-sponse to them serve as our vehicle. Perhaps being with nature, or litur-gical celebrations, or devotions become our vehicles. The important thing is that we be as we are called to be. We have learned in these steps to let go and let God. If we share how we feel with our formation com-panion, this step becomes a profound and nourishing experience. In this step an awakening happens which leads us to hunger after holi-ness (wholeness) in all areas of our life. Our emotions become balanced. Our bodies seek proper rest, work and play rhythms, food and drink. We hunger for a sharing of peace and reconciliation in our relationships and in the world. We find ourselves led deeply to the roots of our religious lives, to a sense of meaning of sacrament and church, of our community's charism, and we become ready to witness this new sense in our relation-ships and in our ministry. Step Twelve. "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these prin-ciples in all our affairs." We have received a free gift. We can work to keep it alive, but if we hold on to it exclusively, it becomes stagnant. That is the nature of the spiritual journey. As a result of these steps, we have known a spiri-tual awakening. We have known love, a God and Gospel consciousness at a personal level. The irony of this love is that we must let it go if we are to hold on to it. Anything we used to hold on to is constantly chal-lenged by the gift of our new God-relationship. We find ourselves driven to live right attitudes--to develop God attitudes, the be-attitudes, to do his Way in all of our life. Select a Formation Companion We have a long-standing precedent for having a spiritual compan- Review for Religious, March-April 1991 ion within the Church as well as within many of the Oriental religions. However, even though we have been encouraged to avail of spiritual direc-tors, many religious have not availed themselves of these opportunities. This was for a variety of reasons. Some wondered what there was to talk about. Some could not find someone who felt qualified. Some used a con-fessor, and kept the focus more sin-and problem-centered. Some used spiritual directors, but restricted the interactions to areas of the spiritual domain. Others have used a spiritual director as a formation companion without naming the person as such. This latter group knows the power and potential for having a formation companion. The qualification for being someone's companion is that we are also working these steps, and sharing honestly of ourselves with someone. No advanced degrees are required because it is humility found in a relationship with God that we seek. The formation companion could be male or female, priest, religious, or lay person. What is important for us is that our companion understand these steps, and be willing to walk with us as we journey them. The criterion we use to ask someone to serve as our formation com-panion is that we feel this person cares for us, has common sense,~,and is also working a "formation program." Our companion calls us to honesty and celebrates growth with us, but this person does not attempt to fill any need other than serving as the formation companion. As we grow, we may find ourselves broadening and using many others to share our journey. We may use physicians, psy-chologists, a spiritual support group, the people with whom we live, other friends, our superiors, our employers, a confessor. The Areas of the S.P.E.A.K. Model Spiritual The steps lead us completely in this area. As we grow in this spiri-tual revolution and in union through steps one through eleven, we de-velop insights that lead us to hunger for balance in the other areas. We find that as we deepen and grow in this area, if there has been careless-ness in the communal expression of our prayer, even this turns around. We soften. We find time where time was not to be found before. We hun-ger to be with each other in our religious expression as well as in the deeper leadings of the area of Koinonia. Physical The body is essential for us if we are to operate as feeling, relating The S.P.E.A.K. Model / 197 human beings. It is a vital source for information about our lives, and a key support for us to function in all areas. Our bodies can be scream-ing warnings to us if we will pay attention. For example, our bodies tell us if we are suppressing feelings or living relationships in ways that are dishonest to ourselves or to others. We can experience gastrointestinal problems, ulcers, high blood pressure, cancer, and back problems. If there is rigidity in the muscles, there is often rigidity in the emotions and spirit. The challenge of this area is to listen to the cues, to work the steps to learn what is happening, and to develop habits which are life-giving, respectful, and nurturing for the body as well as the other areas of our lives. If we listen to the input of others as well as observe our own lives, we may see that we are making body choices which are harmful to the other S.P.E.A.K. areas. For example, we might be choosing the use of substances such as nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, or sugar as substitutes for feeling, or to fill emotional, spiritual, or relational lack. In addition to life choices which affec( our continuing formation, there are those choices for fast food, for beef, for comfort and conven-ience which have implications for the rest of the world's famine and un-dernutrition. Part of the challenge of this area is the aspect of practicing the physi-cal and spiritual discipline of fasting to detoxify and rebalance the body, to reverse even degenerative illness, and to bring ourselves into a deeper harmony with others. Just as we need to keep working these steps in the other areas where physical inertia is seen, we have a cue that an imbalance is happening, and an opportunity to reflect upon the reason for this shutdown. Inertia is life denying. The body requires regular aerobic movement to increase the circulatory flow, the metabolic rate for heart, skeletal and muscular tone, for body conditioning, and to allow for oxygen to get to the brain. Emotional One of the promises of the awakening which we experience in step eleven is a sense that emotional balance and wholeness are happening. Before we experience this balance, however, we would have taken some serious steps to be ready for inner healing. These steps take time, and as we learn more about who we are, we can continue to share this with another, work with it, work these steps and deepen. Perhaps as we did our inventory, we saw patterns of overinflated or underinflated self-esteem, patterns of overe.ngagement in activity or serv-ice, perfectionism, depression, fear, resentments. Perhaps we saw that 198 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 we isolate from others, do not share our feelings. Perhaps we give our love and attention to pets, compare ourselves to others, blame others, feel jealous, judge people's motives, interpret others' motives to others, think rigidly either positively or negatively about others, isolate ourselves from others or hide our feelings or practice. Perhaps we use food or drink, work, sex to hide from feelings. The task of these steps is to bring the darkness to light, that the dark-ness may lose its power over us. In the S.P.E.A.K. model, we practice naming our feelings, reflecting upon what happens to trigger them, look-ing at our instincts which we perceive as being threatened and at our re-sponses to these threats. As we practice this and work steps two through nine, we find ourselves growing much stronger, more serene, more pow-erful, and more humble. Apostolic Today's society, the "world" of St. John's gospel, rewards us if we have power. We are encouraged to become specialists. This applies to the areas of medicine, psychology, sbcial work, education, spiritual direction, and pastoral ministry. It is easy for us to be sensitive to our congregational financial pressures, to time demands, and to be seduced by this world. For those walking the Gospel path, working the 12 steps, the value of our apostolic mission is in living out our spiritual awakening and ex-perience. This is why the spiritual, emotional, and koinonia areas are so important as prerequisites to ministry. Our mission is to be the charism of our congregations in deep solidarity with the anguish which is under-neath all the glitter of power and success. If we are not yet comfortable with our own anguish, and with sharing it with others, we cannot con-vey this experience to others. As Nouwen says, our leadership, our value lies in that we dare to claim our irrelevancy in the contemporary world. We are parts of insti-tutions, but our challenge is to be humble, to work these steps, to walk a spiritual path, to reflect the koinonia attitude in how we reflect the mer-ciful love and justice of God with others. Koinonia In the 12 steps, we come to let go of fears or pseudocommunity pre-tenses, self-seeking, and control. The 12 steps help us to relate more hon-estly, more compassionately to the people with whom we live and work, but there is anoiher dimension beyond this. Koinonia is a Greek word meaning "a deep sense of interconnectedness, of communion with oth- The S.P.E.A.K. Model ers at the faith level." Rollo May suggests that our entire culture is schizoid, out of touch, avoiding close relationships, unable to feel, unable to express aggressive feelings directly, seclusive and personally withdrawn. In this koinonia area we measure our lifestyles against the radical demands of the Gos-pel model of Jesus. We contrast it with the dominant values of society, the dependencies, the addictions, the fear, and the lack of touch. Koinonia challenges us to see the whole world as a community. Our new spiritual awakening leads us to hunger to create a new civilization in which war, violence, terrorism, and oppression are banished. We know from our own personal experience that another way is possible. No one of us can do this of ourselves, but just as the early Church persisted, and pervades the earth today, so can we, one small community at a time! For interrelatedness to happen in this world, people have to be in-terrelating; then God takes over and lets the miracles happen. We let go, and let him. The challenge of koinonia is for us to drop pretenses, to leave the door open for others to see us cry, to be with us as we grow, to hear our laughter, to let people see how we love each other. From this koinonia sense, we grow to be able to include others, to let them walk in and touch us so that even more of us are empowered to know and wit-ness to his Good News. Summary The power of the S.P.E.A.K. model lies in our openness to continue to let go, to let God be God in our lives. We use and continue to use the 12 steps and a formation companion so that we deepen in a personal relationship with him. We work and pray to be teachable spiritually, physi-cally, emotionally, relati0nally, and in our ministry, not for ourselves, but so that a troubled world may know what w.e see, and hear, and know. As a direct result of working this program, of walking these steps, we find that we no longer have to hold up masks of spiritual perfection since we are "professional," vowed religious. Instead, we have become free to share our struggle with others as equals in his love. We share our spiritual progress. We do not need to be self-protective anymore, but our arms are open to include others. There is nothing to fear because there is nothing to protect. If there is concern as to how to start with these twelve steps, there are often ready and available resources in each local parish and in many retreat houses and religious communities. Many parishes have good solid parish leaders who are recovering from some compulsive pattern or ad-diction. These people are more than ready to share the Good News with 200 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 us. Also, many religious communities and retreat houses have members in 12-step programs, or who have learned of these steps by exploring them in their own lives. These people are also usually more than gener-ous in sharing what they have seen and heard with their own eyes and ears. 'RESOURCES Alcoholics Anonymous.Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. New York: Alcohol-ics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1981. Elgin, Duane. Voluntary Simplicity: Toward A Way of Life That Is Outwardly Sim-ple, Inwardly Rich. N.Y.: William Morrow & Co., 1981. Hart, Thomas N. The Art of Christian Listening. N.Y.: Paulist Press. 1980. Main, John, O.S.B. Death: The Inner Journey. Montreal: Benedictine Priory, 1983. Nouwen, Henri. With OutStretched Hands: Reflections on Christian Leadership in the Future. Unpublished paper, 1989. Palmer, Helen. Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988. Peck, M. Scott. The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. New York: Si-mon & Shuster, 1987. Schaef, Anne W. Co-Dependence: Misunderstood--Mistreated. Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1986. Sperry, Len. "Daily Decisions About Nutrition." Human Development 9 (Spring, 1988). Pp. 40-46. Subby, Robert, and Fried, John. "Co-Dependence: A Paradoxical Dependency," in Co-Dependency! An Emerging Issue, Pompano Beach, Florida: Hath Communi-cations, 1984. Trungpa, Chogyam. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. Boston: Shambala, 1973. In the Valley of Decision Marie Beha, O.S.C. Sister Marie Beha, O.S.C., continues to reside in the Monastery of St. Clare; 1916 N. Pleasantburg Drive; Greenville, South Carolina 29609. In the early days of my religious life, one Sunday a month was set aside as a day of recollection, a retreat day. Out of earshot of the novice di-rector, we called it "dead Sunday," because it featured extra time for a meditation on death. Even though we resisted some of the more mor-bid descriptions following that meditation's first prelude, "Place your-self on your deathbed," the practice did ensure that we were regularly confronted with the realization of personal mortality. Today there are plenty of other reminders: tragedy that shouts in the headlines and is pictured in all its starkness on television or in the news magazines, the alarming statistics of the rising number of adolescent sui-cides, the toll of AIDS, the senseless slaughter of innocent victims in bombing raids, and the torture of random hostages. To this litany we add our more personalized grief over the death of family and friends. We know dying in all of its unexpectedness, its violence, its tragedy, our grief compounded the closer we are to the individuals who have died. And in our world of instant communication death is never very far away. What we are less familiar with is the dying of our institutions, our communities. Not that this is a new phenomenon either. It is as much a fact of life as the death of individuals but less perceptible except with the long look of history. By the time that history notices, however, those with most reason to mourn have already passed th.rough death them-selves. Yet institutional dying is an ever present reality. On the global level we are threatened by almost certain extinction if nation against nation 201 202 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 ever turns to nuclear war. We face the unknown consequences of our wan-ton destruction of rain forests centuries in the growing. We worry about environmental pollution passing on to the next generation, an earth poi-soned beyond, control. We experience that our technology so outstrips our wisdom that we may be as likely to kill as to cure. On the local level, that of the communities where we live, we con-front death every time a neighborhood is ripped up to make way for prog-ress or a business closes because of obsolescence. Families come to the end of the generations, as they have always done, but now the very in-stitution of the family itself seems doomed to extinction. Divorce, child-less marriages, abortion, weaken it from within, while drugs and the value-system of a consumer society attack it from without. Churches are empty so parishes close, following the demise of the parochial school. Religious communities face not only financial crises of major proportions but also the slow starvation of fewer and fewer vocations. Already some congregations are opting for survival through merger; others have been "suppressed," as the death process is termed, grimly enough, in Church law. Within the foreshortened history of our individual lives, we can no longer deny the mortality of our institutions; we are being invited to en-ter consciously into what is happening all around us. We become aware that some communities simply expire, brought down by their own dis-eased condition or their inability to receive from, or give life to, the world around them. They starve to death. Others die honorably and natu-rally of old age. Some fade away forced by circumstances to accept their growing irrelevance; others are felled by revolution while still in their prime. The question is not "Do institutions die?" but "How do they? And how do we respond to their dying?" Are we aware or do we prefer the apparent safety of denial? When denial is no longer possible, what do we do then? Rage against the inevitable? Give up? Bargain for more time? Or do we face institutional death with courage, living the present to the full, admitting that life's precariousness is part of its preciousness? The choice of response is ours, not only as individuals, but as commu-nities. Instant communication provides information; it does not ensure adequate response nor delay death's inevitability. Institutions must die, but how they die is a matter of decision. Ours! Theological Reflections for a Dying Community On our way north we had stopped overnight, availing ourselves of the gracious hospitality that had suggested, "Come anytime." The build- In the Valley of Decision / 203 ing was 1950-modern, far too large for the eight or so sisters who pres-ently occupied it. The refectory seemed cavernous; it could easily have seated forty. Mercifully the community room was small and cozy, the superior.exp!aining that it had once been the priest's dining room. She also mentioned that the third floor was closed off to save heat, and it was obvious that the second floor was sparsely populated. The situation was depressingly familiar. What was remarkable was the sense of joy that made supper a re-freshment for body and spirit. The sisters welcoming us ranged in age from the superior in her late 40s, who had introduced herself as "the only young sister here," to an octogenarian busily can'ying in dishes from the kitchen. I was seated next to a sister in a wheel chair who had been brought in by another sister who seemed to be using the wheel chair as a substitute walker. Both smiled a sincere welcome, "We are so glad to have you with us." Others gathered and I guessed the average age somewhere in the 70s. The conversation soon revealed that most were active in one way or another. Some spoke of bringing Communion to the sick; others of tutoring kids from the nearby elementary school. One 85- year-old had tales to tell of the black children she helped in a Head Start program; her love for the children was obvious. Another drew her chair closer to mine, saying that she did not hear well anymore and did not want to miss a word; her attentiveness the rest 6f the meal made us all more articulate. Table conversation included convent trivia but it did not stay there. The sisters read widely and well. They ~ere critical of what the~ had heard on TV, exchanged evaluations of VCR programs. And peppered me with good questions in a way that told me why they were so well in-formed about what was happening in the contemporary Church. When they welcomed visitors, these sisters welcomed the wider world. Towards the end of the meal, I deliberately intoned the familiar list of religious-life woes: few recruits, shrinking apostolates, the "greying" of the congregation. The facts were acknowledged. The sisters' response was obviously the fruit of many shared reflections. They were happy with the community they had chosen and the life they shared; now they would see each other through to the end. God was with .them, still at work in his world. As one said to me with a smile that I will never for-get, "Our community may be dying but God is making something new. ' ' As I threaded my way back to the freeway next morning, I found my-self reflecting on what I had heard and seen. There was no denial of 91~4 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 death. The shrinking number of sisters and their physical limitations were accepted facts of life; they were not neurotic preoccupations. The sisters were too alive for that. Their acceptance was not tainted with hopeless-ness and its equivalent suicide. They were not actualizing their worst fears by giving in to bitterness or despair. Today their community is alive; some tomorrow it might not be. Progression toward an end time is inevitable, whether it is their owndeath, that of the their beloved con-gregation, or the final days of the world. "And after that the judg-ment"., a judgment that is in the making in their response now. Im-plicit in the faith of these few old sisters was a whole theology of the death and dying of institutions. Awareness precedes acceptance. So faith-response to death and dy-ing begins by breaking through denial. Like the middle-aged woman look-ing in the mirror and acknowledging that the first wrinkles are more than shadows caused by poor lighting, all need to admit "We are moving to-ward death." This world is passing away and the institutions that pres-ently shape it will not always do so. Even now all are dying. At times this process accelerates and we experience the diminish-ment. The grace of such periods is that of bringing us into contact with a truth we too easily ignore; its occasion of sin is confusion in our re-sponse. There are seasons when death's approach must be resisted strongly; in fact, this is always our first response. "Choose life." But there comes a time when resistance is useless; surrender is called for. The difference between may be difficult to recognize but it is critically im-portant. Faith's response balances "choose life" with "accept death." For the believer, for the community of believers, the ultimate answer is not biological, nor sociological, but Christological. "Am I alive in Christ? Is my dying a going to the Father in and with Christ Jesus?" If so, my death is a coming alive. "Or am I mortally, morally, and spiritually sick unto eternal death?" Then my living and my dying are both lost forever. Responding to this question that all death and dying puts before us forces freedom's choice. Our answer rises out of life; it is the last sylla-ble in the sentence we have been phrasing in all the pronouncements of life, all individual or institutional decision-making. Only in death will we become finally free to speak the word that is Self. Only in the act of dying will we, individuals and communities, be capable of that con-summation of freedom which is total, absolute, commitment. In dying, the mystery of living stands revealed; dying-rising are one whole mystery, one continuous process, one word, even though our ex- In the Valley of Decision / 205 perience, as well as our orthography, spells it with a hyphen. Dying is a breakthrough into life; at least, it can be. That is freedom's choice; we determine the meaning. Just as Jesus did. Dying: Christological Implications. How did Jesus die? The answer has been repeated so often that the cross has lost its power to say anything; it is decoration more than real-ity. Yet redemption, becoming free, growing into holiness, are only pos-sible when we as individuals, as communities, enter into the passion and death of Jesus. So again, how did Jesus die? As we do, moving through the process of realizing it, being angered by it, bargaining with it, feeling blackness of depression, and, finally, coming to an acceptance that transforms death into fuller life. Particularly in the gospel of Luke, we see the whole life of Jesus as a moving toward his death. We read, "He set his face toward Jerusa-lem" (Lk 9:51). This was where he was going, the call of his Father's .love, the motivation for his every redemptive act. Death and dying were important concerns he spoke about to those who were closest to him. Not that they understood or appreciated such reminders of mortality. They denied the facts, even protested. They were for kingdom building here, now, in their world. And Jesus rebuked them sharply, "Get behind me, satan" (Mk 8:33). Jesus acknowledged death's inevitability; he knew that his way of liv-ing would lead to the cross. What he chose was life, a life that would climax in death. He freely accepted the fatal consequences of choosing to live, to teach, to act as he did. Aware and able to choose, in the free-dom that rose from who he was before the Father, he embraced the dy-ing that went with the living. Knowing and accepting did not rule out protest. Jesus' response to the pharisees who were seeking to put him to death (Jn 8:40) was clear and unequivocal. They were doing the work of the devil, whose sons they were! Even at the end, Jesus protested the injustice of his being con-demned to death. He refused to cooperate with Herod's court of inquiry, remaining silent when lifesaving prudence might have dictated at least a minimum of cooperation. Before Pilate, his protest became vocal. "Do you ask this of your own accord. ? . My kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18:35). Previous to this, the power of his self-assertion directed against the soldiers sent to arrest him had set them back on their heels. Jesus was angry; he did not deserve death. "If I have done good why do you seek 206 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 to kill me?" Why die? Why me? That is the protest life addresses to death. Ultimately it becomes a question addressed to the Lord of life. Why suffering? Why dying? The answer does not come easily. The healthier the person, the more wrench-ing the acceptance. Jesus sweat blood before his will could speak out its central commitment, "Not my will but yours be done" (Mk 14:37). The struggle, the bargaining, were finished. The passion continued. The dying of Jesus moved toward completion, each stage bringing him down, deeper into "the pit of death." Betrayal, abandonment, physi-cal and emotional abuse would take their terrible toll. Fastened to the cross Jesus would drink death's cup to the bitter dregs. He would express heartbreak in a cry of desolation, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34). "He who did not know sin had been made sin" (2 Co 5:21) for our sake, and Jesus felt the oppression of slavery and alienation. He accepted, "It is accomplished" (Jn 19:30). His last word summed up his life's orientation. He would die as he had lived into the hands of his Father, his trust redeeming the horror of death by cruci-fixion, transforming passion's suffering into self-offering. The acceptance of Jesus' surrender opened out into the new life of resurrection. What he gave up, he received back; rather, his resurrection was a "making new." Through dying, he went beyond death. This is now clear to us with the evidence of something accomplished. But for Jesus, as for us, surrender into death was an act of faith, an experience of letting go with only trust to justify the risk. Death must come first, before new life is possible. Jesus had to lose his life. So must we. Mortality Denied The passion and death of Jesus is invitation, something we can freely enter into or can refuse and resist. Whatever our choice, the process ton-tinues but its effectiveness depends radically on our response to this fact of life, our mortality as individuals and as communities. We can opt to live through our dying or we can choose to deny death and so die to life. Denial is the first of our resistances. A community, for example, can refuse to face what is happening, as the number of new members de-creases and average age rises. Data are challenged; the credentials of the statistician questioned. Others are blamed for the crisis; "they" are no longer generous, interested, concerned. These are obvious forms of de-nial and they do nothing to stop the progress of decline. Less obvious is the denial that refuses to face, not only the symp-toms, but the cause of the illness as well, its seriousness, the rate of pro-gression, its effect on others. Why is community dying? Is it diseased, In the Valley of Decision / 207 brought down by "infection" from surrounding culture or by a lifestyle that is no longer functional? Or is it simply succumbing to old age, the inevitable decline that is the underside of history's progress? Is this pro-cess reversible, something that a group needs to pass through and then go on with life as before? Or does it require a change of direction, a new and different way of living? Is this illness terminal? If so, how much time is left? How rapid the progression of present rates of decline? Howare others affected by our dying as community? Are they suffering too, and what can be done to alleviate their pain? The questions are stark; no one asks them lightly. Unwillingness to even look at them is denial made possible through the use of those de-fense mechanisms with which we are all too familiar. We rationalize, pre-senting specious reasons to explain present experience: we are not dy-ing, just "indisposed." The whole problem is temporary; things will turn around soon. Besides we are not to blame. The reverse side of this stance.is: some-body must be. We blame other people, including God! Our dying is the will of God and so must be accepted. Perhaps. "God willing" may ex-press surrender but it may also attribute to God something that we have not yet faced. The very rightness of our reasoning is all the more dan-gerous because it cloaks denial with religious ritual, an especially safe form of repression. Paradoxically, community may also deny responsibility by giving too much credence to those who are predicting its demise; it lacks the inner freedom to reply, "The reports of our death are greatly exagger-ated!" While the prophets of doom may be correct, they may also be mis-taken. The accuracy of their prophecies will only be revealed when the future becomes present. All we know now is that attitude makes a dif-ference. While refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation will not cure it, giving up hope will surely condemn us to death. Another inappropriate response attempts to ignore the whole ques-tion and continues, doggedly, to do what "we have always done." We may call this fidelity but it is not. Fidelity is creative response incorpo-rating past into present and moving on into the new of the future. Denial condemns to fruitless repetition that goes nowhere. Preoccupation with safety and security needs is a rather accurate index of a group's mori-bund condition. Overreliance on what has worked in the past may simu-late faith, but it really is presumption. "God will take care of us" may be just another attempt to manipulate God into doing what we neglect to do for ourselves. 2011 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 Denial is failed responsibility; it violates the delicate line of balance between doing all that we can but not more than we ought. So commu-nity that is experiencing some of the symptoms of approaching death errs either by ignoring the situation or by exaggerating solutions. It can, for example, refuse assistance, since accepting help involves admitting a need for it. It can also erupt in a flurry of poorly planned activity, lis-tening to every guru who promises gilt-edged salvation. Fund-raisers can be a preferred way for Americans to refuse responsibility while appear-ing to assume it. Community Anger The hidden blessing of denial is its inevitable failure. When facts can no longer be avoided, they must be faced. Anger follows. Unfortunately, it too can be denied, hidden, buried under heaps of inappropriate behav-ior, deflected in projections; or it can rage out of control, leaving devas-tation in its wake. Anger denied is dangerous; anger accepted and appropriately ex-pressed is powerful energy for good. It can move a community deeper into the paschal mystery; it can lead to life. The question is how? The first answer: by acknowledging what is happening. Are we as commu-nity angry? What are we angry about? Community anger, like that of individuals, is often misplaced. It looks for some convenient target; so we kick the dog because we cannot face its owner. Seeking some scapegoat we may even turn against our own. If our predecessors had only been wiser. If present membership were less selfish, recruitment more effective, formation better planned. What may have been only contributing factors are made to bear the whole weight of adequate causes. The same projection of anger can be vented on persons and groups outside community. The more helpless the victim, the safer the outrage. An angry community becomes increasingly critical. Its spirit grows sour; its activity strained and harsh. It asks too much of members and of others. Aggressivity swallows up joy, dissolves compassion. Dying is always pain-filled, difficult. Anger is a "messy" emotion. Commu-nity at this stage will be broken wide open, all its wounds and weak-nesses revealed. Members will leave, pursued by the fury of those who remain and feel abandoned. Those who stay may wallow in unattractive self-pity, becoming entrenched in the very symptoms of the dying. Underneath this storm of pain, community is most of all angry at it-self. We cannot live "on our own"; mortality strikes a vital blow at the myth of .self-sufficiency. The length of our days is not something we con- In the Valley of Decision / 209 trol. Our raging against this will not change its truth. Acceptance is the only way through and out. Grief Work But first community needs to mourn. We are losing our life. We may not know yet whether what we are facing is the final test of death and burial or only the call to pass through another cycle of dying. In either case we must enter into the pain. Grievir~g community needs both time and distance. Some members can let go of the.past more quickly than others, the rate being determined by such variables as temperament and degree of attachment. Mourning demands patience; it is not just linear but cyclic. Going through requires repetition, reexperiencing and reexpressing the grief. Things will not be the same . . . ever., this is an ending. Community needs to provide itself with space and time for the griev-ing. When members leave, for example, those who are left behind may have as much adjusting to do as those who face the transition into new beginnings. The anger of the community may even be increased by the fact---characteristic of all our dying--that it has been confronted with a decision not of its own choosing. Healthy grieving not only takes time; it has its own timing. How long it lasts and how often the cycle of anger., depression., anger. must be repeated cannot be determined from outside community. But, finally, a group, as well as the individuals who compose it, need to make a decision to move on. We will never be the same. The past cannot be reconstructed; nor those who have been part of us, returned. As much as we might like to remember past glory-days, they no longer offer the satisfaction of present reality. Now we have to live., or not live. in the present. Unhealthy grieving fails this reality test. It can be so prolonged that all one's life energy goes into it; dying is all that remains of life. That is not grief but defeat. Even in the pain the option remains to "choose life." So a community that is dying can continue to model attitudes of openness and concern for others. It can choose to serve as long and as much as it is able. In doing so it affirms the ultimate value of life even in the midst of death. Community can avoid the withdrawal, the turning in on self, that threatens to allow dying to become a form of being buried alive. De-pression risks just such introversion. Granted that the temptation to al-low pain to become preoccupation can be great, it is also self-defeating. It only intensifies and prolongs the suffering. Depression that is indulged 910 / Review for Religious, March-April 1991 in grows bitter and that is the worst kind of death; in the end, the natural aloneness of dying becomes enforced isolation. To avoid this, outside support is almost necessary to assist groups working through depression. Their greater objectivity enables com-munity not to get stuck in the process. Perhaps all that others do is to name what is going on and this already frees energies. While ac-knowledgment is one service others render, appreciation is still more thera-peutic. ApFreciation of what has been, yes, but also gratitude for the im-mediate gift that the dying community continues to offer, its participa-tion in the paschal mystery. Acceptance of Death Acceptance should not image supine submission to what can no longer be avoided. It is an attitude of strength that kno

Issue 31.4 of the Review for Religious, 1972. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, SJ. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, SJ. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editor, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be .sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Build- ~ 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, M~souri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, SJ.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty me~nbers of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices beihg located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevaxd; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute, Published bimonthly and copyright © 1972 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Printed in U.S.A, Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copii~s: $1.25. Subscription U,S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years; other countries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years, Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by cheek or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RE~.IGIOUS in U.S,A. cur-rency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent Io REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editori-al correspondence, and books for review should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOIJS; 612 Itumboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103, Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. JULY 1972 VOLUME31 NUMBER 4 SUPERIORS OF SLOVAK RELIGIOUS WOMEN Memorandum to the Government of Czechoslovakia Editor's Note: Toward* the summer of 1968 .the eyes of the world and of the Church focused on Czechoslovakia as'the Dubcek rdgime tried to put a human face on Communism. More liberty was allowed, sentences' passed prev!ously against priests and religious wdie revoked, and the leaders of the Church there were reinstated. Then came August 21 - the Russian invasion and the beginning of the return to square one. Even after the invasion, assurances were given that there would be no return to the conditions of the fifties: Developments soon indicated.that this is" exactly wh, at was happening. ~, A last-ditch stand was made by the superiors~of religious women in Slgvakia with the hope of persuading the government not to be so drastic"in its treatment of the sisters; their protest was in the form 6f a Memorandum, the full text of~vhi~h is given below. TO the President of Czechoslovakia, L. Svoboda. To the ~Secretary General of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, G. Husak. To the President of the Socialist Government of the Slovak Republic, Dr~ P. Colokta. To the Secretary General of the Slovak Republic Communist Party, S, Sad0vskY. To the Minister of Health of the Slovak Socialist Republic, Mada~ Zvaro. To the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, M, Valek. The provincial superiors of the orders and congregations for women in Slovakia take the liberty of presenting to you in the name of all their sisters the following memorandum: In the latter days of October and the first da3)~ of November we have been called personally before the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs where Comrade Oavlik t~lked with us. The following information was sent to each one of us: (1) The activity of Slovak sisters will be limited to: (a) hospitals for mentally deficients; (b) hospitals for religious sisters and elderly priests; ~ (c) assisting the sick, probably limited at all times, by the Minister of Health, to what concerns psychiatry. ¯ (2) The following will be forbidden to sisters: (a) all help in the houses of pensioners; (b) all social activity for families; (c) catechetical instruction; (d) domestic work in presbyteries; (e) admission of novices who wish to join their institute, all those'who have already been admitted must be dismissed. *With the cooperation of Aid to the Church in Need; Our~ Lady of England Priory; Storrington; Pulborough;:Sussex, England, this Memorandum was published in Supplement to Doctrine and Life, January 1972, pp, 44-9. Review for l~eligious is grateful to both Aid to the Church in Need and the editor of the Supplement for permission to reprint the Memorandum. 518 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 " (3) Comrade Pavlik, already mentioned, vehemently condemfied the.claims of the sisters to the ownership of their dwelling places. It is easy to see that if these decrees are put into effect we shall disappear without trace from the face of Slovakia. What wrofig.haVe we done? What crimes can ~ve be accused of, we who were always ~at the service,of the p~ople, not by high sounding words but by silent and " often degrading work for the m~ntally deficient, the sick, and the destitute? Is it for these services that we merit this chastisement, which will end in the disappearance of our congregations? Are we dangerous individuals for the State and society, or are' we citizens with all the rights reserved ,to those who make up the Party of this State? -The constitution and the laws of the State are stiil in for~ce in our republic. What then is the law we have transgressed? Instead of obtaining 'rdhabilitation and reparation for the wrongs we have suffered since 1950 we are still subjected to deformations of the common law. Are we to be hunted again, considered as "outside the law" and forced to undergo an unjust discrimination? Many of our isi~ters have,lost their lives or their health through su.cl~ injustices. Will such aberrations be renewed? If the work and devotion of our sisters are highly appreciated throughout the civilized world, it should be the same here in Czechoslovak.ia, since our people are considered as among the most civi!ized in ~Europe. In subjecting us sisters to new vexations without a cha~ace to defend ourselves, you are certainly doing nothi.ng to better our position as the people wish it. We call upon the people for whom we work. It is the~ people who have invited us to develop our different activities in the parishes. Consequently, if the people send us away then we shall go. Ask the people, inform yourselves: ask the factory and farm workers if they still want us in charitable and social ,works and still want our help in religious instruction. It is the parents tfiemselves who have expressly asked US. In our towns and villages many people are abandoned, old people are left alone; perhaps the homes cannot accept them; perhaps they do not want to go! What human misery! There are so many such illustrations we cannot possibly descrit~e them! In some areas the sisters are the Only people prepared to devote themselves to caring for these neglected people and to give them a little comfort. we know of many cases of people who have lived, sometimes for years~ and who still live, lives similar to those of unwanted aninials. They end their daysclothed in rags, lying in filth, and living in a stagnant shelter; no State official has ever been in these hovels, but the religious have found the time and sufficient courage to go to the aid of these miserable people., naturally within the confines of the limita-tions imposed upon us! Is this help of ours a crime? Is it to be forbidden as one of the activitieS of which :socialism does not approve? We know of children who have lived in a dog kennel directly under the balcony of a mansion, and Who were found by a sister. We know of a girl covered in.~scabS, living like an animal on the'straw in a dark stable, stooped by her painful suffering, because her parents, preoccupied with money, neglected her. A sister freed her from her horrible environment and got her into the sanitorium at' Vysne Hagy. The local authorities never sent any health or sanitary inspector to these i~nhuman places - they are no longer interested. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 519 In many other cases only the sister has found ways of hastening to these inhuman miseries. Must this be condemned? Let us now move to what ~concerns'public health: On 1 October 1969 a religious happened to go into a state hospital in Bratislava: She was welcomed by a nurse with these words: "Welcome, sister;~when are we going to have more sisters? Have pity on us and come and work with us as soon as possible! I cannot retire because there is no one to replace us in ou~ work. There is no one to take care of t.he heedy or to do night duty." She opened the door of a large ward'and said: "There is no one to care for these poor people. I cannot manage alone; I am worn out by work and age~; the young ones do not have the spirit of devotion and even less do they have the love'needed to give themselves to this service?' As if to confirm what she Said supper was brought just at that moment to a twenty-four year old student Who has lain in bed for two years not even able to lift a spoon to her mouth-. They brought the supper, but it did not concern them how she would eat it. The girl said: ="When there isa visitor, or if one of the other pati.ents comes to help me, then I can eat; otherwise no." We do not want to recall other experiences. We only want to inform you of our good will. Despite all that we have suffered up to now, there are sisters who still have sufficient love of their neighbor and the desire to do good for the abandoned, the destitute, the sick. ~ The ~ajority of us are still weak from fatigue and the hard life we have had up to nosy with the punishments of exile; but we could still do good With the help of the young girls who want to join us. But here again arise new and incomprehensible difficulties, created by your decrees. W'e have never been suppressed as religiou~ orders. In 1950 an arbitrary declaration of our governmental administration prevented us from admitting novices, we were expelled from our convents and dispersed to different places near the Bohemian border; you have sent us to work in factories and on farms and in the kolkhozes. At'the beginning these jobs were very difficult for us; yet we performed them conscientiously. After some time we were transferred to social institutions'where we looked after abnormal children. These poor unfortunates are .very de~r to us. sometimes more dear to us than to their own parents. The result of our efforts are testi.mony enough. We shall continue voluntarily in this field, for we can still do it, but for how long? We have had no recruits to strengthen our ranks for the last eighteen years. During the past year, after the Attorney-General declared that our orders were not suppressed and that as existing institutions we had the right to exist and to develop, we have accepted some young girls. It was Comrade Pavlik himself who said that the girls who were novices or postulants in 1950 could return and that we could receive them as postulants. Thanks to that we actually have some novices who wish to follow the example of devotion of the sisters and to continue the work of ~harity which we can do in our fatherland: caring for the physically and mentally sick. But later, following the conversation mentioned above with Comrade Pa~lik, we were told that all our novices are to be sent away and that we may not accept further postulants. We have asked: "By what law are we prevented from doing good?" He ieplied: "We are not discussing these things; when you receive an order you have to obey 520 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 it?' We heir discoui'ses propounded by the State authorities, by the President, by the Secretary General of the Czechslovakian Communist Party, and we recall that in the past~ Summer the President publicly declared on television: "As long as I am President I will not permit any transgression of the law." The Secretary General has declared several times: "We shall never return to the fifties." In 1950 we were uprooted from Slovakia and transferred to Bohemia. It was hard for us, but then the authorities in Bohemia mitigated our exile. Itis difficult for us to,readjust to these new privations. The social institutions in Slovakia are less well-equipped thfin in Bohemia. There they were Satisfied to have us to serve the people. Here, unfortunately, it is different; ".you wear a religious habit, so you are discriminated against." We hate to say this, but it is true. In the "charitable institutions" of our country we have not found love. They seem like prisons. The directors, placed there by the State, were paid to do nothingand to present obsta'cles to our charitable work. This period seemed to be ended, but unfortunately we now have the impression that the actual situation is in the process of leading to a new discrimination. We ask you, Mr. President, and Ministers, to allow us and the girls who want to follow, us, to live and work fdr our people, for those of our people who are suffering. We are happy that there are still girls with noble hearts wh~ desire to become mothers to the many children abandoned by their mothers, and many mentally retarded ones whose mothers disown them. There are ;till young girls who want to dry the tears of those who lie in hospital beds. Let us not stifle these last and rare ideals of our youth! For our part we e:~d~ort them to leave with these words: "Be merciful, sisters, to all those in need of aid." If all'that we have declared be judged as an offence then have the coui'age to suppress our institutions. We hope that this memorandum will meet with understanding and that we can continue pe~icefully to give help without bias to the social institutions, hosp!tals, and parishes. In this hope, we express our sincere gratitude. [There follow the signatures and addresses of the provincial superiors.] Editor's Postscript: News from Czechoslovakia confirms that the sisters' petition was not acceptable to the civil authorities and has not made them change their decision. The Slovak Minister of Culture for Ecclesiastical Affairs, Valek, was very categorical in a meeting with the bishops and told them substantially the same as Pavlik had told the sisters previously. The bishops would have to co-operate to execute the Minister's orders. This means that the Church representatives would become instruments of the government for the liquidation of the sisters. DONALD K. SWEARER and GROVER A. ZINN Monasticism .East and West, an Inquiry [Dr: Donald K. Swearer is Associate Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College; Swarth-more, Pennsylvania 19081. ~Dr. Grover A. Zinn is Assistant Professor of Religionoat Oberlin College; Oberlin, Ohio 44074.] ~ During* January 1970 a seminar on Buddhism and Christianity was ~held at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Leaders of the seminar included Rev. Shojun Bando of otani University, Rev. Father George F. Simon of Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church (Elyria, Ohio) and Professors Donald K. Swearer and Grover A. Zinn of Oberlin College. A variety of topics were discussed but the study focused on two areas: worship and liturgy; meditation and monasticism. It is this latter area to which this paper addresses itself. Stimulated by the encounter of representatives and scholars of both Buddhism and Christianity, our efforts essay no more than a suggestion or a prolegomenonotO a topic deserving'of more intensive and thorough study. All of us who participated in the seminar were struck by the broad range of similarities to be discovered in both the form and the intent of the institution of monastic life in Europe and Asia. Yet,. these similarities were to be measured in terms of the richness of dissimilarity. Our intent during the seminar and in writing this,brief article was not to equate uncritically the monastic traditions of Buddhism and Christianity. Rather, it" was to examine as sympathetically as possible this crucial aspect of these two great historical religions with the hope of reaching a better understanding of our own faith as well as the "faith of other men." In writing this essay we, as Christians, also intend to imply our conviction that Buddhism and Christianity need to benefit from each other more significantly than has been the case up to this point in time. In particular, we believe that the monastic tradition in the West, which has tended to become ever more peripheral to the mainstream of the life of the church, needs to be rediscovered' and reinterpreted in terms of the religious needs and spiritual chaos of our own day. We are convinced that part of this rediscovery and reinterpretation might better take place in the light of the monastic tradition in Buddhism where, especially in the Theravada and certain Mahfayfana forms (for example, Zen), the monastic life puts into proper perspective many of the central teachings and practices of that religion which has been aptly ~ermed, "The Light of Asia." With the tentative nature of this essay in mind, therefore, we propose to discuss certain aspects of the foundation of monasticism and the development of the monastic life first in Buddhism and then in Christianity. *The article first appeared in Japanese Religions, v. 7, no. 1 (July 1971), pp. 29-50. It is reprinted here with the permission of the editor of Japanese Religions and of the authors.~ 522 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 For most observers of Asian religions monasticism and Buddhism go-hand in hand. Anyone who has visited Burma or Thailand, for example, is struck by the presence of a seemingly endless stream of saffron-robed Bhikkhus oi monks around temple precincts, w~alking meandering streets with beggii~g bowls tucked under their arms or, more dramatically, taking part in social reform or political protest. Even in Japan where the presence of the Buddhist monk is not so visible the visitor cannot help but be awed and inspired by such magnificent monasteries as Daitoku-ji in Kyoto :and Enkaku-ji in Kamakura, or remember being awakened by the deep, gutteral chanting of Zen monks: Moreover, the student of Asian religions is quick to point out that from its inception Buddhism seems to have~ had a "withdrawn" tradition compatible with monasticism. He may even cite the legends surrounding the founder, Siddhartha Gautama, which depict the future Enlightened One renouncing the life~iof the householder in.order to find an ~inswer tO the Problem Of life's.suffering and transience. There are, of course, some difficulties with such easy and facile observations. In particular, it would be erroneous to equate monasticism as it is now seen in Buddhist countries with the quasi-institutional forms of early Indian Buddhism, and it would also be inaccurate to think of the Buddhist monk in any period of history as a recluse'. In regard to the latter, there has been a tendency among some Western scholars to make too sharp a distinction between monk and layman in Bt]ddhism. These scholars postulate that Buddhism is fundamentally a "monkish" religion, at least in its Therawida forms, and this implies for them a group of men who have withdrawn from the world to' pursue the religious vocation. In recent years, however, students of early Buddhism have been interested in,depicting the monastic institution more specifically as part ofits cultural society rather than apart from 'it. One such scholar is Sukumar Dutt whose books, Early BuddhisrMonachism (1924), The Buddha and Five.after Centuries (1955) and Buddhist Monks and Monasteries in .India (1962) have made a great contribution to Indian Buddhist studies. His principal theme seems to be that Indian Buddhism should be viewed not as the practice of .monasticism or as. a cult-sect but as a religion of the people,l Concerning the nature of the monastic institution in India a more detailed examination must be made for which we are particularly indebted to Professor Dutt. At the time Buddhism arosein northern India in the sixth century B.C. there had already developed a tradition of religious truth seekers or homeless wanderers, In the Hindu Brahm~inical tradition they are classed as Sanny~isins (those who have cast off possessions) and are known as the fourth or last of the Four Asramas. Although this class designation was a much later development, in .Upanisadic materials pre-dating Buddhism mention is made of a variety of wandering (Parivr~i-jaka) groups including Sanny~sins as well as Bhikkhus and others. These groups shared certain characteristics which would probably class them as a cult-sect group including an initiation ritual, allegiance to a teacher (Satthh) and his teaching (Dhamma), and subsistence by" begging or alms-seeking as a sign of world-renuncia-" tion. The beginnings of Buddhist monasticism are rooted in the soil of the tradition of these wandering almsmen; consequently, the eremitic monk typical of the earliest 1Sukumar Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries in India (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962), p. 24. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 523 stratum of Buddhism has remained .the highest ideal, especially in. the Therav~ida countries of Ceyloh and Southeast Asia;We can imagine the organizational form of early Buddhism to be something-olike the following: the Buddha after his enlightenment wandered about the area ofnorthern India known as Magadha teachifig the truth he had'disco~)ered at his enlightenment; many were attracted b~ his teaching and became his' disciples; together they formed not an actual group with a particular locus but ai~ idealized community ("Bhikkhu-sangha of the Four Quarters") b~und together by~all~egiance to a common teacher and his Dhamma. The eremitic nature of the "early Buddhist community did not mean that they renounced contact with lay society,:~ On the contrary, the very fact of being almsmen meant they were depeiadent on the lay community for their physical well-being. Above all, the, followers of the Buddha's Dhamma were to seek out'that environment where they~co~ald best pursue their spiritual cultivation. AsP the Van.apattha Sutta 'puts it; monks should "dwell in a forest or ~ui't it, or dwell anywhere in ~i village, a township or a country, according as such dwelling is conducive'to his spiritual cultivation or n~ot.2" ~ The practices of the wanderihg truth-seekers included'one abetting the develop-ment of cenobitic habits, namely, the-three-inonth rain-retreat (X)assh~isa) during th~ monsoon' rains. Because of the difficulty of traveling about at this time congregations of monks wotild come- tbgether in temporary dwellings; perhaps in caves oi" residences donated by wealthy l~ndholders. D~ring this time particular forrhs of collective life graduall3~ emerged including the recital of a confessional of "faith" called the Patimbkkha° reconstructed 'from the P~ili" Dhammap~da as, "Forebearance or Patience is the highest~kind of penance -hnd Nibbana is decl~ted to be the highest. (object) by the -Buddhas - for he is never a mendicant who hurts others and he is not a'Samana who molestS: others. Abstinence~ from all evils, accumulation of all that~is good, and purification of one's own mind - this is the injunction of the Buddhas.''3 Other group cer~monies during~the rain-retreats~must have included initiation into the Bhikkhu-sangha and the Kathinaor presentation 6f new robes at the conclusion of the retreat. This period-~lso saw the b~eginning bf an oral ti'aditi0n in which -" teachings of the MaSter were'-memorized in particular settings and with sufficient hanemonic devices to insure their proper retention. Monastic life at this stage still largely emulated the,'mendicant ideal and ~t the conclusion of the three-month period the Bhikkhus went their own ways. As one might expect, however, what was intended to" be originally on13~ a temporary dwelling became more and more permanent. Thus, the ,h, wisa and ~,rama originally ¯ proposed" for limited use were transformed by degrees4nto year-round residential dwellings. There are various illtistrhtions of this' transformation in the P~li texts such as the distinction between monks with a more or less permanent residence at a particular center-(~,wisik~a) and those who came to reside there only temporarily. This trarisition probably.took place within two hundred years after the decease of ¯ the Buddha. The Bhikkhu-sangha becoming a semi-permanent and permanent establishment, obviously necessitated more elaborate living rules. The Patimokkha, initially a °confession of faith in the' Buddha's Dhamma, gradually' became a set of'rul~s. Eventually th~se were standardized into 227 in the Theravada canon although other 2Majjhima NikS.ya, 17. 3Dutt, Budclhidt Monks, p. 66. 524 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 references indicate that earlier lists contained fewer regulations. In sum, the Buddha'st.Truth or Dhamma was now complemented by rules of discipline or Vinaya. As Dutt so succinctly states it, the purpose of this code of discipline ". was ~to unite the Sang,ha on a new basis - not as of old on Dhamma alone and by affirmation and confession of faith in the injunctions (Sasana) of the Dhamma, but on a recoghized and accepted rule and standard of living for monks.''4 The Patimokkha,~while the heart of the monks' discipline, was encased in a body of "law" known as Vinaya. Probably the most impo~rtant a.spect of this law is that the Buddha is made the sole basis of authority. Hence, the Book of Discipline or Vinaya Pitaka contains many rules and regulations which gain the status of law by being promulgated by the Buddha in episodic sequence. With the evolution and elaboration of a unique communal law, the Bhikkhu-sangha became more and more a distinct entity both, in the sense, that it .was dis_tinguished from other Parivr~ijjaka groups such as the Jains and also as a distinct social entity to be afforded the same political protection as other aggregates within the body politic of ancient India. The wandering almsmen were no longer, in fact, the earlier typical follower of the Buddha, nor was the "Bhikkhu-Sangha of the Four Quarters" bound together only by a common faith, a practicable ideal. The Sangha was established as separate and distinct monk-settlements, in large part as a consequence of growth and maturity. Some of th( factors demanding the establish-ment of permanent monasteries included: a probationary period of training before ordination lasting up to ten years; the development of an exegetical and scholastic tradition demanding on-going centers of scholarship ;, and . the continu~ation and development of collective rites and ceremonies,s This did not mean that the mendicant ideal was rejected nor did it mean that this ideal was not practiced by some. However, Buddhism in India prospered in temples ~ and monasteries and continued to exercise a considerable influence in India through such great universities as Naland~i, long after it had been virtually assimilated into non- Buddhist traditions. - The Bhikkhu was the bearer of Buddhism to other parts of Asia - Ceylon and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, China, Korea and Japan. Many diverse forms evolved; yet the monk and monastery in varying manner of cultural dress have never lost their central place. They continue to be the embodiment of the universal truths and ideals of the Buddha and, historically, they have continued as the principal preserver of Buddhist culture. Throughout much of Asia where Buddhism spread the monastery became a massive landholder, engaging ~he monk in many of those very tasks the early Bhikkhus in India had renounced. Yet, at the same time, monasteries degeloped into some of the finest educational institutions in Asia and also afforded quiet retreats where, those who sought.most seriou.sly toemulate the Buddha-ideal practiced various forms of contemplation and meditation. Today in Asia these generalizations are still largely t~.ue. In Southeast Asia, for example, one finds monastic centers which include many ritualistic and cultic functions but which also house Bhikkhu universities and have rows of small cells where the most dedicated monks seek seriously to experience the Truth "seen" by the Buddha. It is.true ttiat the monk is becoming involved in politics (e.g., Vietnam, Ceylon, Burma) and that he is being trained in a variety of community development 4Ibid,, p. 71, 5 lbid,, p. 92. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 525 skills (e.g., Thailand); however, it is also true that in some areas there has been renewed interest in the practice~ of Buddhist meditation both among monks and laymen. In Japan the monastic ideai has been continued by various Buddhist sects but-none has been more important than Zen-shu. In Zen some of the themes of Buddhist monasticism as it developed in India underwent additional transforma-tion. In particular, Zen came to stress the~impottance of work and service in the mundane and practical aspects ~f'life. Many students of Zen account for this particular emphasis in Zen as a consequence of the practical attitude of the Chinese mind and draw such distinctions as that of D. T. Suzuki's: "In India the monks Ere mendicants; when they meditate they retire into the quiet corner from worldly Cares; and inasmuch as they ~are supported economically by their secular devotees, they do not propose to work in any menial employment such as Chinese and Japanese monks are used to. ,6 Even though one can hardly, dispute the transforma-tion that Buddhism underwent in China an.d.Japan, this particular distinction is, we believe, overemphasized. Monks in Therav~ida countries also perfqrm manu~il labor such as housekeeping chores around the monastery alth0.ugh w.6rk probably does not have the same degree of "sanctity" Dr. Suzuki claims for Zen Buddhism. It must also be pointed out thai mendicancy is also prac.ticed by Zen monks to a limited extent and still remains one of th~ ideals of the monastic life. Whereas Zen may differ from Therav~ida forms of Buddhism to the degree in which it ac.cepts the mundane world, the centrality of meditation (Zazen) for Zen seems to be a radicalization of the practice of meditation in Theravfida monastic-ism. If the practice of meditation in Therawida monasteries in S. E. Asia were compared with Rinzai Zen monasteries in Japan, one would conclude that meditation in Zen monasticism is both more important and more rigorous. It is also interesting to note that Zazen forms part of the p~:obationary or testing period for the Zen monk, whereas in Theravfida Buddhism the typical monk has probably° practiced little or no meditation. In the first portion of this essay we have attempted to make some generalizations about the foundation of Buddhist monasticism as well as various aspects of monastic life. Important observations have, ind~e~i, been omitted; however, one concluding remark must not be left out. The Buddhist monk and monastery are not qnly important as embodiments of the ideals of Buddhism or as the principal bearers of Buddhist culture. They are of principal religious benefit to the layman both as ~ symbol of an ideal as well as a type of.repository of merit. In Therav~ida countries, for example, the services performed by the layman for the monk are a principal means of earning merit and in Japan the model to which every Zen monk commits himself is that of the compaSSionate Bodhisattva whose mercy (Ka'runfi) extends to all sentient beings. It is~ true, as observers of Asian religions point out, that monasticism and Buddhism go hand in hand; however, neither in its historical development in India nor in its present form in Southeast Asia or Japan, can Buddhist monasticism be thought of simply as a means of withdrawn life for the single-minded pursuit of spiritual goals. Such a picture is true neither to ideal nor historical forms of Buddhist monasticism. 6Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series (New York: Evergreen, 1961), p. 316.' Review for Re!igious, Volume 31, 1972/4 II A monk is a man who has been called by th~ Holy Spirit to relinquish the cares, desires and ambitions Of other men, and devote his entire - life to seeking God.7 In the Christian tradition the monastic life in all 6"f its varied forms has continually presented itself as the truest response to Jesus' radical demand th'at one break with the "world" - its ~mores, a.ttitudes~ and institutions - and devote himself to God and His kingdom. The d~bate Continues wi{hin the Christian tradition'.as to the righ,tness of this claim¯ There are equally good reasons for assuming that Jesus meant to teach an attitude.of mind and not specific actions bye. means of vivid examples such as his commar~d to the rich young man to "sell all~ that you'possess and give it to the poor" (Mt 19:21). Whatever the present judgment of Biblic~al exegetes a'nd theologians, the early Church was of the firm opinion thai J~sus' word~ were to b~ taken as counse!ing a specific lifestyle which included ch~istity and poveroty - for th~ l~ew, if not for 'the many. " This early Christian asc.,,eticism was practiced within the local community and was a matter of'individual lnltlatwe. Every congregation most l!kely had its virgins, continent males, and dedioated widows who participated in thEsocial and liturgical life as far as their asceticism allo~ved. Their renunciaiion was frequently accom-panied by charitable works and care'of the poor. Some of the sterne'f ascetics b'uilt hermitages" near their rill,ages or lived in abandoned tombs~ off the outskirt~'°of towns. They' continued as part of the comm'unity by w.orking in the fields for hire and using their ~arnings to 6uy food and give alms. Inclusi who were-l~cked. ¯ . o in cells were, of course, dependent upon the Cdmmunity for all heeds. ¯ During the latter half of th6 third cent'ury A. D. a radical altera'ti6n'of the asc6tic ideal took place, with the result that Christian monasticism' was born. Men felt it" was no longer possible to remain within society or the Church and totally to devote themselves to the ascetic ideal. The Desert and not the City "offered a proper environment for the s.truggle for spiritual perfection. I.ncreas~ing numbers of individuals forsook society, farhilie.s, and friends to flee into the desolate deserts of Egypt and elsewhere.o T~h.ey sought solitudd. Thus the ascetic became a monk (monos = alone). The life of these first monks, the'Desert Fathers, focused on'foui"points: the isolation of the hermit cell; severe bodily asceticism, ofte~ile.aving th.e body. met6 skin and bones; striving to attain a state of continuous'prayer and devotion; ahd engagement in work, usually "simple tasks such as plaiting palm leaves and weaving baskets. In all of this the obje~l~'was to reduce bodily needs and the Z'materiality" of human existence, with a consequent enhancement of the '~spifitual" nature of man. The idea of work has playe.d, a constant and important role in Christian monasticism, whethdr eremitic of cenobitic. The early monks had no intention "of-becoming mendicants o~ depend.e*ht~ upon gifts in any wa3~. it was a niatter of pride that they lived I~y~the work of their hands. In ' the 'cenobitic i"cbmm~nities of 7Thomas Merton, The Silent Life (New York: F~rrar, Strahs and Cudahy, 1957), p. vii. ~This portion of the paper ~s particularly indebted to studies by three Benedictine scholars: Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (New York: Fordham University, 1961); Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monachism (2nd ed.; London: Longmans, 1924); and David-Knowles, From Pachomius ro Ignatius (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966). See also H. B. Workman, The Evolution o3~ the Monastic ldeal (London: Epw'orth, 1913). ~ Review for Religious, Volum~ 31, 1972/4 527 Pachomius, Basil, and Benedict work continued to have an important rble, both as an ascetical discipline and a~ a~means for- the support of the community. For Basil the operation of schools, orphanages, hospitals, ~and. other institutions of service provided monks the opportunity' to exercise the virtue of charity beyond ttie bounds of the monastic community. 'Today, as in the medieval period', the "work" of Benedictines varies greatly from the manual labor in the'~'fields in which the barliest Benedictines were engaged; it extends to te'aching,omiSsion work, scholarly researclf, work in arts and crafts, or even pastoral care. It is in the area of"work" that ~some of the ambiguity of the monastic, vocation is revealed, In working to support themselves, the desert hermits sought to be independent~ yet they weie dependent upon the very cities from which they had,fled, for there the goods they made were sold. Likewise, the ,."work" of Benedictines often must qarry them beyond the bounds of the monastic .enclosure, an act which.sets up,a tension with the fundamental vow of stability and the intention to flee the world to seek only God in theY"paradise" of the monastery. ~ . 'The new monastic movement shows, several characteristics associated with sect-type movements by sociologists of religion. The founder,of the monasti~ life was~ not Jesus, the founder of the religion. His teachings contain passages which were isolated and interpreted as. calling for the :monastic life, but the man who stands as the "founding father" ~and archetypal monk is St. Antony (2617-356). Athanasius.' Life of St. Antony was decisive, in promoting and shaping the monastic ideal in. East and West.8 At a time when the Church was establishing the.three,fold norm of Scripture, episcopate, and creed we find in the monastic movement an attenuated use of Scrfpture. It is_cited, but in a fragmented~ proof-text manner. Otherwise, it functions very much as a "sacred" object, memorized in.toto as an ascetic act of pious deed; at other times invoked, via the singing of Psalms, as, a charm against the evil demons. The locus of authority was not situated in, a written text and its interpretation. It was, rather, vested in certain charismatic figures: the elder monks of the desert,especially St. Antony. The .~'Fathers" are sources of life and knowledge, Frequently in the Sayings of the Fathers a would-be disciple approaches a master with the request "Speak to me a word; Father, that I may live." .The tradition upon which the monks relied was of their own creation: The Sayings of the Fathers contains sayings and brief anecdotal narratives of the triumphs and tragedies of the monastic vocation.9 Circulating orally, the sayings and narratives embodied the norms of the movement, such as they were, in, a graphic and easily remembered form. Throughout the history of Christian monastic-ism these sayings along with the. eyewitness account of Egyptian monasticism by Palladius (Lausiac History) and the Conferences of Cassian,1 o claiming to represent the Eastern fathers, provided one of the touchstones to which successive .monastic reformers have° referred. In the West the other touchstones were the Rule of St. Benedict and the practices of the "apostolic community" in Jerusalem in. the firSt years as described by the Book 6f the Acts of the Apostles - especially the 8Trans. by Robert T. Meyer, in "Ancient Christian writers," v. 10 (Westminster: Newman, 1950). 9Owen Chadwick, trs., Western Asceticism, "Library of Christian Classics,',' v. 12 (Phila-del1p0hLiaau: sWiaces Htmisitnosrtye, rt,r S19o 5b8y) ,R popb. e1r3t -T1.8 M9 ewyiethr, e"xAcnelclieenntt i Cnthrroidstuiacnti oWn.riters," v. 34 ('Westminster: Newman, 1965). On Cassian, see O. Chadwick, John Cassian (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1968). 528 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 common sharing of goods. Never in the early period does it seem that Jesus was claimed as an ideal.monk or the direct founder of a monastic community. The eremitic life remains to this day the ideal monastic vocation in the Eastern Church, where monasteries may resemble a conglomerate of individual cells rather than the communal facilities of a Western Benedictine house. Very early in the history of the monastic movement the rigors of isolation and the loneliness of separation were mitigated by the formation of loose and informal communities in the Egyptian desert. Indications are that the first communities were made up of the hermitages of disciples built near the cell of a particularly renowned desert ascetic. The creation of community was incidental in this case. The monks were there $o gain instruction from the master and then set off on their individual quests for spiritual perfection. Nevertheless, the way was paved for a new form of the monastic life, a form in which the individual monk would be isolated in the withdrawn community rather than in personal separation. The monastic enclosure, not the hermit's cell, gradually became the symbol of the aloneness of the monk. It was the aloneness of a community of individuals committed to a life of asceticism, meditation, prayer, work, and finally, committed to obedience to a Rule of life. The first community organized with a rule was that of Pachomius, who had lived as a hermit, but soon realized the benefits, psychic, spiritual, and physical, of a monastic community. The Rule prescribed living conditions, dress, obedience to the abbot, communal worship to be celebrated weekly, and a system of.houses grouping monks following a single trade in a single dwelling. Work continued to be an integral part of the monastic life. The cenobitic form of life was further developed and refined by St. Basil, who like Pachomius had lived as a hermit. He rejected that life as not allowing for o.the practice of Christian charity. He built monasteries near cities so that the monks might serve society through the operation of schools, orphanages, poor relief, and other works of charity. The Basilian Rule dominates the monastic life in the Eastern Church today, with less emphasis on service, to the community. It mitigated the ascetic rigors of the desert ide.al but provided that a monk might, with the consent of his abbot, leave the community to pursue spiritual perfection as a hermit. Today many eastern monasteries have hermit cells attached. In some 'cases the monks leave food for hermits li~,ing in near-by caves. The Rule of St. Benedict is generally accepted as the most perfect presentation of the cenobitic ideal. Originally written only for the 'local monastery of which Benedict was abbot, it gradually became the dominant Rule for monastic life in the Western Church during the Middle Ages. ~While it enjoined the traditional practices of chastity and poverty, the Rule required three explicit vows by the novice upon acceptance by the¯ community:., obedience, stability, and conduct of lifeJ~ Obedience meant obedience to the abbot in all things and to the Rule which laid down the conditions of life in the monastic community. Stability meant that the monk was to remain a member of the local monastic community which he entered upon profession of his vows. Conduct of life meant a continual struggle to acquire virtues and eradicate vices. From the ascetic point of view Benedict's Rule was moderate. Excessive mortification was frowned upon and discipline was focused especially in the idea of obediefice, which was the outer manifestation of true hum1 iIlsietey Bauntlde ro, Bf etnheed ircetinneu Mnocniaactihoisnm ,o Cfh .s IeXl.f-will.12 These latter two attitudes ~,ere the 12Ibid., p. 140. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 529 essence of asceticism for Benedict. The roots of the Benedictine monastery were set deep .in the soil of the land upon which it rested. The vow of stability was a major contributing factor, so that the monastic enclosure became an enduring fact of the~ local countryside from generation to generation. Monks were not to wander about constantly seeking ever-more-suitable spiritual or physical environments. The agricultural base of the monastery's life also strengthened this bond with the land. Originally, work in the fields, workshops, and other occupations was meant to make the monastery self-sufficient and independent. Ideally the monastic enclosure encompassed the fields, sheep-runs, mill, orchards, brewery, and all other necessary appurtenances to provide for the brethren, who were to leave the monastery only under extreme circumstances. Dependence upon the land within the feudal structure of Medieval Europe often brought this ideal into .conflict with a far different reality. In light of the obligations which went with the possession: of land, monasteries and parti-cularly abbots often found themselves owing knight service to nobles, administering justice in courts, collecting tolls, and generally participating in the feudal structure as any other land-holder might do. The holdings and consequently the corporate wealth ~of many houses increased due to the pious practice of giving property to monasteries in order to obtain forgiveness of sins and to insure prayers for one's self and family. Central to Benedictine life is the insistence upon the community as the essence of monastic life. The monk enters a community of like-minded men who have been "converted" from the world to monastic life. His life bounded by the enclosure, the monk shares all aspects of his life: meals are eaten in common, worship is in common, and monks sleep ino one large room, with younger monks interspersed among elder brethren. Such a life stands in direct antithesis to the eremitic ideal of the Egyptian desert monks. There are three primary activities: manual labor; celebration of the liturgy; and devotional reading. Benedict considered the liturgy the most important of the three; nothing was to interfere with it, but all activities claimed proportionate shares of the monk's time. Later developments stressed ones of the three at the expense of the others. The abbey of Cluny (tenth century) so extended the length of the liturgical offices that little time was left for anything else, and the function of the Benedictine monk was taken to be that of chanting the liturgy - and in doing this the monk carried out a religious act in6umbent upon all, but impossible to fulfill for many because of other obligations. The monks prayed for all men. The Cluniac monks were free to pray for they had serfs to work in the fields. In.the twelfth century the Cistercians sought to restore the austerity of the primitive Benedictine ideal, reducing the liturgy, adopting a plain style of life and architecture, returning to the practice of labor by the,monks, and isolating the cloister. In urging devotional reading, Benedict planted a seed which grew into a far different' plant than he intended, for Benedictinism has tended to be an erudite monasticism. Benedict meant for his monks to be literate for they had to .read Scripture and the fathers and to participate in the liturgy. But he never envisioned them as scholars: Reading was to be devotional and focused on meditation and personal spirituality. In the cultural chaos accomPanying the decay of Roman institutions after the fifth century monasteries not only were islands of calm in an often turbulent world, they also were the only centers of learning, They preserved Scripture and commented upon it; they also preserved the Latin classics. Monastic devotion to learning made possible the founding.of Western culture upon.the basis 530 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 of the literature of classical antiquity in later times. This was no small contribution for the cloistered life to have made to Western civilization. ~ Monks who were missionaries and monks who were scholars bore the burden of Christianizing and of educating Europe during the Carolingian epoch. More recently the Congregation of St. Maur (17th century) produced some of the great ecclesiastical scholars of the period and edited hundreds of ecclesiastical texts. Presently, one thinks of such eminent Benedictine scholars as the late Cuthbert Butler, Jean Leclercq, and David Knowles. They represent vital, personal devotion to the Benedictine ideal and. dedication to scholarship that knows no superior. Thus faLwe have said little of the role of contemplation and meditation in Benedictine life. At times it has been obscured by other "active" endeavors: missionary work, educational enterprises, almshouses, hospitals, farming, and the like. Yet these remain incidental to the primary goal of the monastic vocation, which is the contemplative quest. Benedictine monasticism had .and continues to have a strong contemplative tradition. Yet Benedictine practice has united the "active" life with the "contemplative" life of withdrawn reading, prayer, and meditation in such a way that the Black Monks appear to.be more "active" than contemplative. The best expression of the contemplative life is found .in two twelfth-century reform movements which remain vital orders within the Catholic Church: the Cistercians and Carthusians. Both originated in an upsurge of spiritual renewal during a period which has been characterized as open to new experiments and fresh initiatives. The Cistercians sought to re-establish the strict observance of the Benedictine,Rule, without any of the laxity, amplification of the liturgy, pursuit of secondary aims such as education, or involvement with secular society and government which characterized muchof Benedictine pra6tice in the medieval period. The life was, and is, one of simplicity, frugality, isolation of the monastic enclosure, and dedication to meditation and the contemplative life, set within the context of the common life of the Benedictine Rule. It is within this tradition that the late Thomas Merton followed his vocation. The Carthusians returned to an earlier ideal in their renewal of spirituality. The Carthusian enclosure is called a 'desert' and rightly so, for the Egyptian hermit tradition inspired it. The sides of the cloister are lined with individual hermitages; each monk lives in a small two-storied building with an enclosed garden, a workshop, and ~;alk-way on the.ground floor, and with a cell above for study, sleep,,and private meditation. The Carthusian spends by far the larger part of the day in isolation, working at a trade, praying, reading, or ~vriting. Thrice daily the brethren gather for common worship and on set occasions the community goes for walks in the countryside, gathers for discussion, or.shares a common meal; the isolatiofi of the desert is real, but it is wisely mitigated. Of all the orders of the Catholic Church, Carthusians alone can make the claim to be "never reformed, because never deformed." It is within these monasteries that one finds contempla-tion pursued most fervently within the Christian tradition. The Carthusians, like all monks, engage in work, as individuals and as a community. Earlier we observed that the monastic life now plays an attenuated role in the life. of the Church. One must return to the Middle Ages to find a presence and influence of the monastic vocation~ equal!rig in any way the present state of Buddhism. Nevertheless, the present surge of vitality within Christian monasticism must not be overlooked. Monasticism may be a phenomenon on the fringe, 6ut it is a vital fringe. Thomas Merton and the community of the Abbey of Gethsemanirepresent a renewal of Cistercian spirituality, while the bold experiments in art, architecture, Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 531 educ~ition, and liturgy at St. John's Abbey, Colleg~ville', Minnesota, demonstrate the vitality of the BenediCtine ideal in several areas. Monastic life" on the European Continent continues to bear ::fruit in education, scholarship, music, and spiritual renewal. One thinks of the leadership ~f Downside Abbey in England; the scholarship at Solesmes arid Beuron, Belgium; the Abbey of La PiErre qui Vire, France, where Benedictines of the 'Primitive Observance combine art ~cholarship with the creative artistic 'c'i'aftsmanship of L 'Atelier du Coeur MeUrtry; and" La Grande Chartreuse, the mother house of the carthu~sian Order, where the silent life of meditation has again~ been'restored. ~ : In our examination of~the .historical roots and some salient features of monastic-ism in Buddhism and Christianity, no attempt has been made to force comparisons. Nevertheless, in examining the historical record impartially one notes some striking, if obvious, similarities. In,,both:,Buddhism and Christianity the monastic life claims to represent an id6al form of .religious commitment~ In Christianity it offers a response to Jesus' call to forsake all for God and His Kingdom; in .Buddhism, the monastic community affords the ideal milieu for pursuing the highest goal, namely, Nirvfina. " ~ In both traditions eremitic and cenobitic form~ of the monastic.life exist. The ,more primitive form of the monatic.life is that of the single individual, isolated in a hermitage (Christianity)or wandering-as ,a mendicant (Buddhism).~An immediate distinction which springs to mind is the differing attitudes toward mendicancy in the early traditions. Buddhist monasticism began as a mendicant order; Christian monasticism in its eremitic and cenobitic forms strongly rejected begging and alms; monks were more likely to give alms and minister to the poor than to be the objects of such a ministry. Only with the advent of an urban economy and the need for a new style of renunciation and apostolic ministry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries did mendicancy become an expression of poverty - and with that a new form of renunciation was formed in Christianity: the mendicant orders, which have much in common with the monastic orders, but deserve to be distinguished carefully from them as well. The necessity for rules governing the common life of monastic communities led to the development of sets of discipline which, in turn, were partially responsible for the emergence of different monastic orders. Ther~ are certain typological similarities between the degree of tension existing between the monastic commu-nity and the secular world. In neither Christianity nor Buddhism, however, can monasticism be viewed in isolation from its cultural context. On the contrary, in both religions the monastery has been at one point or another in history, a principal bearer of the cultural tradition in which it was enmeshed. The relationship of the ¯ monastery to the broader religious tradition with which it is identified is a complex phenomeflon. However, in both traditions there is a strong tendency to associate the monastic life with the truly religious life. In Buddhism, although some of the earlier scrit3tures (e.g., Thera and Therigathas) testify to the realization of Nirvfina by laymen and women, the monk soon became the religieux par excellence. Also in Indian, Buddhism the monastery came. to represent or be associated with the main stream of the tradition. In ,Christianity there is no exclusive claim to salvation through monastic profession, but in the medieval period the monastic vocation was the only one judged to be "religious"; all other occupations, including that of the 532 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 parish.priest, were secular, i.e., involved with the world. The priest, while set apart from the laity by his sacramental powers, was nevertheless one. with them in this particular: neither he nor they had been "converted" from life in the world to life in the monastic habit. It must be said, however, that in Christianity the monastic life continues tO claim superiority in its fidelity to Jesus' message. Both Christian and Buddhist monasticism exhibited certain tendencies associated with sectarian m. ovements at the point of their origin. In both, the inonastic life was integrated into a wider'tradition, with more or less success, thus allowing for diverse expressions of religio~us experience and commitment. It remains true, however, that in Buddhism monasticism has remained to this day a substantial bearer of the core of the tradition. This can be illustrated in many ways, but perhaps it will suffice within the limits of this essay to point out that the archetypical monk for Buddhism is the Buddha himself, whereas for Christianity it.is St. Antony, not Jesus. Although in this study we have examined only the origins and some aspects of ~the, development of monasticism .East and West, our concern is not merely historical. Rather, both implicit and explicit in our study is the value of the vision which inspired the monastic ideal in both Buddhism and Christianity. In this age of rapid, change in which the moral values and religious truths of an earlier day are being challenged and crumbling, there is a strong possibility that the well-spring for religious renewal: will not arise from secular models but from the most "radically" religious. Should this be the case, the precedent of monastic life East and West will offer an important stimulus and suggest patterns for lives of holiness. PROTESTANT AND ECUMENICAL RELIGIOUS LIFE [Editor's note: The following three essays originally appeared in Unit~ chr~tienne, February 1972, and are presented here in English translation with~the kind permtssion of the~editor of Unit~ chrktienne and'of the respective authol's. Specific page references to the issue of Unit~ chr~tienne will be given at the beginning of each essay. The English translation of the threat essays was done by R. F. Smith, S.J., of the.~Department bf Historical Theology; D~vinity School of St. Louis University; 220 North Spring Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri.] THE SISTERS DEACONESSES OF REUILLY By Sister Elizabeth~, Deaconess of. Reuilly 4, [This article appeared on pages 30-40 of Unit~ chr~tienne, February 1972. Sister Elizabeth's Address is: 95, rue de Reuilly; 75 Paris 12, France. I ~ The Community of the Deaconesses of Reuilly came into ex.ist.ence in P.aris in 1841. The Community was born as a small thing, but its date deserves to-be remembered because it represented the first attempt at a renewal of ~om. munit3~ life in French Protestantism. The beginnings of this foundation were not able to flc;urish perfectly in the nineteenth century, for the centu~ was too deeply haark6d " by confessional tensions. But with' the ecumenical movement, there cam~ a mbre favorable time. In its deep attachment to.its origins, the Community is untiringly seeking in its origins the meamng of its calling and the secret'of the renewals which pr.epare, and hasten "the coming of the kingdom of ~God." THE ORIGINS The historical events in which the birth of Reuilly is inscribed were (1) essentially, the religious Awakening at the beginning" of the century and (2) secondarily, the social crisis opened by the'industrial era. The spiritual motivations that were involved were (1) an ardent thi~rsting for holiness anda consecrated life and (2) a vision of the Church structured by obedience. Intertwined with all these were the providential circumstances in which the hand of God could be seen=The vocation of the founders (Antoine Vermeil and Caroline Malvesin), their meeting, their mutual accord, the astonishing receptivity of the evangelical Parisian milieu, the finding oi~a favorable implantation site in the midst of the workers' section, the first apostolate of the sisters in the service of women who had just left prison. ¯ The Awakening" ., As Pastor G.Lagny ha's clearly shown,1 the Awakening which aroused.Protestant-ism at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a part of the general movement of Christian renewal which vivified the entire Church - and in a special inanner French Catholicism as it emerged from the trials of the Revolution and the Wars of the Empire. What came forth' was a religion of,the heart in reaction to the rationalism of the Century of the Enlightenment - a religion touched by an: affectivity that romanticism might make suspect, but it was full of spontaneity and warmth and rich in works of all kinds and in innumerable sacrificeS, It was an authentic movemenVof the Spirit. '° 1 In his 1958 work Le R~veil de 1830 ~ Paris et les origines des Diaconesses de Reuilly. "534 Review for Religious,,Volume 31, 1972/4 For the Protestant Awakening historians give a precise date and place 6f origin: 1817 in Geneva with roots, however, going back into the 18th century. If th~ Awakening was begun in Geneva by Robert Haldane, a Metho'di's~ from S6otland, the t~rrain had been prepared by a small Moravian community which had been frequented ,by theological-students. Thus it was that at the origins of the ~w°akening, are found the~ Methodists, those incomparable evangelizers, and the eMoravians,-apostles of the common life and precursors of Christian unity. -- . A native of Nimes and Sprung from old Huguen.ot ~tock, Antoine Vermeil (born in 1799) was a student at Geneva during the years of the Awakening; and his piety was deeply affected by it. Having become pastor, his resolutely evangelical faith was joined to a grefft love of the Reformed Church. For sixteen years at Bordeauxhe 'showed himself gifted in preaching, in teaching, in the care of souls as well as in the coordination of multiple apostolic and charitable activities. In the latter, however, he lamented a lack - the absence "of Sisters of Charity who do so,much good in the Roman Church.''2 Accordingly, there formed in him the idea of one day restoring in the Churches of the Reform "fe'mi]aine religibus orders.'~ Caroline Malvesin was born at Marseilles in 1806. From her childhood her hbfirt ~vas drawn to" the poor and tb children!As an adolesCent, she drear~ed of involving - ~her friends in a life entirely consecrated to God in the service, of~ thos~ who s,uffered most'.'Bnuott h°i"n g" m '" P r:ote'stant"i s.m. corresponded to her asp~: r"atlons." I't "was very ° sad," ~he s.aid,, " t o see no way of entering the service of the Lord." "Since my twentieth year I regretted nothing more than the fact of not being able.to with what joy I would have submitted myself to a rule, to a Christia'n discipline." Later as a teacher at Bordeaux,)Caroline was linked in deep friendship'to Fas[br Vermeil. In 1839 under the influence of the preaching of the great apostle Adolphe Monod, her Christian life was totally renewed. The breath of the Awakening touched her.:The peace she had-.Iong desired at last filled her, soul with a joy and a power that she had not previously experienced. The Holy Spirit rekindled in her j'the ,need to consecrate herself entirely to. the service of the Lord." This need ;'devohred her.". . A Thirst for Consecration ,, In the 4th century when the Roman Empire was at peace, monasticism had appeared spontaneously as a sort of substitution for martyrdom°.'Verme.il did not hesitate to invoke the same argument in favor of a rebirth of religious life in French Protestantism of the 19th century:~ "For three centuries the agitations of the Church under the cross were able to satisfy these needs of the heart and of the expansive faith which seeks self-immolation and sacrifice; but today it is'necessary to open another outlet for them.''3 In the absence of such an outlet, many souls " "will be led toask of other sources the means to satisfy their:.thirst" (that is, they would be attracted to Roman Catholicism)~ -, At the same time the missionary impulse offered possibilities of herbic commit: ment to.Christians in love with the Absolute. Caroline Malvesin introspected herself on this point but found that her calling lay elsewhere: "Reflecting on the pressing needs of our own people, it seemed to me that the good needing to be done was Expressions taken from the founders in their own language are placed within quotation marks; the expressions are ta keii from their corresponce and from a number of brochures." Brochure distrtbuted July 30, 1841. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 535 just as great around us. ; I believe that each of us has his own interior intimation which leads him to recognize the work fitted to himself." Then this cry sprang from l~er: "For myself, I feel that my work will be to strive~by the gra~e of the Lor-d to hasten that blessed moment when there will be but one flock guided by one shepherd." A Vision of an Obedience-structureed Church At that time the Reformed Church oflFrance, which had remained united during the persecution, wa~ threatened with divisions. Deprived by the State of its national synod,:it lacked a center of authority, The separation between the Reformed and the Lutherans (essentially a regional reality'except in Paris) was not the cause. Rather, the real divisions were at the very heart of the Church. On the .level of dogma a gap had opened up and.hostilities existed between the liberal and the "orthodox" tendencies. And on the ecclesiologi-cal level the partisans of free churches (that is, separated from the State) were opposed to Christians who remained devoted to the "national" Church. And almos~ everywhere Methodists were opening their "chapels" under the shadow of the large church buildings. During 1840 Vermeil, a man of peace, was called to Paris in the hope that hl would be a conciliator. Once he had arrived, he was alarmed by the seriousness of the evil. It was then that he had the spiritual intuition that then began to come to realization. What was lacking to such a degree in Protestantism - each one's renunciation of his own will, the sense of authority in the Church, fraternal love - could be incarnated in the feminine order which he had been thinking about for a long time. "But in order that the goal be attained, there would have to be a vow of entire obedience." The "evangelical sisters of charity,!' animated by a spirit of openness, would pertain to all the Reformed communions (a truly ecumenical community before the word was even used) and would thereby be in the midst oL the divisions of the Church a leaven of unity and of a life hidden in Christ,- He wrote at once to his spiritual daughter, the humble teacher at Bordeaux. His ideas evoked a profound response in Caroline Malvesin. From this time on there began an ardent correspondence between the future founders.4 Animated by a genuine spirit of prayer, a sense of disappointment with regard to her own Church led Sister Malvesin to the vision of the Church of Christ in its totality and awakened her to the scandal of the division in the Church universal: "The .Roman Church has disfigured Christianity. but the Reform has also disfigured Christianity." "The more I, think of that project, the more I love it. I love it because of the great deeds that the Lord can grant us to do but al~o and above all because it is a step toward the fusion of the. Churches~ This is a gospel-authorized work that Protestantism has neglected.In applying oneself in a Christian way to the matter, it musf~be-acknowledged that the branches of the trees have been cut off too short and that thereby the traveler has been deprived of salutary fruits and of a greater amount of shade . will the time come when we will not use the words 'Protestants,' 'Catholics,' except to give thanks to the Lord that they no longer exist; when will the time come when the great Christian family will quench its thirst at the source of living water which springs up into life eternal?" 422 letters from February 6 to August 31 1841. 536 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 The Community Beyo~d a sympathetic reference to the "Sisters of Charity" and to the term deaconess borrowed from Biblical vocabulary (Rom 16:1), our founders borrowed nothing. They seem to have been ignorant of the patristic traditions, and they purposely kept away from Catholic sources in the supposition that they were blemished with errors and abuses. They intended to "have no other b~se than the gospel, no other foundation than Christ." Yet, remarkably, by a soft'of spiritual instinct they rediscovered the principles of traditional religious life: - Entire consecration of self to God by union with Christ." "Our Center is the One from whom comes the light; the Center of our captured wills is the Master. May each member derive her life from Jesus alone, her love from Jesus alone, her humility, her contentment, her renunciation, her abnegation, her spirit of sacrifice frorfi Jesus alone!" (Sister Malvesin, Letter to the Community, December 31, 1868). - .4 life of prayer: "My house will be called a house of prayer" was the text chosen by Antoine Vermeil when he opened the sisters' chapel.where twice a day the community would come together for praise and adoration. ~ " - .4 solemn commitment binding one to the service of the Lord)"My sister, do you ~feel penetrated by such a gratitude to God our Savior who has redeemed us at so large a cost that you are unshakably determined to consecrate to Him in the service of the Deaconesses that body and spirit of yours which belong to Him?" (textused from 1884). - Community: The vow of obedience grouped the community around the~sister superior. It included the stages 'of sister-aspirant and'of sister-n~vice before the attainment of the consecration as sister-deaconess. All remuneratiohs were for common use to be shared according to the needs of each. ~ '- "Evangelical poverty"." Antoine Vermeil gave the~ sisters as their rule the apostolic precept: "As long as we have food and clothing, let us be content with that" (! Tim 6:8). - The vision of unity: This vision was to make the community a demonstration of a reality which the Churches still needed. There wa~; however, one hesitation, and this in connection with lifelong consecrated celibacy which seemed too contrary to Protestant principles (though this was taken for granted rather than stated). The commitment of the sisters would be simply for two years and would be renewable indefinitely for the same term. Early Achievements, " Although, as we have seen, Sister Malvesin and Pastor Vermeil were preoccupied with the Situation of the Chuich, they were also tormented by the miseries in society at large. Their charity led them to~meet these miseries on all fronts, o ~ The first' act of the community, and this on the'very of day of its foundation, was the opening on the rue des 3-Sabres of a shelter for women leaving prison. (This was a consequence of the visit to Paris of Elizabeth Fry, the Quaker mystic and apostle to prisons:) Thereafter the sisters began to seek' out the. poor who were numerous in the sector of Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The condition of the children- moral debase-ment~ and physiological misery - moved them deeply. They rented two places to take care of them - one for young girls in moral danger, the other for tubercular children. Sick adults also received the compassion of the sisters, and they opened for them an infirmary with eight beds. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 537 In 1844 a large piece of property v~as found on the rue de Reuilly. The shelter (supplemented by a section for adolescents), the two projects for.children, and the infirmary were easily accommodated there. And it was also possible for Sister Malvesin to realize there the educational work which she .had cherished in her heart. She opened the first school for mothers in the sector, the first Protestant primary school, and the first nursery. But her zeal did not stop with this. After the primary school, there was need for an apprenticehood center for young girls, evening courses in reading and writing for women, and an open library for the workers. The work of evangelizatio0 was also pursued in the sector e.specia!ly by means of a Sunday School which, brought together 150 children while Pastor Vermeil organized public gatherings. Soon the first sisters were asked for by the Province. Th~ey went, alone or in small groups, to take charge of orphanages, o~f hospitals, and of old age homes. All of this was undertaken in the Course of the first six years. One may regret this intense activity on the grounds that it compromised the formation of .the first novices and the deepening of the newborn community in prayer and in the religious life. As it turned out, the life of the community was not sufficient to justify the existence of the sisters-deaconesses,, their strange dress, and their "convent" on the rue de Reuilly. As far as Protestant opi.nion was concerned (an opinion that raged over the matter for the ten years from 18,46 to 1856), both liberal and conservative Pr,otestants found in this unwanted group a point of unexpected accord. TODAY- AND TOMORROW Because of the badly prepared Protestant milieu, during the first hundred years of the existence of the community, the aspect of religious life was deliberately played down, and this by the founders themselves in the trouble and sorrow of their consciences. Christian service was giv.en priority over the service of praise and over the building up of the ecumenical Body. But there always remained a number of living realities: - entire consecration of self to God, - the authority of the sister superior, and - a strong feeling of attachment to the spiritual family of Reuilly. And these were to be sufficient supports for the renewal actually going on at the present time.s In the years of the Second World War there came a new g~neration which, e~,en if it was not numerous at the beginning, was deeply desirous of communitarian life." And without downgrading social effectiveness or apostolic zeal, the yearning .for prayer grew. The ecumenical vision that had been lost for such a long time was recovered - and with the greatest joy. The restudying of the documents of its origins (especially the letters exchanged during the prefoundation period) en-couraged the Community to take up anew on its own responsibility the project of religious lif6 that had been insufficiently realized in the past. The appearance in contemporary Protestantism of cenobitic communities (Taiz6, Grand~hamp) was an immense encouragement. Finally - a~d this was a capital point - the theological renewal during the period 5This idea, along with a number of others, has been taken from the paper, La Communaui~ de Reuilly ~ la d~couverte de sa source monastique, presented to the Faculty of Theology of Strasbourg on March 17, 1966, by Sister Marie-Madeleine Handy, Sister of Reuilly. ~ 538 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 was'favorable ~6 communitarian qifd and provided it for the first time within 'the framework of Reformed doctrine a sufficient foundatiom The Theological Foundation Theological 'vigor was wanting in the°religious movement of the"19th century, centered as it was on" the sentiments 0fthe believer and on the needs of mankind. The great wave of the'Awakening which' urged so many women to an eritire consecration of themselves to God in celibacy and in ~ommunitarian life did not find in Europe thesuppgrt of a theology capable ofhnderpinning the life. Orily the Anglicans, nourished by the fathers of the Ctiurch, knew how to~ compose such a theology. The 20th century, on the other hand, recovered the vision of one Church, of the Church as the Body o~" Christ the members of ~,,hich, being organically bonded together, are in mutual intercommunion. Accordingly, this theological renewal along with the liturgical renewal and the ecumenical movemedt favored the blossoming of community life. The little'book of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,Life Together, published at the end of the war, opened the way'~o a gre~t deal of reflection. Karl Barth recognized the place in the Church of regular communities alongside parish communities. Then there came the writings 'of Taiz~ and - less known but important for Reuilly - the thought of Louis Dali~re whose charismatic ecclesiology is completely oriented to the nearness of the kingdom of love and of the return of Christ. Theology restored baptism to the center .of all Christian life since it unites us to Christ. Accordingly, holiness no longer appeared a-s bound to the religious life as such but rather to the vow of baptism included in it; and the same could be said of the apostolate. God is the sovereign of His callings; His freedom differentiates them as it pleases; nevertheless, baptism assigns each Christian the same goal - holiness - and the same demand - witnessing. On the common basis of baptism, w~e ciar~d to reaffirm in all their plenitude the three commitments which traditionally have formed religious life' the communalty of goods, consecrated celibacy, and the acceptgnce of authority. The Community as a member of the Church is configured to the Church's image: Christocentric prayer, the sanctificatioi~ of time, unity in love, organic cohesion, dynam!sm of the Spirit, openness to the world in a great diversity of services. The theological movement in this period of the 20th century opened before us the .largest perspectives. : ° The community The essential has been said; t'he only thing left is to live it! T~o reestablish the contemplative dimension of our vocation and to restore integral community life have been our primary obJective~s; and thereby a,. new hierarchy of values became necessary. Through the adoption for daily prayer of the Office of Taiz6, the sisters entered into contact with the treasures of the universal Church and discovered the beauty of the liturgical year. A third time of common prayer was begun in the middle of the day; the Last SUpper memorial became frequent; more time was given to s~iritual retreat and to meditation on the word of God. All ~this was not easy to accomplish. And for most of us, engaged as we are in demanding works, there'is still' a searchihg for a balanc6 in the "mixed" life where Review for Religious, Volume 31, 19~72/4, 5,39~ the Divine Office and the service of the Church are the.,two aspects of the si.ngle service of God. Similarly, we have come to a better understanding of the sl~irit~al dim'ensions of the common life: "We do nbi enter community in ardor to have companionship but in order to give ourselves entirely to God. Before everything el.se the framework of common,life should help us to perseverance in interiori.ty. In place of sa.crificing.the values of communita*rian life in the name ,of the aposti~late, we realize that the radiating ~power of our service depends on the truth~and the love lived among us", (Sister Madeleine-Marie). o ~ .Daily encounter, revision of life, sharing, reflection t'ogether, ~study - it was neces~sary to find time for, all of these. It was also necessary to cease all niggardliness in the matter of the formation of the you~ng members; so too was it necessary tO reeducate the older members by continued religious, apostolic, or professional formation. But this, I think,_is the story of all the active congrega~tions of~our day. But there remains the necessity of, men~tioning matters that were problems peculiar to us. First of all, in the course of the last twenty years the com. munity of Reuilly has gradually~ separated its own identity from that of the works and institutions in which the sisters exercise ih~ apostolate. Moreover,. our statutes have been revised - still, however, imperfec.tly. Furthermore, we have choffen a qgllege of twelve sisters ~ with constant reference to the sister sup.erior.-7~.an.,d .have begun having assemblies of the community. Finally, we have devote._d the~ gre]tes~t attention to the formation of our novices; and we hav~ ~refashione~i- our liturgy, of consecration and the commitments theinselves in order tha~t ,t, ii~ey.may better express the truth of what we are. But we have not finished ali'ihis;.~'and this internal history of ours - always needing'to be reconsidered and never finished - is full'of meaning especially for those of us who are engaged in it. ~ Apostqli.c Commitment. It is a commonplace to remark t'hat we are living in ~a ti~ae of profoiand "change both iq the Church and in the world.,The present is po longer a'fixed thing but in total flux. We could speak of our apostolic engagement by enumerating its concretizations: hospitals, schools, homes for the aged,, parishes, byotherhoods, ov[rseas apbstolate, ecumenism, spiritual retreats, hostels, and so forth. Also we could justify our longstand!ng forms of the apostolate and the reasons for our new forms. But in reality we - like the rest of the Church - are m search of a new spirit. We" are in-progress, not knowing if our life's movement will succeed in one e~ndeavor and be frustrated in an.other. It is clear that in the works that were previously~ famil!.al but W.hich have now. become, in however small a way, true public services, the insertion o~" our~ sisters into the midst of numerous lay workers and the mode of the sisters' presence to'~ those whom they se rye there is in the process of thoroughgoing chg~ge. Wha~ is'the Christian character of such works and how should our witnessing be expressed in. them? Can the gospel _still pass muster and can it still transform a determined institutional milieu? Should the status of the sisters ev9lve towards, salaried. positions? These are difficult and profound problems for which a-solution can be reached only by spirits who are courageously.inve.ntive and, while ~ot losing their own identity, respectful of the vocation of each member of such works: sisters, lay ~.pe.r.sons,, technicians, Christians, agnostics. Is it possible o to attempt~ a common 540 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 project which-goes beyond the religious community without weakening the community and without denying the values that are proper to it? Will we receive the faith that moves such mountains, will we have enough love and enough humility? More than any other age, ours has need of stable places, houses, structures; do we "still know how to provide them? 'In parish work'as well as in the brotherhood apostolate, the position of the sisters it les~ complex and l~ss ambiguous. Parishes expect catechetical witnessing~ contemplative prayer and intercession can flower in the brotherhoods, These ministries are all openness, friendship, approach to people in their daily preoccupa-tions. Doubtless, however, these too pr~esent their own problems 6f insertion and of adaptation. The reasons for the sisters to be in a given milieu and the way of living the gospel there are questions that it is always necessary to ask. Beyond all others, the' real problem is always that of the gospel. How can the gospel be commuhicated to the people of our time? H6w can new modes of communicati6n be found without downgrading the word and without lessening charitable ~,ork? For a long time already the Community has been asking these que~stions. It is now fifteen years since we began our first attempts at "liturgical plays" for the celebration of great feastdays. It was with. astonishment thaVwe have seen our chapel filled with known and unknown friends. Then it became necessary to answer the appeals that °~ame from outside - from Paris or provincial parishes; in'these cases we have presented a cycle of eight days or more, thereby participating in ph~'bchial renewal and in evangelization. Finally, our modest plays as well as our audio-visual "montages" of various kinds became the messengers of our ecumenical devotion: the crypt of the Church of St. Eloi was made available to us for a greater reception of the people of the sector; Catholics included. Singing - it had begun among ourselves - made its appearance along with the accompanying instrumentation. These last summers there have been experiences in camping. In the evening there was much singing of all types together with short montages occasioned by a text of the gospel. We tried mixed teams of sistet:s and young people. The participation of the people gave us a joyous surprise as did the seriousness of their attention. "To ~hare the gospel" is one of the profound needs of our time. But perhaps even more u~'gent is the need to relearn how to pray, to rediscover.the contemplativ~ dimension without which there is no Christian life. Once it had 6ecor6e' aware of its new hierarchy of values, the Community of Reuilly wanted to share with others the grace that had been given it?'A number of room~ were furnished for the reception of persons for a spiritual retreat': Then we began to cherish an important project which was first supported by our prayer and then~ realized in September 1970: the opening at Versailles (rue Porte-de-Buc) of a house of prayer situa'~ed ~in the calm of~a beautiful park and open to receive retreatants, either.individually or in groups. We do not have a "frozen" program on the way of making a retreat; we have learned that fo~ those who come we must be an "open" community. The important thing is that each retreatant be familiarized with the particular realities of the community and .that he have ~he possibility to live with it its lifeof daily praise. Versailles will also be a special place for ecumenical dialogue. And finally for the Communit3~ itself it is the occasion of the spiritual regrounding so necessary for active sisters. Not'~verything has been said here for the Spirit is alwa~ys pushing the Church and o Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 541 communities in spite of their weakness. One last thing, howeve~r, should be sai~ about our commitment to the Third World. For the last ten years there has been a modest brotherhood in Algeria. We are present in Dahomey where we have two sisters in the ,structure of the Common Apostolic Action (an interconfessional and interracial team). In the Fon territo~ of the country and inca fully animistic background wd have an urgent and enormous medical work tl~at must be accomplished with the barest of resources. In Cameroun there has been begun a small African community at Makak; a!ready there are two novices; a community house is under construction. These are small beginnings but they are also the objects of a great hope. Sister,Malvesin in her vision of the tree (letter of February 24, 1~41), whici~ she often appealed to, foresaw a community that was both perfectly achieved (strong trunk enrooted in Christ)" and at the same t.ime.totally ope~n to the~world (many branches attesting the vitality of the $runk). The, dynamism of her vision has not been exhausted. God grant that it will always arouse the renewals that are necessary in the continuity of the Spirit. THE ORDO PACIS By Sisters ofthe Ordo Paeis [This article appeared on pages 41-48 9f Unit~ chr~tienne, February 19"/2. The address of the principal house of the Ordo Pacis: Celia St. Hildegard; Koppel 55 11;D-2 Hamburg l;West Germany.] A Com.munity "under the Peace of Christ" ° ~ Among the evangelical religious orders, our Evangelische Schwesterrischaft O,r.do Pacis [Evangelical Sisterhood of the Order.of Peace] represents ~ somewhat special type since our communit3; include~ women in every state of life: Married sisters live in their families; some celibate sisters live al6ne; and there are some sisters who live in community and form as.is said today, "a community." We are not very numer6us - actually only twenty-four sisters; the community has its residence,- the Celia Saint-Hildegard [Cell of St. Hildegard], in Hamburg; the rest of thesisters live throughout the rest of Germany. The foundation of our sisterhood b.y the consecration of its first eight sister~ took plac~e in 1953 after long years of preparation. From around 1930 the idea of sucha community was formed in the minds of some membe.rs_ of ~the Eva, ngelische Michaelsbruderschaft (founded in 1931 and now having fiv~ hundred brothers but without community life) as well as in the minds, of a group of women eage[ to commit themselves in the Church; but °the idea did not then comd to realization. After the Second World War some of the women made recofitact~ith e~ch other as well,as contact with other women; they intentionally went out to women of~'all states=the married, widows, celibates, deaconesses. This group changed its composition greatly in the course of time; and it also became more and more independent of the Evangelische Michaelsbruders~haft. Over a period of some years the group began to ask itself whether it should respond to a special calling, from God for the foundation of a sisterhood which Would include besides the states of. life already represented in the,.group (m, arried and celibate) the state of a sister committed, to communitarian life. To our knowledge 542 R~view for Religious, 'Volume 31, 1972/4 there was not then ~ind isnot now any other Protestffnt community"which includes Women of all states as full members. This group of women met together.each year for a few days of retreat in order to seek the answer to their self-question in common prayer and in Bible~stud~ together. Two Bible texts,' especially, ~were essential for their consideration'. First, there was the encounter of the two worhen, Mary and Elizabe'th, called by'God to be the im~ige and the type~of every encounter in which Christ is°the center. Secondly, thEre':was th~ appearance Of the Resurrected Christ on.Easter night in the midst of ,.His~Disdiples and with the salutation "Peace" on His:lips. The peace of Christ was to become the determining factbr in the life of each sister as well" as in the life of the small corfimunity that was eventually constituted,at Hamburg in 1956. The peace of Christ is the gift Of the,Resurrected One which we receive in order to give it tO the world in the place we are at -, in our families, in our professions, in any new work that may be undertakeh. The peac~ of Christ is the reality which unites us even though~ we live in very different circumstances and with very.different missions; this is why we have dared to take for our sisterhood .the name of the Order of Peace. We realize that we are only beginners; we have not yet a formulated rule; we are trying to live out only a few fundamental, convictions. The essential thing is that each of us be in reality an "instrument o~" the peace of Christ" as should the sisterhood as a whole. We are c0nvincedl~hat our vocation is this: The peace that has been entrusted to our community. (Naturally, we know that this peace is also entrusted to each Christian' and to the entire Church.) In order for us to actually be an-instrume'nt of peace'in the world and qn complete solidarity with the perso.ns with whom we live and work (our families, our parishes), we have thought it essential that women of all states and of all backgrounds .shou, ld be joined in a single sisterhood with sisters who ~: commit themselves to c~qmm.unity life in order to be perfectly atthe, disposal of God/We have m~any difficulties: The great differences in the life situation of each of the sisters; the considerable disiances that separate us; theJack of time and energy that affects us each day; the temptation we all have to live an isolated vocation; the temptation to see a differhrice of quality between the group of sisters committed to commumty hfe and those who remain in their civil sta~. To' live our common vocation in, spite of all these difficulties requires immense efforts; and we will attempt to describe these in the following paragraphs. First of 'all*, there is the matter of the i~rayer in which'.we live our common vocation. It is prayer that is made each day; it finds its sou'[cd both in a daily meditation on" a pas~.ag.e of the gospel (ordinarily the same passage° for all) and in the various li(e situations of the day that are gwen to tis by God. In this inatter we have learried':and ~are still learning a~great deal~.from the Churches and the ~coinmunities of "the othe{ great ~onfessions'~ and ~for this we are deeply grateful. However, our life in prayer-, our daily life "underthe peace" is basically a most delicate thing to~ describe; we have, however: risked such a description in the second part of this article, always fearful, however, of using expressions,that are too strong for the initial small experiences that we have had up to !he' present. Another part of the'" realization of our dommon .vocation consists i-n the relationship of ehch sister with the entirety of'our sisterhood. Take, for example, the relationship ~with :the sister who directs our sisterhood, who indicates the way along which the sisterhood should advance together, and who makes the de~isions which should correspond to our common goal. It is absolut'ely necessary for her Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 543 ministry that each sister keep her informed of her experiences (both positive and negative) under the sign of peace; each.sister must give the~ director full. trust as well as full obedience. Because of the great distances between us, for most of us this is done by writing or, at times, by telephone. Still another consideration is the special relationship between each sister and another sister, an adviser, appointed for the purpose. This sister-adviser should be closer (not in the sense, of friendship) than the other .sisters and should .represent to the sister the totality of the sisterhood in a simple and concrete manner. It is useful for the sister-adviser to live in the same region (to facilitate visits), to live in the same state of life, and to be more,oor_less of the same generation (to better understand the problems and the situation.of the sister-advisee). But none of these are indispensable. And it is always necessary to make the effort to really break up in ourselves the tendency to ,individualism, to open oursel~,es, to make ourselves "transparent," if we are to realize our common vocation on this adviser-advisee level. Besides the above, each sister sends every year.an account of herself to the spiritual father of our sisterho~od. This is to be an expression, of our common vocation, for what we give an account of is the gift which has been entrusted to us in common.And it should be noted,that the spiritual father of our sisterhood has the role of spiritual and theological counselor~ o_f the community in general and in particular of the sister who directs the sisterhood.,, It is he who conducts the liturgical services at our reunions; and he is also the spiritual director of some of us (since it is often difficult to find one).~ As was the case before the foundation of our sisterhood in 1953, our journey together is marked by the yearly reunion of all the sisters for ~lays of retreat and for days of reflection. The thrust that pushes us forward is to be found in a special way in these reunions, in the Bible study during, the days of retreat, in the celebration of the Eucharist, and in prayer. But, as must be clear, there are many forces which weaken this thrust and which, tempt us to.r.eo~ain where we are instead of advancing forward. A. brief mention should be given to the small community of the Celia Sair~t- Hildegard at Hamburg. The Celia is not our center, but it is an essential part of our sisterhood. The sisters of the community arg committed to a life of celiba.cy lived in a communalty of goods and in the acceptance of authority. Their residence is expected to be a place of prayer, that is, the rhythm of the day is marked by common Offices and by the personal prayer of each sister. The re.sidence has its doors open in two directions: to leave and to enter. Some of the sisters engage in a profession as an expression of real solidarity with the entire world (as well as to provide for the material existence of the community). At the same time the Celia is open to all those who wish to come there. It has a number of rooms available for those who come. And people do come - to pray, to recollect themselves, to rest, to find someone to listen to them, to share in our joy or in our frustrations, to make a retreat (alone or in small groups), to participate in an Office, to take a quick snack; they come for a few hours or a few days depending on the needs and opportunities of each °one. In short, they come to us to enter into the movement of peace which has been given to us to give to others. Prayer and Life in the Peace of C- hrist ~ "The peace of God is with us.'His peace is up6n the earth." This is the ending of all our Offices; and in it in a very concise way is summarized 544 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 the manner in'which we seek to respond to the reality of the peace of Christ. The resurrected One said to His Disciples: "Peace to you!" (Jn 20: 19). What He meant by this salutation was a reality which would henceforth determine their life and the life of the Church. In the gift of His peace the resurrected Lord gave us reconciliation with God, the salvation that envelops each man, all mankind, the entire universe. The peace is "the normal situation of the new creation" (Foerster). Understood correctly, the peace of Christ is not primarily an ideal and harmonious state of the individual; its purpose is not merely the isolated individual. Rather the peace is first of all a "collective grace" (Comblin) which Christ gives to His Disciples as a community and which they as a community ought to receive and let be operative. Peace, salvation, life - this is the gift of the resurrected One with which He sends His followers to the points where there is no peace, no salvation, no order. This is done so that the real victory of the Resurrection might be believed, be witnessed to, and transmitted to the world. In this sense the entire Church is a community under the peace of Christ. It is precisely for this reason that it is legitimate for the Church to contain within itself '~orders of the peace" ~- communities which expressly keep themselves at the disposition bf this peace, thereby grasping and realizing their own particular vocation. In the same way there are other communities (for example, those of Taiz6 and of Grandchamp) who place themselves at tl~e disposition of the gift of unity. To believe in and to give witness to the peace ot~ Christ (that is to say, to give concrete expression to this peace in our world) does not mean to propose purposes of this world (for example, the suppression of war) nor to set in motion impressive activities With regard to some sort of "program for peace." This would be to reverse the order of things. Peace in the Biblical sense is a matter that belongs to God; He it is who leads it to His own end, and to Him is reserved its "program." But He wills in an absolute way to use us as His "instruments." It is a question, then, of ourselve~ as a community in the midst of the world being completely available to the peace of Christ which is itself the real objective force "which Changes the world, society, the order of things" (Comblin). It is necessary for us to be available for that peace of Christ which is a universal force, which excludes no human being from salvation, and which leads all to become one without erasing multiplicity. Finally, we must be available to that peace of Christ which is directed toward the coming of the' Lord and toward the achievement of that new creation in the dawn of which we are ourselves living. These are brave words, given the Church as it exists in the world today, given our small sisterhood, and given the nature of each of the sisterhood's members. But this corresponds to God's way of acting which will always remain for us a paradox: God brings to the world His message and His reality by the "poor and the little"; His victories are not in any evident way linked to human possibilities. We sisters are only beginners in the discovery of the dimensions of our vocation under the peace, and all the more so when it is question of turning our knowledge into obedient action. It is as such beginners that we now try to say simply here how we in our community attempt to make room for the peace of Christ. The realization of the peace of Christ is done first of all in prayer understood in the wide sense of the word. For in prayer God is the center and His action is essential. Prayer is the place of encounter with Christ; it is in prayer that we receive His gifts; it is in prayer that our mission is always renewed; and iris in prayer that we ~nd the power for a renewed obedience. For this reason it is essential that we always penetrate more deeply into a life of prayer. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 545 This means for us the following: living by the Church, participation in the worship and the life of the parish in its plenitude and its poverty, living in the presence of Christ listening to His word and for His will, personal prayer of adoration, immolation, praise, thanksgiving, intercession, supplication, and struggle. In the course of the years our mission under the peace has found expression in a number of prayer formulas. In the morning the prayer of abandon and of intercession of all the sisters is linked to the following prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, You have said: "Peace be to you; as the Father has sent me, so also I send you'; Lord, send us also." The prayer cited above, "The peace of God is with us; His peace is upon the earth," corresp.onds to the message of Christmas;it originated as the conclusion of a special intercession on the vigil of.-Christmas. Now we are bold enough to .m.ake it the conclusion of all our Offices throughout the entire year. And always we attempt to line up our prayer anew with our daily life by professing the reality and the presence of the peace of Christ in the midst of everything that surrounds, occupies, and tires us, of everything that weighs down up.on us and upon others. Then there is a short prayer that accompanies each sister during the day in her work and in her brief moments of recollection; it is a prayer that also helps us to keep at each moment the peace, of the resurrected One as the center of the day's events: "Lord Jesus Christ, You are establishing Your Kingdom in the midst of the world. You are the Peace that has. conquered the world. We pray to You to make a place for Yourself in us and by us." In the intercession whi.ch is an essential.part of our mission under the peace, we try to present to God all men in the variety of their situations, to give and entrust them to His peace. We include both those we know as well as those outside our personal relations or interests. In intercession it is God who wishes to be active; it is His peace that acts in a definitive way. We do not present projects or proposals to God; rather we pray that He may keep a person in His peace or that His peace be victorious over a person wherever he is and in whatever set of determinants, or we pray simply that God may gi~,e a person (or ~e~sons) a part in the joy of His presence. 1.t should be evident that a community which wishes to serve the peace of Christ would be desirous of an ecumenical outlook, of havi'ng contacts with Christians of other confessions, of taking part in the prayer for unity and in the common mission of all the Churches with regard to the world of today. This is why we are gratefully happy to be able to maintain relationships and contacts with a large number of groups, congregations, and communities of different Churches. We are convinced that our mission under the peace is closely and meaningfully linked to the fact .that in our sisterhood itself are to be found members living in very different situations. We are bound to recognize that the two vocations - that of marriage and that of celibacy - mutually complement each other and mutually depend on each other. We must give to each other the freedom for different forms of the imitation of Christ - to one the freedom for communitarian life in a total commitment; to a second the liberty to be a celibate whose life is not fixed and hence ~n a certain way can be mobile, entirely available to the "today of God"; and to a thi~rd the freedom for a life in the bonds of marriage and of the family. We are forced to train ourselves to live under the peace of Christ in the tensions which naturally are not small in' a community embracing so many differences, in age, in backgrounds, in work, in ways of thinking and acting. The practice of the peace does not consist in attempts at "peaceful coexistence" or at harmonization; 546 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 neither is it to be found in an excessive zeal to find principles and clear guiding lines. But it is realized if we hold ourselves in the presence of God, turned always toward Him, ready to accept and to forgive one another, and this not only when we celebrate the Eucharist or pray together but in each situation of our life. '~ Another sphere of experiences for our mission under the peace is where we are at home in our houses or our apartments. These should be places of the presence of the peace of Christ; this is why it is most important that one praYs there. And more and more we are recognizing that in the middle of a world ~'here all order is shattered we should not hope to be able to establish oases around us that represent a sane world. The upsetting of order is not held back for us, for our homes, or for our communities:. It is not a question, then, of realizing the ideal type of marriage, of family, of communitarian life, of professional conduct, or of conquering the difficulties of life. The peace of Christ is present in our places of living when we see our state and that of the world as it really is - without salvation and without hope - and when we a~re ready to take into our empty hands the gift of God, being ready to let ourselves be penetrated by the peace of Christ, by His victory, by His pardon, and by His re-creative power. The profound disorder of our world from which so many persons are suffering today ~vill not be healed by absolutizing forms of an order that are given in advance and then held on to. It is the Working of Christ that Will heal; He has arisen, He has freed us in order that we might establish in our world (which is perishing) the sign of His victory which is already given in plenitude to the entire world. It' is natural for these places of the peace to have their doors Open not only in the sense of a normal hospitality (which shares by giving and receiving) but also to receiv~ persons who are crushed, who do not have peace. In this matter different places will act differently according to whether it is the living place of a sister living alone, of a family, or of the Celia Saint-Hildegard and according to whether the place is in a village or in a small or large city. There is no need to enumerate one by one the possibilities of realizing the peace in the numerotfs relationships, responsibilities, and missions in which each of the sisters is placed in her family, her parish, her profession, and so forth. Let us, however, emphasize here how activity and prayer are mutually founded on each other and cannot be separated. Nor must we deceive ourselves by thinking that our human capa6ities' or our success in a given .place would be proof that we are accomplishing our mission; the peace of Christ is not the result~ofour possibilities nor of human efforts. We must be present to ~the world of today, amazed by its achievements, weighed down by its burdens, affected by its maladies - and yet marked and supported by the reality of the Resurrection of Christ: "Something new has been planted~in the world. What we have to share is not our soul, nor our attitudes towards the world, nor our calm, nor our interior peace. We do not occupy ourselves with'ourselves. We do not have to share or show what- the Lord has done to us. We have only to transmit a reality; a blessing, a grace. This is the meaning of the peace of which Jesus speaks" (Comblin). In thus seeifig the peace as a gift which has been entrusted to us and which we have to accept and to carry into the world in His name, we-are professing a profound solidarity with all men under the universal power of the peace. Accordingly, our encounter with Christ cannot be "private," but together with ourselves it concerns the entire world: "Obtain the peace of Christ'and thousands around you are saved" (St. Seraphim). Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 547 THE ECUMENICAL COMMUNITY OF, BOSE ~ [This ~rticle appeared on pages 59 to 63 of the FebruarY" 1972 issue of Unit~ chr~tienne. Th~ address of the principal hous~e of the Bose Community is the following: Comunit~ di Bosch;' 03050 Magnano, Italy.] ~ ¯ , A't Bose, a section of the Commune of Magnano, amidst the hills of the S'erra in Italy there has existed for the last three years a mixed monastic community, Christians of different confessions, Catholic and Protestant, men and women,,all celibate, have joined together to seek God in poverty and in obedience,to the gospel._ The objective of their life ,together is the work of reconciliation among separated Christians, dialogue with all men, and the aw.aiting of Christ. This community whose, members. .lead an ordinary',life dependent on manual or professional work is not a religious congregation or an ecumenical sect.; much less is it a new Church; it is simply a place for the seeking~of unity among Christians, Birth of:.the Community The adyenture of Bose began in0Turip on the via Piave durihg the years of .1965 and, 1966. ItowaS there that a group of young people fgrrfied the habit ofm.ee~ting with~nzo Bianchi, then a student. The group, which~had ~fo.rmed itself in order to giv~ Christian witness to university students, commenced by sharing with the students meals followed by Bible reading and by prayer in common. These encounters continued in a number of old domiciles and finally resulted i9 a group of Catholics, Protestants, and Wa~cl, ensi ,ans" (partiCulariy numerous in Piedm00t), all of whom joined together in a brotherly search for a ne.w,.wa~y of ~living their Christianity. For the Catholic~ of ,the group, tt~e high point of their spi'ritual life. was ~their dor~estic Eucharistic celebration in the course of an eve.ningdev0ote,d~to praye.r,and revision of life. In time the group grew as did also a sense of a particular vocation.It was in this way that the monastic calling of many of the group came to be realized as welLas.the manner and form which their response to this calling should take.~ For many of th.e group the end of their studies was in sight; ahd they spontaneously .experienced the desire to continue: the valuable experience ~f.lived brotherhood. They~ f~lt they should, choose a p0or~aqd secluded area to establish a common house. Their choice fell on Magnano in the Serra, the extensive moraine that lies betw,een Riella and lvrea. ., In September 1966 they had been members of a work camp for the repairing of a crumbling church near Bose, and they had come to appreciate the locality. The c.hurcti had been sufficiently repaired to allow for common prayer.within it; late.r its restoration would be completed~by the Office of Public Mofiumen~ts. Hence, they decided to establish themselves at Bose; they rented a few small and poor houses and fixed them up suitably without, however, altering their simplicity, At the beginning these houses were used only as "second residences" for living over weekends after thei~ s.chool week or professional week was finished; they used to meet there centered around the,Eucharist and there~by made a first tentative, attempt at partial common life. ~ ¯ ~ . The real community took form ,when Enzo Bianchi met two persons:, a young Swiss Reformed pastor, Daniel Attinger, who was impelled by the same desire for ecumenical common life; and. Maria-Teresa Calloni, a young Catholic girl who also was eager to attempt a:monastic experience in a mixed mode. Common life in a small and. secluded village would not be a matter'6f holidaF 548 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4~ comfort, and 'the "~'aspirants" were well aware of this. To test their endurance, they went .t~hrough a period of novitiate to initiate themselves into the monastic life; they made this novitiate in traditional Catholic, Protestant,, and Orthodox commu-nities.~ On August 6, 1968 - they chose the Feast of the Transfiguration for the birth and the anniversaries of their community - seven Catholic and Protestant brothers and-~sisters began "their life in common. The Life of the Community The members of the community simply wanted to be Christians, that is, to take the gospel seriously and to live it not in an isolated way but together. They are. simply baptized persons who n.ormally live by .their work in' order not to be dependent; but they live~together and share their salaries in order to take care of their ownoneeds and to offer a generous fraternal hospitality, for they wish to keep themselve~ in the j6yous poverty of the Beatitudes. To the measure their professions allow (some of them work in Ivrea), they come together for prayer in the morning, at noon, and in the evening; and they also .take: their~ meals together. But in every event they pass their evenings in community, including guests withwhom they are always ready to share their concerns. It is at the'~e evening sessions that they discuss their problems and make their decisions,~ Prayer In accord with the ancient practice, their common p'rayer is the Office chanted three times a day to thee praise of God and as intercession for o~r brothers. In order~ that" this Office might,be within the grasp of all, our community has taken great care in its composition. We have translated numerous prayers from different traditional Christian liturgies and have adapted them to contemporary spirituality. We have also creaf~d flew 15rayers which take into account present-day sensibilities and the problems of our day which remain present in the heart of modern man in his dialogue with God. " Our community has also made a new translation of the Psalms; the translation, rhythmic as psalmody should be, is expressed in ordinary language which can be understood by persons of little education such as workers and peasants. In this way, prayer ceases to be an alibi, a flight from the world; rather it tends to become not only a means of praising God and of listening to His word but also an instrument that works on the world, a prelude to action. In our evening prayer God is praised and the brothers with whom we have lived and worked that day are presented to Him. There are also presented to Him the events of the world, looked at with reference to the Word'who does not ~gase to enlighten our judgme~nt and to guide our conducl?. Hospitality We offer .to our guests a welcome that is very simple but brotherly. They can share'.the life of the community: work, prayer, meals, dialogues. With us they can live in seclusion for as long as they want to examine their problems and to rethink their commitments. Catholics and Protestants, lay persons and priests, bishops and pastors, believers and nonbelievers, young people eager for reriewal - all these receive the same welcome. In 1970 some five thousand persons came to usTor individual or group retreats or for longer periods of experience of the monastic life. Hospitality is a ministry more necessary than ever in this epoch of ours when modern man suffocates in isolation Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 549 in our depersonalized cities. The absence of dialogue, especially the absence of dialogue between generations, harms modern man cruelly. It is in order to provide. interlocutors for modern man that there are springing up today communities of Christian celibates who are a!ways ready to welcome persons and who keep themselves always free to listen to each one. Our Commitment in the Church We said at the beginning that the community of Bose is not a new Church; all of its members remain in the Churches which engendered them by baptism into the life of Christ. Our community does not wish to substitute for the Church nor regard itself as a model for the Church. On the contrary, the members of Bose put themselves at the service of the Christian Churches, especially in the work of reconciliation of Christians of different confessions. The simple fact of beginning a life together after four hundred years of separation can appear to be an evangelical initiative that is audacious and perhaps a little foolish; but today it can be clearly seen that the communitarian enterprise is fundamentally prophetic - a matter that is visible not only in the interior of the community but also in its work of witnessing. Common life animated by the same~word of God, by the same rhythm of the spiritual life, by the acceptance of the same communitarian will have brought our members to a theology of peace that unites rather than divides us. Besides the "breadwinning" work of our members, the community does work for the Church: preaching, Biblical courses, colloquia between Protestants and Catholics, the sparking of encounters and the coordination of "spontaneous groups" in Piedmont. Moreover, the commun.ity illustrates a renewed form of that service of the Church which is constituted by the common monastic life. Celibacy lived with the interior certainty of a calling from God and in.~availability and openness to others expresses confident waiting for the coming of Christ. During the recent years some new vocations have come to confirm and to enrich our young community which is developing without a rigid 'program and in provisional quarters with a practice of poverty of means and of limitation of initiatives. In a word, our community wishes to be a response to an actual need to renew religious life; it accepts the responsibility of having a prophetic value for the world of today. Our Commitment in the World Commitment in the world represents for the brothers of Bose neither a free option nor a supplementary effort; since they work exactly as all other men do, they are naturally involved as the others are in the same social reality where their work is done. Wherever there is question of establishing more justice, they share the responsibilities, the solidarity, and the struggle of the other workers and with no fear of thereby soiling their hands. Each of the members has the concrete duty of choosing the political and labor methods which concretize this struggle for justice. A member's belonging (though not in a juridical way) to the monastic tradition does not dispense him. from involving himself in a concrete way in the liberation of man in the place where he works, for it is there that man is incarnated in reality. It would take a prolonged effort of creative reflection to locate in a suitable fashion the role of the believer in this work of liberation that he accomplishes in 550 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 union with all other men. "The flight from the world" must not be understood as a: throwing aside or an abandonment of our responsibilities but as a contestation with regard to the methods of the world - those methods which are called power, money,, and success. In our community, freed as it is from constraining exterior rules, the different politico-social experiences are confronted and judged only by the criterion of obedience to the gospel and to the demands of justice. A Community of Contestation? During all this time of ecclesial contestation, many groups and individuals have come to Bose to find a form of solidarity. What did they find there? They did not find that contestation "of the salon" that is nourished by gossiping at the expense of the Church and of authority, nor did they find the contestation that aims at rupture. Much less did they ,find the contestation that is a kind of publicity product and that will pass just as styles change. On the contrary, our ,contestation was intended to be serious and to be constructive, l.t limited itself to the criticism of the nonevangelical and the always increasing bureaucratic manner of organizing the life of the Church. Each time the community raised its voice, it did so with the patience and the charity of the gospel. It modeled itself on the contestation of Francis of Assisi when he castigated wealth and power: intransigent as he was in the matter of conduct, he always showed himself good willing toward men. Some difficulties have arisen between our community and the Catholic hierarchy, but we have undergone these taking them to be a sign of maturation. The Future of Bose Our community wishes to be provisory not in the sense that some day a sudden decision will put an end to it, but in the sense that it wishes "to live the today of God" without worry about a need for continuity. In October 1970 we opened at Turin a brotherhood (the address is: Fraternith Universitaria; Via Piave 8; Turin, Italy) in order to found in the city a place of welcome and of prayer destined especially for the university world. This was done at the reque§t of Catholic and Waldensian communities of the area. As soon as the number of our members permits, we hope to open in Switzerland a similar brotherhood for specifically ecumenical work. If it is possible ~o say it all in a single phrase, we at Bose want to live the gospel by means of the community. SISTER MARY SERAPHIM, P.C.P.A. Feminine Monastic Spirituality [Sister Mary Seraphim is a member of Sancta Clara Monastery; 4200 Market Avenue N.; Canton, Ohio 44714~1 In quest of directives to deepen my concept of the cloistered life and also to develop a spirituality in conformity with it, I began to search~ for some books or writings which dealt with the monastic life for women. To my astonishment, I discovered that practically nothing existed on the subject. Most, in fact all, of the books which had been recommended during my years in formation had dealt with ~he monastic life as monks lived it. The books were written by men about men and although the writers presumed that ~what they said was equally.applicable to nuns, itwas so only in an accommodated sense which left much to be desired. Pursuing my search, I consulted the New Catholic Encycloped.ia only to discover that under such headings as "Spirituality" or~"Monasticism" the word feminine does not even occur. A passing reference is made to the. rise of monasteries of virgins in the .third and fourth centuries'but~ these communities were patterned, on the existing monastic life of monks and had no specifically womanly character. The closest one could come to discovering a distindt feminine style of spiritual living in the early Church were the consecrated virgins who occtlpied a place of service and rank in the assembly of the faithful but who continued to live their dedication within the home. Some few groups~ of consecrated virgins did ,live together; for instance, St. Paula turned her house into a home for widows or virgins in Rome but this life style was not widely propagated.° In ecclesiastical documents about feminine monastic life, I found that while they dealt extensively width the externals of enclosure~ ingress and egress, ,~religious ceremonies, and so forth, very little if anything was s~iid about the spirituality of the women who were to be observing these regulations. The most insightful document, ato least to this writer's mind, which has appeared so far, is' the controversial Venite .seorsum - On the Contemplative Life and the Enclosure of Nuns. Pas~ing over any commentary on the regulations prescribed, I would like to observe that the first section of this instruction treats in an unusually perceptive manner the spirituality of contemplative nuns. However, even this instruction .touches only on some of the broad and obvious characteristics of feminine spirituality. Much more can, I feel, and should be said in this area. Turning to some of the noted women writers of the past, we find St. Teresa of Avila writing with profound insight on the life of the spirit for women, but what she teaches with rel~ard to the development oi~ that life within the confines of the monastic framework for women has not gone much beyond ther doors of Carmel. Has anyone taken her writings and sifted from them what would be applic~able to all cloistered religious ~women? It seems that such a study would be immensely profitable for that half of monast~icism which is female. Looking into my own Pogr Clare tradition I noted that St. Clare had no intention of founding a "monastic" order in the traditional sense any more than did St. 552 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/4 Francis. She accepted (because she was forced to) a modified Benedictine rule and lived it most of her life. But she never gave up her struggle to have her own conception of gospel living approved. Three days before her death a Bull was placed in.her hands attesting ~the approbation of the Church on her unique "Forha of Life:" Throughout the centUries Poor Clares have been classed as a monastic order in the Church; and although this is true from a purely juridical point of view, it is a distortion of the reality from a spiritual point of view. Not "Female Monks" Traditionally, monks are defined as solitary seekers after God who live a common life for the sake of greater freedom from mundane concerns: Now this definition does not sit easily on the hearts of cloistered women. The idea of being solitaries living in community destroys something fundamental in the why and wherefore of feminine community life. A woman cannot live as though she were a hermit even with one other woman, much less a house of twenty or more! She must interact with those around her for it is part and parcel of feminine endowment that she is alterocentric. Therefore a spirituality which does not take this truth into accourit will not meet the specific needs of feminine monastic life. The necessity of developing in writing the style of spiritual life of cloistered contemplative women is becoming increasingly important. For today the Church has asked that ea~l~ order and congregation restudy its sources and examine itself to determine whether it is living according to its own unique charism. As a result of this reexamination,' many contemplative women have become aware of the discrepancy that exists between the spiritual books which have hitherto been considered normative and the fidelity to their special role and calling that the Church is asking of them. Nuns are awakening to the fact that they are not "female monks.'

Issue 55.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1996. ; for religi ous Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 199-~ * VOLUME 55 ¯ NUMBER 5 Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their ~ersonal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are meant to be informative, prhctical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point If view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) i! published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits o,'f the Missouri Province¯ Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St.!Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯Fax~: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOPPEMA@SLU~ZCI.SLU.EDU Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonoug.~ OP 1150 Cedar Cove R~oad ¯ Hendelson, NC 27536 POSTMASTER ¯ Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.( Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, See inside back cover for information ¯ Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. hnd additional mailing offices. 3n subscription rates. ©1996 Review for Rel ious Permission is herewith granted to copv any material (article]s, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Rehglous for personal or ~nternal use, or for the personal or ~nternal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 anl:l/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear n~tice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1996 ¯ VOLUME55 ¯ NUMBER5 contents consecrated life 454 462 Vita Consecrata: A Vocation for the Third Millennium Rose McDermott SSJ summarizes the content of John Paul's apostolic exhortation on consecrated life and highlights a few of its provisions. The Holy Spirit in Church Documents on the Consecrated Life Sally Ann Brickner OSF examines the increasing recognition by church documents of the role of the Holy Spirit in consecrated-life renewal. seeking God 474 Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life 485 Terrance Wayne Klein identifies three areas of concern for vocational recruitment: contact with ministerial mentors, a growing spiritual freedom in those seeking ministry, and a sense of enhancing community life. Reflections of a Fin de SiOcle Novice Michael Tidd FSC reviews his novitiate experience to clarify elements of formation central to apostolic life. --450 Review for Religious 494 5O6 breaking boundaries Racism and Religious Life Clemente Barr6n CP gives gentle and honest witness to an experience of racism that infects good people in the church and in religious life. Movement from Monocultural to Multicultural Congregations Gary Riebe-Estrella SVD suggests that what racially distinct groups offer is the opportunity to incarnate for our church and world the gospel's "Good Samaritan" model of persons letting their physical proximity turn them into neighbors. 521 527 living spiritually Perseverance: Letting the Goodness Out Melannie Svoboda SND explores factors that facilitate our practice of the virtue of perseverance. Friends through Prayer Eugene M. Rooney SJ reemphasizes the importance of prayer as a way of communication and support in a world of e-mail and fax. departments 452 Prisms 533 Canonical Counsel: The Role of Councils in Religious Governance 540 Book Reviews Septe~nber-October 1996 prisms ~ita consecrata, the papal exhortation which completed the work of the synod of bishops deal-ing with consecrated life in the church, has only just begun to be studied. First public reactions to the document seem to have been quite favorable. Of course, there will be critique--inevitable, and abso-lutely necessary if there is to be continuing development and growth. One observation made immediately upon publication was about the daunting length of the docu-ment. Although there are only three chapters, along with an introduction and a conclusion, the text is substantial and typical of the dense style of writing associated with Pope John Paul. Perhaps a saving factor in a long text is that there seems to be "something in it for everyone." Of course, there is likely something to disconcert everyone too. Some have already expressed dissatisfaction with the English translation "objective superiority" (§18 and §32) applied to consecrated life. Some are disappointed with the inconclusiveness of the equal stance of brothers in relation to priests in what is called a "mixed" institute; further work by a study commission is promised for a deci-sion. While new forms of consecrated life are acknowl-edged and praised, a proposed commission to determine criteria of authenticity and of approval suggests a stance of caution. Although there is a strong positive stance towards the specific contribution of women religious, what is referred to as "new possibilities of presence and action on the part of consecrated women" may need more to be Revlew for Religious acknowledged as already a fact in many parts of the church than a future yet to be realized. But important as the resolution of these practical matters will be for the proper development of consecrated lifeforms, I believe that the approach taken by the pope in the first chapter is hugely significant for a theological understanding and a spiritual appre-ciation of consecrated life. The pope does not take up the tools of philosophy, theology, anthropology, sociology, or behaviorial sci-ences for his primary approach to consecrated life. Instead he proposes the gospel passage of Jesus' transfiguration and suggests that we approach it as if it ycere an icon. This transfiguration icon involves a gazing on the face of Jesus both in a "going up the mountain" and a "coming down the mountain." The pope refers to an ancient spiritual tradition which links the contemplative life to the prayer of Jesus on the moun-tain. But then he adds that the active dimension of consecrated life can be included because the transfiguration event serves as prepa-ration to share with Jesus in the "toil of God's plan" and to be with him "courageously on the way of the cross." In using the sacramentality of the icon, we Christians enter sacred time and space. Through a communion with the mystery signified by an icon, tradition holds that the believer is being made-holy. An icon can be studied for the meanings of its sym-bolism, and so there is an intellectual component. Through reflec-tions on various themes stimulated by the gospel passage, John Paul develops a contemporary understanding of consecrated life. But always the focus remains the icon giving us an experience of a divine world. For our understanding and appreciation of conse-crated life, then, Vita consecrata presents us with a gospel text to suggest cognitive content and an iconic vision of the divine: by gazing upon the face of Jesus, we enter into the mystery of con-secrated life in the church and its centering world of holiness. Review for Religious takes pride in making available the text of Vita consecrata, along with a wealth of other contextual arti-cles, in The Church and Consecrated Life. The book costs $18.95 plus postage; it can be ordered from our St. Louis office. See the order form at the end of this issue. David L. Fleming SJ September-October 1996 consecrated life ROSE McDERMOTT Vita Consecrata: A Vocation for the Third Millennium When Pope Paul VI inaugurated the Synod of Bishops on 15 September 1965, he desired that it examine a selected topic in the light of church teachings and the experience of the particular churches. The synod, repre-senting the universal church, would provide the pope and world's bishops with effective collaboration and helpful insights in their shared concern for the Christian faithful throughout the world. Under date of 25 March 1996, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, Pope John Paul II promulgated Vita consecrata, the apostolic exhortation for the ninth ordinary session of the Synod of Bishops, held 2 through 29 October 1994. This document marks the completion of the study of the three principal vocations in the church. The priesthood was discussed in the second (1971) and eighth (1990) general sessions and the vocation to the lay state in the seventh (1987) session. Those who have studied the preparatory documents and followed the synod interventions and discussions will find no great surprises in the apostolic exhortation. Rather, it is a fine synthesis of the church's teaching on conse-crated life and its lived reality in the various parts of the world. The document shows the fruits of the consultative process encouraged by the synod's lineamenta document Rose McDermott SSJ, of the Department of Canon Law at Catholic University, last wrote for us in March-April 1995. Her address is Visitation Convent; 1524 35th Street, N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20007. Review for Religions and the contributions of the bishops and other participants gath-ered from around the world for the actual synod assembly. The present article reviews the church's teaching on conse-crated life as reflected in the apostolic exhortation and points to potential developments mentioned in the same document. Since PTta consecrata is hortatory and not legislative, the developments indicated in the document will be the subjects of further theo-logical and canonical study and authoritative deliberations. The Church's Teaching on Consecrated Life The introduction to the apostolic exhortation (§§1-13) describes consecrated life in its gospel beginnings, offers gratitude to God for this gift to the church, and expresses the apostolic exhortation's purpose: to put forth the fruits of this synod session, which has studied this vocation and its contribution to the church's mission. Six forms of consecrated life are presented, with a final paragraph noting the new expressions of the vocation present in the vari-ous churches today. Pope John Paul recognizes that the exhorta-tion is far from the final word on consecrated life. He offers the document to encourage those consecrated by the profession of the counsels to meet the challenges of today's world. Chapter I of the exhortation, Confessio Trinitatis (§§14-40), con-templates the vocation to consecrated life within the gospel icon of the Transfiguration. Persons responding to this vocation have caught a glimpse of the glory of God; he becomes the driving force of their life and activity. Configured to Christ chaste, poor, and obedient, they enjoy an intimacy with the community of the Trinity in their willingness to leave all and follow Christ in an ever deeper response to their baptismal commitment. Consecrated persons are beloved of the Father, who sends them forth--as he did Christ and the Spirit--in dedicated service to the world. This vocation cannot be lived without willing entry into the paschal mystery of suffering. The moment of glory on the mount strengthened the faith of the apostles and prepared them for their own suffering and martyrdom. So, too, the consecrated person embraces a life of labor, suffering, and abandonment to the Father's will. Yet Peter's remark is on the lips of those configured to Christ through this vocation: "Lord, it is good for us to be here." Consecrated life cannot be lived apart from the church; it belongs inextricably to its life and holiness. Through the profes- September-October 1996 McDermott ¯ Vita Consecrata sion of the counsels, consecrated persons offer a vibrant witness to the life and teachings of Christ. They are nourished through liturgical and personal prayer and traditional ascetic practices in the church. Meeting the spiritual combat in their own lives enables consecrated persons to transform the world in humility, detach-ment, and reliance on God. Chapter 2, Signum Fraternitatis (§§41-71). All forms of con-secrated life manifest communion in imitation of Christ's life within the Trinitarian community and in the company of the Twelve. This communion is particularly lived out in religious institutes and societies of apostolic life where the members live in common, supporting one another in the spiritual life and in the apostolate. Members of secular institutes are joined in community with one another through their charism and their embrace of the community in which they live and labor. The church, a mystery of communion (Ac 2:42-47), depends on consecrated persons to give witness to community in an often fragmented and broken world. Within the ecclesial community the bishop looks after the charisms for the good of all the faith-ful. While institutes of consecrated life enjoy a rightful auton-omy of life and governance, they should cooperate with the respective bishops, sharing their goals and apostolates with them. Lay persons recognize the value of communities of conse-crated persons. They seek to attach themselves to them, sharing their spirituality and assisting in their apostolates. These associ-ates and volunteers should be fostered and formed so that they appreciate their lay vocation more deeply and readily lend them-selves to apostolic endeavor in their particular churches. Likewise, formation programs for candidates should reflect human, com-munal, apostolic, cultural, and professional dimensions adapted to the whole person. Chapter 3, Servitium Caritatis (~'§72-103). The mission of those consecrated by profession of the evangelical counsels is one of communicating God's love to the world. One is consecrated and sent (Jn 10:36). The challenges of today's world demand a strong interior life of consecrated persons, a life deeply in tune with the Spirit of God. Through their charisms, members of institutes of consecrated life witness a particu!al~ aspect of the gospel message to those they serve. The universal character of their institutes permits them to join with other ecclesial ministers in carrying out the church's Review for Religious . mission through evangelization, ecumenical and interreligious dialogues, inculturation, the preferential option for the poor, and the promotion of justice. Through their profession of chastity, poverty, and obedience, consecrated persons offer a prophetic witness to the world and address the challenges of a hedonistic culture, materialism, and a distorted use of freedom. The community dimension of conse-crated life teaches the universal call to holiness regardless of differences and human limitations. This prophetic wit-ness is the fruit of a deep spiritual life and an openness to God's word in litur-gical and personal prayer. The apostolic exhortation's Conclusion. The document ends as it began, in grat-itude to God and to those who "waste" their lives in what seems at times an irrelevant commitment, a life poured out in selfless love and service. This vocation as an essential part ofthe church's life and holiness. Consecrated persons contribute with unbounded generosity to the various aspects of the mission of the church. The pope exhorts consecrated persons to live fully the life they have embraced, a life of The document ends as it began, in gratitude to God and to those who "waste" their lives in what seems at times an irrelevant commitment, a life poured out in selfless love and service. continual conversion and dedication to Christ, challenged by the new millennium, but focused on the world to come. A prayer addressed to the Trinity and an invocation to the Virgin of the Visitation for consecrated women and men bring the document to an end. Potential Developments in Consecrated Life New institutes, new forms, new ecclesial movements (§§12 and 62). The Holy Spirit revitalizes the ecclesial community through a variety of new gifts. These charisms can be seen in the embry-onic beginnings of new institutes of consecrated life that meet the present theological and canonical criteria. Other develop-ments seem to be new forms of consecrated life and must await approval from the Apostolic See. Still other "evangelical lifestyles" September-October 1996 McDermott ¯ Vita Gonsecrata that possess some of the characteristics of consecrated life and various other forms of Christian witness would seem to be more accurately categorized as associations of the faithful. Pope John Paul has encouraged these developments in his weekly general audiences during the synod and in the apostolic exhortation. He recognizes them as a true sign of the charismatic nature of the church. This wealth of new gifts is received by the church with grat-itude. These charisms do not substitute fox~ the traditional ones approved by the church throughout its history. Rather, they should complement the older forms and continue in their rich tradition. Bishops have requested more exact criteria in order to discern and distinguish these new developments. A commission has been set up (1) to deal with questions relating to these new forms, (2) to determine criteria to assist church authorities in their dis-cernment and decision making regarding them, and (3) to pre-sent those officially approved as new forms of consecrated life to the faithful. Legislation for cloister (§Yg). The church has always held the contemplative life in highest esteem and has provided norms on cloister to preserve the values inherent in this vocation. While men religious dedicated totally to the contemplative life regulate their cloister (canon 667, §2), women religious totally given to the contemplative life observe cloister in accord with the norms issued by the Apostolic See (c. 667, §3). This difference in the provisions for the cloister of men and women contemplative religious seems contradictory to canon 606, which provides equality in the common law for men and women religious. The cloistral norms seem contrary also to canon 586, which assures all religious institutes a true autonomy to direct their own life and governance in accord with the patrimony of the institute. Women religious institutes dedicated totally to the contemplative life represent a rich variety of monastic and men-dicant traditions. Yet all are obliged to papal cloister without due regard for their varied charisms. Pope John Paul assures us in §59 that careful consideration will be given the concerns addressed by the participants of the synod with regard to this issue. It should be noted that many of the diocesan bishops participating in the synod assembly asked contemplative men and women', to share their prayer life and extend their hospitality to clerics, la~ people, and other religious Review for Religious who seek spiritual renewal. The exhortation assures that more authority will be given major superiors ofsui iuris monasteries to grant dispensations from enclosure for just and sufficient reasons in keeping with conciliar renewal. This provision would be in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity and enable institutes of contemplative life to express their charisms better in their clois-ter regulations. Associates and volunteers joined to institutes of consecrated life (§ Y 6). Before the Second Vatican Council, only religious orders with an apostolic indult were permitted to have third orders secular attached to them. Conciliar teaching placed great emphasis on an ecclesiology of communion that had noteworthy implications for the rela-tionship of the laity With institutes of con-secrated life. Today all religious institutes without distinction can have members of the laity associated with them, sharing their spirituality and joining in their apos-tolic works. This phenomenon was rec-ognized in the preparatory documents of the synod and lauded by the participants in the assembly. Paragraph 56 of the apostolic exhor-tation notes the increasing number of associates and lay volunteers joined to institutes of consecrated life. Vv'hile the exhortation cautions the protection of the identity of these same institutes, it encourages a proper preparation of the lay people joined to them in order that they approach their apostolic com-mitments with supernatural intentions anda strong sense of com-munity. Lay persons in decision-making positions in the apostolates of these institutes should promote the ends of the institute and carry out their labors under its competent superiors. Directives approved by proper authorities need to be provided in such cases. Mixed institutes (§61). Some institutes of men religious, par-ticularly those sharing the Franciscan charism, are neither lay nor clerical from their foundation. In keeping with the intention of their founder, they admit both clerics and laymen to the insti-tute. All are friars or brothers with equal rights and obligations in Today all religious institutes without distinction can have members of the laity associated with them, sharing their spirituality and joining in their apostolic works. September-October 1996 McDermott ¯ Vita Consecrata the institute, prescinding from their lay or clerical status. Conciliar and postconciliar teachings support this fundamental equality of all members and their participation in the life and governance of the institute. The universal law of the church, however, makes no provision for these mixed institutes. It provides only for cler-ical or lay institutes in accord with their foundation, traditions, and end. Likewise, in many of these mixed institutes, some offices require daat the members be ordained. The synod assembly proposed that, when the general chapter of such an institute reque.sted, all offices of governance within these institutes be open to members without distinction. This proposal would be in conformity with the intention of the founders that all members be equal in the life and governance of the institute. Paragraph 61 of the apostolic exhortation recom-mends that such institutes study the original inspiration of their founder. In the meantime a special commission has been estab-lished to examine and resolve the problems concerning this issue. Mutual relations of bishops and consecrated persons (~§48-50). The ecclesiology of communion has led to an intense reflection on the role of consecrated life within the life and apostolate of the particular churches. While institutes of consecrated life are uni-versal by nature, the vocation of their individual members is lived out in a particular church. In 1978 the congregations for bish-ops and for institutes of consecrated life published the document Mutuae relationes, a compilation of directives for effective mutual relations between bishops and religious. These directives exhort bishops and major superiors to collaborate more effectively at the national level through their respective conferences and at the local level through meetings of the diocesan bishops with the major superiors whose members serve the particular church. The synod assembly recommended a revision of this docu-ment which would reflect the developments in this area, particu-larly as reflected in the legislation of the Latin and Eastern churches. In keeping with the synod proposal, the exhortation recommends that delegates from the conferences of bishops par-ticipate in the conferences of major superiors of their nations and that delegates from these latter conferences participate in the meetings of the episcopal conferences. It further proposes that the theology and spirituality of consecrated life be an integral part of the preparation of diocesan priests. Likewise, the study of ecclesiology should be included in the formation program for Review for Religious members of institutes of consecrated life. Pope John Paul con-curs with the members of the synod in hoping that this spirit of communion and cooperation be extended to the entire church. Perhaps a revision and expansion ofMutuae relationes will be pre-sented in the near future. Conclusion As the apostolic exhortation concludes with a reference to Mary, Virgin of the Visitation, it is appropriate that this article end in like manner. Mary, her heart filled with Christ, went forth to serve Elizabeth. Consecrated persons configured to Christ stand ready to meet the needs of people in the third millennium. And with Peter in his ecstasy they cry, "Lord, it is good for us to be here." Abba At the shore where sea and sky and land meet and waves pound the rocks with constant rhythm, I find myself caught up by the stout winds, drawn by the salt air and combative gulls. Here is where I face God in his might yet also encounter him in beauty . Sunsets beckon like fringes of heaven while shorebirds encompass the lilt of hope. I am a mere grain of eternity yet I'm always within God's providence and like the back and forth surge of the tide am drawn into the core of a loving heart. Neil C. Fitzgerald September-October 1996 SALLY ANN BRICKNER The Holy Spirit in Church Documents on the Consecrated Life Twhheen Stheceo cnhdu Vrcaht irceafnl eCcoteudn coinl witsa so twhen encactluersei oalnodg imcails msioonm. eInnt convoking the council Pope John XXIII requested that it be pas-toral in tone and call the entire church to renewal so that its mis-sion, which is none other than Christ's mission of establishing the reign of God, be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. Pope John Paul II, in his recent apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata, says of consecrated life: "Its universal presence and the evangelical nature of its witness are clear evidence., that the consecrated life is not something isolated and marginal, but a reality which affects the whole church. In effect, the consecrated life is at the very heart of the church as a decisive element for her mission since it 'manifests the inner nature of the Christian calling' and the striving of the whole church as bride toward union with her one Spouse" (§3). The appropriate renewal of the con-secrated life, therefore, is essential to renewal in the church.1 Since the close of the council in December 1965, develop-ments in ecclesiology, in the church's thinking about its nature as mystery and as the universal sacrament of salvation, have fre-quently focused on the Holy Spirit. Vita consecrata reflects this: "Like the whole of Christian life, the call to the consecrated life is closely linked to the working of the Holy Spirit" (§ 19). Through Sally Ann Brickner OSF is a faculty member at St. Norbert College. Her address is Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross; 2413 South Webster Avenue; Green Bay, Wisconsin 54301. Review for Religious a study of this and other recent church documents, this essay demonstrates that pneumatology has become important in the ecclesiological understanding of the consecrated life and that this emphasis has implications for its continuing renewal. This study proceeds chronologically through the two concil-iar documents and the eight postconciliar documents that explic-itly treat the consecrated life. A brief explanation of pneumatology provides a backdrop for the analysis. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications of this ecclesiological doctrine for the continuing appropriate renewal of the consecrated life. What Is Pneumatology? The Greek word pneuma means breath, air, wind, soul, spirit. Pneumatology, then, is the branch of systematic theology that studies the Person and work of the I-Ioly Spirit.2 The t-Ioly Spirit has been virtually lost from much of Christian consciousness, some theologians claim. The Spirit of God manifests herself through various actions: vivifying, renewing and empowering, gracing. The Holy Spirit is the mutual rela-tionship of love within the community (koinonia) of the Godhead, freely going forth to renew, to liberate.3 It is the Spirit who makes it possible for us to know and experience Christ. Christ's life in us and our life in Christ is ecclesial in the sense that Christ's Spirit is the principle of communication and communion.4 "The church is the body of Christ, because Christ is a pneumatological being, born and exist-ing in the koinonia of the Spirit.''5 Christ is the head of the church, and the Holy Spirit is the heart of the church. Word and Spirit are the two hands of God at work building God's reign.6 The church has come to understand the Holy Spirit also through the Spirit's free gifts, charisms, "to perform distinct and mutually complementary functions in building up the body of Christ." Charisma must be understood in relation to charis, "grace" that God gives for the common good and the renewal of the church in all eras.7 Charisms are not extraordinary, ecstatic gifts reserved to a few persons. Rather, they are the obvious ways "through which the Spirit structures the church by rousing from Christ is the head of the church, and the Holy Spirit is the heart of the church. September-October 1996 Brickner ¯ The Hol~ Spirit in Church Documents within the services and functions of the community according to the diversity and qualities of each member. In this perspective there is no opposition between charism and institution. A ministry is normally the expression of a charism, and a permanent charism takes the form of a ministry or a service." Charism also refers to the gifts which inspire the choice of a particular state of life such as marriage or celibacy. But in the end neither charism nor insti-tution will exist. Charity alone endures and is the true measure and strength of any charism,s Against this backdrop about pneumatology and its relationship to ecclesiology, we can now examine pneumatology in documents pertaining to the consecrated life. What pneumatology is evi-dent? Does development occur in pneumatology? Conciliar Documents Before examining the two conciliar texts, it will be beneficial to consider briefly whether and how pneumatology was approached by the council fathers. It has been said that the eccle-siology of Vatican Council II is pneumatological as well as Christocentric, and ultimately theocentric.9 Yves Congar, the renowned theologian of this century and peritus of the council, claims that its ecclesiology is pneumatological though not pneu-matocentric. 1° It stresses, first and foremost, that the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, building up the Body of Christ. The documents depict both a visible and a spiritual manifestation of the Spirit who animates the church here and now. The council fathers rec-ognize multiple charisms, the infinite variety of gifts which the -Holy Spirit gives for the common good and the renewal of the church. The council also affirms that the Holy Spirit calls and gathers the people of God into communion, both within partic-ular churches as well as within the universal church.11 Whether these pneumatological perspectives appear in the two council texts specifically dealing with the consecrated life is the issue to which we now turn. Lumen Gentium (1964) In this primordial document, chapters 5, "Call of the Whole Church to Holiness," and 6, "Religious," speak of the Holy Spirit several times. The holiness of the church is unceasingly mani-fested through the fruits of the Holy Spirit in all the faithful. The Review for Relig4ous Holy Spirit also influences the practice of the evangelical coun-sels as a shining witness and model of holiness (§39). Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, church authority has the duty of interpreting the evangelical counsels, regulating their practice, and establishing stable forms of living in accordance with them (§43). The council fathers affirm that the religious state, though not belonging to the hierarchical structure of the church, belongs inseparably to her life and holiness. It manifests the surpassing greatness of Christ the King and the boundless power of the Holy Spirit (§44) in .the church. Perfectae Caritatis (1965) Few direct references to the Holy Spirit appear in Perfectae caritatis.12 Through God's love which is poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit, some Christians are impelled to practice the evangelical counsels in a true family gathered together in the Lord's name. Their "brotherly" unity shows that Christ has come and results in great apostolic effectiveness (§§ 1 and 15). The pro-cesses of appropriate renewal of religious life include (1) a return to the sources of Christian life and to the original inspiration of the founder and (2) adjustment of the community to the changed conditions of the times. These processes are to go forward under the influence of the Holy Spirit and with the guidance of the church (§2). Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the church is enriched with a variety of communities having a diver-sity of apostolic works (§8). Postconciliar Documents Evangelica Testificatio (1971) In this apostolic exhortation "On the Renewal of Religious Life," written six years after the close of the council, Pope Paul VI emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gifts the church with martyrs and with various forms of religious life (§3). Pope Paul speaks of the "charisms of the founders" and the "charism of religious life," which are the fruit of the Holy Spirit always at work within the church (§11). The Spirit guides the church in its interpretation and regulation of the evangelical coun-sels (§7). The Spirit inspires communities of consecrated life not only in their origins but also in their renewal, which requires dis-cernment (§§6 and 51). By placing greater emphasis on the ¯ September-October 1996 Brickner ¯ The Holy Spirit in Church Documents charismatic nature of the consecrated life, church teaching becomes less iuridic and more pneumatic.13 Mutuae Relationes (1978) This document, based on a consultation of bishops and reli-gious in 1975, portrays vividly the pneumatic ecclesiological insights of Vatican Council II, continues to use the term "charism," and provides criteria for evaluating the authenticity of charisms. Profound reflections on the pneumatic origin and sacramental nature of the church permeate the first chapter. "The soul of the ecclesial body is the Holy Spirit" (§9). Ever since the day of Pentecost there has existed in the world a new people which draws its life from the Holy Spirit and is united in Christ so as to have access to the Father. ¯ . This unique nature of the church is due to the presence of the Holy Spirit himself. He is the life and strength of the people of God, the cohesive power in its communion, the energy for its mission, the source of its various gifts, the bond of its marvelous unity, the light and beauty in its creative power, the fire of its love . The life-giving pres-ence of the Holy Spirit creates an organic cohesion in Christ,. for the Spirit "makes [the church] one in its com-munion and ministry, provides it with various hierarchical and charismatic gifts, directing it through them, and adorns it with his fruits." (§§1 and 2) Both founders of consecrated life and bishops are "enriched with suitable charisms" such as the "special charism of organizing" pastoral ministries and of discerning local cultural values (§§6 and 9). Remaining faithful to the charism of their founders, reli-gious institutes should make use of the charism for inventiveness, for bold and ingenious new ecclesial experiments under the impulse of the Holy Spirit (§§14 and 19). Bishops have the respon-sibility of discerning whether a charism is authentic: it must (1) take its origin from the Spirit as something distinct though not separate from innate or acquired gifts, (2) show a desire to become like Christ in order to witness to some aspect.of his mystery, and (3) show a fruitful love for the church that avoids discord (§51). The document acknowledges tensions between the hierarchic structure and consecrated life, encouraging collaboration between bishops and religious for the good of the church. Religious Life and Human Promotion (1980) Because of its focus on human promotion as the mission of the Review for Religious church and therefore of religious as well, one would think that the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes would emphasize pneumatology. However, only a few references to the work of the Holy Spirit appear. Religious are encouraged to be enterprising in undertakings and initiatives in keeping with the charismatic and prophetic nature of their life (§2 7). Renewal in the consecrated life is important for the church and for ~he world because the works of religious, marked by a diversity of charisms, are one of the most important means by which the church carries out its evangelization (§5). The Holy Spirit constantly inspires new forms of consecrated life and animates existing communi-ties, which are called to remain faithful to the purposes for which they were founded (§§6 and 8). Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life (1981) This document results from a plenary meeting of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes in 1980 and stresses the absolute primacy of life in the Holy Spirit (§17). Contemplation is an infused gift of the Holy Spirit by which the believer opens up to the revelation and communication of the liv-ing God. As the highest and fullest activity of the spirit, contem-plation is the real secret of renewal for religious life (§1). Action and contemplation must be fused. Only apostolic and charitable activity which is inspired and motivated by the Holy Spirit is of the very nature of refigious life (§4). The Sacred Congregation urges "renewed attention tolife in the Holy Spirit" through daily meditation on Sacred Scripture (§8), celebration of the Eucharist (§9) and the sacrament of reconciliation (§ 10), spiritual direction (§11), the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours (§12), the prac-tice of asceticism (§14), and devotion to the Virgin May (§13). Redemption# Donum (1983) The few pneumatological references in this apostolic exhor-tation of Pope John Paul (on religious consecration in the light of the mystery of redemption) parallel those of other documents on the consecrated life. Religious profession is described as a fuller expression of baptismal "consecration to God in Jesus Christ" in a covenant of spousal love (§§7 and 8). The Holy Spirit calls peo-ple to follow Christ and recalls to mind all that Christ has said. The entire economy of redemption is realized precisely through the mysterious action of the Holy Spirit, who is the author of all September-October 1996 Brickner ¯ The Holy Spirit in Church Documents holiness (§§6 and 9). The vow of celibacy is a charismatic choice which brings the eschatological kingdom of God close to the life of all people, while the vow of obedience engenders total avail-ability to the Holy.Spirit (§§11 and 13). The particular gift of the founder, from which the apostolate must come, endures as a charism for the whole community (§15). Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life (1983) The document summarizes the church's traditional teachings and norms pertaining to the consecrated life. Its few references to the Holy Spirit offer no new insights. The church has approved and encourages renewal in its numerous religious families, whose distinctiveness derives from the founding charism (§§11, 41, and 42). The witness of religious can be a clear echo of the gospel "to the extent that it manifests publicly the transforming power of Christ in the church and the vitality of the institute's charism to the people of our time" (§§11 and 37). Hence, renewal must focus on fidelity to the founding gift.14 Fraternal Life in Community (1994) In this document the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) lucidly and directly expresses the pneumatic character of the church and of the consecrated life. Like the mystery of the church itself, the consecrated life expresses the great Trinitarian com-munion in which the Father has willed that women and men have part in the Holy Spirit (§§2, 9, and 71). Religious community is an expression of ecclesial communion. "Before being a human construction, religious community is a gift of the Spirit. It is the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, from which religious community takes its origin and is formed as a true fam-ily gathered together in the Lord's name" (§8). The fruit of this communion is the gift of fraternal life. Religious community is not simply a collection of Christians seek-ing personal perfection. Rather, it is to be a living organism of intense fraternal communion animated by the foundational charism (§2). United in the Holy Spirit, religious are to become brothers and sisters in their daily experience of communion of life, prayer and apostolate (§§44, 10, 11). Communion originates precisely in sharing the Spirit's gifts. The more religious share ¯ the things that are central and vital, the more the fraternal bond Review for Religious grows in strength (§32). Thus, religious should live alone only in exceptional cases and should value diversity within the com-munity (§65). "Optional homogeneity, besides weakening apostolic mobility, weakens the Pneumatic strength of a community and robs the spiritual reality which rules the community of its power as witness" (§41). "Just as the Holy Spirit anointed the church in the upper room to send her out to evangelize the world, so every reli-gious community, as an authentic pneumatic community of the Risen One, is also, and according to its own nature, apostolic" (§58). Fraternal communities become missionaries of that love "taught and lived by Christ and communicated to us through his Spirit" (§56). This missionary activ-ity is lived out in a particular church to which the religious community brings the richness of its consecration, its fraternal life, and its charism (§60). Religious must seek a just balance between per-sonal charisms and the community's apostolate without the dis-integrating forms of individualism or the leveling aspects of communitarianism (§39). Fraternal communion is already an apos-tolate, and contributes directly to the work of evangelization (§54). "The effectiveness of religious life depends on the quality of the fraternal life in common," which serves as a sign and stim-ulus for all the baptized (§§54 and 2). Fraternal communion is already an apostolate, and contributes directly to the work of evangelization. Vita Consecrata (1996) While the conciliar documents laid the firm foundation for future developments in pneumatology in church documents on the consecrated life, this apostolic exhortation gives shape to its mag-nificent mansion. Dare it be said that in thid document pneuma-tology moves to the front and center?~s Pneumatology as depicted in the document manifests deeper ecclesiological understandings of the consecrated life in three areas: consecration, communion, and mission. After providing brief citations of pneumatology from the document for each of these areas, we reflect on the Holy Father's repeated emphasis on founding charisms. Considered a deepening of baptismal consecration, religious profession includes a special call and gift of the Holy Spirit to September-October 1996 Brickner * The Holy Spirit in Church Documents live the evangelical councils in religious community (§30). "Consecrated persons, who embrace the evangelical counsels, receive a new and special consecration which, without being sacra-mental, commits them to making their own--in chastity, poverty and obedience--the way of life practiced personally by Jesus and proposed by him to his disciples" (§31). The consecrated life is a way of showing forth the church's holiness, an especially rich man-ifestation of gospel values and a more complete expression of the church's purpose, which is the sanctification of humanity (§32). The consecrated life is also a sign of communion in the church. "The church is essentially a mystery of communion, 'a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit'" (§41). "It is the Spirit himself who leads the soul to the experience of communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, a communion which is the source of fraternal life" and of the inte-rior call to share everything in common (§42). "In community life, the power of the Holy Spirit at work in one individual passes at the same time to all" (§42). Filled with joy and the Holy Spirit, consecrated persons are to be true experts of communion and to practice the spirituality of communion (§~45 and 46). Communion leads to mission and becomes mission. "By their charisms, consecrated persons become signs of the Spirit point-ing to a new future enlightened by faith and by Christian hope. Eschatological expectation becomes mission, so that the kingdom may become ever more fully established here and now" (§27). "If the church is to reveal her true face to today's world, she urgently needs such fraternal communities, which by their very existence contribute to the new evangelization inasmuch as they disclose in a concrete way the fruitfulness of the 'new commandment'" (§45). Through a special gift of the Holy Spirit, some persons in the consecrated life have carried out a genuinely prophetic min-istry, speaking the name of God to all, even to the pastors of the church (§84). Pope John Paul emphasizes pneumatology also through his focus on the charismatic aspect of the consecrated life. "The Spirit, who at different times has inspired numerous forms of consecrated life, does not cease to assist the church, whether by fostering in already existing institutes a commitment to renewed faithfulness to the founding charism or by giving new charisms to men and women of our own day so that they can start institu-tions responding to the challeng&s of our times" (§62). Review for Religqous Appropriate renewal of the consecrated life includes a return to the sources (as noted in Perfectae caritatis), one of which is fidelity to the founding charism. The founding charism orients consecrated persons to a special relationship with the Trinity (§36). The church assists in discernment regarding the founding charisms, which contribute to building up charity in the particu-lar churches and in the universal church (§§62 and 48). Contemporary Pneumatology's Significance for the Consecrated Life Church documents on the consecrated life are generally rich in pneumatological references, as we have seen. This shift from the juridic to the pneumatic enriches and expands the ecclesio-logical understanding of the consecrated life in the areas of con-secration, communion, and mission. What implications does this finding have for the continuous renewal of the consecrated life? At least two suggestions come to mind: (1) coming to know and love the Holy Spirit, who is the source of unity with God and with others, and (2) both individually and communally respond-ing with greater alacrity to the Spirit's impulses. A common human experience is the longing for communion, for unity which respects a plurality of differences, for love freely given. Within the Holy Trinity there exists this mutuality of rela-tionships in a community of equals. Through the Holy Spirit, God's love is poured into our hearts (Rm 5:5). It is the Spirit who teaches those in the consecrated life how to relate, to respect the diversity of God's gifts, to love. The Holy Spirit must no longer be "shadowy," "vague," "half-known," or "forgotten" by the peo-ple of God, including those in the consecrated life.16 Without a deeper knowledge and appreciation of the Holy Spirit, conse-crated women and men will be unable to understand their charisms and respond to the Spirit who renews and revitalizes the consecrated life. Virtually every one of the documents on the consecrated life urges communities to have strong initial and continuing forma-tion programs, especially in theology. Intellectual development, however, though necessary, is not sufficient. Consecrated persons must also become more responsive to the impulses of the Holy Spirit. Their life is a "kind of shock therapy instituted by the Holy Spirit for the church as a whole.''17 They are called to be the Septent her- October 1996 Brickner ¯ The Holy Spirit in Church Documents presence of God's Spirit in the world: prophets, who speak and boldly exemplify the possibility of real communion; truth tellers, who proclaim what is liberating in feminism; empty vessels that willingly receive the richness of diversity through inculturation; and builders of the reign of God through ecumenical activity.18 The Holy Spirit will not allow the church to domesticate its insti-tutes of consecrated life. Salt must retain its savor! Leaven must retain its power! Renewal, not only of consecrated life but also of the church, depends upon it. Notes ' See Perfectae caritatis §1 and Vim consecrata §§13 and 35. On the relationship between renewal in religious congregations and renewal in the church, see Gerald A. Arbuclde, Refounding the Church (New York: Orbis Books, 1993). 2 HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1995, s.v. "Pneumatology." These brief remarks about pneumatology can only skim the surface of what many authors have eloquently written about the Holy Spirit. See, for example, Yves Congar's three-volume work I Believe in the Holy Spirit. 3 See Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1994), pp. 128-131 and 133-145. In her study of the Holy Trinity, Johnson begins with Spirit-Sophia, to whom feminine characteristics are often attributed. 4 Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (New York: Seabury Press, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 37 and 31-32. s John Zizioulas, "The Church as Communion," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 38, no. 1 (1994): 6. 6 Yves Congar, The I, Vord and the Spirit (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1986), pp. 61-62. St. Bonaventure speaks of Christ as the head of the church, and St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the Holy Spirit as the heart of the church. The Spirit is the Spirit of the Word; the Word is also of the Spirit. St. Thomas's Christology is pneumatological, accord-ing to Congar. 7 Avery Dulles, A Church to Believe In (New York: Crossroad, 1982), p. 20; Congar, 1 Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. 2, pp. 161-162. 8 Ren~ Laurentin, "Charisms: Terminological Precision," in Cbarisms in the Church, ed. Christian Duquoc and Casiano Floristan (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), p. 10. Thomas O'Meara writes that charism and institution must not be set in false opposition; he speaks--in his Theology of Ministry (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), p. 68--of the relationship between charism and ministry: "Far from charism being opposed to min-istry, ministry is mediated from the Spirit to personality by charism: dia-conal charisms." When Paul VI refers to religious life as a charism, he uses charism as "a particular state of life." Review for Religious 9 Herbert Vorgrimler, ed., Commentary on the Documents of Vatican H (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), vol. 1, p. 142. Some critics per-ceive pneumatology to be underdeveloped in conciliar texts. See, for example, Jean-Marie Tillard, "A Point of Departure," Review for Religious 26, no. 3 (March-April 1967): 435-437. Catherine Lacugna, speaking at the University of Notre Dame during the recent conference on the "Reception of Vatican II," suggested that pneumatology was lim-ited if not lackingin conciliar texts. In private conversation she com-mented that the Holy Spirit is too often subordinated to the other Persons of the Trinity. ,0 Congar, IBelieve in the Holy Spirit, vol. 1, pp. 167-172. I I Jean-Marie Tillard, Church of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992). 12 See Vorgrimler, pp. 301-332. The "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life" went through five redactions and required much compromise among the council fathers. It is short (25 articles) and focuses mainly on principles of appropriate renewal. Its brevity neces-sarily restricted the breadth of theological foundations it could provide regarding the consecrated life. 13 Patricia Walter, "Religious Life in Church Documents," Review for Religious 51, no. 4 0uly-August 1992): 555. 14 This document approaches religious life in a juridical manner and had a mixed reception among religious congregations. is In Vita consecrata sixteen of the 112 articles refer to the Trinity in various ways: as source, as model, in prayer. Half of the articles include a reference to the Holy Spirit, often without subordinating the Spirit's action to that of the Creator and the Redeemer. In addition, the charis-matic element of the consecrated life, attributed to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, appears in 44 percent of the articles. Indeed, recalling Congar's reflections about the pneumatology of Vatican II, one might consider the document notably pneumatocentric compared with concil-iar texts. ,6 See Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is, p. 130. ,7 Johannes B. Metz, Followers of Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), p. 12. 18 Authors who exemplify these perspectives include Joan Chittister, The Fire in These Ashes (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1995); Diarmuid O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1991); Paul J. Philibert, ed., Living in the Meantime (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1994); Gerald A. Arbuckle, Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1988). September-October 1996 seeking God TERRANCE WAYNE KLEIN Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life In his postsynodal apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis: On the Formation of Priests in the Circumstances of the Present Day, Pope John Paul raises an issue I consider essential to vocational recruitment, namely, the formation of can-didates ready to be recruited. Making reference to Andrew bringing his brother Peter to Christ, the Holy Father writes: "He brought him to Jesus." In a way, this is the heart of all the church's pastoral work on behalf of vocations, in which she cares for the birth and growth of vocations, making use of the gifts and responsibilities, of the charisms and ministry she has received from Christ and his Spirit. The church, as a priestly, prophetic, and kingly people, is committed to foster and to serve the birth and maturing of priestly vocations through her prayer and sacramental life, by her proclamation of the word and by education in th~ faith, by her example and witness of ~harity. (PDV§38) I think a significant insight of this text is that finding men and women ready and willing to respond to calls to special ministry in the church should not be left to mer-curial chance: "The church., is committed to foster and serve the birth and maturing of priestly vocations." I also think the text.dispels the theological assertion that this is Terrance Wayne Klein is a former director of vocations and was director of spiritual formation in two seminaries. He is now an associate pastor at St. Brigid of Kildare Church; P.O. Box 1131; Dublin, Ohio 43017. Review for Religious a work of the Holy Spirit alone, and not of human effort. To sup-pose that the Holy Spirit creates the candidates and all the church need do is find them would be to slight the role of human coop-eration in the divine plan of salvation. The church has always realized that religious and priestly vocations are not simply from out of the blue. They arise out of her stock of maturing, committed Christians who, when presented with an actual invitation to a ministry in the church, find them-selves able and willing to respond freely and generously. The cul-tivation of that stock has always been the task of every catechetical and Christian-formation movement in the church's history. Catholic schools, CCD programs, retreat experiences, and youth movements exist to form what can only be called, most basically, disciples of Christ. The cultivation of such a stock has previously not been the task of those charged with vocational recruitment. Yet the flour-ishing of vocations may very well depend upon vocation direc-tors taking up the work of actually forming communities of discipleship. In this article I present three matters that I think need attention if vocational recruitment is to flourish. They are the necessity of bringing youth into contact with ministerial fig-ures; the need of progressive liberation, greater spiritual free-dom, in the lives of those seeking ministry in the church; and a fundamental characteristic desirable in all who work to promote vocations. Letting Sparks Fly According to data presented in the United States Catholic Conference study Research on Men's Vocations to the Priesthood and the Religious Life, most young people decide the basic direction of their lives between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. They do not necessarily choose a career path at this time; given the pro-traction of American adolescence, this would be unlikely. During these years, however, young people choose the values that chart the course their life will take. During these years they decide how important to them are values such as altruism, service, intimacy, material goods, public esteem, and education. That developmental fact belongs with other data presented in the same source (and subsequently confirmed in other stud-ies) and showing that most vocations to special consecration come September-Oaober 1996 Most vocations to special consecration come from direct contact with an inspiring person actually doing ministerial work in the church. from direct contact with an inspiring person actually doing min-isterial work in the church. This statistical evidence is borne out by my own experien, ce in working as a spiritual director to sem-inarians. They all have a story to tell, and it usually involves some ministerial figure who inspired them. Vocations are not cajoled; they are caught by contact. They do not come from media resources; they come out of personal interaction. When I put these two sets of data .together and consider that young people today are no less generous and no less motivated than previous generations, I come to the conclusion that, in the Catholic Church and among Christians in general, there is a sociological gap between youth and the institutional church's ministerial structures. Many young people growing up today have never personally encountered vibrant Christian ministry. Put simply, they do not view the ministry, in any of its forms, as having significance for the world in which they live. It has nei-ther formed nor informed their lives. The Holy Spirit is going to continue to create and nourish souls that are generous, but the church must present its ministe-rial life as an opportunity for that generosity to be expressed. This implies living contact between youth and committed minis-ters of the gospel. To the extent that religious communities and diocesan personnel move away from youth, they move away from the future and sever the lines of support that the institutions are there to provide. It is not enough for a vocation director to enter a high school or a college for the purpose of giving yet another career-day presentation. One must enter a college or high school to stay and to witness. As St. Francis of Assisi once told his fol-lowers, "Preach the gospel. Use words if necessary." I served the Dodge City diocese for two years as director of vocations, a short tenure that corresponds to the national average. There are no Catholic high schools in this very rural diocese. Many young people growing up there have never met a religious sister. Parish communities tend to be solid and wholesome, but pastoring tends to be short in tenure. As in many places in the Review for Religious country, beleaguered pastors are only too happy to turn over youth work to lay volunteers. Is it any surprise that young people choose to remain among the laity when they have been led and inspired by lay leaders? I am in no way indicting the collaboration of the laity in this and other ministerial venues. The question is one of collaboration and presence. Ordained priests and deacons and religious women and men bring with them a symbol-laden presence of Christ. When they disappear from the scene, much more is lost than another set of hands. After almost a year of consultation with the religious con-gregations of women at work in the diocese, we began a project that was seen as preliminary discipleship formation. We brought young men and women together to live for a weekend with priests -and religious. The students prayed with them and received from them basic instruction in prayer techniques and discernment. The key, as we saw it, was simply that they encountered priests and religious. We tried to create opportunities for sparks to fly. I am currently involved in a similar project with the diocese of Columbus. Essential to the success of such a program, however, is the ability to identify those who are already leaders and who dis-play the requisite vocational qualities as well. (I have written about this in "Discerning Vocations," in the 1 May 1993 issue of America.) Liberating Youth There is yet another theol.ogical supposition behind the methodology of these weekend experiences. For anyone to respond to the call of God in vocation, freedom is required. Sin, in all its varieties and ramifications, keeps us from being free and thus impedes our response to God's initiative. The Holy Father again offers a worthy perspective: Freedom. is essential to vocation, a freedom which when it gives a positive response appears as a deep personal adher-ence, as a loving gift or rather as a gift given back to the giver who is God who calls, an oblation: "The call," Paul VI once said, "is as extensive as the response. There cannot be vocations unless they be free, that is, unless they be spon-taneous offerings of oneself, Conscious, generous, total . Oblations, we call them: here lies in practice the heart of the matter . It is the humble and penetrating voice of Christ, who says, today, as yesterday, and even more than Septentber-October 1996 Klein ¯ Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life yesterday: Come. Freedom reaches its supreme foundation: precisely that of oblation, of generosity, of sacrifice." (PDV §36) The methodological presupposition of those working with potential candidates for vocations of special consecration should be that they are not yet free. They are restrained by forces per-sonal, spiritual, sociological, cultural, and even biological. All of these taken together are what St. Paul refers to as the flesh which is at war with the spirit. The categories are worth some explana-. tion, even though space admits of only a few examples. On the level of the personal, candidates may present them-selves for ministry because their poor self-image demands a role in life which creates a seemingly instant image of respect. Or, conversely, potential candidates may be unable even to consider a ministerial vocation because their self-image is entirely too neg-ative. They may want to consider priesthood or religious life, but only after they have put themselves together spiritually. Their idea would be, "When I have overcome sin, I will consider such a life." What is lacking here is the comprehension that a life of apostolic charity may be the very instrument that the Holy Spirit desires to use for the person's redemption. All programs of formation have as their agenda the progres-sive liberation of candidates from all of the forces that would keep their choice for or against vocation from being truly free. I now work part-time in a college seminary, and I would say that our raison d'etre is exactly this, to free young men and make them ready to respond. Hence, the necessity for directors of vocations to create or support structures that teach young people the fun-damentals of Christian life and at least a basic knowledge of how to discern the work of the Holy Spirit in their life. Of course, any adequate Christian anthropology would insist that, ultimately, humanity is freed, or healed, only by the inter-venient action of God. Wholeness was an attribute of God long before it became a goal of the recovery movement. That being true, only prayer, which represents an actual encounter with God, can effect freedom, or healing, or wholeness. Only the intimacy bf prayer creates disciples, and only disciples, even if they be merely nascent ones, can respond to God's call to a lifetime of. consecrated service. So the discipleship programs sponsored by recruiters must have three elements: direct personal contact with hero-mentors, pedagogical formation in the fundamentals of Review for Religious Christian belief and practice, and an opportunity for growth in prayer. My past experience as the director of spiritual formation in a college seminary program reinforces this triad. I am personally convinced that many people move towards and away from voca-tions to the priesthood and religious life without developing even a modicum of spiritual intimacy. I doubt that this phe-nomenon is new. I suspect it has been a continual struggle and task in every house where formation occurs. I am certainly not presenting my own limited experience as the answer to the vocation crisis. What I am arguing is that success in the future willprobably demand that vocation personnel actually do some of the work of initial formation in disci-pleship. I think it would be fair to say that what I am really suggesting is that those charged with the recruitment and guid-ance of ministerial vocations see them-selves as being, after the family, among the first of young people's mentors of forma-tion. A certain amount of formation, or growth in Christian discipleship, is needed before potential candidates are ready for entry into formalized preparatory pro- What I am really suggesting is that those charged with the recruitment and guidance of ministerial vocations see themselves as being, after the family, among the first of young people's mentors of formation. grams. Previously this formation was the work of other Catholic institutions, but the presumption that others have already pre-pared such candidates is no longer tenable, and ignoring the shift that has occurred will leave recruiters wondering what happened to all the vocations. The Formation of the Formers In January 1994 the Roman Congregation for Catholic Education (of Seminaries and Institutes of Study), under the lead-ership of Cardinal Pio Laghi, released Directives Concerning the Preparation of Seminary Educators. The work considers the for-mation of those charged with formation. It notes that a unique combination of talent, charism, experience, and education must Septentber-October 1996 Klein ¯ Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life exist if a person doing formation work is to find the experience productive and personally rewarding: The vocation of the educator.implies, on the one hand, a certain "charism," which is expressed in gifts of nature and of grace, and, on the other, certain capacities and attitudes that must be acquired. In every consideration regarding the personality of the educator, this double aspect must be kept in mind; each of the characteristics desirable in a seminary educator presents elements which are, in a manner of speak-ing, innate, and others which must be progressively devel-oped by means of study and experience. (Directives §25) The formati'on of vocation directors can be considered along these same lines of thought. To begin with, though, readers may be wondering whether any such formation actually exists. It does. To their credit, national organizations have done much to provide neophytes in the field with at least that quintessential American pedagogical experience called the workshop conference. Actually a great deal of formal information is imparted at such gatherings, and the opportunity for informal guidance by those more expe-rienced in the work is incalculable. Also, it seems safe to assume that the formation which voca-tion directors receive for their own religious life or priesthood is itself a real and efficacious, albeit remote, preparation for the specific ministries of vocational recruitment, discernment, and guidance. By means of a broad education, formation programs are supposed to equip their students to enter diverse ministries without particular, prolonged preparation. The liberal arts should prepare us for a future that will always be ambiguous. The Directives do the church a real service in publicly dis-cussing the'criteria for evaluating persons being considered for seminary formation work. Rectors and bishops have, of course, always used some sort of criteria, but the document makes it pos-sible for those unnamed and perhaps unexamined criteria to be discussed and evaluated in an open forum. This is good: open collaboration tends to expose the weaknesses any individual's approach may have. It also reinforces and propagates strengths. I would like to conclude my observations by offering a crite-rion for identifying which candidates, among the many doing ministry in the church, are likely to do best at the ministry of vocational recruitment. The evaluative question I would pose is this: Are they community builders? Review for Relig%us Ecclesia: Community of the Summoned Consider what vocations to the priesthood or religious life really are. They are calls from God the Father to serve Christ by serving the community which is the church. Vocations have their ¯genesis and scope in community life. They are instruments of God in bringing together the "community of the summoned": the ecclesia (in New Testament Greek), the "church." They exist to Order to nourish, to enliven, and to augment the church. "In the church's very name, ecclesia, we find its deep vocational aspect, for the church is a 'convocation,' an assembly of those who have been called" (PDV §34). Referring to priestly vocations, the Holy.Father has noted, "In this context the ecclesi-ology of communion becomes decisive for understanding the identity of the priest, his essential dignity and his voca-tion and mission among the people of. God and in the world" (PDV§12). Certainly the many theological, pas-toral, and liturgical changes that occurred with the Second Vatican Council have had, among their effects, a disturbing of the relative tranquillity that should normally characterize a healthy institution. Most Catholics are willing to admit, however, that the disturbance has been outweighed by the renewal of evan-gelical life that the council has inaugurated in the church. I do not think vocations dropped because of the conciliar reforms (although their implementation may have occasioned a number of new problems). Rather, I believe that communal val-ues and communities themselves are being undermined by con-temporary life. The disintegration of vibrant communities into increasingly isolated individuals and solipsistic agendas is a prob-lem not only for the church, but also for modern technological society as a whole. Consider the changes that have occurred in the latter half of this century. The superhighways that now connect huge metropolises across vast stretches of land have rendered superfluous many small communities that once prospered between those cities. They have The disintegration of vibrant communities into increasingly isolated individuals and solipsistic agendas is a problem not only for the church, but also for modern technological society as a whole. Septe~nber-October 1996 Klein * Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life. also restructured urban life itself. Distinct intra-urban neighbor-hoods once flourished because it took time to move from one side of the city to another. Today mass merchandising has sup-pressed small, community-enhancing workshops and businesses. With the disappearance of the family farm went the collapse Of the small town and the small rural parish. The knowledge explosion made possible by the computer age has created a world of spe-cialization that renders small hospitals, small colleges, and other small institutions seemingly superfluous. Endangered by the collapse of these communities are the communal values upon which cultural life depends. Increasingly undifferentiated national media now serve a country such as the United States, but, instead of promoting communal values, they seem only to be forums where increasingly strident and diverse views make themselves heard. One can now ask at the end of the 20th century: Who are we? Is there any we left among us? The collapse of a communal identity is certainly a formative influence on those presenting themselves as candidates for min-istry. Many of the candidates with whom I have worked came to the seminary out of a faith experience which is highly individu-alistic, often with little or no contact with the institutional church. This can be viewed as a sign of the Holy Spirit raising up leaders even beyond the reaches of contemporary church ministry--it is, after all, how the church received the gift of St. Paul's vocation. But it also raises the challenge of how to link the individual's own experience with that of the larger Christian community. Remember that Paul spent three years undergoing a process of communal immersion before beginning his ministerial life (see Ga 1:18). If the basic presuppositions of New Age spirituality were to be catalogued, certainly a useful project given their pervasive influ-ence, a foundational tenet would undoubtedly be the absolute, almost solipsistic, supremacy of the individual. Spirituality itself is seen not as a relational mystery which envelopes and possesses the human person, but as yet another object to be acquired by an individual whose weltanschauung is essentially that of the con-sumer. Pastores dabo vobis is trenchant in this regard: In the present context there is also a certain tendency to view the bond between human beings and God in an indi-vidualistic and self-centered way, as if God's call reached the individual by a direct route without in any way passing Review for Religious through the community. Its purpose is held to be the ben-efit, or the very salvation, of the individual called and not a total dedication to God in the service of the community. We thus find another very deep and at the same time sub-de threat which makes it impossible to recognize and accept joyfully the ecclesial dimension which naturally marks every Christian vocation, and the priestly vocation in particular: as the council reminds us, priestly ministry acquires its gen-uine meaning and attains to its fullest truth in serving and in fostering the growth of the Christian community and the common priesthood of the faithful. (PDV§37) Community Belonging Vocations are needed for communities, and they come out of communities. Their entire genesis and purpose are involved in communal life. Vocations are on the decline in the church today because communal life is waning. One simply does not offer one-self for ministry to a community if one has never felt oneself to be a part of a community. I suspect that, if Catholicism persists in declining as a communal way of life, vocations will continue to evaporate. Lives are to be offered to other people and to the God whom we encounter in others. If postghetto Catholicism is not a place of meaningful and life-giving encounter with others, if it becomes iust another competing intellectual system or a political agenda, then it will cease being a living organism that inspires men and women to sacrifice their futures for its continuance. One does not bring oneself to Pope Paul VI's notion of personal obla-tion without being able to envision the faces of real men and women for whom. the offering is made. How can anyone expect vocations to be fostered unless it be through community building and sustenance? Other sociological structures once existed to create the communities upon which vocational recruiters could depend. Those structures have either disappeared or found themselves transformed into priestless and sisterless entities. I suspect, however, that community building still will show itself to be the single most important quality that postghetto Catholic education offers the American church. How poignant, then, is this quality of community building which the Directives insist should characterize formational ministry: It can be said that the educator is authentic in his service and responds to the demands of his priestly ideal only in the measure to which he knows how to commit himself and Septe~nber-October 1996 Klein * Vocations and the Crisis of Communal Life sacrifice himself for the unity of the community and when in his thoughts, in his attitudes, and in his prayer he reflects concern for the union and the cohesion of the community entrusted to him. (Directives §29) Who needs to be in vocation work today? Who has the apti-tude? Those who can build communities. People who have shown an ability to unite other people around them. Those who can effectively enunciate the common values and longings of a human-ity destined for Trinitarian communion. If recruiting were the only task facing vocation personnel today, a good-looking face, a fast car, and call-forwarding would suffice. Recruiters today need to examine their venues and identify vibrant Christian communities. This is where they need to be. Sadly enough, in many situations they will need to help create such communities from scratch. I do not think that I am offering merely another theological or pastoral perspective. On the con-trary, I am begging recognition of a sociological certainty that creates both a pastoral imperative and an ecclesial opportunity. JUST PUBLISHED-- The Best of the Review - 5 The Church and Consecrated Life (see insert at back of book for ordering) "At a time when hope for religious life and its future is once again on the rise, the articles in this book offer an exceptional and much needed panorama of the critical issues of renewal faced by contemporary men and women religious. Elizabeth McDonough and David Fleming have done us an enormous favor in bringing together the Best of the Review in this area. I recommend this book enthusiastically; its authors take us another step along the journey to that future for religious life for which we all long." --Se~nSammon FMS Vicar General Marist Brothers, Rome ¯ Review for Religious MICHAEL TIDD Reflections of a Fin de Si cle Novice During their novitiate experiences, all religious, in one way or another, examine the identity and purpose of their respective congregations. In this era of religious life--in the wake of Vatican Council II and at the end of the 20th century--this essay is a personal reflection on the mysterious and profound experience of the novitiate of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in the United States today. Two questions frame this reflection: How am I being formed? and what am I being formed for? I hope that my responses bring a helpful perspective to pres-ent- day views of American religious life. Five years of community experience have vividly demonstrated that words like formation and novitiate carry many meanings. Often brothers' memories of formation are bittersweet. For readers of this article, the words probably conjure up all sorts of images. Most of these readers are likely to be religious whose formation occurred before or during Vatican Council II. For me Vatican II is as immediate as Trent and even Nicea, for I was not born until 1970. I am wholly a product of the post-Nicene, post-Tridentine, post-Vatican church. My formation is radically different from that of my brothers of the pre-Vatican era, both in theory and external practice. My novitiate time comes after five years of experience in community and the apostolate. Thus, it is less an initiation than a time for analysis and integration of my experiences as a Christian Brother. Michael Tidd FSC lives at Christian Brothers' Novitiate; Roosevelt Hall; One Tallcot Lane; Skaneateles, New York 13152. September-October 1996 Tidd * Reflections of a Fin de Si~cle Novice This integration occurs in the context of prayer and study: of the gospel, the church, the charism of our founder (John Baptist de La Salle), our Rule, our vows, our efforts at renewal since Vatican II, and issues of personal development and self-awareness. Compared with the intense schedule of yore, ours is decep-tively simple. Large blocks of time are discretionary. The indi-vidual is responsible for developing his life of prayer and study without the framework of an all-embracing fixed schedule of reli-gious exercises and study times. Our schedule for common prayer (morning and evening prayer, daily Mass both at home and in the local parish) is scant compared with the novitiate timetable of our former Rule.l Indeed, the Rule itself, revised after thirty years of experi-mentation beginning in 1956, is no longer oriented toward ful-fillment of obligations. It is couched largely in inspirational language, more exhortative than legal. Evaluation of the novice's suitability for the brother's vocation is based less on observance of the Rule's prescriptions than on his total aptitude (spiritual, intel-lectual, emotional, psychosexual) for our way of life. The devel-opment of the individual as a human being is weighed equally with his spiritual and intellectual progress. The crux of the difference between the modern novitiate and the earlier one lies in the time to oneself in the novitiate. This involves both theoretical and practical discontinuities. Formerly, the theoretical aim was to be "formed," shaped according to an abstract model of the ideal Christian Brother. The dual instru-ments of the Rule and the director of novices molded the novice into a brother. The novice was exhorted, and ideally strove, to let himself be recast in this form, leaving his past (and self) behind. The practical discontinuities were many. Life was lived by the schedule, with few if any choices about how time was spent. Influences on one's development were carefully regulated by Rule and director. Exact observance of the Rule was the primary virtue: inasmuch as one did so, one incarnated the community's charism and was making progress in this way of life. In the present novitiate, formation might not be the appro-priate term anymore. Present-day novices "form themselves" rather than "are formed by external agents." They do this by eval-uating prior and present choices in the light of the gospel and of the community's charism and life. Daily I confront issues such as personal prayer, interpersonal relationships, study, participation in Review for Religious the-lectures and conferences, the common labor needed to main-tain the house. I learn about religious life, the community's charism, and human development from religious, secular, lay, and clerical sources. The director of novices still plays a crucial role: he is the agent of accountability, calling me to reconcile my lived choices with the norms of our life. He is the one who helps the novice avoid the trap of self-delusion and evaluates the quality of one's self-formation. The modern novice, then, is like a sculptor who, in his choices of daily living, chips away at his raw material to shape something new: himself. The novice sculpts in the light of guidance from the Holy Spirit, the gospel, the charism and life of De La Salle, and the insti-tute's tradition being lived by his brothers and himself. Without a normal job and in relative separation from one's familiars, one lacks all the usual props. Daily I encounter three basic realities: God, my brothers, and myself. All of this can be harrowing, as questions of identity and ontology emerge. Two options appear: growth, however painful, or escape and denial. Even here it is possible to fill the. day with trivialities, ducking the hard questions. I could "make the novitiate" without any real change, but that would be a colossal waste of time. Ultimately, the choice is in my hands. There will be nothing to hide behind down the line if real conversion does not happen here, a conversion for which I must take responsibili.ty before God. The vows are less the end of the novitiate, then, than a beginning. They are the public beginning of a life already being defined by the consequences of my present choices, choices made in response to the call of God as perceived in the daily events of existence: "For this command which I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you . No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths, and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out" (Deuteronomy 30:11 and 14, NAB). In her book The Fire in These Ashes: A Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life, Joan Chittister OSB aptly describes the dilemma of modern religious: "They want to know if there is anything going on now [emphasis mine] to prove that religious life remains worth the sacrifice of their own lives. Is there anything The crux of the difference between the modern novitiate and the earlier one lies in the time to oneself in the novitiate. Septonber-October 1996 Tidd¯ Reflections of a Fin de Si~cle Novice still life-giving here? Is there anything yet valuable enough to go on doing here? New members want to know if there is anything here that merits their coming to do, their coming to be.''2 In the novitiate I have understood her questions thus: For what am I being formed? In 1996 in the United States~ what is the life of the Brother of the Christian Schools for which I am preparing? The question is very specific because I am convinced that this process is not designed to create an abstract "religious," but a member of a specific community guided by a unique charism. Much contemporary literature on religious life leaves me vaguely disappointed. I do not see much written by those who will be around when the future of religious life will have become the present. More fundamentally, the discussion is so future oriented and spec-ulative that it leaves me wondering what we are to do here and now. I am not left rudderless, fortunately. God's command is not far away; it is close at hand. Since I see the novitiate's meaning as preparation for living as a Brother of the Christian Schools in 1996 and in 2006 and 2016 as well, I look to the community's intellectual and spiritual patrimony for a definition of that broth-erhood right now. The inspired work of many brothers has pro-duced two texts that address the threefold challenge of Perfectae caritatis: recommitment to the gospel, recovery of the founder's charism, and adapted renewal in the light of the signs of the times (see §2). These documents are The Brother of the Christian Schools in the World Today: A Declaration and our Rule of 1986. In thefin de si~cle, these texts provide clear, powerful, and dynamic state-ments of our identity and purpose. They are lights amidst the darkness of the waning millennium. The Declaration is a charismatic statement issued by our 39th General Chapter in 1967. It was prompted in part by its response to the question of introducing the priesthood into the community. The chapter rejected that innovation, saying what we are not and then issuing a positive proclamation of what we are. The modern Brother of the Christian Schools is a layman who, in response to a call from God, totally consecrates himself to the glory of the Trinity by public profession of vows. His total consecration of himself has its roots in his baptismal consecration.3 In an entirely lay institute, the brother places himself at the service of others in the context of a community "totally dedicated to the kingdom of God." Consecrated in community, he specifies his life of ser- Review for Religious vice to others in an educational mission "with special preference for the poor." Regardless of the social class of those he immedi-ately deals with, the brother totally orients his work towards the promotion of justice and those "whose poverty hinders their devel-opment as persons or their aptitude to receive the message of sal-vation revealed in Jesus Christ." The brother integrates his proclamation of the gospel with the total human development of his students and sees the school as "the pre-ferred but not the only means" of achieving the institute's mission.4 The Declaration stresses the fundamental aspects of our vocation as Brothers of the Christian Schools (neatly summarized twenty years later in the Rule): "consecration to God as a lay religious, apostolic ministry of edu-cation, especially of the poor, and community life.''5 The Declaration was for us the great clarion call to conversion in the wake of Vatican II. Indeed, in 1967 Brother Charles Henry Buttimer, then superior general, wrote: "It is. in light of the Declaration that we must read and under-stand the other texts of our General Chapter, including the [pro-visional] Rule and Constitutions. It is the basis of the doctrine you will find in each of them.''6 Making the bold ideals of the Declaration reality was the task of the institute in the years fol-lowing 1967, as the great revision of the Rule began. The Declaration's synthetic idea of our vocation is rooted deeply in the charism of John Baptist de La Salle. In response to a double contemplation of the needs of the poor and God's plan of salvation for all, he founded a community of brothers on the following basis. "The spirit of this Institute is a spirit of faith, which should induce those .who compose it not to look upon any-thing but with the eyes of faith, not to ~1o anything but in view of God, and to attribute all to God, [with the result that there is] an ardent zeal for the instruction of children [and] to procure the salvation of the children confided to their care." Internalizing this spirit is "of the utmost importance . The novices [should] apply themselves to acquire it; and those that are already members [should] make it their first care to preserve and increase it in themselves . "Those who failed to do so were to be considered "dead members.''7 These texts of the recent and distant past speak Much contemporary literature on religious life leaves me vaguely disappointed. Septentber-October 1996 Tidd ¯ Reflections o[a Fin de Si~cle Novice to the present as much as to the times which occasioned them. They address the essence of questions of identity and sustaining vision, questions which seem to bedevil many religious commu-nities today. The Rule coexists with the Declaration as a statement of iden-tity and purpose inasmuch as it is the fruit of over thirty years of experimentation and of applying the visionary statements of the Declaration. In addition (moreso than the Declaration) it bene-fits from the recovery of the real person of De La Salle through modern critical scholarship, a man long obscured by a profile more hagiographical than historical. The Rule, then, makes the call of the council real: it renews and adapts our understanding of our vocation as Brothers of the Christian Schools by pointing out a dynamic relationship between the challenges of modernity and our founding charism. As in the first 'rules of the community, pro-duced by De La Salle in collaboration with the brothers them-selves, the Rule is the work of the entire congregation, through successive general chapters and consultation with thousands of brothers around the world. It is a coherent and convincing description of this way of life and its raison d'etre. Both documents elaborate a fundamental principle: The brother's vocation is an all-encompassing way of life in unhesi-tatin~ response to the call of God in the depths of the brother's heart. Seeing in the life of the brother far more than the aposto-late or the vows alone is the key to the coherence and intelligibility of our identity, today and in the future. For several decades the brothers' mission of education has been shared with other religious, priests, and lay people. This reality. has been examined and embraced bysuccessive general chapters as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in its life today. We have much to share with those who seek to define their profession as an apos-tolic mission in the spirit and tradition of John Baptist de La Salle. Such sharing and dialogue is ongoing all over the world.8 This recognition, however, forces the brothers to refine their identity even more sharply. The common apostolate alone simply will no longer suffice as an answer to the question of identity, given the signs of the times. Our identity as Brothers of the Christian Schools must transcend mission and reach to the very depths of our being. The chapter of 1966-67 articulated an initial, charismatic vision of the Brother of the Christian Schools today, and the Rule Review for Religious of 1986 specifies and refines that identity even further, in the light of ongoing renewal and lived experience since 1967. What makes us brothers is not solely our work, but the living integra-tion of the constitutive elements: consecration, community, mis-sion. Each must be related in dynamic harmony to the others. No single element should obscure the others. The importance of consecration as witness, lived in commu-nity and expressed by public vows, is evidenced by the Rule's claim that it is our "first apostolate." This mode of living indicates the transcendent action of God in our world, and points towards the covenant between God and human beings. The common life is essential to our identity for two reasons. First, the brothers need the mutuality and sharing of community life for their spiritual and human develop-ment. Second, our brotherhood in com-munity and our "selfless presence among those [the brothers] serve" is to "witness to the possibility of creating true broth-erhood among nations.''9 Our mission of teaching is rooted in our very foundation as a community. De La Salle brought his first schoolmasters into community and gave them a profound spirituality--the Christian teacher as an ambassador of Jesus Christ--in order to make the mission of Christian education possible and fruitful. We do the same today, for the same reason. "The Brothers, in fidelity to the call of the Spirit and the charism of their Founder, consecrate themselves to God in order to exercise, by association, their apostolic ministry of education" (emphasis mine).~° What does all this mean in terms of the purpose of the novi-tiate? Our statements of identity tell me that it is my consecrated life in community which I bring to the mission and which sus-tain me in it. Since this integrated totality is what makes a brother's life different from that of other persons who share in the apostolate of Christian education, the interiorization of con-secrated life in community and for the mission is what I must be about this year. What must concern me this year and during my entire life as a brother is not simply what I am to do, but how I am to live. I should be about the living of a life of ongoing con- The brother's vocation is an all-encompassing way of life in unhesitating response to the call of God in the depths of the brother's heart. Septentber-October 1996 Tidd¯ R~flections o~a Fin de Si~cle Novice version--to the Jesus of the Gospels and to the poor--the same evangelical journey that inspired John Baptist de La Salle to leave behind his former vocation as a canon of Reims and begin anew.n The very elements that seem so out of proportion here in the novitiate (prayer/consecration and community life) are precisely those habits of the mind and heart I must take with me back into the apostolate. Those realities are the soil from which the brother can hope to draw nourishment for the demands of the aposto-late. If he fails to. attend to the soil, the flower of his apostolic work will soon wither and die. If consecration and community become mere slogans or, even worse, contradictions to my daily life, my life as a brother will be in vain. Insofar as I embody the spirit of faith and zeal and express it in a community life that is lived fully, then my work will be Lasallian and my novitiate and my brotherhood will have meaning, both in the fin de si~cle and beyond. "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, that you and your descendants may live" (Deuteronomy 3 0:19). Notes ~ Thirty-seventh General Chapter, Rule of Government of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Rome, 1947), pp. 192-193. This document was abrogated by the 39th General Chapter of 1966-1967;.all subsequent references to the Rule are to the text promulgated in 1987 after the 41st General Chapter of 1986. 2 Joan Chittister OSB, The Fire in These Ashes: A Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1995), p. viii. 3 Thirty-ninth General Chapter, The Brothers of the Christian Schools in the World Today: A Declaration (Winona: St. Mary's College Press, 1968), article 13:1,2, p. 12. The author is indebted and grateful to Brothers Gerard Rummery FSC, Michael McKenery FSC, and Luke Salm FSC, whose novitiate lectures and informally shared insights were invaluable in this essay's preparation. The Declaration's genesis and enduring signifi-cance is well presented in Brother Luke's Religious Institute in Transition: The Story of Three General Chapters (Romeoville, Illinois: Christian Brothers Publications, 1992). 4 Declaration, articles 13:3, 4, 5, and 6. s Forty-first General Chapter, The Rule of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Rome: Tipografia S.G.S., 1987), p. 27. 6 Foreword to the Declaration, p. iv. 7. John Baptist de La Salle. "De l'esprit de cet Institut," ROgles Communes (1718 ed.), in Rule, pp. 15-17; Rule, p. 15. s Rule, articles 17-17d and 146. Review for Religious 9 Rule, articles 24 and 9. lO Rule, art. 2. ~ This concept of De La Salle's life as an evangelical journey is superbly treated in St. John Baptist de La Salle: Announcing the Gospel to the Poor, by Brothers Michel Sauvage FSC and Miguel Campos FSC (Romeoville: Christian Brothers Conference, 1981). Presence Silence and stillness of night. How so? My eyes, my ears cry: False! Clouds scud cross a moon face; branches stretch and bend, flip, whip, and bow; leaves shiver, quiver, quake; whispers, trills, chirps, and whistles perforate the air. Stillness and silence? Not true. Yet there is a sense that knows it is so. But what? A minus of mortal motion ? A vacuum of virile voice? Perhaps, yet, more, I think. The airs of skin tingle and respond to it; an inward ear is pricked; a sacred presence permeates the space; a sacred voicelessness resounds within my soul around my self where I am held all stilled to wait to thirst to hunger a-lone. all one. Doris Bissonnette RJM September-October 1996 breaking boundaries 494 CLEMENTE BARRON Racism and Religious Life I did not learn about racism by taking sociological courses in school. I learned about racism by being born a Mexican- American in Texas in these United States. In the 1940s and 1950s, the decades in which I was born and raised, racism was an acceptable way of life. It was woven into the very fabric of our social and political life, our educa-tional and economic systems, and even into the way we practiced our Catholic faith. I did not have a choice in this matter, nor did my family or any of the other people who made up my world at that time. The existence of racism does not depend upon an indi-vidual's say-so, or even upon many people saying that it does or does not exist. I am sure that many of the public-opinion polls taken during the '50s and '60s were saying that racism existed only in isolated sections of the United States. Yet we now look back at that era of American his-tory and find many examples of racism in every segment of our society. Racism exists because it has been with us from the very beginning of our history. It continues to assert itself everywhere until someone or some movement challenges it. It will not disappear on its own. The gains the United States has made in regard to racism are mea-sured by wars, lives, and the heroic witness of courageous people, regardless of their position in society. Most of the Clemente Barr6n CP has worked with Hispanics during the twenty-five years of his priestly ministry. He lives at Casa Pasionista Guadalupe; 700 Waverly; San Antonio, Texas 78201. Review for Religious time these people had no special awareness of making any sig-nificant contributions to the eradication of racism. They just wanted a more just society for themselves and their children. It is not easy to write about racism. It is especially not easy when one is writing for a readership that shares the same faith or even the same vows and way of life or the same commitment to a social-justice agenda. It becomes still more difficult when all three of these factors are present. Yet it is the same sense of God, the same shared values, and the same commitment to justice that give me confidence to express these experiences and considerations of racism. There are many misunderstandings when it comes to racism. People do not know how to converse about racism as brothers and sisters in an open and free exchange of thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Many other issues get in the way of a good conversation on this subject. People of color tend to get angry and vitriolic and people of the dominant society tend to feel hurt or guilty when they talk about the subject. People of color often assume a victim's stance. People of the dominant society often separate themselves personally from racism: "Why are we making a fuss about this now since we are not racists?" Frequently people of color offer cosmetic solutions to this deeply complex, multilayered issue, while people of the dominant society offer solutions that address their own needs but not those of the people of color. The result is that we talk at each other, preach to each other, and instruct each other, but rarely have a good conversation with each other. Complexities of Racism This whole issue becomes even more complicated when we place this conversation within the context of religion and reli-gious life. Church teaching looks upon racism as evil and has rightly condemned it. In this context, racism is talked about in terms of sin, even as one of the most serious sins of our time. When we enter into a conversation about racism at this level, we highly personalize the issue. No one wants to begin a discussion with the feeling that she or he is being iudged a public sinner. Yet many religious feel that way when ~he discussion is about racism. Such a starting point makes for a poor conversation. On the other hand, many of us may not be aware of our racism just because we do not think of ourselves as racist; in fact, Septentber-October 1996 Barr6n * Racism and Religious Life we can identify many instances that demonstrate to us that we .are not racist. We do not want to be racist, and we believe that we are not, just on the basis of sheer willpower. Yet those of us who have tried to overcome addictive habits by sheer Willpower know that it takes more than goodwill to overpower a deeply ingrained habit or way of life. Defining Racism Racism is not easy to define. People of color tend to have a different definition and understanding of it than those of the dominant culture. People of color usually define racism as insti-tutionalized prejudice; since they do not control our society's insti-tutions, they do not consider themselves racists in the strict sense. People of the dominant culture have a difficulty with this concept because to them it says that people of color cannot be prejudiced--which is not true at all. People of color are just as prejudiced as other people. When it comes to racism, the issue is not prejudice; it is institutionalized prejudice. This is a classic case of one group wanting to focus on what is common (prejudice) and the other wanting to focus on what is not (control of insti-tutions). Progress is made when both sides accept each other's insights. Learning Racism I was not aware that I was living in a racist society when I was growing up in rural Texas. Life in the late '40s and '50s was hard, and in many ways society was pretty well defined. I was aware of the dos and don'ts of such a society. I knew that we lived in a part of town where most of the "mesicans" lived and that another part of town was "nigger town." I knew that our city offi-cials would always be "anglos" and the other leaders of our county and state would be, too. I could not conceive of a pastor or bishop being other than anglo. I knew that mesicans and niggers were not allowed to use the public facilities and fountains that anglos used. I also knew that we could not go into certain stores, like the bar-ber shop. It all seemed so normal. As time went by, other things became clearer. You just knew that you were not to do much socializing with those who were not of your ethnic grouping or race. At school the teachers were Review for Religious always careful to line us up so that we would be paired with our own kind. This was especially true in the lower grades, when we had to hold hands while standing in line. Somewhere along the weeks and years, you began to realize that socially it was not acceptable for you to date, much less think of marrying, anyone outside your ethnic or racial group. There were some exceptions, but the people involved in them were usually not socially acceptable in the first place. That was the way things were, and that was it. I do not remember my parents taking me aside to teach me the socialization rules of rural Texas. The time came when you just knew. You could have casual relationships with persons of another eth-nic or racial group. You could work for them and even beside them, but you just did not socialize with them on an equal basis. You just knew that, if push came to shove, you could not count on them. That is the way life was lived. Moreover, if you were a person of color, you felt you must project a friendly attitude at all times if you were going to be accepted by the dominant society. Someone who did not do that was seen as "not fitting in." Those who dared to demand rights and equality were considered troublemakers. This was brought home to us time and time again. In the early '60s, for example, when the civil-rights movement was begin-ning to peak, some of my friends went off to a Catholic college in San Antonio to continue their education. Home for the summer, a couple of them went to get a haircut at a barbershop owned by a member of the Knights of Columbus. They were refused service. They refused to leave. This caused a big scene. Eventually they left, but the incident produced a lot of ill feelings. These nice "Mexican" youths, accepted byall as hardworking and ambitious young men, had now become troublemakers. After a couple of years that barbershop was integrated, but I am sure that, in the eyes of many, these young men were marked for life as trouble-makers. We do not want to be racist, and we believe that we are not, just on the basis of sheer willpower. New Place, Old Ways I grew up in the era when the high-school seminary was a normal first step toward the priesthood and religious life. When L49 Septentber-Oaober 1996 Barrdn ¯ Racirm and Religious Life I expressed a desire to become a priest and religious, I was not sur-prised at all to be given the chance to attend a seminary prepara-tory high school. The school was in St. Louis, Missouri. Finding out if I had a vocation took me outside Texas for the first time, far away from my family and all familiar surroundings. It was only later on that I realized that the seminary prep school that I attended and the province I entered as a religious were, for me, extensions of the social realities of my youth in rural Texas. For me nothing had changed. The vast major.ity of my schoolmates were still anglos. All my superiors were anglos, too. I continued to see life around me through the same lenses I had used in rural Texas. I continued to use the same social categories and constructs that I had developed for myself in Texas. I was unable to realize that I had in fact been "liberated" from my Texas social environment and that I could really have new kinds of rela-tionships with others. Some experiences from my prep-school days come to mind and illustrate this point for me. In themselves these experiences are insignificant, yet like all experiences they shed light on what our life is about when seen within a wider context. For the first couple of years that I was at the prep school, we did not go home for the Christmas holidays. The big Christmas social event was the carnival. The seniors and college students would fix up the gym so that we could enjoy an evening of fun and games. It was a lot of hard work for them, but a lot of fun for us younger ones. At one of these events, a couple of guys wanted to take my picture and also wanted our picture to be taken together. I ran away from that all night long. I now believe they wanted me as a friend, and not just as a schoolmate, but I remember thinking at that time: "Why do they want a picture of me?" I remember, on another occasion, a classmate starting to play the piano on the spur of the moment in one of the music rooms. I started singing, and we had such a good time. When I was com-plimented on my singing, I remember being embarrassed. I said to myself: "I really do not know how to sing. He is just saying that!" I really did not recognize this as an affirmation and act of friendship until much later in my life. Another experience was a negative one. One day in my junior or senior year, I was put in charge of a work detail that involved getting the dry laundry sorted out into the individual laundry boxes. This was something new for me, being placed in charge of Review for ReliKious a work detail, and I was feeling good. As I made my way to the basement laundry room, I overheard a boy say to another in a normal voice: "I'm going back to the director and ask to work somewhere else. I'm not going to let a Mexican tell me what to do." I do not remember feeling much of anything. For me it was the exception for "Mexicans" to tell anglos what to do, regardless of education, expertise, or experience. That is the way life was then, and I accepted it. Upon reflection these experiences say something to me because I now see them within a social structure that hampered my power as an individual. I am not saying complete powerlessness, but certainly enough that my efforts to make it in life included special inhibitions about making any waves. While I recognize that there are some definite equalities in life and that all persons encounter some unjust situations that they must learn how to deal with boldly, I also know that some specific societal norms and customs made prisoners of me and others sharing my minority status. Racism and the'effects of racism were alive and well within my social environment, even in the prep school. The fact that I was not aware of all that was going on in terms of racism did not prevent my negative experience of racism. Awareness My first assignment after ordination in 1970 was to a retreat center in Houston, Texas. In the previous year a new association of Mexican-American priests had been formed: Padres Asociados para Derecbos Religiosos, Educativos, y Sociales (PADRES). Two rep-resentatives of PADRES came to visit me shortly after my arrival; we had a long talk. They were recruiting me for the organiza-tion. They talked to me about racism and discrimination in the church against Hispanics. I kept telling them that I did not feel discriminated against, and I did not think that our community was racist. While I could accept the fact that we lived in a racist society and that some people we lived with were racist, I had not yet come to an acceptance that my church was racist, much less my province. I thought I had really escaped racism. Only later did I discover that I had not escaped it; I had merely (and conveniendy) denied its existence within mylife experience. One reason why I began to reevaluate my position on this issue was my involvement with Hispanics at all levels of my life. L499-- September-October 1996 Barrdn ¯ Raci.rm and Religious Life We generally do not think about how social constructs such as words and language, policies and directives, and administrative and organizational structures welcome certain peopie or groups of people and exclude others. -- oo I began to listen to the stories of the Hispanic peoples who were becoming part of my ministerial life. I also began to appreciate the life stories of my own family as I heard them being repeated at family celebrations and gatherings. Every time I visited my aunts and uncles, I heard how difficult it was to be Hispanic and work for the church. It would be a mistake to assume that these people, my relatives and those I accompa-nied in ministry, were bitter and dis-illusioned people. There came a point at which I realized that these accounts were testimonies of peo-ple who loved the church even though they had suffered much at its hands. The most common theme woven through these stories was exclusion on the basis of ethnicity. Some were told in anger, some in resignation, and others just as com-mentaries to life. A fe.w of them may illustrate what I mean. When my parents would talk about their wed-ding day in 1935, they would tell us how they had to drive to the "Mexican" Church for their cere-mony. This church was, in reality, a mission of the parish church, a good ten miles away. We did not need much explanation, for we knew that Mexicans were not wel-comed in the main parish church. My mother also talked about how they had to stop for an hour or so in town on their way back home. They were very hun-gry and thirsty by the time they got there, since they had fasted from midnight to receive Holy Communion. They had to eat in the park.like area in front of the courthouse, because no restaurant would be open to them. In 1973 I began working in Los Angeles at a parish that had been forced into having a Sunday Mass in Spanish because the pastor did not think that there were enough Spanish-speaking parishioners within th~ parish boundaries. The parish finally put in a Spanish Mass after being pressured by a few vocal people. This change had taken place a year before I started working there Revie-w for Religious on weekends. By the time I left that parish to move on to another assignment in October 1975, a good deal of growth had taken place. We had standing room only at the Spanish Mass, a choir, eight Movimiento Familiar Cristiano (CFM) reflection groups that met every two weeks, a catechetical program in Spanish for more than 120 children, two Hispanic men who had applied to become (and eventually did become) deacons, and other signs of life and growth. What this said to me was that Hispanics who had been liv-ing in the area for years did not become involved in church life until there were pastoral leaders ready to welcome and support them. In more recent times, in a Los Angeles rectory, about a dozen of us who had gathered for a penance service were engaged in a lot of shoptalk around the dinner table. The talk came around to the different ethnic groups in the archdiocese, particularly the Spanish-speaking. One of the more recently ordained priests-- from a parish that had had a poor turnout for the Lenten penance service--wondered out loud why "these people" needed to have services in Spanish. A couple of nights later, for a penance service in a parish that does its best to serve various language groups, the church was packed. I heard confessions in English and Spanish for more than two hours. Over a dozen priests heard confessions in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. A Deeper Analysis I cite these comparative incidents to illustrate institutional racism, even in the Catholic Church, and also to show that racism is not always intentional, malicious, or premeditated. In fact, I believe that in the majority of cases we are unaware that racism is operative in our lives. I believe that most people of good heart and goodwill have not reflected sufficiently on how social structures affect their ~lay-to-day lives. Our society's mores and laws have to a great extent come to exist, not in order to promote the reign 6f God, but to protect what the more wealthy and powerful incline to hoard for themselves. We generally do not think about how social constructs such as words and language, policies and direc-tives, and administrative and organizational structures welcome certain people or groups of people and exclude others. Racism is much more ingrained than we believe it is. Furthermore, even when there is recognition and formal repu- September-October 1996 Barr6n ¯ Racism and Religious Life diation of institutional racism, it becomes a major struggle to do something about it. It is not easy to change societal constructs, whether they be words, policies, or organizational structures. Along with our sense of guilt, we also experience a sense of help-lessness. We want to do something, we want to make a statement, we want to do the right thing; but, faced with the immense real-ity of it all, we do not know what to do. My Dealing with Racism I am aware of some evolution that has taken place within myself as I have struggled to understand the reality of racism. One of my earliest reactions to racism was the belief that making people alert to racism, aware of it, and acquainted with it would be enough to make them change their ways of thinking and act-ing. My task became one of revealing and unmasking the evil of racism so that racists would convict themselves and change, or feel the guilt of not changing. I really believed that people of good heart and goodwill would change, be converted, once they saw their own racism. So I became involved (and I still am) in programs and projects to raise the people's level of awareness regarding racism. I think that one reason why great numbers of people have been turned off by consciousness-raising is the way many "social-justice types" presented their case. Their rhetoric is often inflam-matory and confrontational. Sometimes these modern-day prophets use questionable data and much hyperbole to get across their points. I could admire their bravado, but I thought that, if they presented their points with calmness and serenity, then peo-ple would listen and would admit their racism. That is how I thought I would go about it. Sometimes this approach worked; more often it did not. I did not understand the power of denial, to use a psych.ological term, or the condition of blindness, to use a scriptural notion. You can say, "twenty million Hispanics," "eighty percent Hispanic," "one of the highest levels of poverty," "the highest dropout rate at school," and still get responses like "So what?" and "Prove it" and "Don't you think that it's their own personal fault they are the way they are?" Where racism is concerned, comprehension, understanding, reason, logic, facts, and all the other things that go into "knowing" can bring one only so far. Then you are going to Review for Religious have to say yes or no to that reality; you either embrace the truth or you walk away from it. I believe that the other approach, emotional and vitriolic, can at times be much more effective because it pulls us out of the ordinary rhythm of life and challenges us to affirm or deny our position with passion. Often it is in that passionate response that we come to know whether we are confronting truth or living a lie. It screams at us, and we cannot be deaf to it any longer. Living with Racism Once I owned up to the realization that it takes more than just awareness and acknowledgment of racism before some posi-tive response can take place, I was faced with a dilemma. What is an appropriate response to racism? If letting people know about racism, telling them facts or even leading them to some insight, is not enough, then what should I be doing? ' To do nothing is not an option. To be involved in educating people about the evil of racism is good, but it has not been very successful. So what is it that I can do? I have had to learn how to live with the reality of racism without allowing it to con-sume me or compromise me. Racism is both strong and insidious. If you are constantly fighting it, it will wear you down. If you never confront it, however, it will corrupt you and you will conform to it. I have had to learn how to live with it and still be sensitive to it. I have had to learn how to live within its grasp and still be able to name its evil. I have had to learn how to live with people who have no desire whatsoever for critical reflection on the subject and still not dis-count them as brothers and sisters. I also have had to learn that I could not fight racism alone and in isolation. I include in this understanding of aloneness or isolation the clique or inner circle that one forms when engaged in this kind of struggle. When you associate only with men and women of like mind and heart in regard to racism, you run the risk of having them become an extension of your own self. You then have two kinds of people, those who are enlightened by the truth and cleansed by the conversion experience (the inner circle) and What is an appropriate response to racism? To do nothing is not an option. September-October 1996 Barrdn * Racism an'd Religious Life those who are the great unwashed (the rest of humanity), who need to be purified before they can truly be a brother or a sister. And those of the inner circle know in their heart of hearts that hardly anyone from the great unwashed will ever make it to their level of purification and commitment. I believe that, in order to fight racism effectively, one needs to be allied with men and women who are at all stages of a~are-ness and commitment. There is no one of us who has always been right in each and every thought, word, deed, or omission. No one has a complete and correct theory of how life is to be lived. So we need to network with others who agree with us and with those who do not. We need to be in relationship with those who share our insights and with those who do not. We need to be a gen-uine brother or a sister to those who are racists and those who are not. Otherwise I do not see how we can bring about structural conversion. Some Strfita of Memory and Hope Looking at my parents today, I see an elderly couple who knew racism and its effects firsthand. They knew what it meant to live in segregated neighborhoods and in housing that was once chicken coops. My parents knew what it meant to be laid off work, to send their children to a broken-down building that served as the school for "Mexican" children, to be in the hospital without any insurance, to be excluded from stores and services, to be "Mexican" Catholics in a predominantly anglo community. I saw people come to our door and ask for advice or a helping hand or to have official letters read to them. We received many a Catholic missionary into our home, to eat with us and sometimes stay with us during the time they were evangelizing and catechizing. One day, as I shared this history with a group of people at a workshop, I found myself understanding the meaning of "being evangelized by the poor." My parents knew only one way to live in a racist society, and that was to love God with all they had and to love everyone else the best they could. Today I see a couple respected in their hometown and throughout the diocese for their perseverance, their faithfulness, their constancy in the faith and in the way they treat people. No matter how evil the structures were and how evil the people who strove to keep those structures in place may have been, my par- Review for Religious ents' faith has allowed them to overcome that evil. I do not see a bitter, broken-down couple blaming others for what they do not have, but a faith-filled couple continuing, by their example, to call others to a better way of life. Yes, society continues to be racist. The church continues to be racist. And, yes, there is racism even within my province. How should we respond, however, to our racism as a society, as a church and as a religious congregation, well, that is a conversation that we still need to have. Jesus Willing He could have multiplied currency as easy as loaves reasoned down other paths. he gave freely to everyone left the poor still poor rich with more than before. could have died another way unnoticed in desert sand lived as paralytic beggar with none coming to succor when angels stirred waters with a great serving spoon. for though he chose manger and tree, Peter and

Issue 53.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1994. ; Christian Heritages and Contempora~ Living ~ JULY-AUGUST 1994 ¯ VOLUME: 5:3 . Nrt~MBER 4 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ Fax: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° P.O. Box 29260 ¯ Washington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1994 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 client~ 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. review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1994 * VOLUME53 ¯ NUMBER4 contents 486 feature LeadErship a New Way: If Christ Is Growing in Us Janet K. Ruffing RSM proposes that a task of religious leadership is to integrate a personally appropriated Christ mysticism with historical consciousness and liberationist praxis in a way that is consonant with feminine experience. 498 5O7 traditions An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality Peter J. SanFilippo presents the doctorine of theosis, the deification of the human person, as the heart of the ascetical spirituality of the Orthodox Church. Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen Ovey N. Mohammed SJ compares the praxis of contemplation in yoga and Zen Buddhism with Christian prayer, especially the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. 524 The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality Frederick E. Crowe SJ presents an understanding of St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises that distinguishes them from Jesuit spirituality while clarifying their relationship to Jesuit spirituality or any other kind. 534 The Suscipe Revisited Joan Mueller OSF explores various applications of the Ignatian prayer "Take and receive" within the dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises. 544 holiness The Cross Yesterday and Today Robert P. Maloney CM presents a synthesis of the understanding of the cross in the spirituality of Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac in the light of contemporary theology. 482 Revieva for Religious 560 568 Fascination with the Holy--and Conversion Annette M. Pelletier IHM postulates a fascination with the holy which justifies religious life and which demands a response of conversion. Merton's Spirituality of Place Wayne Simsic explains the importance of stability of place as an anchor for spiritual growth in the writings of Thomas Merton. 584 prayer and direction The Future of Spiritual Direction Tad Dunne raises eight issues which need to be addressed if spiritual direction is to be an effective ministry in the church. 591 A Vision Revision about Distractions Harold F. Niedzwiecki OFM points out that a way of integrating prayer and our daily routine is to see God in our environment as well as beyond it. 597 6O5 ministry formation Nonviolence and Christian Moral Responsibility Pa~ricia McCarthy CND presents nonviolence as so integral to Jesus' way of life that it takes its place as a part of Christian moral responsibility. Holy Land Pilgrims and Ministry to Them Anne Hennessy CSJ makes some helpful suggestions for Catholic pilgrims to the Holy Land at~d identifies four situations .dxich call for ministry attention. 617 report Santo Domingo Assembly: An LCWR/CMSM Report departments 484 Prisms 622 Canonical Counsel: Religious and Human Promotion 629 Book Reviews a~ly-August 1994 483 prisms L its spring meeting, the Review for Religious Advisory Board raised some concerns that we hope interested writers might explore in future arti-cles. For example, there remains much interest in and rea-son for writing about charism. Besides the fundamental norm of gospel discipleship around Christ, the founders or inspirers of various consecrated lifeforms, their personal history and example, the original rule of life, and the spe-cial founding charism are still the essential sources for contemporary renewal. Often we image the charism spe-cial to each religious foundation as something that we have to recover in its original purity if we are to move forward while being true to ourselves. Yet many religious groups seem to have experienced that a return to such a pristine notion, of a founding charism may not be the most effective road to' renewal. When relig!ous men and women--after, in many instances, arriving in the United States from European foundations--received some of their formation from the needs and ethos of this land, some incarnate charisms began to look quite different from their European form. For example, monastic foundations, especially of women, were so drawn out into educational or other service areas that the actual lived grace (the charism) evident in the members' lives took a different cast. Certain aspects of monastic spirituality were blended into the later spiritu-alities called apostolic. Sometimes the blending was less like a healthy grafting than like two plants sharing the same pot. When Vatican II called for a return to the sources, some North American religious may have been too quick to seek a purity of charism instead of examining 484 Review for Religious the grafting or the twinned growth that distinctly showed life, however poorly understood or oddly proportioned. We would seem to have a good number of religious congregations that might better be described as having a "blended charism" of a couple spiritual traditions rather than the purity of, say, a Benedictine, Franciscan, or Jesuit charism. Perhaps part of the frustration of renewal is a religious group's attempt to identify a charism by its root rather than by its stalk, leaves, and full flowering evident in their lives. We believe that phenomena like.these might be prof-itably explored. Along the same line, articles which briefly explain how our various spiritual heritages respond to contemporary living have great interest for many people. Back in the early fifties, Review for Religious printed six or eight articles of this kind. The time appears ripe for a similar series. Another area that might bear examination is the apparent paralleling of 50- and 60-year-old Catholics being the active, committed parishioners and religious in contrast with the 20-, 30-, and even 40-year-old Catholics being "affiliative" persons (less flatteringly, "supermarket" Catholics and religious) picking and choosing among the prac-tices which incarnate our faith and its counterpart, religious life. We also might want to pursue these questions. Given min-istry's growing professionalization, do we need to examine more carefully the importance of an intimacy in the Christian-ministry relationship in place of "client-centered" imaging? When is incul-turation a surrender to a culture's racist, sexist, or otherwise dis-torted values, and when is it a demonstration of respect for a heritage that is opening itself to Christian values? At our April meeting we welcomed Brother David Werthmann CSSR to the Advisory Board. He has served as novice director for the Redemptorist provinces of the western United States for six years and as a member of the national board for the National Assembly of Religious Brothers (1987-1993). He is now director of Vincent House, an in-home volunteer program serving per-sons living with AIDS in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a contribut-ing author to the recently published book Blessed Ambiguity: Brothers in the Church. Our appreciation and gratitude go with Brother Se~n Sammon FMS, a founding member of the Board, as he begins service as vicar general of the Marist Brothers in Rome. ¯ David L. Fleming sJ .~ly-Aug.ust 1994 485 feature JANET K. RUFFING Leadership a New Way: If Christ Is Growing in Us As Americans we tend to privatize our religious expe-rience. Because we are schooled by our democratic and pluralistic society to conceal from public discourse the compelling religious vision and experiences that motivate us, some leaders of religious communities carry this reti-cence over into their role in community. In addition, some come from ethnic backgrounds which presume a bedrock of faith, but discourage talking about it. Leaders vary in their ability to express in their lives the faith by which they live. On the other hand, the entire purpose and meaning of religious life is to help those called to it to focus their lives totally on God. For apostolic communi-ties this response to G6d's call is accomplished through the love of our neighbor in compassionate service as well as through contemplation and a lifestyle organized to sus-tain this commitment. . Although the religious dimension of leadership is often neglected,, religious life itself is always and only a work of the fiery Spirit that inspires, empowers, and energizes our free response to this grace. The reflections on power and empowerment in the first part of this article show that one gift women religious offer the church in our pres- Janet K. Ruffing RSM is associate professor in spirituality and spiritual direction in the Graduate School of Religion and REligious Education at Fordham University. The first part of this article, "Women, Power, and Authority," appeared in our May- June 1994 issue. Her address is GSRRE, Fordham University; 441 E. Fordham Road; Bronx, New York 10458-5169. 486 "Review for Religious ent transition is the clear movement in many communities toward a communal life shared by equal disciples who are seeking to r~spond to God's leading. This evolution of empowering author-ity in religious life could indeed be a sign of hope to contempo-rary women. If religious life for women is a means for supporting our total transformation so that Christ be formed in us, it will institutionalize itself in ways that genuinely respect and nurture the deepest possibilities of our femi-nine discipleship. Following Caryll Houselander's words, we can say, "If Christ is growing in us,''~ we will be at peace because where we are Christ is. The entire context in which we seek to live this discipleship has changed. It is a time of chaos and new creation. God's. Spirit broods over these waters. Are we paying attention to these move-ments in our midst? Do leader-ship teams spend time reflecting together on what is happening in themselves, in their members, and in the various groups in the community that reveals what God is doing in their midst? How are sisters understanding themselves in the light of their central dedication to God in Christ? How are they being impelled in ministry? What do they describe as impeding or deflecting them from this central core of the religious-life project? What are the resistances of leaders to some new things? What are the group's resistances to or struggles with ongoing conversion? I believe that paying attention to such'questions is important for religious leadership. Leaders, consciously or not, nonverbally express in decisions and actions their operative vision of religious life, their sense of who God is, their Christology, and their atti-tude toward the women they lead. These are all interconnected. If a leader believes she is diminished in her personhood because God wills her to be powerless and dependent on external author-ity, her behavior will conform to that belief. If she believes that authentic discipleship of Jesus requires members to be compli- Leaders nonverbally express in decisions and actions their operative vision of religious life, their sense of who God is, their Christology, and their attitude toward the women they lead. ~uly-August 1994 487 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New IVay ant to all requests, she will attempt to secure such compliance. If she believes the majority of members to be selfish and individ-ualistic in their choices, she will find this amply documented. However, if she expects discipleship of Jesus to lead to creative ini-tiatives, release of energy for mission, resistance to injustice, growth in compassion, and a deeply contemplative gaze at expe- ¯ rience, she will Welcome such creativity and action and notice its contemplative interiority. If leaders are not both conscious and critical of the theology they embody in their leadership style, they will fail to recognize how religious faith is functioning within the dongregation. I believe, and the research bea~s this out, that religious lead-ership is more than being conscious of and setting an example of grass-roots theology. The Nygren-Ukeritis study found not only that outstanding leaders of religious congregations were them-selves firmly grounded in their religious experience, but also that they demonstrated an ability to "find and express., the spiritual significance in everyday affairs." The study found, too, that out-standing leaders of religious congregations put greater reliance on God than other members do; generally the male leaders think of God as a "source of support," and the female leaders, as a "source of direction and energy." Further, the interviews showed that in "the spontaneous recounting of their experiences the out-standing leaders more frequently cite instances of actions consis-tent with the religious theory they would espouse." In the judgment of the researchers, these leaders "communicated a gen-uine awareness of God's presence in their lives" and acted accord-ingly. 2 The study concludes that organizations will survive only if their leaders can articulate the founding purpose in contempo-rary idioms and respond to pressing needs. We are experiencing a profound theological reinterpretation of religious life in the light of rapidly changing circumstances. For numerous reasons entire congregations find considerable dif-ficulty in coalescing around a new vision. While some members are stuck in the old paradigm, others propose only a limited view of the new reality. All of us act on old habits of thought and behav-ior. Leaders are reluctant to quench new initiatives since it is rarely clear which one might be leading to the future. Leaders also resist taking initiatives themselves since they are convinced these initiatives need to come from the group. Much of this can be described as a conflict of interpretations or a conflict of per- 488 Revietv for Religious spectives. The FORUS study recognizes that leaders strongly affect the outcomes of such conflicts. "Leaders can have a strong impact on the outcome of the conflict between perspectives. If they sup-port only one perspective, they are likely to decrease the creativ-ity of the transformational process and the active involvement of members whose perspectives are not taken into account . If they enable conflicting perspectives to interact with each other, they will increase the chances of paradoxical transformations, of new and creative shared understandings that emerge from the interaction of the competing perspectives.''3 It is a function of religious leadership to notice and articulate to the community the religious dimension of experience. This includes the team's view of affairs, but also that of the other mem-bers. If the group is assembled, leadership leads by creating an atmosphere in which conflicting perspectives can meet one another and be modified by the dialogue. If the group is not assembled, leadership needs to reflect the range of perspectives and call the group to respond to a religious vision that can be accommodated within this range. I am describing a form of grass-roots theological reflection in which leaders of communities keep before the consciousness of the group a way of sharing the religious heart of their shared reli-gious life. This is a delicate and important task, not just a form of pious exhortation, It requires careful listening, schooled in expe-rience, for what God is actually doing in the group. What form is discipleship taking? How well is it grounded in Scripture and in a sense of who Jesus is? Members will welcome this discourse if it is objective, respectful, and truthful. If this reality can be spo-ken of in narrative or thematic ways, it can foster into the future a sense of shared life, shared goals, and shared commitments. It can build the theological bridges for understanding one another and for a new form of co(porateness. The First Epistle of Peter describes s.omething of this pro-cess: "Venerate Christ in your hearts. Should anyone ask the rea-son for this hope of yours, be ever ready toreply, but speak gently and respectfully" (1 P 3:15-16). Such accounts of the hope that animates us draw the community together around its most central identity. Far more than they do, leaders need to concern them-selves with helping communities to do such spiritual accounting together if religious life is to move through this transitional and transformative time. j~uly-/lugust 1994 489 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way Christological Models While the FORUS study highlights the singular impor-tance of the faith dimension in religious leadership, it neglects to examine in any significant way the content of faith, specifi-cally our understanding of Jesus. Since the conciliar teaching on religious life emphasized that gospel discipleship is the funda-mental norm for religious life, how we individually and commu-nal! y understand our following of Jesus constitutes the religious heart of our vocation. We live religious life in quite different ways with each new interpretation of our faith in Jesus. To help our reflection on the practical following of Christ in religious life, I propose three models of Christology that are oper-ative in contemporary communities. Although oversimplified, these three models might be described as an ahistorical/mystical model, a historical/liberationist model, and a feminist model.4 The ahistorical/mystical model is the largely monophysite Christology that preceded the council and informed much of the 19th-century spirituality many founders lived. In this Christology the one thing we are absolutely certain about is the divinity of Jesus, hence the term monophysite, meaning one nature. The one divine nature managed to obscure the other half of the Chalcedonian definition, namely, Jesus' human nature. Spiritual writers and meditation books emphasized a one-to-one relation-ship with Jesus. Greater emphasis was placed on the hidden life and the passion than on either the public ministry or the resur-rection. Few Catholics, including religious, actually read or med-itated on the texts of Scripture but rather used devotional manuals. The focus of these meditations was the interior attitudes of Jesus in his humiliation and suffering-=humility, obedience, suffering, patience, love, meekness, and so forth. The follower of Christ was to imitate these virtues in order to achieve holiness and to enter into the mysteries of Jesus. These meditations usually had a strong trinitarian flavor. Since Christ was God, the desired atti-tudes were adoration, reverence, and docility before the Mystery. The meditator was drawn into the Trinity itself through the mys-teries of incarnation and redemption. Frequently, the image of God the Father was rather harsh-- a just God who demanded the blood reparation of his Son for humanity's sin. Apostolic religious life in this model usually meant long hours of devotional prayers, use of a meditation manual, and the imitation of the virtues or inner states of Jesus in common 490 Review for Religious life and in ministry. What mattered was increasing conformation to the Christ mystery through prayer and virtue. Obedience and humility were valued over activity and originality. Obedience to superiors and the rule was equated with obedience to God's will. Just as the understanding of Jesus in this model failed to honor Jesus' human reality as much as his divine reality, so too this kind of Christology often led to a neglect of our own humanity and a loss of a sense of the sacra-mentality of human life. In many communities, women were not respected as individuals with differing gifts, histories, and abilities and were not encouraged to care for them-selves appropriately. Since this form of relationship to the Christ mystery was entirely inte-rior and ahistorical, it did not really matter what we did in our world so long as we did it with the proper interior attitudes. This Christology supports the consecration model of religious life. Consecrated to an intimate relationship with Christ, religious are set apart from mundane secular life by cloister, rule, and garb and seek the one thing necessary, namely, progressive contemplative assimilation to the Christ mystery. Much still remains valid in this Christology, especially the way in which Jesus does lead us into the deeper mystery of the Trinity. To become intimate with Jesus, to participate in his life does cultivate in us an entirely different perspective on reality. We are opened to transcendence; we discover the deepest reality of ourselves in the love which comes to us from the Divine Mystery. We never exhaust the need to penetrate to ever deeper levels of the divine and of our own graced reality. The second model is the historical/liberationist model. As one wave of Christology at the time of the council broke over our consciousness, we began to appreciate more clearly the full humanity of Jesus. As Elizabeth Johnson puts it, "if God became a human being, then it is very important to see what kind of human being God became.''5 This led to a full appreciation not only of Jesus' human experience, but of our own as well. As schol- To become intimate with Jesus, to participate in his life does cultivate in us an entirely different perspective on reality. ~uly-August 1994 491 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way ars recovered more and more of the actual history of Jesus and the movement which he inspired, focus turned to a close examina-tion of his ministry, death, and resurrection. Jesus not only talked about the kingdom of God, but actually made it present in the way he was with people, by what he said and did. He embodied the reality of God in his concrete human history. When we began to contemplate this part of the story, we discovered incredible things. It became apparent that Jesus favored the poor, the marginalized, the outcasts. Women were a primary group among his disciples, and he seemed to enjoy their company. Jesus appreciated embod-ied life and drew most of his parables from nature and from com-mon human experience. The kingdom of God was already in our midst. For apostolic religious life the implications were significant. Much of the four Gospels was about Jesus' ministry--which gave us a clue about how we are to be in ministry. It became apparent that Jesus was killed because of the choices he made and what he said in his ministry. As Jesus expressed it, love is more important than law. The law was made for human benefit, not to oppress people. God's will is for abundant life, fullness of life as John's Gospel puts it; God's primary attribute is compassion rather than judgment. When Jesus was killed for upsetting the religious authorities of his day, God validated his ministry and his teaching by not allowing sin and evil to have the last word, but by raising him from the dead.6 As this reflection on Jesus' lived history continued, liberation theology began to develop among poor and oppressed peoples. Drawing on the choices Jesus made in his ministry to share life with the poor and to offer wholeness and liberation to the oppressed, poor and oppressed Christians added social critique and praxis to Christology. Thus, liberation Christologies begin in the context of the suffering of a particular oppressed group. The process of this reflection is communal. Oppressed people come together to reflect on their situation, to pray, and to seek actions that will change things for the better. These actions become the subject for further reflection. Thus, thought and action are intertwined. Liberation theologies emphasize the social nature of sin and grace by reflecting on how the community experiences them within their social structures. These theologies also consider how God and Christ are present in the community as it struggles for 492 Review for Religious justice. Typically there are three steps to this method. A situa-tion is recognized to be oppressive, is called sinful, and is ana-lyzed for its causes, including the way Christian tradition has contributed to the oppression: Has there been complicity in the church and its preaching? Has Christ been understood in a way that is helpful to the oppressor? In this step, liberation tMology is quite critical of the tradition. In the third step, guided by the experience of the oppressed, Christian tradi-tion is searched for elements that would yield new understanding and a new liberating practice. In liber-ation theology, discipleship always entails a change in praxis--activity on behalf of the kingdom of God, judged to be more a present real-ity than an entirely future one. It is out of this theology that Medellin developed the notion of the preferential option for the poor. Massive injustice is analyzed as social sin and not as God's will. There is a mystical side to this Christology, but it is more a spiri-tuality of a people than of individuals. Faith influences base com-munities as they reflect on the Scriptures, the concrete situation of the poor, and action taken to address it. Frequently, when reli-gious espouse voluntary solidarity with the poor, they discover a new experience of God, experiencing Christ in the poor them-selves. Poor people become the ongoing occasion for conversion. Elizabeth Johnson notes that this. theology is also conflictual. The powers within either church or culture do not like to be chal-lenged. To act and live in solidarity with the poor is to risk cer-tain conflict even as Jesus did in his ministry. In this Christology there is less an imitation of the interior attitudes of Jesus than a willingness to accept the consequences of a liberating praxis. What differentiates solidarity with the poor, in this theological per-spective, from involvement with the poor in the earlier mystical model is concrete social analysis. Rather than simply relieving the poor in a loving way, one joins them in their struggle. Frequently, when religious espouse voluntary solidarity with the poor, they discover a new experience of God, experiencing Christ in the poor themselves. July-August 1994 493 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way In the third model, a feminist Christology, we find similari-ties to the historical/liberation perspective. Feminist theology is liberation theology done from the perspective of women's expe-rience. It draws inspiration from the historical material about Jesus' compassionate healing and liberating treatment of women and a discipleship of equals among the men and women who fol-lowed him in the early community. Women clearly understand that their oppression in all cultures is not willed by God. The same steps of analysis and action and prayer as described above are applied to the situation of women. Feminist theology in first-world countries recognizes the resources in Christology for women's liberation.7 The Jesus tradition is a powerful and important spiritual resource for Christian women in their struggle for full participa-tion and personhood in church and society. Feminist theologians in third-world countries pay attention to the situation of women everywhere. The God Jesus reveals cannot be hostile to the deep-est reality of women; women as well as men are fitting images of this God. Likewise, women disciples of Jesus are images of Christ, are every bit as much "altera Christa" as men are "alter Chrisms." Women recognize their suffering and oppression reconciled, healed, and overcome in the death and resurrection of Jesus fully as much as other oppressed groups. Women in religious communities probably lie along the entire continuum of these three Christologies. For some, their rela-tionship with Jesus is primarily a mystical/interpersonal one that has not been significantly changed by reflection on the actual his-torical situation of Jesus' life. Others have deeply appropriated this historical perspective and have assimilated it to their mysti-cal experience of Jesus. The Jesus they meet in prayer is the embodiment of God's compassion. To be involved with him is to be involved with all who suffer. If the FORUS study is correct in its conclusion that service with the poor is not a fully operative priority in communities, it is because a significant portion of the membership has not made the historical/liberation turn. Religious life is constructed on the dominant understanding of what the following of Christ entails in a given historical period. The larger church--both ordinary parishioners and the hierarchy--is more comfortable with religious doing good work motivated by a mys-tical Christology than it is with a stance of prophetic solidarity based on either a liberationist model or a feminist Christology. 494 Review for Religious Feminist Christologies are arising all over the world because even countries that began to address the structural causes of poverty were doing so from the perspective of men rather than women. As worldwide statistics on women become available, it is clear that in every culture women (with their children) constitute the masses of poor people and suffer additionally purely because of their gender. Religious institutes whose originating charisms focused on women and children can reappropriate those charisms in the contemporary context by adopting some form of Christian feminism.8 This is the development our constitutions and chap-ter statements document, but I suspect that they are not fully internalized because our operative Christologies have not yet caught up with them. Religious life has historically been lived longer from the mystical model, which did not necessarily entail apostolic life. Further, religious life has also been lived by women in contexts determined by masculine consciousness and explained in theologies rooted in masculine experience. As apostolic reli-gious and as women, our challenge is to integrate a personally appropriated Christ mysticism with historical consciousness and liberationist praxis in our postmodern context in a way that is fully consonant with our feminine experience. These are the Christologies that support both a prophetic and a contemplative religious life for women. Conclusion In her theological monograph commissioned by the FORUS study, Elizabeth Johnson points to what she calls a "new experi-ence of God emerging in the context of postmodern conscious-ness." The paradoxical experience so many of us have of presence in absence, the loss of familiar ways of experiencing God, and the emergence of something deeper or different are all of a piece. She asserts that a shift is going on in our understanding of the nature of God revealed to us in Jesus. In this essay I have described some of these changes through a Christological lens. However, these changes in Christology also initiate changes in our experi-ence of God. Johnson describes the features of this new experience this way: If there be a God at all, then this is absolute holy mystery that can never be fathomed. Not literally a male person writ large, the sacred can be pointed to by any created good: .~-uly-/lugust 1994 495 Ruffing * Leadership a New Way male, female, animal, cosmic. This mystery does not dwell in isolation from the world but encompasses it as the Matrix of its being and becoming. God in the world and the world in God--panentheism--describes the mutual relation. Thus related, the Holy One of Blessing is a God of pathos who participates in the suffering of the world in order to trans-form it from within. Divine power is the strength of love, rather than raw, monarchical omnipotence. Passionate for justice and peace and compassionate over pain, Holy Wisdom typically self-reveals in the fragmentary break-throughs of well-being that come about through human partnership with divine purpose. Forever God acts to cre-ate a fresh, new future: liberation is her signature deed. A God like this calls for an ethic of critical compassion. We are impelled so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. She goes on to describe this experience of divine absence and presence as: an experience of the Spirit of God: radically transcendent, like the wind blowing where it will; and at the same time radically immanent, dwelling at the heart of the world to vivify and renew all things. Empowered by the Spirit in our age, people of faith who treasure the living memory of Jesus seek the hidden God of life (contemplation) and live out the passion of God for the world in need (prophecy).9 Rather than a return to the old securities that would quench the fiery Spirit moving in our midst, we need more profound prayer, more attentive listening to the experience of God break-ing through in our midst, and acting from its liberating energy toward a more just, more contemplative, and more novel future. One of the tasks of religious leadership is to contribute to this new naming of God in ways that unite contemplation and prophecy, compassion and action, women's well-being and that of the earth, nonviolence and conflictual change. This task can-not be accomplished without thinking theologically as well as psychologically, without the courage to articulate one's own core religious experience and that of the community, without a sus-taining hope grounded in God's faithfulness. Whatever the even-tual shape of the next form of religious life, it will both emerge from and disclose this new experience of God. It is the task of religious leaders to tell the new story of the surpassing gift of God's fidelity, love, and emancipating compas-sion. It is the task of leaders to uncover the foundational experi- 496 Review for Religious ence of God in every woman in the community and in every inter-action with one another. Religious leaders must forge a new vocab-ulary of the Spirit's presence that honors everyone's experience of God and also points to the "new experiences" emerging in our times and in many of our members. If religious life clearly man-ifests this profound rootedness in the Holy Mystery, "all will be well and all manner of things will be well.''1° Notes ' Lavinia Byrne, ed., The Hidden Tradition: Women's Spiritual Writings Rediscovered. An Anthology (New York: Crossroad, 1991), p. 23. 2 David Nygren, Miriam Ukeritis, John McClelland, et al., "Religious Leadership Competencies," Review for Religious 52, no. 3 (May-June 1993): 412. 3 Nygren and Ukeritis, "The Religious Life Futures Project: Executive Summary," Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 11. Interpretation theory also suggests a similar process by bringing the pos-sible interpretations together in dialogue, to arbitrate among, and to seek agreement. Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), p. 79. 4 For a readable survey of these contemporary changes in Christology see Elizabeth Johnson, Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology (New York: Crossroad, 1991). 5 Johnson, Consider Jesus, p. 50. 6 Albert Nolan, Jesus before Christianity (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1992), is still the most accessible form of this insight into Christology. Originally published in 1976, it is being superseded by John Meier's and Dominic Crossan's recent works, A Marginal Jew and The Historical Jesus. 7 See Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1992) and Consider Jesus, for ample bibliography of feminist theologies. 8 For an example of this process, see Janet Ruffing and Theresa Moser, "An Option for Women?" Way Supplement 74 (Women and Ignatian Spirituality in Dialogue, summer 1992): 89-100. 9 Elizabeth Johnson, "Between the Times: Religious Life and the Postmodern Experience of God," Review for Religious 53, no. 1 (January- February 1994): 22 and 23-24. 10 Julian of Norwich, Showings of Divine Love. .)~uly-August 1994 497 PETER J. SANFILIPPO An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality traditions Editor's Note: Out of respect for his religious heritage, the author retains man and masculine reference when the theological roots of Orthodox faith and the tradi-tional expressions of its writers are being reflected. The Orthodox Church knows no dichotomy between her theology, spirituality, liturgy, use of Scripture, and even her iconography. The church experiences all these as inseparable components in an organic whole, which have as their common matrix a doctrine which stands at the very center of her ecclesial consciousness: theosis, the deification of man (for the inclusive meaning of the term man, see Gn 5:2, RSV) and, with him, of the whole created cosmos. Contemplating the masters of the incarnation, St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in the 2nd century that "God became what we are so that we could become what he is." This reached its ultimate conclusion two centuries later in the writings of St. Athanasius the Great, champion of orthodoxy at the anti-Arian Council of Nicaea in A.D. 3 2 5 and later archbishop of Alexandria: God became man so that man could become God/ Father Peter SanFilippo, ordained in 1988, is the founding pastor of St. Stephen the First Martyr parish in Roblin, Manitoba, Canada, where he resides with his wife, Joann, and their four children. He studied theology at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York. His address is P.O. Box 1397; Roblin, Manitoba R0L 1P0; Canada. 498 Review for Religious This is not to be confused with the Buddhist ~oncept of nir-vana, according to which complete union with the Transcendent ends in the annihilation of self. The goal of Buddhist spiritual-ity is sometimes described by means of an analogy in which a man made of sand progresses by stages into the ocean until he disintegrates, entirely swallowed up and ceasing to exist as him-self. In the final analysis, this is a hopelessly pessimistic spiritu-ality, for its aim is not the salvation but the destruction of the human person. On the contrary, the spiritual doctrine of theosis represents a powerful affirmation of the innate goodness of the human person as a whole--in the composite, trinitarian nature of spirit, soul and body--created in the image of God. Theosis neither obliter-ates nor even diminishes anything that belongs to human nature or human personhood: in other words, what I am and who I am. It is rather the eschatological manifestation of the children of God, experienced by degrees as a foretaste in this present life. This raises three points which require elaboration: 1. The Platonizing tendency borrowed by classical Western theology to regard man as a soul created in the image of God, "imprisoned" in a body which it longs to shed, is foreign to Orthodox theology. The inadequacy of this philosophical schema is that only a "part" of man (his soul) is thought to possess the divine image and to be destined for immortality, while the other "part" (his body) is bereft of that image, ultimately valueless and irreversibly mortal. This is not to say that certain writers in the Christian East did not lend prestige to such notions from time to time. But in the end they were condemned as a departure from the church's more holistic scriptural tradition. Orthodox theo-logical anthropology postulates the human person as a harmo-niously ordered, inseparable unity of spirit, soul and body, all of which participate in the image of God, all of which were created for eternal life, and all of which are engaged in the process of theosis. Death and the separation of the soul from the body are unnatural to man as God created him. 2. What is destroyed in the process of theosis is neither humanhood nor personhood, but sin. The patristic heritage of the East, in its assertion of the inherent holiness of all that is authentically human, does not view sin as intrinsic to, but contrary July-August 1994 499 SanFilippo ¯ An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality to, human nature. Paradoxically, the deification of man reveals most brilliantly all that is genuinely human. 3. Theosis begins and is experienced in this present life, while its full manifestation awaits the resurrection on the last day. Theologians have debated for years whether eschatology is pres-ent or future and have even posited the two as if they were not the same reality. The late Father Georges Florovsky, eminent Orthodox theologian and author, merged the two concepts as they ought to be by coining the phrase "inaugurated eschatology": "Thou hast endowed us [already] with Thy kingdom which is to come" (from the Eucharistic canon of St. John Chrysostom). The deification of man does not add persons to the Holy Trinity so that God ceases to be Trinity and becomes "Multiplicity"! While man is admitted to full participation in divine life, he does not become "worshipable," for God remains eternally immutable in the divine essence. We begin to comprehend the nature of this mystery, if only imperfectly and in images, by bearing in mind St. Athanasius's maxim that the incarnation of God and the deification of man are reciprocal movements. According to the doctrinal formulation of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) on the incarnation, the divine-human union in the person of the Son was accomplished with neither division nor confusion (or mingling), each of the two natures preserving the fullness of its properties and attributes intact and undiluted. This means that no hybridization or cross-breeding has taken place in the incarnation of Christ, while at the same time the union of the human nature with the divine in his person remains perfect, complete, and uni.mpeded. This sheds some light by analogy on our understanding of theosis. However, a critical distinction must be drawn between the incarnation and deification: God became man by nature, while man becomes God not by nature but solely by participation or by grace. This is why the Scripture refers to Christ as the "only-begotten" (or only "natural") Son of God, and to us as children of God "by adoption." Theosis begins neither at conception nor at birth, for the fall has rendered man incapable of attaining the divine destiny for which he was created. Something more is needed to set him on his 500 Review for Religiot~s way, and that is rebirth in the waters of baptism: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" On 3:5). Baptism in the Orthodox Church, from the elaborate blessingof the water to the actual immersion, unfolds as a liturgical reenactment of creation which effects, not so much the juridical removal of the stain or guilt of original sin, but the total re-creation of the human person: a rebirth in the profoundest sense of the word, a putting off of the old man and putting on of the new, a mystical dying and rising with Christ in order to "walk in newness of life" towards the eter-nal destiny for which we were created. The white robe prescribed in most baptismal rubrics is com-monly taken to symbolize the virtues, or the virtuous life, to which the neophyte has been called, as if Christ had come for no other purpose than to produce well-behaved people. The Orthodox baptismal liturgy contains a rubric of immense importance for our topic, the full significance of which is nearly always over-looked: while the newly baptized is clothed with the white robe, the congregation, choir, or cantor sings: Grant unto me the robe of light, O most merciful Christ our God, who clothest Thyself with light as with a garment! The real meaning of the white robe, and indeed of baptism itself, is that God has come down from heaven and become incar-nate in order to clothe mortal human flesh in his divinity and immortality, the very "garment" in which he himself is "clothed" from all eternity (Ps 104:2). Immediately after the immersion and the putting on of the white robe, the Holy Spirit is conferred on the neophyte in the sacrament of chrismation (confirmation in the West). This is pos-sible because, in the Orthodox East, the administration of chris-mation has always been delegated to the priest and has never required the presence of the bishop (the consecrated chrism is supplied by the bishop, however). Baptism completes in each per-son what was inaugurated in the incarnation: human flesh is made receptive to the descent and .permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, received as a gift in chrismation as the firstfruits of deifi-cation and of the world to come. The Orthodox rites of initiation culminate finally in the Eucharist, in which the mystical union between God and man is SanFilippo ¯ An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality consummated. The Eucharist is the summit of man's Godward ascent in this life, his fullest experience of deification as he becomes one with God, who became one with us, and the most perfect foretaste of the life to come: "Grant that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the never-ending day of Thy king-dom" (from the prayer after Communion). (The Orthodox Church administers chrismation and Communion even to infants as soon as they are baptized.) The church expects iconographers to undertake their work in an atmosphere of prayer and fasting, together with confession and Communion. There is a cosmic dimension to all we have spoken of here. St. Paul writes that "the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now" (Rm 8:19-22). In another place he writes that God was pleased "to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven" (Col 1:20). Since the whole created order participated in the fall of man, it likewise awaits and shares in his redemption, being transfigured into the new heaven and the new earth filled with Christ, who makes all things new through the Holy Spirit. In the eucharis-tic canon of the liturgy, immediately pre-ceding the actual consecration of the gifts, the celebrant exclaims, "Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all men and for all things"! Orthodox theology recognizes the intrinsic sacramentality of all things, which was lost however as a consequence of the fall. All things were given by God as an act of loving and life-giving communion with man, and in communing with God man was to have lived forever. But because of the cosmic reper-cussions of the fall, created things were stripped of their capacity to communicate eternal life to man, and he died. The holy mys-teries, or sacraments, are the firstfruits of the redemption of the cosmos, the restoration of creation to its Edenic function, for 502 Review for Religious through ordinary elements--water, oil, bread, wine, and even conjugal union--divine-human communion is reestablished and man lives forever once again. The connection between the sacra-ments and their respective "elements" is not at all extraneous: the sacraments are revelatory of the very nature of things. The restoration of created matter to its primeval theophorous (God-bearing) nature is manifested also in the church's iconog-raphy. The painting of an authentic Orthodok icon (much which is not authentic has crept into the church in recent centuries), unlike the typically Western, humanistic approach to religious art, is never an instance of artistic self-expression, but rather a deliberate act of ascetical self-effacement whereby the iconogra-pher surrenders himself to the promptings of the Spirit. The church expects iconographers to undertake their work in an atmo-sphere of prayer and fasting, together with confession and Communion. What is conveyed through the colors, shapes, and lines of the icon is a mystical Sense of presence, an otherworldly beauty devoid of all carnality, and a window into the transfigured world to come. The person embarking on the spiritual journey towards mys-tical union with God collides immediately with the grim reality of the fall and sin. The primordial triadic unity of man's nature has been torn asunder through his own transgression, creating an immense gulf of alienation on every level of existence: between man and God, man and man, man and the universe, man and his own self. This profound alienation is felt acutely in every sphere of life--whether spiritual, physical, emotional, psychological, social--culminating in the final horrific moment of death, what the existentialist ph!losophers have rightly called the "ultimate absurdity". "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" the Lord cries moments before his own de~ithl Perhaps nowhere are the full tragedy and pathos Of man's condition so poignantly expressed as in the shortest verse of the New Testament: "Jesus wept" (Jn 11:35). The God of the universe sheds human tears at the collective tomb of the human race, whom God had created in his own image for beauty and life, now reduced to a rotting, stink-ing corpse. And to all he issues the vivifying call: "Lazarus, come forth!" Orthodox spirituality lays out practically and concretely for monastic and laypersonalike a single path by which to "come j-~uly-August 1994 503 SanFilippo ¯ An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality forth" from the "tomb" to the fullness of divine life in communion with God. The principle difference between the two lies solely in the degree of intensity. The path we are speaking of is that of asceticism. The "life in Christ" to which every Christian is called is essentially an ascetical life. There is simply no other kind of Christian life to be found in the Gospels. Asceticism comes from the Greek word meaning athletic training or discipline, implying the complete orientation of one's daily activities towards a single goal. It is neither a system of iuridically meritorious or propitiatory suffering, nor giving up something (usually something trivial) as "my sacrifice for God," nor finally a legislated (and repealable) religious obligation. Asceticism is rather an ontological spiritual necessity for the Christian, whose call it is to d~vest himself of every trace of ego-centrism and become limpidly transparent to Christ, whom he has put on in baptism, with whose Spirit he has been anointed, and on whose body and blood he has been nourished. The ascetic echoes the apostle Paul, "For me to live is Christ." Fundamental to the praxis of ascetical spirituality are prayer and fasting. At the heart of the Orthodox tradition of prayer stands the Jesus prayer: Lord ffesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. With this the Orthodox ascetic strives to attain, by grace, to a state of "ceaseless prayer" (1 Th 5:17), purifying the chamber of his heart to make it into a fitting temple for the Lord to come and take up his abode. "The kingdom of God is within you." Enormous self-exertion is required at first to repeat the prayer continuously, during times set aside for this purpose and throughout the day's activities, with inner attentiveness. With time the prayer develops a certain cadence and becomes increas-ingly effortless. Finally, under the direct action of grace, the mind descends into the heart and the prayer begins to say itself, as if it had a will and action of its own, and becomes truly ceaseless, even during sleep. Orthodox spiritual writers understand the descent of the mind into the heart to mean the total reintegration of a per-son's inner faculties so that mind and heart become wholly united and focused in prayer. This is effected by grace alone and cannot be self-induced. In contrast to the Western approach to contemplative prayer, the person who practices the Jesus prayer rids his mind strenu-ously of all images, even images of Christ or episodes from his life, for these are inevitably the products of human self-will and imag- 504 Review for Religious ination. The task of the ascetic is to strip himself bare before God so that grace itself can act on him without intermediary. Fasting is the necessary corollary to prayer. This axiom of the spiritual life, widely recognized not only in Eastern Christendom but in non-Christian traditions as well, has van-ished oddly from Western Christian con-sciousness. In his fallen, unspiritual, and carnal state, man has become enslaved to an obses-sive preoccupation with his own needs, desires, comforts, and pleasures. His inner hierarchy, whereby the body is the servant of the spirit-- the two functioning in perfect harmony and complementarity--has been overturned and the spirit has been asphyxiated. Man is largely unconscious of the depth of his self-enslavement. The moral or virtu-ous person whose libido is under control and who lives moderately may even deny in all sin-cerity that he is enslaved at all. Yet every day of his life, his every thought is: "I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am hot. I am cold. I am uncomfortable. I want this. I want that." The deification of the person, inaugurated as we have said through his sacramental incorporation into the body of Christ, remains locked up within him as a dormant potentiality, in a state of suspended animation, so long as he is governed by his bodily impulses. There is question here not of combatting sinful incli-nations only, but of suppressing even normal bodily needs to the bare minimum, enabling a person's innermost spiritual self to move to the fore and flourish in an abundance of life, reasserting in stages its mastery over the flesh. Two heretical and spiritually disastrous tendencies threaten the ascetic. The first is the Pelagian notion that a person can, through his own efforts, achieve sanctity. Only through grace is a person saved, sanctified, deified. Prayer and fasting, combined with fidelity to all the other gospel commands, renders a person progressively more receptive to grace and provides the Holy Spirit with fertile ground in which to work. God and man work together to give birth to the new creation. Expressed in another way, "God does all the work, man does all the sweating." A person's most heroic ascetical efforts are puny and insignificant in comparison to the grace of God, but nevertheless indispensable because God At the heart of the Orthodox tradition of prayer stands the Jesus prayer. July-August 1994 505 SanFilippo ¯ An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality respects human freedom absolutely and saves no one against his will. The idea of "merits" is entirely foreign to Orthodox theol-ogy and spirituality. The second is a Manichaean hatred of the body. The Orthodox ascetic, knowing that his body is destined for resur-rection on the last day, loves the body but hates "the flesh"--car-nality in all its manifestations. Through fasting the ascetic strikes a blow at the very core of his self-absorption: his need to eat, for food, for survival. "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." The ascetic has made this the motto for his life, not through bourgeois modulation, but through evan-gelical radicalism, the "violence" by which "men of violence" take the kingdom "by force." Finally, it is through prayer and fasting that the ascetic lives out his days in anticipation of the eschato-logical parousia, so that he may not be found "eating and drink-ing and making merry" when the Lord returns in glory. "Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight," the church sings during the first days of Passion Week, "and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watchful." Fasting.degenerates into a flirtation with the demonic in the absence of humility. Humility is the refusal to let others know one is fasting, or to sit in judgment over those who do not fast, or to believe one is doing anything commendable or praiseworthy by fasting. Asceticism must be grounded in the unshakable conviction of one's utter nothingness before God and man. "Let us enter the season of the Fast with joy," the church sings on the eve of Great Lent. The ascetical Christian is the joy-ful Christian, for he has exchanged the fleeting happiness which comes from the things of this world for the joy and peace which surpass all understanding. 506 Review for Religious OVEY N. MOHAMMED Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen lSican Council II's Declaration on the Relationship of the ~" Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra aerate, §2), says that "in Hinduism men [and women] contemplate the divine mys-tery., through ascetical practices or deep meditation" and that Buddhism "teaches a path by which men [and women], in devout and confident spirit, can either reach a state of absolute freedom or attain enlightenment." And Pope John Paul II, speaking on Christian dialogue with Hindus and Buddhists on 21 June 1991, observed that "dialogue with the great religions of Asia recalls for us the universal value of self-discipline, silence, and contem-plation in developing the human person and in opening hearts to God and neighbor." ~ These statements focus, not on doctrines and theology, but on the praxis of contemplation that leads to direct religious experi-ence. They recognize that the dialogue between Christianity and Eastern religions must be of a different kind from that with Judaism and Islam, which centers on theological issues. And indeed, because Hindus and Buddhists emphasize the priority of experience over faith, a dialogue with them may well be impossi-ble without a dialogue on contemplative prayer. However, as the pope's observation seems to concede, the church today is ill prepared to enter into such a dialogue. For though contemplative prayer has enjoyed pride of place in the history of Christian spirituality, since the Reformation it has not Ovey N. Mohammed sJ is professor of systematic theology at Regis College. His address is Regis College; 15 St. Mary Street; Toronto, Ontario; Canada M4Y 2R5. ~ly-dugust 1994 507 Mohammed * Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen been a primary conscious emphasis in the church. The fear that claims to an immediate experience of God would diminish if not challenge the teaching authority of the church, the memory of the havoc that false mysticism had created in the past, and the scientism and rationalism of the 19th century that esteemed con-cepts and ideas rather than ineffable experience have all con-tributed to the church's emphasis on dogmas, duties, and prohibitions rather than on religious experience. Understandably, when by the turn of the century people were more and more reacting against the mere acceptance of dogma and were search-ing for a faith that is living and personal, the church had diffi-culty in meeting this need out of its own spiritual treasury. At this very juncture, yoga and Zen methods of meditation and exercises for entering the contemplative state became known in the West, beginning with the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. Because of the Christian interest in experience over doctrine, many began to turn to Eastern reli-gions for their contemplative education. By the time of the Second Vatican Council, even members of Catholic religious orders were in dialogue with yoga and Zen masters, not to convert them to the Christian religious outlook, but to learn attitudes and exercises which might be helpful to Christians in their own prayer life. The Jesuits were among those in religious orders who engaged in this dialogue on contemplative prayer because the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) also offers methods and tech-niques to those in search of a contemplative spirituality. Though much has been written by Jesuits on the dialogue with Zen,2 lit-tle has been written on the dialogue with yoga.3 This article com-pares the techniques of yoga and Zen Buddhism with Christian prayer, especially the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The aim is not only better understanding as dialogue demands, but also better ways of giving of the Exercises today, when the prac-tices of yoga and Zen have great appeal. It will be shown, too, that Zen methods of concentration which differ from those of Ignatius can be found in the Christian tradition. Yoga and Ignatius Etymologically, yoga is a Sanskrit word from the rootyuj (to hold fast, to bind together). In Hinduism it designates any asceti-cal technique or method of meditation.4 The rootyuj also governs 508 Review for Religious the Latin iugum, the Frenchjoug, and the English yoke as it appears in Matthew 11:29: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." The word yoga, then, like the word yoke, connotes the need for discipline in the spiritual life.5 The techniques of yoga go back centuries before someone named Patanjali wrote his ~ga Sutras (Aphorisms), sometime between the 2nd century B.C. and the 4th century A.D. Hindus, however, acknowledge this work as the classical text on yoga. It also happens to be the exposition of yoga practices best known to Westerners. For both these reasons, then, we will rely on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras in our comparison of the techniques of yoga with those of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius.6 According to Patanjali, yoga is a means of controlling the mind and the senses (YS I, 2), and its purpose is to lead one to a suprasensory and extrarational experience of God (YS I, 1). Yoga includes a number of angas (members, elements). They can be regarded as stages through which one must progress if one is to reach one's goal: (i) various forms of abstention from evil-doing (yama), (2) various observances (niyamas), (3) posture (asana), (4) rhythm of respiration (pranayama), (5) withdrawal of the mind from sense objects (pratyahara), (6) concentration (dharana), (7) meditation (dhyana) and (8) enstasis (samadht), a state of consum-mate interiority that is at once stasis and transcendental con-sciousness.( YS II, 29).7 The first member or element (yama) introduces us to the need for purgation in the spiritual life and aims at freeing us from the evils of social sin. It consists of five abstentions: "from harming others, from falsehood, from theft, from incontinence, and from greed" (YS II, 30). These abstentions parallel the last five com-mandments God gave to Moses (Ex 20:13-17): "You shall not kill" (harm), "you shall not commit adultery" (incontinence), "You shall not steal" (theft), "You shall not bear false witness" (false-hood), and "You shall not covet., anything that is your neigh-bor's" (greed). Ignatius, too, introduces us to the purgative way (SE §10) when he states that exercitants should begin the Exercises with a consideration and contemplation of sin (SE §4). And, like Patanjali, he focuses on the social consequences of sin (SE §§45- 71) and on the commandments relating to it (SE §§238-243). Patanjali's second element (niyama) is also purgative, but cen-ters on personal sin. It involves five observances--"purity, con- ~dy-August 1994 509 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen tentment, mortification, study, and devotion to God" (YS II, 32)-- aimed at suppressing the egoistic tendencies that impede the gen-erous offering of ourselves to God. Ignatius, like Patanjali, expects exercitants to attack the roots of their personal sins by getting to know the slightest disorder in themselves. He expects them to desire "a deep knowledge of [their] sins and a feeling of abhorrence for them; an understand-ing of the disorder of [their] actions, that filled with horror of them, they may amend [their] life and put it in order" (SE §63). Toward this end he advises them to recall the sins of their past life (SE §56) and examine their conscience twice daily (SE §§25-31). Elsewhere he instructs exercitants to enter the Exercises "with magnanimity and generosity," offering God their "entire will and liberty" and the disposition of their person (SE §5). He insists that people "must keep in mind that in all that concerns the spir-itual life [their] progress will be in proportion to [their] surren-der of self-love, and of [their] own will and interests" (SE §189). Patanjali's third element is posture (asana). In the Hindu tra-dition posture refers to two things: the place where one chooses to meditate and the bodily position in which one meditates. The place where one meditates should be free from external distrac-tions. Patanjali does not say that one bodily position is better than another, but he does say that the body should be "firm and relaxed" (YS II, 46). The purpose of maintaining a fixed and com-fortable position is to realize a certain neutrality of the senses so that consciousness is no longer troubled by the presence of the body. The following passage from the Bhagavad Gita illustrates the meaning of posture common among Hindus: Let the athlete of the spirit ever integrate [him]self stand-ing in a place apart, alone, his thoughts and self restrained. . Let him set up for [him]self a steady seat in a clean place. . There let him sit and make his mind a single point; let him restrain the operations of his thought and senses and practice integration., to purify the self. [Remaining] still, let him keep body, head, and neck in a straight line, unmov-ing; let him fix his eye on the tip of his nose, not looking round about him . [There] let him sit., intent on Me. . ; then will he approach that peace., which subsists in Me (6:10-15).8 Ignatius, too, recognizes the need for solitude in meditation, making much of withdrawing from friends and acquaintances and 510 Review for Religious from worldly cares to make the soul more fit to approach and be united with God (SE §20). Like Patanjali he does not claim that any one bodily position is to be preferred during meditation, but he does say that one should find a comfortable position and remain in it (SE §76). He agrees with the Gita that the restraint of the eyes is helpful in meditation (SE §81). The fourth element is rhythmic breathing (pranayama). As Patanjali puts it, "After mastering posture, one must practice con-trol of one's breathing" (YS II, 49). He gave this instruction because our respiration is generally unrhythmic, and unrhythmic breathing can hinder the mind's repose. Moreover, since the mind and the body act and react upon each other, rhythmic breathing can bring calmness and concentration of mind (YS II, 53). Practice is very elaborate, but on the whole it aims at slowing the breath, making the inhalation and exhalation even, and reducing the amount of air required. Ignatius also recognizes the importance of rhythmic breathing as an aid to deepening concentration (SE §258). The fifth element of yoga is pratyahara, that state in which the senses abide within themselves (YS II, 54). V~hen one remains motionless, keeps one's eyes and attention fixed on a single point, and breathes rhythmically, the mind is invaded by fewer distrac-tions and becomes more and more concentrated and unified. According to Patanjali, to test one's ability to concentrate at this stage, one must listen to the positive and negative echoes of one's being; for even with the withdrawal of the senses from exter-nal stimuli, difficulties arise, most of them produced by the sub-conscious. The trouble arising from doubt is the most dangerous of the obstacles that bar the road to concentration. Doubt "may be motivated by greed, anger or self-interest" (YS II, 34); "men-tal illness, lack of enthusiasm, sloth, craving for sense pleasure, false perception . and failure to concentrate" (YS I, 30). These distractions are often accompanied by grief and despondency (YS I, 31). To overcome doubt, Patanjali recommends implanting the contrary thought: "To free from thoughts tl'iat distract one from yoga, thoughts of the opposite kind must be cultivated" (YS II, 33). Ign~itius also says that the senses must be brought under con-trol and turned inward. Like Patanjali he observes that difficulties in concentration at this stage come from the subconscious, because of our +raving for "sensual delights and gratifications" (SE §314), our "inclination to what is low and earthly" (SE §317), or "because we have been tepid, slothful, or negligent in our exercises of piety" .~ly-August 1994 511 Mohammed * Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen (SE §322). Like Patanjali he notes that these distractions are often accompanied by "anxiety, . sadness," and "fallacious reasonings" which disturb the soul (SE §315). To cope with these difficulties, Ignatius says that every effort should be made to plant the contrary thought: "If the soul chance to be inordinately attached or inclined to anything, it is very proper that it rouse itself by the exertion of all its powers to desire the opposite of that to which it is wrongly attached" (SE §16; also §155 and §157). Patanjali's sixth element of yoga is concentration (dharana) to remove distractions (YS I, 32). He defines concentration as the fixing of the mind on a single idea or object by trying to visual-ize it (YS III, 1). Visualization calls for the use of the senses and discursive reasoning to focus the mind and so make the object of concentration present. An Indian image illustrates his point: just as an elephant's trunk sways to and fro and reaches out for nearby objects until it is given an iron ball to hold, so the wavering mind will settle down if given something specific to focus on. Ignatius promotes mental concentration in a similar way, rec-ommending in the first or second prelude of almost every medi-tation that we fix in the mind some scene, real or imagined, and try to make it present by visualizing it (SE §§47, 65, 91,103, 112, 138, 151, 192, 202, 220, and 232). He frequently directs the exercitant not only to see, but also to hear, smell, taste and touch in the imagination what is taking place in the meditation (SE §§66ff, 92, 103, 106, 121ff, 143ff, and 194ff). In pondering the matter and significance of the particular meditation, like Patanjali he expects one to apply one's intellect, will, memory, imagina-tion, and reflective ability (SE ~§3, 77, 78, 130, 206, 209, etc.). As concentration deepens, we arrive at the seventh element of yoga called meditation (dhyana). Meditation sweetens the dryness of intellectual discrimination and calls forth the highest form of love. Patanjali defines it as an "unbroken flow of thought toward the object of concentration" (YS III, 2), in which discursive and notional knowledge begin to give way to an experiential and intu-itive mode of knowing. For Ignatius, too, there is a progressive deepening from the discursive mode of knowing to the nondiscursive and intuitive. As he explains in SE §50, for example, one practices rational reflection on the subject matter so that the will may move the affections to a way of knowing beyond the intellect. That is, a deeper and simpler interiority leads to higher spiritual percep- 512 Review for Religious tions and an experiential knowledge of the truth. That is the aim of all true meditation, for as Ignatius explains, "It is not much knowledge which fills and satisfies the soul, but rather the inte-rior understanding of and relish of the truth" (SE §2). When one has intensified the power of meditation to such an extent that the totality of one's consciousness is indistinguishable from the meaning of the idea or object of one's meditation, one has reached the eighth and final step of yoga, samadbi, which Christians regu-larly refer to as a mystical union with God (YS II, 45; III, 3; III, 11). This mystical union is a state of contempla-tion in which one encounters God directly in an experience that is ineffa-ble- beyond words, beyond thought, beyond all conceiving. For Ignatius, too, meditation should lead to a mystical union with God, who can be found in all things (SE §235); the soul embraces divine things without any intervening agency. He seems to imply that this state of soul is the supreme end of prayer when he refers to a soul find-ing its Creator and Lord in a "consolation without previous cause" (SE §330 and §336). There is "direct" contact; God inflames the soul with "his love and praise" (SE §15; also §20), enabling it to "taste the infinite sweetness of divinity" (SE ~124). Ignatius describes this state of soul in his famous letter to Sister Teresa Rejadell: It frequently happens that our Lord moves and urges the soul to this or that activity. He begins by enlightening the soul; that is to say, by speaking interiorly to it without the din of words, lifting it up wholly to his divine love and our-selves to his meaning without any possibility of resistance on our part, even should we wish to resist.9 Meditation sweetens the dryness of intellectual discrimination and calls forth the highest form of love. The letter's wordless experience ("without the din of words") means that it is an experience "without concepts," "without par-ticular objects of thought."1° In other words, the person who obtains this direct experience of God has an ineffable experience of the divine. Ignatius empha-sizes this point at the end of the letter to Sister Rejadell when he 3~uly-Augus't 1994 513 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen says: "We have touched on a matter which can hardly be dealt with in a letter, at least without a much longer treatment. Even then there could be matters that could better be felt than put into words, let alone written down in a letter." ~i In his Spiritual Diary he writes that his own mystical experience can be compared only with the speech or music of heaven.~2 As we have seen, the eight elements of yoga given by Patanjali are paralleled in Ignatian spirituality. Let us now bring Zen Buddhism into our discussion, highlighting the techniques of Zen which differ from those of Ignatius but can be found in the Christian tradition. Zen, Yoga, and Ignatius To better understand Zen Buddhism, it may be helpful to know something of its background. Siddhartha Gautama (563- 483 B.C.) was an Indian prince who lived in what is now Nepal. Finding that religious truth based on the authority of others was at best a secondhand truth that can be called into question by competing truth claims, he renounced his kingdom to find through direct religious experience a way of salvation that is beyond words and creeds. One day while meditating near Caya, which is south of the present city of Patna, he received enlight-enment and became the Buddha, the Awakened One. Having found what he was seeking, out of compassion he spent the rest of his life teaching others how they, too, could find the truth first-hand. His teaching spread widely through two schools of thought: Theravada, which favored withdrawing into a monastery to pur-sue the path, and Mahayana, which maintained that the path to enlightenment is as applicable in the world as in the monastery. Zen Buddhism belongs to the Mahayana school of Buddhism found in Japan. In fact, the very word Zen is the Japanese coun-terpart of the Chinese word ch'an, which in turn is a translitera-tion of the Sanskrit word dhyan.a, meaning the meditation that leads to enlightenment. Thus the roots of Zen reach back into yoga, with its discipline of mind and body and its practice of med-itation. 13 The Zen Buddhist method of finding enlightenment can be found in a concise r~sum~ as given by Siddhartha himself: "Do not what is evil. Do what is good. Keep the mind pure. This is the teaching of Buddha." 14 514 Review for Religious The first step of Zen, "Do not what is evil," centers on social sin and corresponds to the first element of yoga given by Patanjali and found also in Ignatius. Avoiding evil is spelled out in the Five Buddhist Precepts (Pancha Sila) in terms of five abstentions: from killing, stealing, lying, illicit sex, and intoxicants. These absten-tions remind us of the Old Testament commandments and empha-size that the climb to enlightenment begins with purgation.'s The second step of Zen, "Do what is good," centers on char-ity and also parallels the second step of Patanjali and Ignatius. In the Buddhist tradition, doing what is good may be described as the practice of brotherhood in thought, word, and deed or compared to the love and good works of St. Paul (1 Co 13:4-7). It is a personal attitude and is purgative, too, inasmuch charity calls for detach-ment in the generous offering of oneself for the good of others. The third injunction, "Keep the mind pure"--or, in less poetic imagery, to discipline and purify the mind--again shows the influ-ence of yoga. Stages three to five in Zen parallel stages three to five in Patanjali (posture, breathing, and withdrawal of the senses), though there are differences in details. Stages six to eight (con-centration, meditation, and enlightenment) are so closely related that they form a unity, but in our discussion they will be treated separately, as in our comparison of Ignatius and Patanjali. Buddha's third injunction recalls one of the beatitudes of Jesus, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8). Doubtless, St. Paul had some discipline in mind when he said, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rm 12:2), and exhorted us to train ourselves in godliness (1 Tm 4:7). More con-cretely, Zen's third element, like Patanjali's, is posture and refers to the place where one chooses to meditate as well as to the bod-ily position in which one meditates. With respect to the place, one should select a quiet spot in which to sit. But with respect to the position of the body, one is not allowed--as in Patanjali and Ignatius--to experiment to find a position that is stable and relaxed. One should normally meditate while sitting. And whether one sits in the full-lotus position or the half-lotus, or on one's heels and calves, or on a chair, one should satisfy at least three requirements: keep the head and spine erect; lower one's gaze to a point a yard or so away without focusing on anything in par-ticular; and fold one's hands, thumbs and first fingers pressed tightly together, and res~ them on the lap. In Zen experience these requirements facilitate the unification of the mind.~6 Mohammed * Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen The Bible recognizes the importance of place and posture in prayer. In the Old Testament God takes Hosea into solitude to hedge up all the ways he used to run after the desires and thoughts of the world (Ho 2:6). Moses retires to the wilderness to better commune with God (Ex 18:5, 19; 34:27-28), as does Elijah (1 K 17:3-6), and Ezekiel lies on his side for a long time (Ezk 4:4-5:1). In the New Testament, too, Paul (Ga 1:17), John the Baptist (Mt 3:1-6) and Jesus himself (Mt 4:1-2) go into the desert to be alone. Contemplative prayer, has to be inward, and this calls for disci-pline. Hence the advice of Jesus to his disciples: When you pray, go into a room by yore:self, shut the door, sit, and then pray to your Father in private (Mt 6:6). The fourth lesson is breathing, but not in the controlled form prescribed by Patanjali. Rather, when one has established oneself in a stable sitting position, one should take a deep breath, hold it momentarily, and then exhale through the nose slowly and quietly. After doing this two or three times, one should breathe natu-rally. 17 The fifth element of Zen deals with the mind abiding within itself and with the distractions that come from within (makyo). It corresponds to Patanjali's fifth element of yoga (pratyabara). Motionless, with head and spine erect and eyes lowered, breath-ing naturally, one begi~ns to experience a certain detachment from the world, but thoughts, memories, feelings may bubble up to the surface of the mind from the subconscious)8 These obstacles to concentration are due to doubt, sense desire, sloth, and tor-por and are often accompanied by excitedness and worry.19 Unlike Pataniali and Ignatius, who suggest implanting a contrary thought to eliminate these distractions (makyo), Zen teaches that one should merely ignore them. The Bible acknowledges the need to cope with distractions in prayer so that only the still small voice of God is heard, soft and light as an exhalation (1 K 19:12). The sixth element of Zen is concentration. Because the human mind cannot rest inactive, it has to be prevented from dispersing itself among a multiplicity of thoughts and memories by being provided with some inner task to satisfy its need for activity. The task can be to focus on fi chosen topic or idea by means of images or discursive reasoning, as we saw in Patanjali and Ignatius. But even Patanjali and Ignatius recognize that this is not the only way of achieving one-pointed concentration. Another way recalls the saying of Matthew 6:7 that in praying we should not heap up 516 Review for Religious empty phrases, thinking that we will be heard for our many words. This other way, by contrast, consists in only one word or one short phrase repeated over and over attentively. To still the mind by thus restricting one's rational consciousness has a long history in both Eastern and Christian spirituality and is the method taught by the Hare Krishna and Transcendental Meditation movements. Patanjali, echoing Proverbs 18: i 0 that "The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runs into it and is safe," teaches that the attentive repetition of the name of God, like the use of images and discursive reasoning, can lead one into the intuitive consciousness of meditation in stage seven (YS I, 28). And Ignatius teaches, in his second and third methods of prayer, that the rep-etition of a single word or phrase, coordinated with one's breath-ing, can deepen concentration (SE §252 and §258). A 14th-century Catholic mystic explains this method of concentration in The Cloud of Unknowing: If you want to gather all your desire into one simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather than a long one. A one-syllable word such as "God" or "love" is best. But choose one that is meaningful to you. Then fix it in your mind so that it will remain there come what may . Use it to beat upon the cloud of darkness above you and subdue all distractions, consigning them to the cloud of forgetting beneath you. Should some thought go on annoying you, demanding to know what you are doing, answer it with this word alone. If your mind begins to intellectualize over the meaning and connotations of this little word, remind yourself that its value lies in its sim-plicity. Do this and I assure you that these thoughts will vanish. Why? Because you have refused to develop them with arguing.2° In the history of Christian spirituality, John Cassian (360?-432?) was the first person to describe this practice of rep-etition, which he learned from the desertfathers. He does so in chapter i0 of his Tenth Conference, one of the most beautiful passages in Christian writing, using this verse: "Come to my help, 0 God; Lord, hurry to my rescue" (Ps 69:2).2~ John Climacus (579-649) attaches particular importance to the repetition of the Jesus Prayer.22 Later on, the standard form of this prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," was widely prac-ticed in the monasteries of Mount Athos. This prayer, combined with respiratory discipline and bodily posture as a preparation j~uly-Aug.ust 1994 517 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen for entrance into meditation (techniques similar to those found in yoga), became the soul of the Hesychast movement in the 13th century23 and in recent centuries has spread widely among the Orthodox churches, whence comes that little gem of a book The VVay of a Pilgrim.24 A similar method of deepening concentration appears both in the repetition of the Hail Mary in the rosary and in Gregorian chants. In all these examples from Hinduism and Christianity, repetition is a way of restricting reflective consciousness. It is a kind of weapon for warding off discursive reasoning, thinking, and conceptualization. It narrows the horizon of rational con-sciousness and prepares the mind for a breakthrough into intuitive consciousness in stage seven. While Patanjali and some Christian writers teach a method for developing concentration that avoids a multiplicity of words, so concerned is Zen with the limitations of words and ideas that it makes transcending them the central point of its method. The two principal schools of Zen, the Soto and the Rinzai, teach meth-ods of concentration that try to get one unhooked from words and thoughts from the very start. The Soto school proposes con-centration on one's breath, inhalation and exhalation, instead of on any words, while the Rinzai school makes use of a koan (a puz-zle or paradox) to put pressure on the mind until the structures of ordinary thinking collapse completely, clearing the way for one's entrance into intuitive consciousness in stage seven and for the sudden flash of insight or enlightenment in stage eight.25 The koan functions in a manner not unlike the sayings of Jesus that oblige one to reach for insight beyond the normal conventions of thought: "Those who find their life will lose it" (Mt 10:39) and "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24). Ignatius does not mention either of these methods (Soto and Rinzai) among his prayer suggestions. The Zen distrust of words as keys to concentration reminds us that the prohibition of images of God enjoined at Mount Sinai (Ex 20:1-5 and Dt 5:8-9) goes well beyond images engraved on stone or wood to include our words and concepts. Since no one has ever seen God (Ex 33:17-23; Jn 1 : 18), God is a mystery and so unknowable. Isaiah's confession of God's hiddenness implies that God lies beyond the range of the intellect (Is 45:15). Paul makes the same point when he says that God dwells in "unap- 518 Review for Religious proachable light" (1 Tm 6:16) and when he tells us that any expe-rience of God surpasses all understanding (Ph 4:7). For Paul, to be morbidly concerned over mere verbal questions and quibbles leads us to lose our grasp of the truth (i Tm 6:5). He and Jeremiah go as far as to say that clinging to images of God is an impediment to finding the living God and is a form of idolatry (Rm 1:23; Jr 2:11). The Zen attitude to words reminds us that not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" shall enter the kingdom (Mr 7:21-23) and that, to encounter God, we must be still and let God be God (Ps 46:10). Many Christian mystics teach a wordless nondiscursive path to God that resembles the teaching of Zen. For example, Dionysius in the early 6th cen-tury says that "as you look for a sight of mysterious things," you "must leave behind you every-thing perceived and understood" and "strive upward as much as you can toward union with him who is beyond being and knowl-edge.'' 26 In the 14th century the anonymous author of The Book of Privy Counselling gives this advice to his disciples: "When you go apart to be alone., reject all thoughts, be they good or be they evil.''27 The French Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751) writes that we should pray "with a simple gaze., without using any reasoning" and "pay no attention to distractions.'2s John of the Cross (i 542-1591) advocates the abandonment of thinking in order to make way for intuitive consciousness in stage seven when he observes: "The attitude necessary., is to pay no attention to discursive meditation." All that is required is to liberate oneself "from the impediment and fatigue of ideas and thoughts and care not about thinking," for "desires disquiet the soul and distract it from the peaceful quiet and sweet idleness of the contemplation which is being communicated to it.''29 The Benedictine historian and exegete John Chapman (1865-1933) considers the spiritual-ity of John of the Cross to be Buddhistic;3° the Cistercian Thomas Merton (1915-1968) believes that "Zen is nothing but John of the Cross without the Christian vocabulary.''31 Many Christian mystics teach a wordless nondiscursive path to God that resembles the teaching of Zen. July-August 1994 519 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen The sudden coming of enlightenment at stage eight in Zen has many parallels in Christian spirituality: "The Lord spoke sud-denly to Moses" (Nb 12:4), and on the road to Damascus "sud-denly a great light shone about [Saul]" (Ac 22:6). The enlightenment experience, whenever it appears, is ineffable. When Jeremiah encounters God directly, he does not know how to speak (Jr 1:6). When Paul is "caught up into Paradise," he is unable to say what happened to him (2 Co 12:3). St. Thomas Aquinas, fol-lowing the Zen dictum that those who know do not tell and those who tell do not know, chooses to say nothing except that his enlightenment leaves the Summa Theologiae looking like so much straw. Enlightenment brings joy and a feeling of oneness with all things and a heightened sense of reality. It is an experience not unlike that which Ignatius had on the bank of the Cardoner: As he sat there the eyes of his understanding were opened, and though he saw no vision he understood and perceived many things, numerous spiritual things as well as matters touching on faith and learning, and this was with an eluci-dation so bright that all these things seemed new to him. He cannot expound in detail what he then understood, for they were many things, but he can state that he received such a lucidity in understanding that during the course of his entire life--now having passed his sixty-second year--if he were to gather all the helps he received from God and everything he knew and add them together, he does not think that they would add up to all that he received on that one occasion.32 Seeing reality more clearly and the cosmic feeling that all created things are bound up together belongs to the very essence of Ignatian mysticism, as it does to Zen. This accounts for the cry of the soul expressed early in the Exercises: "The heavens, sun, moon, stars, and the elements; the fruits, birds, fishes, and other animals--why have they all been at my service?" (SE ~60), and accounts as well for the Contemplation to Attain the Love of God at the end (SE §§230-237). Personal Prayer and Interreligious Dialogue Our study has shown that Patanjali, Ignatius, and Buddha all agree that, for religion to be personally authentic, it must involve some direct religious experience and not be merely an affirmation of propositions accepted on the basis of authority--a teaching 520 Review for Religious that seems to be alluded to in the Epistle of James. Moreover, in spite of certain denials, all three make it clear that a personal, direct experience of the ground of one's salvation requires some kind of prior discipline to establish oneself in silence, not just physical silence but a silence of the senses, a silence of the mind, until that silence is reached for which there is no word. Contemplative prayer is the usual name for such a discipline. There are at least eight elements in the praxis of contemplation, and these elements are common to yoga, Ignatius, and Zen. Elements three and four (posture and breathing) in all three spir-itualities insist that contemplative prayer is not exclusively a men-tal or inner activity, but is accomplished in unison with the body, though Zen emphasizes posture more than yoga and Ignatius do and yoga places more stress on breathing than either Zen or Ignatius. In element six, both Patanjali and Ignatius teach a dis-cursive method for deepening concentration, based on the use of images and reason, and a nondiscursive method, based on the repetition of a word or short phrase. Zen teaches only a nondis-cursive method aimed at emptying the mind of all thoughts and images. Patanjali acknowledges that the Zen method of concen-tration can lead one into intuitive consciousness, as do many Christian mystics, though Ignatius makes no mention of it. If today Zen and Hindu meditation movements, like Transcendental Meditation, have a wide appeal among Westerners, it is in large part due to the fact that they teach nondiscursive techniques for entering contemplation. This is a significant point, not only for the dialogue between Ignatian spirituality and Eastern religions, but also--inasmuch as many Christians ignore the contribution of the body to prayer and many others are disaffected with discur-sive prayer--for the directing of Ignatian retreats. Notes ~ "Address to the Staff Members of the World Council of Churches Sub-Unit and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue," in The Bulletin of the Pontificium Consilium pro Dialogo inter Religiones 78 (1991): 26/3,307-308. z For example, Heinrich Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969) and Christianity Meets Buddhism (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1974); H.M. Enomiya-Lassalle, Zen Meditation for Christians (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1974) and Zen--VVay to Enlightenment (London: Sheed and Ward, 1976); J.K. Kadowaki, Zen and the Bible (London: Routledge and d71~ly-August 1994 521 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen Kegan Paul, 1980); Daniel J. O'Hanlon, "Zen and the Spiritual Exercises: A Dialogue between Faiths," Theological Studies 39, no. 4 (December 1978): 737-768; William Johnston, The Still Point (New York: Fordham University Press, 1970), The Inner Eye of Love (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), Silent Music (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), and Christian Zen (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). 3 O-bey N. Mohammed, "Ignatian Spirituality and the Bhagavad Gita," Thought 62, no. 247 (December 1987): 423-434. 4 Mircea Eliade, Yoga (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 4. s Dom Aelred Graham, Zen Catholicism (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), p. 123. 6 For references to the I~ga Sutras, see Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali (New York: New American Library, 1953), or I.K. Taimni, The Science of Yoga: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 1975). Hereafter all references to the Yoga Sutras are indicated as YS. For references to the Spiritual Exercises, see Louis J. Puhl, trans., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951). Hereafter all references to the Spiritual Exercises are indicated as SE. 7 Eliade, pp. 48-49. 8 R.C. Zaehner, trans., The Bhagavad Gita (London: Oxford University Press, 1973). 9 Letters of St. Ignatius of Loyola, trans. William J. Young (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1959), p. 22. ~0 Karl Rahner, The Dynamic Element in the Church (Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1964), p. 153. ~ Letters, p. 23. ~2 The Spiritual Diary of St. Ignatius of Loyola, trans. William J. Young (Woodstock: Woodstock College Press, 1958), p. 44. ~3 For material on Zen written by non-Jesuits, see C.H. Hambrick, "Zen Buddhism," in The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion (Washington, D.C.: Corpus Publications, 1979); Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage, 1957); Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (New York: Weatherhill, 1970); D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (London: Arrow Books, 1959) and Essays in Zen Buddhism. First Series. (London: Rider and Company, 1970); Christian Humphreys, Zen Buddhism (London: Unwin Books, 1971); Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters (New York: Dell Publications, 1967) and Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968); Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967); Graham, Zen Catholicism (see note 5). ,4 The Dhammapada, trans. Juan Mascaro (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1973), verse 183. 522 Review for Religious ~s Christian Humphreys, Buddhism (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1975), pp. 111-115. ,6 On posture see Johnston, Christian Zen, pp. 105-109; Enomiya- Lassalle, Zen--Way to Enlightenment, pp. 103-109; Kapleau, pp. 18-20, 30-31, 34, 317-320. 17 On breathing see Enomiya-Lassalle, Zen--Way to Enlightenment, pp. 109-110; Johnston, Christian Zen, pp. 77-80; Kapleau, p. 32. 18 On makyo see Kapleau, pp. 38-41, 100-102; Johnston, The Still Point, pp. 9-10, 36. 19 Edward Conze, ed., Buddhist Scriptures (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971), p. 246, "Hindrances." 20 William Johnston, trans., The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counselling (New York: Image Books, 1973), p. 56. 21 John Cassian, Conferences, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), pp. 132-140. 22 John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), pp. 45-47. 23 Eliade, pp. 63-65; Gaspar M. Koelman, Patanjala Yoga (Poona: Papal Athenaeum, 1970), pp. 195-196; J.-M. Dfichanet, Christian Yoga (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), pp. 173-183. 24 Translated by Helen Bacovin (Garden City: Image Books, 1978). 25 Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism, pp. 135-13 6; Shunryu Suzuki, p. 33. 26 Pseudo-Dionysius, "The Mystical Theology," I, I, in The Complete Works of Pseudo-Dionysius, trans. Colin Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), p. 135. 27 Johnston, The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counselling, p. 149. 28 The Spiritual Letters of P.J. de Caussade on the Practice of Self- Abandonment to Divine Providence, trans. Mgar Thorold (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1948), p. 39. 29 John of the Cross, "The Dark Night of the Soul," I:10, 4, in Selected Writings, ed. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 185-186. 3°John Chapman, Spiritual Letters (London: Sheed and Ward, 1989), p. 269. 31 Thomas Merton, Springs of Contemplation: A Retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani, ed. Jane Marie Richardson (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1992), p. 177. 32 Joseph N. Tylenda, trans., A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1985), pp. 38-39. July-August 1994 523 FREDERICK E. CROWE The Ignatian Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality Tere is a tendency, noted more in passing remarks than in ematic studies, to equate Jesuit spirituality with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. I do not know whether anyone has ever made the equation in so many words, but one hears it said that the Exercises are the wellspring of Jesuit life, that Jesuit spirituality is to be found above all in the Exercises, that the Exercises are the basis of Jesuit spirituality, that Jesuits have a vision given them by the Exercises, and so on. There is a profound truth in all these statements, but just because the truth in them is so very profound and so very true, it seems to me all the more necessary to state explicitly that it is not the whole truth and to think out clearly the relationship of the Exercises to Jesuit, and any other, spirituality. Otherwise part of the truth is easily taken to be the whole truth, and so we come imper-ceptibly to identify two distinct elements in Jesuit spirituality: the Exercises, and the complex history that culminated in Ignatius's Constitutions for the Society of Jesus. Then, since innocently defi-cient ideas still have consequences, we arrive at two practical errors: pointing the Exercises toward a spirituality they do not intend and depriving Jesuit spirituality of its specific character, as found most notably in the Constitutions. Frederick E. Crowe SJ is well known for his books and articles on the thought of Bernard Lonergan SJ. He may be addressed at Lonergan Research Institute; 10 St. Mary Street, Suite 500; Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1P9; Canada. 524 Review for Religious Two simple lines of reasoning should, it seems to me, estab-lish the point I am making. The first is a thought experiment that makes the case in a more graphic way than my abstract assertion. Let us imagine two men with the proper dispositions who both make the Spiritual Exercises. One of them emerges from the thirty days with a decision to seek admission to the Jesuits. The other emerges with a decision to join the Carthusians. Is this an impos-sible scenario? Will anyone tell the Holy Spirit, "You cannot do that; the Exercises are identified with Jesuit spirituality; you really cannot use them to direct someone to the Carthusians"? Or would anyone say that the Carthusian vocation here is due to a failure of the exercitant to be guided by the Spirit, that the Spirit was directing him elsewhere, that he is in fact a Jesuit manque? I mean this, of course, as a reductio ad absurdum, for no one would dream of tak-ing such a position on what the Holy Spirit should or should not do, or of attributing a failure to respond properly if the exerci-tant does not decide to be a Jesuit. And a parallel statement could be made about two women emerging from their Ignatian retreat, one to become a Poor Clare, the other to become a social worker; or about a man and woman emerging with plans for matrimony. My other line of reasoning takes us to actual history. We might ask: What were the first companions of Ignatius doing in the years that followed their experience of making the Exercises, say between 1534 and 1540, a period in which they were steadily seeking the divine will? Why, if the Exercises had already deter-mined what the Jesuit spirituality and way of proceeding was to be, did they run through so many different options before they set-tled on that way? What, indeed, was Ignatius himself doing for nearly two decades after Manresa, wandering around Europe and the Holy Land before he found his destined way of life? And a still more pointed question: What was he doing in the dozen years of "blood, toil, tears, and sweat," during which he laboriously worked out the Jesuit Constitutions? The answer seems obvious in all these questions: Ignatius and his first companions were seeking some-thing the Exercises had not given them. Will anyone tell the Holy Spirit, "You really cannot use the Ignatian Exercises to direct someone to the Carthusians" ? July-August 1994 525 Crowe ¯ The Ignatian Exercises and yesuit Spirituality I believe that we need to face these questions and work out with all possible accuracy what role the Exercises may play in Jesuit or any other spirituality' and how that role may be complemented by the distinct and specifying roles that different spiritual tradi-tions may contribute--for Jesuits, in the way their Constitutions, above all, determine for them; for Carthusians, Poor Clares, and other religious institutes, in ways that they also have worked out for themselves and that I need not try to determine for them here. Is there then a spirituality in the Exercises? Yes, indeed, the very highest. If we leave aside the case of those who are not dis-posed to go beyond the First Week (§18),2 the aim of the Exercises is to bring exercitants, whatever their state in life is to be and wherever God will direct them, to choose to live under the stan-dard of Christ: "We shall also think about how we ought to dis-pose ourselves in order to come to perfection in whatsoever state or way of life God our Lord may grant us to elect" (~135)3- which means embracing the way of Christ, in the highest poverty, spiritual poverty certainly and if God wills it in actual poverty as well; in willingness also to bear opprobrium and injuries in order to imitate him the better (§147); and again, when God is served equally by either of the two alternatives, to choose poverty with Christ poor rather than riches, opprobrium with Christ covered with opprobrium rather than honors, to be counted vain and stupid with Christ so counted rather than wise and prudent in this world (§167); and so forth. The real question is: How does this spirituality relate to the various specific spiritualities to which various individual exercitants may be called? I will suggest a few ways of conceiving the relation, ways that follow more traditional lines of thought and shed some light on the matter, none of them quite satisfactory, but each adding an element of understanding. And then I will propose another approach to the whole question. The obvious pair of terms to define the relationship in ques-tion is generic and specific: the Exercises have a generic spiritual-ity, the following of Christ; then, giving more determinate content to this, we have the specific spiritualities of Jesuit, Carthusian, and so on. I have drawn on these concepts already to start dis-cussion; they contribute some clarity, but they use the language of logic, which seems simply inadequate for so spiritual a question. Another useful set of terms would be infrastructure and super-structure. To follow Christ is infrastructure for whatever way of life 526 Review for Religious we choose to follow; on this basis one builds a superstructure of, say, the Jesuit way of proceeding. These terms from the world of civil engineering clarify our question rather nicely. Still, they make the following of Christ the invisible element, or at any rate not the focus of attention--a situation that does not correspond to any voca-tion emerging from the Exercises. A third set might be the concepts of the compact and the differentiated that have now come into general use, mainly, I believe, through the influ-ence of Eric Voegelin. Bernard Lonergan also has some helpful pages on the process from the compactness of the symbol, where very profound truths may be contained and grasped, to the enucleated and analyzed differ-entiations of scientists, philosophers, and theologians. He illustrates the process by Christology and the "tran-sition from a more compact symbolic consciousness expressed in the New Testament to a more enucleated theo-logical consciousness expressed in the great Greek councils.''4 Once again we have a pair of terms that provide some understanding--certainly the various spiritualities are differentiated from one another (one has only to adduce again the example of Carthusian and jesuit)- but do they also contain the unwelcome hint that the various dif-ferentiations divide up something that the compact contained in its wholeness? A fourth pair, made familiar in social studies, is the communal or collective and the particular or individual. Our communal spiri-tuality is the way of Christ; our individual spirituality is the par-ticular way of life in which we follow Christ. This seems a promising line of thought, but working out the relation between the communal and the individual, we would need to see how the communal is explicit in the particular andhow the particular con-tains without loss the whole of the communal. No doubt we could add to this list and pursue similar paired meanings with considerable profit, but I wonder if in the end it We need to work out with all possible accuracy what role the Exercises may play in Jesuit or any other spirituality. July-August 1994 527 Crowe ¯ The Ignatian Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality would bring us to the heart of the matter. I wonder in fact if our aim here is not a bit off center, if we should not approach the problem from another perspective altogether. For in the various pairs we have considered, the first member seems to remain incomplete until the second is added, and the second has always to be concerned that it incorporates the whole of the first. Further, the second term in each pair is thought of as an end product with its meaning determined: what a Jesuit is, what a Carthusian is-- these are already more or less clearly defined, belong to an estab-lished order, are in some measure static. Does such thinking deal adequately with the dynamism of the Exercises? I would like to explore a somewhat different approach. In this line of thought it is the heuristic character and therefore the dynamism of the Exercises that will be the focus. But all dynamic movement, all searching, all heuristic activity suppose and take place within a horizon that determines the activity and defines the source of energy for the search; I therefore need to study first the idea of horizon. For both terms, horizon and heuristic, I draw directly on the work of Bernard Lonergan. For the meaning of horizon, it will be best simply to quote Lonergan's account of the matter: In its literal sense the word, horizon, denotes the bound-ing circle, the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one's field of vision. As one moves about, it recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different hori-zons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and hori-zon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon lie the objects that, at least for the moment, cannot be seen. Within the horizon lie the objects that can now be seen. As our field of vision, so too the scope of our knowl-edge, and the range of our interests are bounded. As fields of vision vary with one's standpoint, so too the scope of one's knowledge and the range of one's interests vary with the period in which one lives, one's social back-ground and milieu, one's education and personal devel-opment. So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge,s 528 Review for Religious It is easy to apply this idea to the world of the Spiritual Exercises. One enters upon them with a given horizon, vaguely or clearly conceived: "the range of one's knowledge and interests"; for example, maybe one is led by a spirit of repentance or by anxiety about one's salvation. One makes the First Week, remaining for the most part within such a horizon--with glimpses of something beyond, to be sure, in such passages as the colloquy at the end of the first exercise (§53). But if one responds to the call of Christ in the Kingdom exercise (§91), one pushes back the previous horizon to work within a new one, far wider, with far greater potential, a horizon that is all-encompassing, a boundary that is in fact no boundary for it encloses a territory that is boundless. Now it is this ultimate hori-zon, and not any relative and con-fining horizon, that I would equate with the spirituality of the Exercises. The horizon of those who should not be led beyond the First Week is narrow and con-fining. What happens when one enters the Second Week with the mind and heart of those who would "show greater devotion and . . . distinguish themselves in total service to their eternal King and universal Lord" (§95)? What happens is the discovery of a new horizon, the horizon defined by Christ the Lord. The horizon is established in the exercises on Two Standards (§§ 136- 148) and Three Ways of Being Humble (§§165-168); details are added in the Mysteries of the Life of Christ Our Lord (§261); and in the Third and Fourth Weeks communion with Christ (what the Germans call Mitsein) fortifies the attraction of the good with the power of love and the interpersonal. This does not happen without the grace of God and a con-version. For besides the ultimate horizon there are relative hori-zons. There are shifts in our relative horizon as we move, say, from school days to the work force, and this shift may occur as a normal development of potentialities. "But it is also possible that the movement into a new horizon involves an about-face; it comes out of the old by repudiating characteristic features; it begins a Communion with Christ fortifies the attraction of the good with the power of love. 3~dy-Aug~t 1994 529 Crowe ¯ The Ignatian Exercises and yesuit Spirituality new sequence that can keep revealing ever greater depth and breadth and wealth. Such an about-face and new beginning is what is meant by a conversion.''6 Against that background we turn to the idea of the heuristic, taking as our context the fact that the Exercises are a search. Thus, the first annotation tells us: Our purpose, after removing obstacles, is to seek and to find the divine will (§1), and the fif-teenth annotation has advice for those who during the Exercises are seeking God's will (§15). Or, as is repeated over and over, recurring like a refrain, we are to seek what gives glory to God (§16). In the key stage of the Election, "While continuing our contemplations of [Christ's] life, we now begin simultaneously to explore and inquire: In which state or way of life does the Divine Majesty wish us to serve him?" (§135). And still, at the heart of the Exercises, in the meditation on the Three Classes of Men, we are seeking to "desire and know what will be more pleasing to the Divine Goodness" (§151). We are, then, in an area in which the idea of the heuristic plays a central role. My Webster's dictionary defines heuristic as "serving to guide, discover, or reveal." A helpful point: the famous "Eureka" of Archimedes is from the same Greek root; it means "I have found [it]; I have discovered the secret." Now this line of thought is thoroughly developed in Bernard Lonergan, and I find his treatment of the idea helpful for understanding the process and dynamic of spiritual search that the Exercises are. In his usage a heuristic notion tries to give some advance notice of what we hope to find; it is an anticipation of the answer we seek to a ques-tion; it is not a determinate concept, like various concepts in physics or chemistry or biology; it is an indeterminate anticipation. The nearly perfect word for this way of conceiving in antic-ipation what we have not yet deter'mined in particular is what-ever, and the nearly perfect use of whatever we can find right in Scripture. Paul, writing to the Philippians (4:8), exhorts them to focus on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is com-mendable" (NRSI~ in the Douai translation, "whatsoever"). Well, what is true? what is honorable, just, and so on? That will emerge with each new day, and meanwhile we are guided by its anticipa-tion in that "whatever." To come, then, to the present point, Ignatius and Paul are at one in conceivin, g by anticipation what they do not yet determine 530 Revie~v for Religious in particular. Apropos of the Election, Ignatius writes that we are to "think about how we ought to dispose ourselves in order to come to perfection in whatsoever state or way of life God our Lord may grant us to elect" (§ 135). It is possible now to bring these two ideas together in a new understanding of the relationship of the Exercises and Jesuit or other spirituality. My brief statement of the case would be that the horizon of the Exercises and the spirituality they directly intend is established in the exercise on the Two Standards (§§ 136-148) and the exercises that directly relate to it; further, that the heuristic of the Exercises is epitomized in the Election (§§169-188), where we search for and discover and embrace the state of life God intends for us. And the relationship between the two is indicated in the Introduction to the Consideration of the States of Life: "We shall also think about how we ought to dispose ourselves in order to come to perfection in whatsoever state or way of life God our Lord may grant us to elect" (§135). Perfection as defined in the Two Standards and their retinue of exercises is the horizon; but "whatsoever state" God may direct us to is another matter: it rep-resents the heuristic element. The Exercises do not, therefore, intend any one spirituality; their objective ordination, what the scholastics would call their finis operis, is neither Jesuit nor Carthusian spirituality, nor any other; they intend what God will choose, and their finis operis is a "whatever." What we therefore first conceived as generic, as infrastructure, as compact, as communal, we now conceive as a horizon; and what we first conceived as specific, as superstruc-ture, as differentiated, as individual, we now conceive as the area within that horizon that we discover to be God's will for us. But in moving from one to the other we do not add some-thing specific that was not contained in the genus, for everything is contained in the horizon; and, for those who respond fully, the whole spirituality of the horizon enters every vocation and every state of life. The situation is more like that of the incarnation: as the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ (Col 1:19), so the fullness of the horizon of Christ is the world in which we dwell, Jesuit and Carthusian and all others that respond fully to the call of the Kingdom exercise. And similarly, the "superstructure" we conceived as our way turns out to be what we may call an "addition," but an addition to what is already complete (like the humanity of Christ added to the July-August 1994 531 Crowe ¯ The Ignatian Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality God's will is the supreme heuristic notion guiding the exercitant, and the Exercises are a heuristic device. eternal and infinite Word). The "differentiation" we spoke of is not a dividing off of a part, but the incorporation of the whole, and the "individual" contains the fullness of the communal. Thus, one is everywhere safe within the all-encompassing arms of the Christian horizon; one is never in exile, never outside the shores of home, never a wanderer like the prodigal son in dis-tant lands. One does not, therefore, go beyond this horizon to be a Jesuit or to be a Carthusian or to find some other particular vocation. There is nothing there beyond it. It is the all-encompassing. Just as within any rel-ative horizon of geography one can go north or south, east or west, with-out going beyond the horizon, so within the ultimate horizon estab-lished by Christ one can become a Jesuit or a Carthusian, but one cannot go beyond the horizon set by Christ; one can only contract that horizon by living an inauthentic Jesuit life or liv-ing an inauthentic Carthusian life. Further use of the ideas of heuris-tic and horizon is readily made. In Lonergan's thought one can speak of heuristic notions and heuristic devices. There is the notion of being, the notion of the good, and so on; but there are also the heuristic structures that promote the discoveries we seek (his rather famous scissors action of heuristic method). One could say that God's will is the supreme heuristic notion guiding the exercitant and that the Exercises are a heuristic device, an instru-ment par excellence for finding God's will, maybe with a kind of scissors action too. (I do not, however, call the Exercises the supreme heuristic device, for we do not limit God's creativity to what was divinely done in Ignatius, and we do not know what successor God may be preparing for Ignatius.) Again, still in Lonergan's thought, one can speak of interrelationships in the set of horizons, of their complementary, genetic, and dialectical differences. But that would add length to an article that is already 532 Review for Religious long enough, and introduce further specialized categories where they are already rather extensive. Notes ~ Eventually such a study should come to the details of particular spiritualities, but that is a further step. Here I intend the word in a broad sense: "spirituality" includes, therefore, elements of doctrine and practice, of vocation and way of proceeding, of tradition and orientation, of rules and constitutions, and so on, without specifying what these may be for Jesuit, Carthusian, and other vocations. 2 The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary, by George E. Ganss SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), no. 18 in the numbering that is standard for all editions. All English quota-tions will be from this edition; numbers will be given in parentheses in the text. 3 In the Latin, "ut veniamus ad perfectionem in quocumque statu seu vita, quam Deus Dominus noster eligendam nobis dederit" (§ 135). The "quocumque" is the "whatever" I will presently discuss. 4 Bernard Lonergan, Topics in Education (The Cincinnati Lectures of 1959 on the Philosophy of Education), ed. Robert M. Doran and Frederick E. Crowe (University of Toronto Press, 1992), pp. 55-58. On Eric Voegelin see Kenneth Keulman, The Balance of Consciousness: Eric Voegelin's Political Theory (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990), pp. 92-93: "What the pattern of symbolizations indicates is the development from compact to differentiated forms . The terms "compact" and "dif-ferentiated" refer not only to the symbolizations, but also to the charac-teristic forms of consciousness that generate them." s Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (2nd ed. reprint, University of Toronto Press, 1990), pp. 235-236. 6 Ibid, pp. 237-238. I add a few helpful quotations: "Horizontal lib-erty is the exercise of liberty within a determinate horizon and from the basis of a corresponding existential stance. Vertical liberty is the exer-cise of liberty that selects that stance and the corresponding horizon" (ibid, p. 40, with a reference to Joseph de Finance). "For falling in love is a new beginning, an exercise of vertical liberty in which one's world undergoes a new organization" (ibid, p. 122). "A horizontal exercise {of freedom] is a decision or choice that occurs within an established horizon. A vertical exercise is the set of judgments and decisions by which we move from one horizon to another" (ibid, p. 237). "Further, deliberate decision about one's horizon is high achievement. For the most part peo-ple merely drift into some contemporary horizon. They do not advert to the multiplicity of horizons. They do not exercise their vertical liberty by migrating from the one they have inherited to another they have dis-covered to be better" (ibid, p. 269). July-August 1994 533 JOAN MUELLER The Suscipe Revisited " J here~T~ is little doubt that one of the most famous excerpts .~- of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises is the Suscipe--"Take, Lord, Receive." In recent years its popularity has increased through John Foley's musical rendition of the text? Those who have made a thirty-day or a nineteenth-annotation Ignatian retreat are likely to recognize this prayer: Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will--all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you, 0 Lord. All of it is yours. Dispose of it according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for that is enough for me.2 Directors of the Spiritual Exercises soon discover a variety of responses to the Suscipe. Some retreatants admit that they decide to what degree they pray it. The prayer feels like a radical, even reckless risk. Some, then, pray "to desire to desire" to enter into this prayer. Others simply decide to pray it with less intensity than they pray other prayers that feel less radical. Some retreatants report that the Suscipe begins to move through their consciousness like a mantra without their having any memory of deciding to pray it in this way; there is a passive, almost unconscious move-ment going on. Some people, however, pray the Suscipe with gusto, as if it is their greatest joy to make the words their own. Such people experience giving everything over to God as their true freedom. Joan Mueller OSF is assistant professor of systematic theology at Saint Francis Seminary and teaches in the summer spirituality program at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Her address is Saint Francis Seminary; 3257 South Lake Drive; Saint Francis, Wisconsin 53235. 534 Review for Religious Even though directors are well aware that the Exercises are designed to foster personal response to the gospel, we may won-der how one prayer can elicit such a variety of responses. We could probe this question by means of various methodologies: personality theories, enneagram numbers, prayer styles, and so forth. In this essay I propose examining the question through a consideration of the dynamics of the Exercises. A Dynamic Theory of the Spiritual Life The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises can be seen as a paradigm for spiritual growth. Many such paradigms exist in the Christian spir-itual tradition: St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, St. John of the Cross's Ascent of Mount

Issue 52.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1993. ; frOe i g,i ous Christian Heritages and Contempora~ Living MAY-JUNE 1993 ¯ VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 3 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University. by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ 5001 Eastern Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1993 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolsld Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Se~n Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MAY-JUNE 1993 * VOLUME 52 ¯ NUMBER 3 contents 326 feature Prophecy or Restorationism in Religious Life Gerald A. Arbuckle SM describes the effects of the prophetic and the restorationist movements on religious life. 340 350 witnessing Would That All Were Prophets~ Dianne Bergant CSA examines the 'meaning of prophecy in the life of religious congregations. Committed Christian Secularity Paul J. Philibert OP explores some areas of development for those called to the life of the secular institute. prayer and direction 364 Liturgy of the Hours: A Reflection Suzanne Zuercher OSB finds that the ritual praying of the Liturgy of the Hours manifests what monastic life is and needs to remain. 371 380 Get Serious! The Monastic Condemnation of Laughter Kenneth C. Russell suggests some ways for us to understand and give modern application to the monastic attitude towards laughter. A Mystical Moment: Spiritual Direction and the Adolescent Fred Herron highlights aspects of spiritual direction in the con-text of adolescent development. 322 Review for Religious 39O 418 428 432 446 454 religious leadership Religious-Leadership Competencies David Nygren CM and Miriam Ukeritis CSJ report on skills and characteristics which mark superior performance for contemporary religious leaders. Some Ruminations on the Identity of Religious David F. O'Connor ST reviews the current identity issues around religious life. An Identity Dilemma: Standing with the Poor Patricia McCann RSM focuses the question about a gap between the espoused ideal and the reality of standing with the poor in religious life and ministry. ~ living gospel values Poverty as the Embrace of Insecurity Richard J. De Maria CFC stresses that the insecurity of poverty in some form remains essential to religious life. Men Vowed and Sexual: Conversations about Celibate Chastity Selin D. Sammon ~MS and Judith Ann Zielinski OSF describe a project sponsored by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men to enhance the living of celibate chaste life by vowed men. A Story of Addiction and Co-Addiction William F. Kraft tells a story of how the problems of addiction and co-addiction can be signs of contradiction that lead to new and better living departments 324 Prisms 462 Canonical Counsel: Common Life and Houses 469 Book Reviews May-.~une 1993 323 prisms ~edo not talk much about "working at the virtuous life." Perhaps the Pelagian inference--that "working at it" is enough, all by itself---keeps us suspi-cious of such talk. Maybe we are reluctant to admit explic-itly that virtue is on our list of outmoded things. There is also the possibility, even the likelihood, that some people strong in virtue have offended us in some way. "Nice" people may be easier to live with and less offensive than people imbued with courage or fired up for justice' sake. But Jesus demands more of his followers than that they be nice. Christians in every age need to work at the vir-tuous life. Recently in North America the news media have made much of various accusations or admissions of sexual mis-conduct by bishops, priests, and religious. The result is that the leadership in the local church and in religious congregations has had the painful, but necessary, task of coming to terms with a difficult and disturbing situation. What becomes evident to those living the consecrated life is that celibate chastity is not only something which we can "lose," but also something to be worked at: that only through a lifetime effort does one grow in chastity and love. Various programs like Marriage Encounter and the Christian Family Movement and Teams of Our Lady have long stressed how couples need to Work at their marital chastity if they are going to deepen their love and grow to be ever more faithful to each other. In a similar way, through some painful reminders today, both men and 324 Review for Religious women in celibate commitment are being called to make the effort they need to make if they are to grow as loving celibate people. In the scholastic theology of St. Thomas Aquinas we are taught the meaning of the virtues of the Christian life through his masterly explanation of habit. It would be interpreting Thomas fairly to bring our commonsense thinking about acquiring a habit to our understanding of his insight into acquiring--"working at"--virtue. Without denying the primacy of grace, especially experienced in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, we need to put forth the human effort to make those qualities more deeply our own. Theological developments since Vatican II have stressed that, just as conversion is continual in a Christian's life, so too growth in virtue is never finished--nor can either of these occur in iso-lation; they demand the presence of the faith community. Similarly, we now see even more clearly that virtue, like conver-sion, is never a private matter but impacts the public and social sphere. Our very working at virtue gives force to our evangeliz-ing efforts in our families, communi.ties, and workplaces. As a case in point, then, there are recent efforts being made to ~work at celibate chastity within a community setting and not in isolation. As married people have discovered in their various Christian family organizations, it is within the faith community that growth in virtue finds its support and that marriage and fam-ily values are witnessed to and witnessed. "'Men Vowed and Sexual," a project sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Major Superiors of Men and reported on in this issue, is one way to achieve a com-munity setting of support and understanding for the celibate chaste development of individuals. In another effort to assist those who are committed to the tasks of spiritual formation, the Christian Institute for the Study of Human Sexuality has been announced by the staff of theJesuit Educational Center for Human Development. Along 0¢ith the primacy of the grace of God and continuing individual effort, such community projects point the way for all of us to "work at" virtue today. David L. Fleming SJ May-June 1993 325 feature GERALD A. ARBUCKLE Prophecy or Restorationism in Religious Life "Turmoil is going to break out among your tribes." --Hosea 10:14 Anthropologically a tribe is a gathering "of bands., hav-ing a feeling of unity deriving from numerous similarities in culture, frequent friendly contacts, and a certain com-munity of interest.''1 By this definition religious life before Vatican II was one tribe consisting of many bands or clans (congregations) bound together despite their individual differences by a common belief in the nature and purpose of religious life. Now this tribal oneness no longer exists. Today, instead of clans within one tribe, we have many dif-ferent tribes that do not share a common vision of reli-gious life. Even within the same congregation there can be several different tribes, each claiming that it alone is authentically interpreting religious life and the original founding congregational vision. Communication across the boundaries of these reli-gious- life tribes may be poor, as is commonly the case between different ethnic groups at any time in human society. Each tribe, says anthropologist Edward Hall, usu-ally takes the position of "thinking and feeling that any-one whose behavior is not predictable or is peculiar in any way is slightly out of his mind, improperly brought up, irresponsible, psychopathic, politically motivated to a point Gerald A. Arbuckle SM continues to write, lecture, and con-duct workshops on the refounding of religious life. His address is Refounding and Pastoral Development Unit; 1 Mary Street; Hunters Hill; Sydney, N.S.W. 2110; Australia. 326 Review for Religious beyond redemption, or just plan inferior.''2 This rather blunt (but generally accurate) statement of tribal ethnocentrism describes the strong prejudice-founded belief that my tribe is the center of everything, and all other groups or tribes are scaled and rated with reference to it. Unfortunately, the way some religious tribes within contemporary religious life at times view other groups-- with hostility and self-righteous intolerance--is not unlike Hall's description. Sometimes. religious-life tribes agree to co-exist side-by- side with apparent harmony; peace is maintained because they agree at least tacitly not to raise their significant differences over the m~aning of religious life. They deny or suppress the differ-ences lest exhausting tensions erupt openly. Dialogue, which demands an op.enness to the other and to the possibility of change, is difficult in these circumstances--even impossible. This article has a twofold function: first, to summarize why one religious-life tribe has fragmented into many different tribes or quasi-ethnic groups since Vatican II; and second, to describe the significant qualities of these tribal groups. From Tribe to Tribes in Religious Life Religious Life: Founding Myth Undermined. The founding myth .of religious life historically evolved wheri people began to gather together to live the radical values of the gospel, to devote, them-selves totally to the person of Christ and his kingdom values. The major mo;vements (monastic, conventual, and apostolic) were prophetic reactions to abuses or corruption of power within the church and society at large. Prophetic action is thus integral to the founding stoW of religious life. Johannes Metz correctly asserts that religious communities must be "a kind of shock therapy" challenging the church to live the fullness of Christ's message. "Against the dangerous accommodations and questionable com-promises that the church . . . can always incline to," he writes, "they press for the uncompromising nature of the gospel and of the imitation of Christ.''3 Myths bind people together with a common vision. They are value-impregnated beliefs and notions, born in sacred time and space, that people live by and live for; at the level of the culture they are primarily unconscious, powerful in their influence, and partic-ularly difficult for people to articulate objectively except in stoW form or by describing the life histories of their culture's heroes or May-a~une 1993 327 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism: heroines. In reality people adhere to relatively few archetypal myths, of which the conspiratorial enemy and the all-powerful hero-liberator are central kinds. Myths provide a feeling of cer-tainty, direction, and trust rather than the paralysis, fear, or bewil- The council challenged religious to rediscover the prophetic heart of their ministry when it directed them back to the person of Christ, the founding experience of their own congregations,. and the apostolic needs of the world. derment that chaos--the opposite of order or the predictable--brings.* Over time, however, myths can drift away from their original message without people' being quite aware of what is happening. This in fact hap-pened to the founding myth of reli-gious life. In recent centuries religious life has lost its prophetic emphasis within the church and the world and has become based on three pivotal assumptionscontrary to its original founding vision: the world is funda-mentally evil and tobe avoided, reli-gious are the spiritual elite of the church, and their task is to be uncrit-ically supportive of the ecclesiastical and pastoral status quo.~ Vatican II dramatically under-mined these aberrant assumptions and the myth they sustained when it stated that the world is capable of redemption and the church must inter-act with it through a process of exchange/dialogue (that is, incul-turation). 6 Furthermore, all people--not only religiousware called to, and are capable of, holiness.7 Religious asChristians could no longer remove themselves from the concerns of the world, nor could they ever again consider themselves the spiritual elite of the church. Finally, the council challenged religious to rediscover the prophetic heart of their ministry when it directed them back to the person of Christ, the founding experience of their own congregations, and the apostolic needs of the world. The revi-talized founding myth was not neatly put together by the coun-cil and it would be a long time before religious could rediscover with confidence its authentic nature and implications. Reactions to Vatican Ih Conversionist and Restorationist Groups. It is a basic experience of anthropology that any interference with a founding story or myth of a group--even when fully justified (as 328 Review for Religious occurred at Vatican II) and intellectually assented to by the peo-ple involved--is catastrophic or chaotic at the level of identity, belonging, or feeling.8 A satisfying and interiorized myth is never re-created quicHy out of turmoil or chaos. The reaction to a dramatic mythological change, such as hap-pened to religious life at Vatican II, normally follows a fairly pre-dictable pattern. First, there is an effort to control initial unease or anxiety through legislative or structural changes so that an anxiety-reducing order can once again emerge, but political or legislative action alone is ineffective without an attitudinal open-ness to an as yet unformulated new myth. The phase of chaos follows; neither traditional support systems nor mere structural changes provide the needed sense of direction and belonging. Symptoms of depression--such as anger, numbness, "lostness," feuding, denial, sadness, witch-hunting to assign blame for the chaos--emerge within the group or in individuals. As the chaos persists, people are apt to turn to one of two options: either conversionist or escapist movements. Leaders of these movements have the charismatic ability of articulating appropriate visions and strategies to achieve them. Conversionist movements develop when people recognize that the way to change is not by nostalgically and uncritically returning to a former cul-tural stage but by struggling to relate to an entirely different ambience. The building of a new founding myth is painful, demanding courage to let go the past, the willingness to walk in the darkness of uncertainty and ambiguity, waiting, creating and testing new ways of acting adapted to the changing circumstances. No sudden solution to the malaise of the chaos is possible.9 Commonly many people cannot cope with the darkness and uncertainty demanded by the conversionist approach. They seek the escapist option with its fundamentalist and simplistic remedies to the confusion. Fundamentalistic or sect movements are com-mon today within Islam, Judaism, and Christianity and in the arena of politics just as they have always been in times of dra-matic social or cultural changes. They take various forms. For example, some are millenarianl° as they promise a dramatic and imminent appearance of a world of meaning and belonging to their disoriented followers, on condition they commit themselves without question to simplistic and authoritarian-led actions. The popularity of these fundamentalist movements today~ testifies to the extent and depth of the cultural upheaval through- May-3~ne 1993 329 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism Restorationism is the vigorous effort to return the church uncritically to the pre-Vatican II structures, practices, and attitudes. out the world in reaction to the speed and radicality of contem-porary technological; social, and economic changes. Patrick Arnold's definition of fundamentalism is particularly apt: it is "an aggressive and marginalized religious movement which, in reac-tion to the perceived threat of moder-nity, seeks to return its home religion and nation to traditional orthodox prin-ciples, values, and texts through the co-option of the central executive and legislative power of both the religion itself and the modern national state.''t2 This definition highlights the emphasis that fundamentalists place on the role of civil and religious governments to coerce people to accept their beliefs. James Hunter sees fundamentalist movements as "characterized, to varying degrees, by a quality of organized anger." They aggressively want to make history right again.13 Intellectual arguments will not convert people away from fundamental-ism because fundamentalism is a reaction to a loss of felt belong-ing, not necessarily to inadequate intellectual reasoning. Fundamentalist movements form an increasingly strident, intolerant, and powerful force within the Catholic Church today, indicative of the extent of the chaotic upheaval sparked off by such forces as Vatican II and the opening 0f the church to a world caught up in its own tumultuous change--the revolution of expressive disorder of the 1960s and early 1970s.14 These restora-tionist movements demand that the church return to its pre- Vatican II culture with its patriarchal, dependency, and authoritarian models of leadership. Whoever dares to question what fundamentalists do are branded as contemporary "witches" who are out to undermine in a conspiratorial way what restora-tionists define as orthodoxy. In brief, restorationism is the vig-orous effort to return the church uncritica'lly to the pre-Vatican II structures, practices, and attitudes. (I say "uncritically" because there are some key pre-Vatican II values that need to be revital-iz. ed, for example, a respect for a living tradition.) Restorationism is an abuse of power because key values of Vatican II--for exam-ple, collegiality, the call to inculturate the faith within local 330 Review for Religious churches--are either rejected or undervalued. Like Thomas the Apostle, fundamentalist or restorationist Catholics earnestly seek clear-cut signs of the presence of the Lord: "Unless I can see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe" (Jn 20:25). Contemporary Religious Life: Tribal Models .With the disintegration of the then prevailing founding myth of religious life, in addition to the other upheavals consequent on Vatican II, religious today are torn between the enticements of fundamentalist or restorationist solutions to the chaos they expe-rience and the painful requirements of the call to radical conver-sion. Those opting for the latter take to heart the words of Christ to Thomas: "Blessed are those who hav~ not seen and yet believe" (Jn 20:29). They recognize that the church (and religious life) is in the liminality stage of a crucial rite of passage--the pre-Vatican II church has yet to be let go and the new to be confidently cre-ated based on Vatican II values. It is a time of pain, lament, and hope. Prophets and prophetic movements are needed to create the "pastoral quantum-leaps" necessary to bring the gospel into interaction with the most.urgent needs of today--secularism and political/economic oppression for example.~s The following tribal models of contemporary religious life fall within what I will call "escapist" or "conversionist" categories. By "escapist" I mean that religious tribes within this category avoid in various ways the struggle to return to the original found-ing myth of religious life--that is, the prophetic challenging of the church and the world. "Conversionist" tribes, however, struggle to live this challenge. My purpose in offering these categories and models is to help clarify an increasingly c.omplex situation within religious life; it is not my aim to judge the subjective moti-vations of individual religious. Finally, a word of warning about the use of models. An anthro-pological model is not a perfect representation of the real world. Rather, a model is very much a necessary research construct to facilitate a better understanding of very complex situations. A model reflects reality to the extent that it highlights certain emphases or trends. For the sake of clarity unnecessary details are omitted. A situation can then be researched to discover just May-J~ne 1993 331 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism how far it diverges from or conforms to the model. In practice one will rarely find in real life a perfect embodiment of a model; par-ticular qualities of many models will tend to be present, but the characteristics of one model will predominate over others. A model is not a caricature since the latter is a deliberately inaccu-rate representation of reality for comic effect; No one expects a caricature to be modified in the light of reality.~6 Category 1: "Escapist" Religious-Life Tribes The Nativistic Tribal Model. Tribal leaders claim that the unquestioning return to the symbols (for example, religious garb), myths, and rituals of.religious life before Vatican II will in some magical way resolve the loss of meaning or relevance among reli-gious. Fundamentalist and sect-like tribes that approximate to this model fanatically assume "we have the truth and the pope is on our side," yet, like all Catholic fundamentalists, they selectively read ecclesial documents to support their position and rather thoroughly ignore the social teaching of the popes. These com-munities withdraw from the "contaminating world" (which they look upon with considerable doom and gloom), refuse all dia-logue with their opponents, and avoid any critique of restora-tionism in the church. In fact, they are zealous supporters of ecclesiastical restorationism. Prayer is stressed, but only the pre- Vatican II forms that highlight a personal or privatized holiness removed from the world's concerns. They cultivate, as the Puebla document says, "a spirituality of evasion.''~7 Candidates are encouraged to join, but screening and training programs are inadequate for the demands of today's apostolic work. The more who join, the more certain nativistic tribes are that God loves them. In brief, they place the survival of their con-gregation over their commitment to the full mission of the church. The Conservative Tribal Model. In the conservative model, lead-ers are moved by the numerical success of sect-like and restora-tionist lay movements within the contemporary church; they uncritically encourage the return to pre-Vatican II traditions-- for example, quasimonastic structures for apostolic communities, traditional religious habits, and pious customs--but with less fanaticism than nativistic leaders. Souls are to be converted to the Lord, compassion shown to the poor, but the faith/justice 3 3 2 Review for Religious apostolates are to be avoided as irrelevant and dangerous to one's consecrated vocation. Conformist-oriented candidates are encour-aged to join these tribes, particularly if they have above-average needs for security and identity. Dependency and conformity are valued "virtues" in this model as in the previous one. New forms of prayer are allowed--as, for example, in the charismatic movement--provided they do not lead to involve-ment in the social-justice apostolate. Asceticism is an esteemed virtue, but within the narrow limits of the individual's journey to the Lord or as a way of encouraging him or her to submit to authority and the congregational status quo. Liberation theology and inculturation are considered dangerous "leftist" ideologies, and criticism of ecclesiastical restorationism is not considered necessary nor encouraged. The Millenarian Tribal Model. Millenarian movements immi-nently and dramatically expect the miraculous transformation of the world by supernatural methods. In millenarian religious tribal life, all forms of instant-holiness or inner-peace programs are .offered by tribal leaders--for example, encounter-group sessions, bodily relaxing techniques, immediate-union-with-God prayer sessions. Pastoral planning programs are formulated with the assurance that they will automatically lead to an increase in voca-tions. Often, as a sign of one's authentic conversion, in true mil-lenarian style religious indiscriminately discard as "old-fashioned" any reference to the past; thus, for example, the great spiritual traditions of Saints Teresa and John of the Cross are seen as of lit-tle or no value.Is Religious keep searching feverishly from one workshop to another for the "right leader, or spiritual/professional guru, to describe the latest way to inner peace and a firm sense of direc-tion" for themselves personally and their congregations. Try harder, they feel, and the correct miraculous technique will turn up eventually. Leaders and followers are so concerned about inner-peace and identity issues that ecclesiastical restorationism and the apostolic demands of the world are of little concern to them. The Therapeutic or "Me-istic" Tribal Model.19 In the previous tribal model, religious do have concern for the welfare of the group and its future, even though it be in an introverted way. However, group life and concern for its future are of minimal importance to the therapeutic tribal model. Tribal life is marked by individualism, excessive concern for self-fulfillment, and uncrit- May-a~une 1993 333 /trbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism ical acceptance of secular consumer or material standards. The group andits leaders exist solely to support the narcissistic, indi-vidualistic, and independent aspirations of its members. There is a paradox in this tribe: rampart individualism on the one hand and the desperate need for personal affirmation and support from other tribal members on the other. Individuals may undertake important apostolic work, but it is done with little or no reference to their religious tribal com-mitments or vision. In other words, the links between members and the corporate vision are so weak that the tribe is equivalently a social club; a typical attitude would be: "I remain in touch with my community only as long as it serves my needs." If restora-tionism is criticized, it is only because it is thought to be an obsta-cle to the pursuit of individualism and personal self-fulfillment. The prophetic corporate commitment of religious life within the church and the world has no meaning in this tribal model. The Neo-Conservative T~:ibal Model. Religious gather around leaders who were once fervent advocates of change, but have now become overly fearful of the chaos and the extremes of attempted adaptation programs they see around them. They believe that only slow, measured ox~ predictably safe apostolic adaptation to the world will achieve new expressions of religious life. Orderly pastoral planning becomes an ideology or an end in itself, not a condition for bold creative apostolic action in response to the most urgent pastoral needs of the world. There must be no diver-gences from the pastoral plan lest chaos erupt.2° "Risk is out, order is in" becomes axiomatic. It is assumed that revitalization can occur only if the whole community or congregation moves in response to agreed-to mis-sion statements and strategic pastoral planning. Intra-group ten-sions and conflict are to be avoided at all costs: "Let the province move when all are ready and willing to do so; otherwise no change is to be sanctioned." The sense of belonging to or affiliation with the congregation is viewed as more important than the struggle for the religious community to realize its primary task of prophetically challenging a secularizing world and the church. Creative religious who believe that chaos requires a more rad-ical linking between the gospel and cultures are marginalized or pressured out of the community since they threaten the group's desire for an orderly approach to refounding. The faith/justice apostolate is only lightly supported lest involvement in it disturb 334 Review for Religious the unity of the community. Any critique of restorationism is couched in unchallenging or vague tones for the same reason. The Radical Non-Conversion Tribal Model. These tribes are led by people who have a vision of a radical, social-justice program. However, because the faith values of religious life do not impinge on their consciousness, they see themselves only as social workers, activists, or enablers of others. Their view of the gospel is limited only to the procla-mation of forms of liberation. They do not see that their "contribution to lib-eration is incomplete if [they] neglect to proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ.''2t Tribal life in this model is very fragile; either people withdraw from religious life since it no longer has any meaning for them, or they remain, generally with bitterness against their congregation and the church, living The ultimate identity of religious comes from their faith in the person of Christ and his mission to the world, especially to the marginalized and powerless. highly individualistic lives, refusing any effort to work toward an authentic religious-life vision. There is an un-Gospel-like harsh-ness to their criticism of restorationism within the church. Category 2: Transformative/Refounding Tribal Model Tribes within this, category are transformative or prophetic communities recognizing that the only way out of the chaos is through radically new faith-justice, hope-inspired, corporate action in which the gospel message is directed to the most urgent needs of today. The ultimate identity of these religious tribes comes from their faith in the person of Christ and his mission to the world, especially to the marginalized and powerless. The chaos is seen in biblical and anthropological terms as potentially a graced experience--the chance to rethink the mission of religious life and the tribe's commitment to it. Hence, for exam-ple, these religious tribes struggle to be living witnesses to the radical demands of prayerful asceticism in opposition to the sym-bols of consumerism and "instant spirituality"; living witnesses to the virtue of hope in order to counter symbols that seek to May-ffune 1993 335 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism negate any redemptive and eschatological power of suffering; liv-ing witnesses to the need to dialogue with the world so as to counter the elitism/sectarianism of restorationist Catholicism; living witnesses through their lifestyle and attitudes to God's mercy, Jesus Christ, in concern for the alienated and the oppressed; living witnesses to vibrant community-life relation-ships founded on interdependence, mutuality, and faith sharing to counter the symbols of excessive individualism, abuse of author-ity/ power in society and in the church; living witnesses to a spir-ituality of involvement with the world, especially the powerless, to counter a spirituality of evasion.22 Through their imaginative, faith-oriented action they create a new founding myth of reli-gious life, a vision in which creative and prophetic action is an integral and primary quality. For these transformative tribes, it is Christ's mission that has priority, not the physical survival of the community. If they dis-cover it is God's will that they are to die, then they accept this as the chance to enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ's suf-fering and resurrection. Consequently, if people do ask to join these tribes, they are accepted only if there are well-founded hopes that these candidates have the demanding qualities of maturity to live and work on the prophetic edge of the church and the world. These communities foster within themselves prophetic or refounding persons who are able to relive within today's context the experience of the original congregational founding people. They are pained to see the void between the gospel and the needs of the world; so, like their original founding members, they move to create pastoral strategies to bridge this gulf. They, together with others in their communities, are dreamers who do. These are rest-less or liminal people in the sense that they are on the edge of what is considered to be the "correct or predictable" way of being reli-gious; they are prepared to critique everything according to gospel values. Not surprisingly, therefore, they and their communities evoke anxiety within tribal groups of category 1; their vision is too threatening so marginalization, tribulation, and suffering are their inevitable lot (as has commonly been the case with founding peo-ple of religious communities over the centuries).23 These apostolically risk-oriented leaders and prophetic tribes maintain their zeal only as long as they prayerfully admit to their own inner powerlessness without the grace of God. Once they allow their own attachment.s to the predicable to go, they repeat- 336 Review for Religious edly rediscover, as did the lamentation psalmists of old, that noth-ing is impossible to them through the mercy and love of the Lord.24 Restorationism is critiqued with a boldness of apostolic faith, love, and compassion because they take to heart the fact that "Christ summons the church., to that continual reforma-tion of which she always has need, insofar as she is an institution of [people] here on earth.''2s Conclusion In the centuries immediately before Vatican II, religious life had become a bastion of the unchanging status quo within the church. We even called it the "religious state." But by its origins it .was never intended to be something static, but an ongoing expe-rience of prophetically becoming in reaction to the ever-changing apostolic needs of the world. Once religious say they "have got it all together," then they have lost their passion for creative gospel life. Today, Paul VI said, the "split between the gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time,''z6 so religious to be true to the original founding myth must be at the cutting edge of the gospel and culture. This is an inescapably agonizing experience, for it means cri-tiquing not just the world but also the church itsel~---a church in which the forces of restorationism are daily more visibly present. Religious life is in the stage that anthropologist Victor Turner terms liminality,27 that is, the betwixt-and-between stage; the unnecessary structural constraints of the former state of religious life have gone, and the reinvigorated founding story of prophetic action has yet to emerge with confidence. It is a stage rich in imaginative apostolic potential for the future. But it is also a dan-gerous phase for those religious who are excessively frightened of the darkness of uncertainty and ambiguity. They are tempted to flee into the false comforts of restorationism and to reengage uncritically the structures of pre-Vatican II religious life, seeing around them "nothing but prevarication and ruin"ZS--the defeatist attitude John XXIII warned us against. When this happens, these religious turn their backs on what is the most exciting and prophetically stimulating period for religious life in centuries. May-~une 1993 337 Arbuckle ¯ Prophecy or Restorationism Notes ' R. Linton, The Study of Man: An Introduction (Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1936), p. 231. 2 Edward Hall, Beyond Culture (New York: Doubleday/Anchor, 1976), p. 43 3 Johannes Metz,F0110wers of Christ: The Religious Life and the Church (Exeter: Burns and Oates/New York: Paulist, 1978), p. 12; see also an analysis of the prophetic nature of religious life by D. O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision (Notre Dame: Ave Maria, 1991). 4 See G. Arbuckle, Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for the Pastoral Worker (London: Geoffrey Chapman/Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1990), pp. 26-43; see also M. Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Bollingen/Pantheon, 1954), chap. 1. s See Arbuckle, Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (New York: Paulist/London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1988), pp. 68-77. 6 See "The Church in the Modern World," The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter Abbott (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), §44; for expla-nations see Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 15-20. 7 See "The Church," §40f. 8 See M. Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Pantheon, 1970), p. 38. 9 See Arbuckle, Out of Chaos, pp. 14-28. ,0 See explanations by Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Oxford Un!versity, 1970). ~l For an overview of world fundamentalism see Concilium, no. 3, 1992. ¯ ,2 "Reemergence of Fundamentalism in the Catholic Church," in The Fundamentalist Phenomenon, ed. N. Cohen (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), p. 174. ~3 "Fundamentalism in Its Global Contours," ibid, p. 63. ,4 See overview of Catholic fundamentalism by T. O'Meara, Fundamentalism: A Catholic Perspective (New York: Paulist, 1990), passim, and Patrick Arnold, "The Rise of Catholic Fundamentalism," in America, 11 April 1987, pp. 298-302. *s See Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 187-220. ,6 For an analysis of the nature and usefulness of anthropological mod-els see L.C. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988), pp. 135-139. ,7 Final Document, Conference of Latin American Bishops, 1979, § 826. ~8 See T. Merton, "Cargo Cults in the South Pacific," in America, vol. 121, no. 5, 1969, p. 96. ,9 See a fuller development by Arbuclde, "Suffocating Religious Life: A New Type Emerges," in The Way Supplement 65 (1989): 26-39. 338 Review for Religious 20 For insights into the dangers of overplanning see R. Stacey, Managing Chaos (London: Kogan Page, 1992), pp. 43f., 208. 2, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975, §47. zz See Arbuclde, Strategies for Growth in Religious Life (New York: Alba House, 1986), p. 41. 23 See J. Lozano, Foundresses, Founders, and Their Religious Families (Chicago: Claret, 1983), pp. 65-70. 24 See Arbuclde, Change, Grief and Renewal in the Church OgVestminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1991), pp. 61-107. 2s "Decree on Ecumenism," Abbott, §6. 26 Ibid, §20. 27 See V. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (New York: Aldine, 1969), p. 95. For a summary of Turner's insight into limi-nality see Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospel, pp. 74f. 28 "Open!ng Speech to the Council," Abbott, p. 712. Will He? Veils gone, Securities gone, "Respect" gone. Adulation and ~. Convent-mysteries All gone. Can I sing my Song of Songs to Him In the rags of who I really am ? Will He love me still? Without my baubles And my cover-ups, Will He still love me? Crushed in His arms, 0 wonder of it all! I came to know That, in my poverty, He loves me Twice as much! Maxine Inkel SL May-~'ane 1993 339 DIANNE BERGANT Would That All Were Prophets witnessing In 1989 the joint assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (LCWR/CMSM) drew up ten charac-teristics of the "transformative" religious life of the future. The first of these, prophetic witness, is described as fol-lows: "Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society. Living this prophetic witness will include critiquing societal and eccle-sial values and structures, calling for systemic change, and being converted by the marginalized with whom we serve." The following reflections have been prompted by this statement. "Behold, I am doing a new tbing" (Is 43:19) Before we discuss prophetic witness, we should briefly consider prophetic insight: Why is prophetic insight needed? Where does it originate? Prophetic insight is born in times of crisis, in its basic Greek meaning of decision and not its popular-usage meaning of misfortune or distress. In a time of crisis, a community is at a turning point and needs some kind of decisive direction--or the community should be at a turning point but, failing to recognize this, needs someone to call it to repentance and reform, to conver- Dianne Bergant CSA presented the substance of this article in a talk to the chapter members of her congregation, the Sisters of St. Agnes. Her address is Catholic Theological Union: 5401 S. Cornell Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60615. 340 Review for Religious sion, to turning. But, of course, a community is not always at some kind of crossroads; and, if it is relatively faithful to its nature and ideals so that its members encourage and inspire each other, it may not need, for the time being, any distinct and indepen-dent prophetic insight. When prophetic insight is needed, where will it come from? One cannot casually assume it in oneself; not every member of the community is blessed with it. While it is the fruit of a very personal relationship with God, it includes perceptive insight into the reli-gious implications of "the signs of the times," an insight that calls for decision and usually for some kind of change. Prophetic insight is lit by the flame of passionate attachment to the religious tradi-tion. It is critical, not for the sake of being critical, but for the sake of the word of God. Illumined by this word, it perceives either the faithfulness of believers to their religious identity or a lessening or lack of this faith-fulness. It sees clearly what people should embrace within society in order to deepen their commitment to life and to God, and it sees what they should avoid. Prophetic insight assesses the values of contemporary society with eyes of discerning faith, recogniz-ing any distortions and, on the other hand, relating society's authentic values to their divine source. The biblical prophets did not call for change for the sake of change. They spoke out when they were convinced that their communities were in peril. They were often alone as they chal-lenged the institutions and practices that limited and sometimes shattered the lives of their communities. At times the threat fac-ing .their communities was evident to all. For example, King Ahaz was well aware of his predicament when Isaiah warned him against Assyrian entanglement (Is 7), as was King Zedekiah when Jeremiah spoke to him (Jr 27). At other times the threat was more insidi-ous, and the community seemed oblivious of its surrender to seductions that compromised its religious identity. We read that Amos condemned the Israelites for disregarding their covenant responsibilities in favor of material prosperity and that Hosea denounced the people of his day for yielding to the religious prac-tices of the Canaanites. The prophets seem always to have been Prophetic insight is lit by the flame of passionate attachment to the religious tradition. May-June 1993 341 Bergant ¯ IVould That All Were Prophets convinced that the situation had to change because it threatened the community's relationship with God. Prophetic insight and satisfaction with the status quo are seldom compatible. The prophets usually found themselves in conflict with offi-cial leaders. This was not because they disdained authority or authoritative organization, but because the leaders were respon-sible for public policy and for the social and religious structures that supported that policy. Therefore, when those in responsible positions failed to lead as the religious tradition directed them or when the policies and structures themselves created divisions of privilege or marginality, the prophets denounced the status quo and called the community to a new vision. They seldom, if ever, proposed specific new approaches to the problems. They were the visionaries, not the policy makers. They were the ones who called for a new society; others would work to fashion such a society in line with the prophetic insight. We must not confuse prophetic with apocalyptic, which also grows out of a dissatisfaction with the prevailing situation. Prophetic insight, whether it is reassuring people of divine com-passion and care or warning them of God's indignation and jus-tice, is fundamentally positive. It knows that human history with all its possibilities, challenges, and risks is the matrix within which the reign of God takes shape. Down amid social, economic, and political reality, such insight is neither ignorant of nor removed from the needs, aspirations, movements, and accomplishments of society, for it believes that it is within society that God is revealed. A genuine prophetic spirit is fashioned and enlivened by the ener-gies of the day. It is not a spirit of the past or, for that matter, of the future, but of the present. It knows that God is immanent and continually involved in the lives and history of people here and now. No event, no moment in time, is beyond the realm of God's activity. Authentic prophetic i,nsight insists that human beings can indeed influence the course of history and, with divine assistance, can bring .to birth the reign of God. "Apocalyptic" comes from the Greek word for revelation. Since it refers to a divine message about the end of the world, in the minds of many it is associated with prophecy. It maintains that the world and all within it must be purged before it can enjoy that for which God intended it, and it believes that this purgation will be individual, social, and cosmic. For this reason an apocalyptic atti-tude is fundamentally pessimistic. It not only challenges but rejects 342 Review for Religious the prevailing social, economic, and political reality. It does not encourage involvement in the world in order to transform it. Instead, it advocates separation from the world in order to pre-vent contamination. An apocalyptic point of view contends that sinful history is ultimately and exclusively under divine control, and therefore it awaits the defeat of evil and the triumph of good-ness. It believes that only after purgation will the new age appear and God's reign be victorious and unchallenged. While prophetic fervor drives people into the marketplace (for example, Jesus going from village to village proclaiming the reign of God), apocalyptic zeal frequently bids them escape into the desert (for example, the Essenes of Qumr~n waiting for the reign of God to come). At times prophetic insight has been confused with an apostolic spirit, which also calls for decision, repentance, .and reform and is also 6ommitted to the transformation of the world. The word apos-tle comes from the Greek for "send," and it stresses the intimate relationship between t~he sender and the person sent, rather than any message that may be involved. In a veery significant way, the one sent actually represents the sender. "Those who hear you, hear me; and those who reject you, reject me" (Lk 10:16). Paul under-stood his call in this way: "So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making an appeal through us" (2 Cor 5:20). Such an intimate rela-tionship between the apostolic minister and the Lord is more than a matter of personal holiness. It is inextricably li.nked with repre-sentation of the Lord to the world. This is quite different from the situation of the prophet, where the focus is not on the person sent but on the message sent. Belief in the power of the word itself is clearly seen in a passage from Second Isaiah(55:10-11): For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down And do not return there " till they have watered the earth, making i( fertile and fruitful, Giving seed to those who sow and bread to those who eat, So shall my word be that comes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it. Insisting on these distinctions does not suggest that an apos-tle cannot also be prophetic Or that a prophet may not at times May-June 1993 343 Bergant ¯ Would That All Were Prophets entertain an apocalyptic attitude. Rather, it is to point out that these perspectives are in fact different from each other. "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (J1 3:1) The LCWR/CMSM statement speaks of conversion, critique, and change, language that implies that religious life is indeed at a crossroads. It further claims that "religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society." Such a claim pre-sumes that an entire body of people will enjoy a kind of insight When the community finds itself at a crossroads, prophetic witness becomes more crucial and even more complex, because there is ambiguity among the members regarding it. that is normally not communal. This prompts us to ask: How can we ascribe prophetic witness to the whole group without compromising the power of unique prophetic insight? In answering this question, we must remember that religious commu-nities are made up of the daughters and sons of foundresses and founders, who critiqued the dominant social and reli-gious cultures of their times and found them wanting and who, as a result, brought new vision and devised new ways of living in the world and in the church. They frequently called for repentance and reform; they always called for decision. Their visions, their insights, became the charisms of their religious families. Because these charisms were always in some way prophetic, fidelity to tMm will always result in a form of prophetic witness. This will be true even when a community does not face a time of crisis, for devoted living out of the founding charism is the fundamental prophetic ideal to which members always commit themselves. Rededication to the ideals of the com-munity does not always call for prophetic insight, but it always demands faithful commitment. However, when the community finds itself at a crossroads, prophetic witness becomes more crucial and even more complex, because there is ambiguity among the members regarding it. It may be that social changes call for a new and contemporary inter-pretation of the founding charism (for example, the early Christian controversy regarding the admission of the Gentiles and the 344 Review for Religqous observance of the Law [Acts 16]). When this is the case, a com-munity faces a serious challenge. It must choose which guidelines to follow in critiquing the social change itself, and it must decide how the integrity of the charism can be guaranteed even as it is reinterpreted. The community as a group must discern how to address this challenge faithfully, and communities do not always achieve consensus on such matters without difficulty. On the other hand, the group may have lost its prophetic edge and may be itself in need of prophetic critique. Such a cri-tique should come from within the community, from an insider who knows the charism intimately and can bring its challenge to bear upon prevailing community understandings that are inade-quate. But who can perceive and articulate the hopes and ideals of the community in such a way as to speak both to it and for it? The community must discern this matter as well. (An example of such a dilemma is the ill-fated clash between the prophets Jeremiah and Hananiah [Jer 28].) Since the charism is to be found within the group and not merely in the intuitions of one individ-ual, the community must be able to recognize itself in the insights of its perceptive member or members. The task of a community at a crossroads is twofold: (1) a crit-ical examination of "the signs of the times" in order to discern the real religious needs of the moment and (2) a thorough anal-ysis of its established religious institutions and practices in order to discover their underlying traditional religious value. Only after such examination and analysis can the community hope to bring to bear on contemporary needs the traditional religious values that flow from its charism. It is not enough to approach this task with faith and commitment. Serious examination, rigorous eval-uation, and faithful yet imaginative reinterpretation are required, all of which call for extensive information, keen insight, and cre-ative visioning on the part of each member and the community as a whole. Not every member will be proficient at each step in this analysis and reinterpretation, but if each member has been formed in the founding charism, everyone will be able to enter into the process in a thoroughly beneficial manner. It is in this way that prophetic witness can be ascribed to the whole group without compromising the power of unique prophetic insight. "Behold, I make all things new" (Rv 21:5) Time and again we have heard it said that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift. May-June 1993 345 Bergant ¯ WouM That All Were Prophets Actually, because of the complexity of today's world, we are under-going the radical shift of m~iny paradigms. The ways in which we understood the world, society, human endeavor, and theology seem no longer adequate to meet and interpret the realities now facing us. The presuppositions of the modern world with its tech-ntlogic~ il achievements and its hierarchical manner 6f manage-ment are being seriously challenged. We ai'e standing on the threshold of the postmodern world, and yet we remain caught in many of the paradigms of the past. For example, we know that the patterns of growth and pros-perity which have provided many of us in the Western world with the benefits of material comfort can no longer be sustained at the same rate or for the same number of people as has been the case till now. One reason for this is that we are depleting our available material resources and are doing little or nothing to replenish them. There are limits to the environment's ability to sustain the kind of lifestyle to which the Western world has grown accus-tomed. Nature may be able to endure a certain amount of imbal-ance, but if its tolerance is exceeded it can no longer be expected to sustain our life. Despite our realization of this fact, we are still caught in a lifestyle that requires an inordinate amount of fuel for heating and for travel, of water for cooling, of paper for com-munication, and so forth. Another reason that we can no longer sustain our present pat-terns of gro.wth and prosperity is that we no~ realize that our privileged lifestyle has often been secured at the expense of the human rights of others. Frequently we are able to procure what we need or what we want at bargain prices only because workers that provide us with these products are paid wages far below what they need in order to live with dignity and hope. We already fight wars over land and the control of natural resources and at the expense of vulnerable people and nations. Still, we continue to live relatively comfortable lives while professing to be in solidar-ity with the disadvantaged. On another issue, we reject any androcentric or misogynist anthropological view that regards women as derivative. We refuse to consider ourselves natural followers rather than leaders, sup-porters rather than directors, dependents rather than providers. We have become sensitized to language and imagery that explic-itly insults, subtly minimizes, or completely disregards women. And yet at times we ourselves employ the very strategies of priv- 346 Review for Religious ilege and control, both among ourselves and with others that we believe relegated us to positions of subservience in the first place. In yet another area we are engaged in ministerial situations that call for a high degree of resilience and include extensive trav-eling. Ours is a kind of itinerant existence which demands that rootedness, a feature that is essential for any sound life, be found somewhere else than in a particular place. Despite this we are often efltangled in concepts of community that are more fitted to a sedentary lifestyle than a peripatetic one. . Finally, we have committed ourselves to the transformation of the world, a world that seems bent on greed and power and on violence in order to preserve privilege. We have taken on min-istries of advocacy; direct social service; ecological, peace, and justice activism; and the influencing of policy on all .levels of gov-ernment, and we carry out these ministries in dangerous circum-stances. We have committed ourselves to uncommon selflessness. All the same, we are often caught in the contemporary preoccu-pation with our own health, both physical and spiritual; the sur-vival of our group and our institutions, even at the price of compromised ideals; and the glorification of personal and pro-fessional accomplishments. None of the above is done hard-heartedly. Rather, things have changed either so rapidly or so imperceptibly that we have had neither the time nor the insight carefully to analyze either the old models that governed us or the new ones that are emerging. Nonetheless, we have already taken upon ourselves the task of fashioning an alternative way of living in the world, and if we are to be faithful to this commitment, we will have to examine seri-ously not only what we do but also how we do it. We will have to learn anew that the reign of God is more a process than~a prod-uct. It is brought to birth not so much in what we do as in the way we do it. Although it is in the world, it is not of the world, and this includes the world's systems and strategies. In order to bring this reign to birth, we must first acknowl-edge that this same world has played an active role in forming us into the people we have become. We possess many of its features (for example, our political and economic values), and we carry the effects of its history (for example, our inherited preferences and prejudices). Although it plays sugh a formative role in our lives, we are not always aware of the ways in which our particu-lar worldview promotes our own well-being and enhances our May-.l~une 1993 347 Bergant ¯ IVould That All 14Zere Prophets lives. It is very easy to take for granted the attitudes and mores into which we have been socialized and to presume that they and only they offer a way of dignified human living. Yet how will we be able to transform the world if we are not even aware of how We must listen to the marginal, not because their way of living and coping is better than ours, but because they help us to see what is wrong with a system that makes people marginal in the first place. much we are embedded in that world and its values, and how much that world and its values are embedded in us? Usually it is only when people feel restricted or in some way diminished (in other words, when they are not members of the dominant or influential group of the culture) that they question the justice of the restriction and then of the underlying rea-sons for it or for the continuation of it. This explains why those who suffer oppression or who are relegated to marginality or invis-ibility within a group are sometimes better critics of that group than are those who are privileged and satisfied. We must listen to the marginal, not because their way of liv-ing and coping is better than ours, but because they help us to see what is wrong with a system that makes people marginal in the first place. But even this may not be enough. We may need someone's prophetic insight to uncover for us our own complicity with such systems and with the world that we hope to transform. We may need to listen to the voices in the world and in the church that offer us insights that, left to our own devices, we may not be able to gain; voices that call for authentic collaboration rather than subtle control, for willing cooperation rather than self-interested competition, for genuine interdependence rather than aloof independence or inappropriate dependence, for gra-cious mutuality rather than uncompromising domination, for uni-versal justice rather than selective exploitation, for unaffected respect rather than veiled disdain, for tender compassion rather than detached indifference, for the reign of God rather than busi-ness as usual. This paper ends where it began, with the challenge of the LCWR/CMSM statement: "Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will 348 Review for Religious serve a prophetic role in church and society." The task before us appears monumental, but then we are taking on the whole world. Like our predecessors in their own periods of crisis, in many ways we are in uncharted waters, but they did not drown--so why should we expect to? We are being called upon to address urgent human needs that are not only social but also religious in nature. As we work to transform the world, we are bringing to birth the reign of God. Added to this challenge is the task of developing a contemporary theological understanding of who we are and what we are doing. We may still claim meaningful religious traditions that informed us in the past, but our conventional expression of these traditions is not always helpful in the postmodern world that we face. Despite all of this, we believe that we have been called by God and that we are the heirs of a prophetic charism. We are convinced that we must be steadfast in what we do, without being unyielding. We must be bold as we face the unknown, with-out being foolhardy. We must be confident of the pervasive power of God's love, without being presumptuous. We must be creative as we face the future, without being forgetful of the past. In all of this we must be genuinely humble, for after all it is God who promises: "Behold, I make all things new" (Rv 21:5). Letterto a Friend on Her Return from Retreat in a Hermitage Don't be afraid; you bring the forest and the trees back with you. Deer roam the corners of your room; shadows hang upon the curtdins, crouch playfully upon the pane. Healing is not out there; it's within if it's at all. Deep nights and double days, the soft wool throw of quiet. Peace: you carry it with you like persistent pink impatiens in your heart. Ann Maureen Gallagher IHM May-June 1993 349 PAUL J. PHILIBERT Committed Christian Secularity tkniS difficult to profess a Christian lifestyle that is very little own and largely misunderstood, but my hope is that secu-lar institutes will become better known and much more appreci-ated. In this article I argue that the consecrated life of the professed secular Christian is the most vivid example of the ide-als of Christian living in the secular world that were put forward at Vatican Council II. In the light of this council's theology, one would expect church leaders to illustrate the radical meaning of baptism by speaking at every opportunity of'the ideals and prac-tice of members of secular institutes. Yet four years ago, when Pope John Paul II spelled out in his apostolic exhortation Christifideles Laici the "vocation" and "mission" of the lay faithful in the church and in the world, he made only the briefest refer-ence to secular institutes: In the field of a "commonly shared" lay vocation, "spe-cial" lay vocations flourish. In this area we can also recall the spiritual experience of the flourishing of diverse forms of secular institutes that have developed recently in the church. These offer the lay faithful, and even priests, the possibility of professing the evangelical coun-sels of poverty, chastity, and obedience through vows or promises, while fully maintaining one's lay or clerical state.~ Many diocesan bishops in the United States appear to be unaware of the meaning of secular institutes or unconcerned about their development. What, we may ask, does this lacuna in the ordinary teaching of the church actually mean? Paul J. Philibert oP is prior provincial of the Southern Dominican Province. His address is 3407 Napoleon Avenue; New Orleans, Louisiana 70125. 350 Revie'w for Religious One can start the assessment by noting that the present papal administration seems to be distancing itself from some of the reformist orientations of the council. For so long have we been dividing recent church history into two periods called "concil-iar" and "postconciliar" that we have failed to recognize a more complex reality which needs to be named. Like many others, I would divide these years into three periods: 1963-1965, the "con-ciliar" years, during which the council was in session; 1965 until the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, the "postconciliar" years, dur-ing which the Vatican and most Catholic bishops endeavored to implement the liturgical and pastoral reforms of the council; and, since 1978, a period of "ecclesiastical reassessment" during the pontificate of John Paul II. One of the council fathers, who is now a retired archbishop, has said, "The council rejected triumphalism (the church has all the answers), clericalism (the church is a pyramid), and legalism (church teachings presented as laws). The church is in the mod-ern world as are its ministers. There is no retreating to being people of another world.''2 Yet, to a greater or lesser degree, all three of these orientations--triumphalism, clericalism, and legal-ism-- are creeping back into the attitudes and utterances of some church leaders. Some describe the present tendency of the Vatican as "restoration," that is, an orientation to restore things to the way they were before Vatican II. That may be too extreme a judgment, even though one can understand why some think that way. Different observers account for this retrenchment from the "postconciliar" period in different ways. Some have observed that a significant motivation for this papal administration has been to avoid schism with the Lefebvrites and other ultraconservative Catholics; they say that the Vatican has been bending .over back-wards to avoid alienating those who pretend that Vatican II never happened. Others suggest that some high officials in the Vatican believe that much that came out of the council was mistaken in its orientation and must be replaced with the preconciliar solutions. Probably more accurate is the view that many of the documents of Vatican II are compromise statements that contain the seeds of tension that are now sprouting and bearing the fruit of division and conflict over some basic notions of church. Tlie major orientations of this pontificate that seem to touch on secular institutes are centralization and institutional nostal- May-June 1993 351 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity The major orientations of this pontificate that seem to touch on secular institutes are centralization and institutional nostalgia. gia. Regarding centralization, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some heads of Vatican congregations think that incultura-tion and diversity of practice have gotten out of hand. Cardinal Ratzinger is reported as saying that national organizations of bish-ops have gone too far in establishing their independence of Vatican control. Some American bishops, and bishops in Holland and Germany too, have been called on the carpet and chided for statements of theirs. These are examples of what I mean by central-ization. This pontificate does not want anything to be happening in the local churches without consultation with the top. As regards institutional nostalgia, the example of religious comes to mind. The pope personally or through personal del-egates working above the level of the Roman congregations has given prefer-ential treatment to certain new, conser-vative religious institutes like the Society of St. Peter and the Legionaries of Christ as well as to some small traditionalist groups that stayed with the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre. During the summer of 1992, the Holy See granted approval to a new Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious in the United States at the request of a small number of traditionalist sisters here. (They are fewer than ten percent of the religious women in this country.) This fairly momentous decision was taken by the pope at the behest of an American cardinal arch-bishop without any consultation of the three existing church lead-ership conferences: the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. Among other interpretations, actions like these make one wonder if this pontificate is calling into question the principles and outcomes of the past thirty years of efforts at institutional renewal undertaken by the vast majority of religious in this country and in western Europe. What is being held up as a positive counterex-ample is the attitude and practice of a small number of religious who follow a regular'daily order and wear a distinctive habit. 352 Review for Religious Separation rather than transformation marks the spirit that is approved. I need to admit, of course, that mistakes and excesses did occur in the thirty years of postconciliar efforts at renewal. That is too obvious to miss. But it needs to be pointed out, I believe, that the Vatican seems now to single out for approval a simple return to the ways of the preconciliar period. This is what I mean by institutional nostalgia. Applying these observations to secular institutes, I note that their form of consecration does not fit well either with central-ization or with institutional nostalgia. They are trying new ways of implementing the church's ancient commitment to consecrated Christian life. Even though their commitment and spirituality are admirably in accord with the lay vocation and mission as described in Pope John Paul's apostolic exhortation, their juridi-cal and cultural independence place them somewhat outside the central preoccupations of this pontificate. In this context I now ask two essential questions: What is the vocation of a consecrated secular Christian? And how should it evolve? Institutes Described in the Code" of 1983 The 1983 Code of Canon Law describes secular institutes carefully. Their members share a radical commitment to Christian witness and apostolic endeavor. The charism given to secular institutes and recognized by the church is to united Christian commitment and secular presence in the world. Members remain lay or diocesan priests, even though they receive a canonical sta-tus in view of their profession of a consecrated life. The 1983 Code has abandoned the term "states of perfec-tion" and, above all, the language of Provida Mater (1947), which allowed one to think that there was a sort of hierarchy of institutes of perfection which placed members of secular institutes within a third rank. Canon 710 says: "A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctifica-tion of the world especially from within." The use of the cate-gory "consecrated life" allows the possibility of avoiding reference to the category "religious." In the eyes of the present Code, "reli-gious" and "seculars" are two categories of consecrated life of equal dignity. May-June 1993 353 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity Canon 713, §2, indicates that lay members, in the world and operating in a secular manner, participate in the church's evan-gelizing task in various ways: (a) by means of the witness of their Christian life, (b) by their fidelity to their profession of the evan-gelical counsels, (c) by their "efforts to order temporal things to God," and (d) by shaping the things of the world so that they are enlivened by the spirit of the gospel. "Also, they cooperate in serving the ecclesial community, according to their particular sec-ular way of life" (c. 713). Members of secular institutes are called to strive for the per-fection of charity. The ultimate purpose of secular institutes is apostolic. Their apostolate is the expression and the exercise 6f their consecration. As to lifestyle, the Code of 1983 is insistent upon the secular dimension of their living. Neither common life nor religious garb is to be imposed upon members) Consecration vs. Commitment Let us linger for a moment on the term "consecration"; it is the source of a great potential misunderstanding. Almost thirty years ago, Father M. D. Chenu (the gre, at French Dominican theologian who died in 1991) pointed out that the term "consecration" was loaded with ambiguity when employed in a context of relation or service to the world. The word, from the Latin for "to make sacred," supposes an opposition between the sacred and the profane. Is it, asked Chenu, a useful term.at precisely the moment when the Roman Catholic Church is articulating its openness to the world and its embrace of the ordinary conditions of human expe-rience (see Gaudium et Spes)? Historically the word "profane" meant "not pertaining to that which is sacred or holy," from the Latin for "outside the temple." So, Chenu argued, we would do better in this age to leave aside the term consecration, which suggests an oppo-sition to the secular (the nonsacred) and to express the intensifi-cation of a Christian life with a word like commitment.4 Chenu was at the time in search of the authentic meaning of religious life. His remark is even more pertinent to the vocation of members of secular institutes. Chief among their stated goals is to witness to the fullness of a lay vocation or (in the case of ordained members) of baptismal maturity in a world of secularity. The key issue, it seems, is how to be an active participant in sec-ular life and at the same time to be an exemplary Christian. 354 Review for Religious Secular and Christian What is authentic secular living, and what is authentic Christian witness? One of the meanings of the word secular (from the Latin saeculum, meaning "age") is "pertaining to the spirit of the age or the character of the times." This may refer to things like clothing styles and popular music, but is there a deeper mean-ing too? What is the most profound challenge of our age? I think that the answer lies somewhere within the interplay of political and religious phenomena. We are coming out from what was sometimes called "the age of alienation" or "the age of anxiety." Not that all alienation and anxiety are over and done with, but the world seems to be mov-ing out from under the cloud that threatened us for 45 years with nuclear destruction. It is amazing, now that the Cold War is ended, that there is not more acknowledgment and analysis of the waste of wealth on arms of cosmic destructive power. If the trillions of dollars spent on armaments in the past five decades had been available for peaceful solutions to world problems, we could have eliminated illiteracy and starvation and attacked poverty and disease. We were victims of irrational fear for fifty years; now that period is passing. The demise of the major communist governments is another symbol of a changing age. The irony is that Karl Marx devised the philosophy of communism as a response to "alienation"--people not being able to participate meaningfully in the economic and political processes that governed their lives. The tragedy is that the government of the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin became instead a totalitarian dictatorship that was even more alienating than the corrupt government to which it was reacting. Marx's issue, though--participation versus alienation--is still the issue. Here in the United States, at the end of an overlong pres-idential electoral campaign, it is not at all clear that people are pre-pared to participate vigorously in politics, We have been alienated by the media and by the deviousness of the c~ndidates themselves from truly raising or genuinely addressing the issues that are the most significant for our nation as a whole. In the religious world, participation versus alienation is like-wise a key issue. One analysis of the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath is that the dominant social reality of this age has been to promote full participation in church life--worship and administration included--to all those who, by their baptism, are May-ffune 1993 355 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity entitled to dynamic interaction within the "body of Christ." Forty years ago we would never have conceived of a woman eucharistic minister, a lay pastoral administrator, or a nonclerical chancellor of a diocese. Now we have all these things and have learned to take them for granted. Despite the fact that more progress has been made in securing entitlements to church office for lay people in general and women in particular in the past fifty years than in the previous fifteen hun-dred years, there is nonetheless strong agitation for even more par-ticipation, includinglthe ordination of Catholic women to priestly service. It can be argued that to be authentically "secular" today is to take a stand for the promotion of rightful participation of all persons in the structures, processes, and decisions that shape their lives and shape the communities in which they live. Authentic Secularity Authentic secularity includes three Cs: conversation, com-passion, and conversion. Social psychologists have argued that people enter into a new form of relation when they treat others not as strangers or inferiors, but equals. This is what I mean by "conversation." A conversation is marked by give-and-take, by listening as well as speaking, receiving as well as giving. This atti-tude, when adopted intentionally, empowers others. It opens us to the perspective of another despite distances of role and situation. It favors the understanding and fellow feeling that we generally call "compassion." Living this relation of conversation and com-passion promotes experiences of "conversion." Here conversion means for me a reorientation that makes us eager to promote the growth and freedom of others. By this conversion, one becomes an agent of liberation and a facilitator of the moral and emotional maturity of our neighbors in this world. My effort to spell out the agenda of authentic secularity in our age of transition has remained rather general and abstract, but I hope that these ideas may stimulate recognition of these patterns or possibilities in yourself. I hope you will notice that many people are still marginalized from government and the econ-omy, education and the church, and that their true well-being can be promoted through their fuller participation in these things. The promotion of such participation is a clear responsibility of those who have secular integrity .at heart. 356 Review for Religious Authentic Christian Witness Beyond secular integrity, how does one integrate authentic Christian witness with it? How is one authentically Christian today? First, I would observe that the key issue here is more akin to pol-itics than to piety. I use "politics" in Plato's classical sense, mean-ing the ethos and the discourse of a people. Of all the dynamic changes that have touched the lives of American Catholics as a result of Vatican II, none has been as important or as far-reaching as the transformation of our sense of church. We no longer see Sunday worship as sacred theater. We see that we are each church, but not as isolated consciousnesses, isolated pieties, or isolated agendas. We are church as part of an organic cooperation and growing solidarity in the gospel and in the Holy Spirit. The council's mos~t dramatic theological paradigm shift, according to most theologians, was the fresh view of the church as the people of God. This view was the fruit of decades of the-ological work, especially biblical research and exegesis, liturgical studies, and the reinstitution of adult catechesis in northern Europe in the period between the two world wars. All three of these streams of research found it important to stress the theo-logical continuity between the Old Testament and the New. The opinion that the Old Testament's God was thunderously severe and arbitrary while the New Testament's God is forgiving and gentle was seen for the simplistic misinformation that it was. Better biblical texts and better exegesis, based not upon early Latin translations, but rather upon ancient Hebrew manuscripts, allowed several generations of biblical scholars and theologians to appreciate the theology of the Old Testament for what it was, a testament of mercy and salvation. The key concept of both tes-taments, which unified the revelation of the ages, was that of a people called and saved by God from alienation and absurdity. From the call of Abraham through the story of the sons of Jacob, the Egyptian slavery and the exodus, the kingships and the exile, and the times of the prophets and the remnant, one message dom-inated salvation history. God called and chose a people to become his very own so that they could bear witness in their very existence to his transcendent reality and mercy. The theology of Vatican II places this truth above all others, forcing other themes of theology and other pastoral insights to adjust to it. God calls a people to be the visible expression of God's way with the real. The descendents of Jacob, Israel, heard May-.l~une 1993 357 Pbilibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity In Jesl, ls ~ God was again calling a people to be his own--. this time a people so closely identified with Jesus the Lord as to be calledhis "Body." (despite disbelief and temptation) and were haunted by God's call until they became the Judaism of history. Jesus came to call them into an intimate relation of love, forgiveness, and transformation by revealing the mystery of the triune God. But many of them rejected the Messiah Jesus, and the story of God's people reached a new moment in the followers of Jesus. These followers carried the "good news" to the nations, while Israel "hardened its heart" once again. But the fundamental truth did not change: in Jesus, God was again calling a people to be his own--this time a,~ people so closely identified with Jesus the Lord as to be called his "Body." It may be that in this theological insight lies the greatest challenge of all for members of secular institutes. For reasons largely associated with the ori-gins of secular institutes in hostile, anti-clerical societies, the institutes adopted the principle of discretion or reserve. One characteristic of this is that the members are not to lead a lifestyle pub-licly distinct from that of their neigh-bors. Part of their "secularity" is their immersion in the ordinary. A public religious profession or an unusual lifestyle would deny institute members access to the are-nas of.activity and witness in which they hope to use their apos-tolic energies: the place of work, casual neighborhood conversations, and the deliberations of university faculties, gov-ernment agencies, and community assemblies. This kind of anonymity--not publicizing their secular- institute commitment-- need not keep members from active involvement in a local parish's liturgical and apostolic life, but institutes differ in encouraging their members to lend their energies to the shared life and apos-tolic projects of their parish community. An authentic Christian life, however, is, as I said above, an ecclesial life. The institute members must always reflect the call of God to all Christians to be part of the people, of God and to give solid witness to God's presence and mercy in the midst of a hurting world. Therefore, they need to guard against such things as escapism, a piety .that is self-absorbed rather than apostolic, 358 Revie~ for Religious and a manner of liturgical participation that avoids involvement with the worshiping community. The ministry of reconciliation and atonement of the Lord Jesus can be seen as a work of solidarity with those who had become alienated from the forgiving and empowering word of his Father. As Vatican II's Constitution on Divine Revelation puts it, "Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making himself present and manifesting himself: through his words and deeds, his signs and wonders, but especially through his death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final send-ing of the Spirit of truth." The central challenge to our moment of time from the gospel is that of visibly joining the dynamics of faith and of social trans-formation. I have been trying to evoke a general sense of the issues that are involved in this joining. But now it is time to turn to the admirable text of Pope John Paul II that followed upon the synod of bishops of 1987 and in which he summarizes the synod's theological insights. Christifideles Laici At the heart of the pope's message in Christifideles Laici is the assertion that lay Christians can bring to the frontiers of society a presence of the church that is unique. As the council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Says, "The laity are called in a spe-cial way to make the church present and operative in those places and dircumstances where only through them can she become the salt of the earth" (§33).5 It is the secular insertion of the laity that is the treasured aspect of their witness, in the pope's analysis. He says, "In particular, the lay faithful are called to restore to creation all its original value. In ordering creation to the authentic well-being of humanity in an activity governed by the life of grace, they share in the exercise of the power with which the risen Christ draws all things to himself and subjects them along with himself to the Father, so that God might be everything to everyone" (§14). The pope interprets the secular character of the lay Christian as a theological dimension of the experience of being Christian. It involves living in the world and transforming it through the exer-cise of "every one of the secular professions and occupations." It involves their relationships with family, friends, professionals, members of society, and authorities of the civil order. May-June 199.~ 359 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity The pope's theological affirmation appears to be that living and working in the context of ordinary reality from motives of faith in God and love for our human fellows is in itself an exercise of grace with the power to influence and ennoble human exchanges. The pope makes an unusually strong statement in saying: The images of salt, light, and leaven taken from the gospel, although indiscriminately applicable to all Jesus' disciples, are specifically applied to the lay faithful. They are partic-ularly meaningful images because they speak not only of the deep involvement and the full participation of the lay faithful in the affairs of the earth, the world, and the human community, but also and above all they tell of the radical newness and unique character of an involvement and par-ticipation which has as its purpose the spreading of the gospel that brings salvation (§ 15). The pope goes on to emphasize that a member of the lay faithful cannot remain in isolation from the community, but must live in an interaction with others that builds up the church. With reference to the church's liturgy, the pope says, "The various min-istries, offices, and roles that the lay faithful can legitimately ful-fill in the liturgy, in the transmission of the faith, and in the pastoral structure of the church ought to be exercised in confor-mity to their specific lay vocation, which is different from that of the sacred ministry" (§23). At the heart of lay people's ecclesial life is the parish, which is the symbol and the realization of the community of Christians. The pope reports that at the synod the bishops, in their discus-sions about renewing parishes, proposed two approaches: (1) "adaptation of parish structures according to the full flexibility granted by canon law, especially in promoting participation by the lay faithful in pastoral responsibilities"--so as to respond to situations where parishes have become geographically too large or where exiles and migrants demand specific pastoral responses (such as ministry in languages foreign to the place); and (2) devel-oping "small, basic or so-called 'living' communities where the faithful can communicate the word of God and express it in ser-vice and love to one another; these communities are true expres-sions of ecclesial co~nmunion and centers of evangelization in communion with their pastors" (§26). Thus the pope links the renewal of the parish to the expanded role of the lay faithful in the ani~nation and development of parish communities and the foundation of base communities alongside 360 Review for Religious and within the structure of existing parishes. Clearly, the need to find new forms of relationship that call to faith and celebrate faith within the neighborhood or the village is at one and the same time a diagnosis of the church's weakness today and a challenging mission for committed lay people. The pope, stating that the council insisted upon "the absolute necessity of an apostolate exercised by the individual [lay Christian]" (§28), then cites the following text of the council: The apostolate exercised by the individual--which flows abundantly from a truly Christian life (see Jn 4:14)--is the origin and condition of the whole lay apostolate, even in its organized expression, and admits no substitute. Regardless of circumstance, all lay persons (including those who have no opportunity or possibility for collaboration in associations) are called to this type of apostolate and obliged to engage in it. Such an apostolate is useful at all times and places, but in certain circumstances it is the only one avail-able and feasible.~ The pope's letter says much about the possibilities for holiness in committed lay life, but here I will include only some summary comments taken from its closing pages. A key preoccupation of Pope John Paul is to foster unity between everyday life and faith experience. He speaks of the need to evangelize the cultures within which we live. In part this means finding a place (in conversation and in social action) for the gospel values that the church preaches. Lives that integrate prayer, con-templation, and liturgical and sacramental life are a witness to the divine origin of our life and our world. The pope urges a readiness to take part in church programs and activities at local, national, and international levels. He indicates the crucial need for capable persons to commit themselves to catechesis and religious teaching. He urges people to organize gatherings and meetings focused upon a Christian analysis of family, civic, and social expe-rience. Finally, he mentions the value of a spirit of detachment and generosity and the power of the witness of poverty in a world " that is seduced by the power of materialism. John Paul then calls for a "reevangelization" of the Catholic and Christian world; we need, he says, to "remake the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community itself. This will be possible if the lay faithful will know how to overcome in themselves the separation of the gospel from life, to again take up in their daily activities in family, work, and society an integrated approach to life May-.~ne 1993 361 Philibert ¯ Committed Christian Secularity that is fully brought about by the inspiration and strength of the gospel" (§34). Earlier I noted how odd I find it that this lengthy document refers only briefly to secular institutes. I will not dwell further on that point. I observe, however, two things on the relation between secular institutes and the pope's apostolic exhortation on the laity: (1) I think this papal document is an extraordinarily well-crafted exposition of the meaning of the life of the vows for members of secular institutes. What they effectively commit them-selves to is an intense baptismal transformation as spelled out in the documents of Vatican II and summarized in the pope's letter. (2) The papal teaching here takes us a step further. The mem-bers of secular institfites must be committed to fostering the Christian life of their friends and neighbors. There is a mission-ary dimension to their vocation--towards their neighbor and towards the common culture within which they live and celebrate together. Although I have no firsthand experience of living the life of secular institutes, I have come as an interested outsider to the study of this dedicated form of life. My hope is not to answer ques-tions and close off discussion, but to raise questions and open new avenues of dialogue. I feel that secular institutes, especially in the United States, have a great opportunity. The church needs evan-gelical guidelines to help people grow in personal holiness and in effective witness to all the people around them. And so I hope that members of secular institutes will find ways to articulate their sense of their vocation even more clearly 9nd ways to make others aware of the very existence of secular institutes and the nature of their life. The gospel warns us about keeping treasures hidden. Notes ~ John Paul II, The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People: Christifideles Laici (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1989), §56. 2 David M. Bulger, "Men Who Love Their Priesthood and Their Church," Touchstone (National Federation of Priests' Councils newslet-ter) 8, no. 1 (fall 1992), p. 2. The prelate in question is the Most Rev. James Martin Hayes, retired archbishop of Halifax. 3 See the helpful summary in E Valdrini, J. Vernay, J. E Durand, and O. l~chapp~, Droit Canonique (Paris: Dalloz, 1989), pp. 188-121. 362 Review 3~r Religious 4 M. D. Chenu, "Consecratio Mundi," in The Christian in the World: Readings in Theology (New York: Kenedy, 1965), pp. 161-177. 5 The Documents of Vatican H, ed. and trans. W. M. Abbot and J. Gallagher (Ne~ York: Association Press, 1966): The Dogmatic Con-stimtion on the Church, §33. 6 Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (Apostolicam Actuositatem), §16. Loving Verbs I've always loved nouns. Neatly framed words with clear definitions. Solid, stable words that name safe things, things you can count on and hold and keep. I know now that I've been afraid of verbs. Words that do and have and are. Words that whirl past you so fast you can't catch them, that alter and change things and give ulcers to nouns . Loving verbs is like saying yes to the rollercoaster, going on but still being scared. Loving verbs is saying yes to a kaleidoscope of action and being and having and feeling. Loving verbs is saying yes to Possibility. I think it's time for me to fall in love with verbs. Christen Shukwit OSF May-~une 1993 363 prayer SUZANNE ZUERCHER and direction Liturgy of the Hours: A Reflection "Ritual is the enactment of the myth." --Joseph Campbell The reality of monastic" life has always been formed and shaped around the ritual of the Liturgy of the Hours. In his Rule for Monasteries St. Benedict devoted numerous, if brief, chapters to the content and structure of this prayer, which he called the Work of God. The Divine Office requires that monastics pause again and again, offer praise together, and then move on to the next aspect of their lives. The complete circle of the monastic day gains its momentum ahd energy by stopping for the Work of God. Many monastics no longer spend eight periods daily praying the Liturgy of the Hours. Nevertheless, the pri-ority of this liturgical prayer remains, and they continue to gather daily. For contemporary monastics, as for early ones, this form of worship best manifests what their life together is about. Early monastics were lay persons even in all-male communities, and so opportunities for daily eucharistic celebrations did not exist in many monasteries. In such a context it is understandable that Benedict would place a high priority on the Work of God, which he made the distinctive and constant form of community praise and worship. It remains the heart of monastic prayer life even in this twentieth century. Suzanne Zuercher OSB, well known for her writings and work-shops, has held both administrative and formation roles in her community. Her address is: St. Scholastica Priory; 7430 North Ridge Boulevard; Chicago, Illinois 60645. 364 Re'view for Religious In times when we are so intent on exploring what religious community really means, one place to look for the answer is in this ritual of the Liturgy of the Hours. Joseph Campbell tells us that by examining a ritual we can find out about the myth the ritual attempts to express. For this reason I would like to spend time reflecting on elements of the Divine Office as it is celebrated in monastic communities in order to better understand what com-munity means in such settings. Today's monastic communi-ties say something about who they are as they gather daily for this ritual and worship. Perhaps even they need to pay close attention to what that statement is. Are we overlooking what community life is and needs to remain by failing to examine what may well be its clearest manifestation? Initially, the most basic communication a monastic community makes by gathering for the Work of God is that their life is founded on hope. David Steindl-Rast in his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer distinguishes hope from optimism. A hopeful per-son lives in the present. An optimistic one looks ahead, pumping up positive feelings of how good things will be. A person of hope looks with confidence and trust into reality simply as it is right now. He or she--or they when one speaks of a community of hopeful people--finds life in ordinary, humble, actual experience. Rather than having expectations of good things to come, persons of hope have only one expectation: For those who live and wait in the present moment, life/Life will be a surprise. Monastics watch for such surprises. Ritual, Campbell also reminds us, is by its very nature boring. In its repetitiveness it fails as entertainment and distraction. Instead, ritual forces those who participate in it to search beneath the words and actions to discover the reality it gives shape to. This holds true whether worshipers are from Indonesia or Illinois. Boredom demands the deeper search for meaning beneath litur-gical action. Those who observe monastic communities repeating psalmody week after week and year after year may wonder what can possi- The most basic communication a monastic community makes by gathering for the Work of God is that their life is founded on hope. May-j%ne 1993 365 Zuercher ¯ Liturgy of the Hours bly draw them together for so repetitious a ritual. The sequential reading of Scripture, the yearly round of liturgical seasons, the consistent liturgical gestures are rhythmic, to be sure. To some, such repetition may appear empty and uncreative; but for monas-tics, whose worship is formed around this liturgy, such ordinari-ness underlines the reality of all human life and, consequently, of their life together. It calls to them, demands of them, that they look more deeply into what their lives are about. Eventually, if they are to continue to gather for the Hours, they are forced to cut through ritual to discover what that ritual signifies. It is dif-ficult, if not impossible, to endure the repetitive round of common prayer without such a breakthrough. Monastics who do not respond to this challenge to go deeper either go to sleep or despair. Sooner or later they absent them-selves psychically and physically from gatherings of the commu-nity in prayer or otherwise. Those, however, who hang, on in the face of meaninglessness can be led to the conversion at the heart of monastic commitment. Anguish and desperation can lead to rebirth and transformation in this as in other aspects of the spir-itual life. We do not willingly plumb our lives. We do so only when something demands that we move from the obvious to what that obvious is really expressing. We are forced to ask some questions: Why do we come together, stop our work, come home early, make sacrifices to be together for this time of prayer? What is the mean-ing behind what we do and say here? Do we believe all this, see it as important, even primary? Such questions are about the liturgy. But they are also, if we look closely at them, questions about community itself. Do we really see significance in using up our energies in praise of God together? Given life/Life as mystery, there is no final answer to any important human question. That is possibly why we keep asking what community is over and over again, generation after gener-ation, even though we have a Rule to guide us. Our human nature ultimately insists on experience. Experience is how we learn our answers. Liturgy of the Hours revolves around a lived experience of virtues we have all learned about which form the bedrock of the spiritual life. It makes these virtues concrete. First, we find faith in the gathering of the community, and we believe that life/Life will be found here. Then we recognize that the space in which we 366 Review for l~eligio~s gather is a sacred place where holiness will quicken us; for this we hope. And when it does bring the energy we call spirit/Spirit, we are truly one people, God's family, united in love with those who gather here and with the world of which we are a microcosm. Indeed, the place of our gathering for liturgy is sacred, but the spiritual spills over, if it is gen-uine, into all the other aspects of life: to the kitchen, the grounds, the classroom, the social agency, the hospital ward, the parish offices, the artist's studio. All are sacred places, all filled with objects and growing things and others who are sacred vessels. Benedict told his monastics to pause wherever they were in their work for God's Work, the Liturgy of the Hours, to remind themselves that everything is sacred. They were not to make life holy; they were to remind them-selves that it already is. Another element of monastic community is stability. Sometimes misunderstood as never going anywhere, stability does have something to do with being together in physical space. There is symbol in gathering. When community members come in one after another and take their places for the Work of God, their gathering together says what people want and need to hear expressed: You can count on my presence. Seeing the same per-sons gathered for prayer day after day makes real the word fidelity. The action of monastics looking around and noticing commu-nity members assembled with them is itself a form of prayer--a consoling and strengthening reminder that we wait as a people for our God (o come to save us. The monastics who gather share daily living, values, com-mitment; They are the same people who will be together in wor-ship and in all the other moments of existence as well. Praying together stands for and ritualizes all our being together. Talk and write as we will about the importance of being one in spirit, actu-ally hearing the voices and observing the silences and singing the psalmody with community members provides a needed testimony of this dedication to one another. The physical setting and its rituals offer another reflection on monastic community. As weeks pass, those who participate in the Liturgy of the Hours assume first one role in the ritual and then another. From presider to chanter, to reader, to the one who Praying together stands for and ritualizes all our being together. May-gTune 1993 367 Zuercber ¯ Liturgy of the Hours intones the various choirs, to merely being one of the group at prayer, the rhythm of life involves numerous tasks. The rhythm of monastic community is similar. One may be the prioress for a time, and then the procurator or the formation director, the gar-dener or the cook, the principal of the school or a teacher, the hospital administrator or a staff nurse. Monastics move easily and regularly throughout their lifetime in one another's company from the responsibilities of authority to those of obedience. They do so simply; it matters little in their life together what title they may have or how much prestige it carries. If today they have a larger role, yesterday they were one of the group and tomorrow they will be so again. Prolonged and consistent living among the same people pro-vides opportunity for a unique sort of learning. All the ministries monastics assume in the community and beyond it are for ser-vice, and this service changes. When a group lives in continuity with one another, moving from role to role is a normal, unim-pressive experience. Members give of their talents now in one way and now in another. The content of the Liturgy of the Hours is almost entirely scriptural. Meaning comes from the long and nourishing story of the Judeo-Christian tradition found in both Old and New Testaments. The history of redemption is larger than any indi-vidual person or any community, but Scripture provides words for the human experiences lived out by the whole group and each of its individual members. Monastics ponder the Scriptures until its words--and more importantly, the message they proclaim-- permeate their lives, are absorbed into the marrow of their bones. Body and mind and feelings soak up the liturgical seasons in their cyclic rhythm. In my own experience I once met a group of spiritual direc-tors who were to companion some monastic women on their first directed retreat. These directors expressed concern about how to introduce praying with Scripture. To their surprise, the monastics they directed not only understood the relevance of suggested pas-sages, they were able to add many others on the same theme. The directors were amazed at how steeped these women were in the concrete experiences which various Scriptures highlighted. Many of them had done litde formal scriptural study, but the constant association of the texts with their day-to-day lives had blended both together. 368 Review for Religious The simple reflection on the Gospel which the Liturgy of the Hours provides testifies to the natural, nonelaborate quality of the best of prayer, the best of living. There is design and order in the structul'e of God's Work, but medieval embellishments have been done away with in these times of ours. Monasticism is again being expressed very simply in its most basic and original form, and its prayer ritual has assumed some-thing of the natural breathing in and out of word and silence. As a result monastics experience the order and peace found when an appropriate amount of structure shapes life. It is important that what is and needs to be predictable not degenerate into rigid formalism. Monastic liturgy makes the statement that, as is true for all mature persons, mgnastics need to learn to bend with changing breezes without uprooting themselves as they do so. Perh.aps the most signifiEant statement the Liturgy of the Hours makes is that "it is good for us to be here." In the end, community is its own justification as is prayer. Religious life is valuable simply because it is. People live in community; it is the human thing to do. The kind of community people choose varies according to who they are. Monastics live their kind of commu-nity life primarily because it "fits" them. They find their whole-hess with other people who, like them, seek God, the Work of God and obedience as described in the Rule for Monasteries. When members of monastic communities live their under-standing of who they are in a whole and happy way, they cannot but witness to God's love and peace and joy. They do so simply by their lives. Of course, it is true that any whole person is called to care and to serve~ to be concerned and to work for the good of others. Monastics, therefore, find that they cannot contain what God has given them. It overflows to those around them and cre-ates yet another expression of stability in the environments in which they live. The vision of monastic community that underlies this article is idealized, to be sure. So, too, is the fantasy of perfectly carry-ing out the Liturgy of the Hours. Such perfection never happens. There are coughs and sneezes; people read too softly or too loudly, Perhaps the most significant statement the Liturgy of the Hours makes is that "it is good for us to be here." May-3~ne 1993 369 Zuercber ¯ Liturgy of the Hours too slowly or too fast. People forget to perform their assigned role in the ritual and the flow of things is upset. Differing inter-pretations about how the psalmody is to be read or sung by the group create subtle conflicts. All of these imperfections, and many more besides, limit the beauty and peace of liturgical celebration. Despite such imperfections, monastics continue to gather together for this less-than-perfect expression of a community life that is also less than perfect. They watch and wait, not knowing at what hour the Bridegroom will come in the form of some insight, some consolation, some discernment, some energy released from image or symbol, some decision to act. The Spirit blows when and where it wills. Those who wait find their quick-ening at the point of what we might Fall readiness--a readiness which differs for each person. It demands a culmination of a num-ber of life experiences to reach such a ripeness. Monastics gathered for Liturgy of the Hours never know when their individual hearts will be warmed, when the heart of the person beside them will be set on fire, when the community as a group will hear God's response to the Spirit's groaning within. But they wait, nonetheless, with a certain amount of patience and good humor for these freeing moments to occur in the world of time. This reality best describes for me what community is. It has not always been my description of our life together, but in recent years community has come to mean waiting with one another for each person's time. The ritual of Liturgy of the Hours celebrates and makes that description clear over and over, day after day. It, indeed, enacts the reality we struggle to define, the myth of reli-gious community. 370 Review for Religious KENNETH C. RUSSELL Get Serious! The Monastic Condemnation of Laughter /~,n, chapter six of his famous rule, St. Benedict bluntly forbids talk leading to laughter,''1 Later he notes that a monk has reached .the tenth step of humility when "he is not given to ready laughter:, for it is written: 'Only a fool raises his voice in laughter'" (Si 21:23).2 This condemnation of mirth is not, we must note, some oddity that can be explained away on the basis of Benedict's personal history or the troubled period in which he lived. His outright condemnation of the joviality we applaud was echoed in other monastic rules and in the critical comments of church fathers such as St. Ephrem and St. John Chrysostom.3 This harsh attitude toward laughter seems strange to us and even downright unhealthy. The early spiritual masters frowned on laughter; we, on the contrary, are suspicious of seriousness. ' In today's world all truth is spoken with a smile, as Horace rec-ommended, and Woody Allen, despite his recent troubles, is the only Hamlet we are willing to tolerate. Why Laughter Was Suspect But what prompted the first monks to condemn laughter? The scholars who have explored the early monastic rules and the sayings of the desert fathers offer various explanations. For one thing, laughter disrupts monastic order. It shatters the silence that represents the readiness of a disciple to listen.4 A monk who Kenneth C. Russell is a professor of the theology faculty at Saint Paul University. His address is Saint Paul University; 223 Main Street; Ottawa K1S 1C4; Canada. May-June 1993 371 Russell ¯ Get Serious.t is busy laughing is not ready to hear whatever may be spoken to him by the Holy Spirit or the abbot. In the monastic context it is the abbot's duty to speak and the monk's to listen,s The monas-tic rules are particularly hard on the effort to provoke laughter. In terms of order, this all makes sense because a joker in the clois-ter is obviously the equivalent of the clown in the back row of a classroom competing with the teacher for the other students' attention. Monasticism's reasons for rejecting laughter went deeper than that, however. The early monks prohibited laughter because they associated it with an arrogant, self-satisfied disdain for God and neighbor. Did Jesus not in fact say, "Woe to you who laugh now; you shall weep in your grief" (Lk 6:25)? And where in the New Testament does it say that Jesus laughed? This may not seem an important point to us, but the early monks took the failure of the gospels to show Jesus laughing quite seriously. They were not the only ones. Not even popular piety, which was ready in every cen-tury to fill the gaps in the gospel narrative with legends and sto-ries, ever developed the image of a lighthearted, laughing Jesus.6 Why this suspicion of laughter in the first Christian cen-turies? There would seem to be cultural as well as religious rea-sons for this uneasiness. In the tight-knit societies of the ancient world, laughter was likely to be laughter at someone: the for-eigner, the deformed, the handicapped. It separated the person who had done something "funny" from the group and made him or her a legitimate object of scorn. Laughter mocked and excluded the outsider. This social reality is reflected in the view of the ancient Greeks who, though they recognized risibility as a dis-tinctive human quality, concluded nonetheless that laughter was unbecoming to a mature human being because of its characteris-tic cruelty.7 The world in which monasticism took shape was sev-eral centuries away from the classical era, but the same high regard for how one appeared to others and the same sensitivity to shame were operative. Laughter, therefore, could be seen as a destruc-tive and even satanic force,s We must not think, however, that the fathers and the early monks favored a kind of pious gloom. They did not. In fact, some of those who made the harshest remarks about laughter were well known for their geniality and cheerfulness. What they frowned on was a certain lighthearted devil-may-care joviality. But why? To get to the heart of the matter, I think we have to look beyond the 372 Review for Religious historical situation and the predictable considerations of monas-tic discipline to the very essence of laughter. This is the only way we can discover what the fathers were really condemning and determine whether what they said has any message for us today. What Is So Funny? It seems to me that humor springs from the tension between our spiritual aspirations and the physical limitations imposed on us by our bodies and our confinement in a physical world with laws of its own. Comedy, in other words, is built into our very being. Even when we avoid the ridicu-lous pretensions that blind the proud to the banana peel right in front of them, we are funny creatures. Our efforts to go up the down escalator, our inability to guarantee that the soup in our spoon will reach our mouth without mishap, and all the other follies of daily life constantly remind us of our basic humanity or, to put it differently, of our littleness and dependence. Our comic condition mocks our solemnity? Therefore, if we have a prudent measure of humility and a min-imum of wisdom, we cheerfully accept our role in the human comedy and laugh at ourselves. We also laugh at others, but usually because we identify with them and see ourselves in their pratfalls. That is why Charlie Chaplin holds our attention or why we laugh at the-shy scientist in The Gods Must Be Crazy who falls all over every bit of furniture in sight in the presence of the attractive young woman who has entered his life. "Isn't it the truth!" we say. Male or female, we know what it is like to be completely overwhelmed by the attractiveness and charm of another human being. We have all been there, and our laughter celebrates our humanity and the glory of its fragile being. Our laughter testifies that the world, for all its troubles, is a joy-ous place and humanity, for all its pain, a wondrous thing in the hands of a God who can be trusted. Faith and cheerfulness would seem to go together. Our laughter testifies that the world, for all its troubles, is a joyous place and humanity, for all its pain, a wondrous thing in the hands of a God who can be trusted. May-June 1993 373 Russell ¯ Get Serious! But does our laughter always stand in such a healthy rela-tionship to the basic seriousness of life? What about the cynicism and despair that echoes in much of our laughter? For, indeed, we use laughter, not only to relativize the tragic dimension of life, but also to trivialize it altogether. Laughter can be a way of saying, "Hey, when it comes to silliness and stupidity, we're all in the same boat!" or it can be a frightened, frenzied dance over the abyss of anxiety. Laughter can be a life-affirming chuckle or a panicky giggle. Laughter, therefore, is not necessarily a sign of faith, nor is it necessarily, to use .the title of Richard Cote's contribution to a theology of laughter, "Holy Mirth." 10 It may, indeed, signify a brave stance before the meaninglessness of life. It may be a deter-mined retreat from a truth too dismal to contemplate. It may, ultimately, be an avoidance of seriousness. The Nature of Laughter We have lost the ancient world's suspicion of laughter, but it remains true, nonetheless, that making someone the object of laughter can be a disguised act of aggression. The same chuckle that mocks the other may comfort the joker with the consolation that he or she is not "like that." Whether crude or subtly sugar-coated, this alienating humor is the basis of most racial jokes and stories. Is this cruel aspect of humor just a negative twist that can be explained away by human sinfulness, or is it, in fact, the very basis of laughter? Surprising as it may seem, most philosophers and psychologists who have studied laughter connect it with aggres~ sivity and defensiveness. You may hit your neighbor with a feather duster and protect yourself with a water pistol, but you do hit him and you do defend yourself. In the evolutionary and anthro-pological way of looking at humanity which these thinkers adopt, laughter is partly a protective device, like the cuteness of small ani-mals, and partly a barrier erected to protect the group from the unfit and different. Laughter offers an alternative to a direct assault in those circumstances where overt aggression would be ill-advised. "If you can't hit him, tickle him to death, or make him so uncomfortable he gives up and goes home." The experts seem to consider laughter akin to the excited, mocking behavior of the likes of Tarzan's Cheetah.11 374 Review for Religious Are the psychologists and phenomenologists right? They cer-tainly seem to be on target when they describe how laughter func-tions in society. We have all, at one time or another, used laughter to disarm someone who has assumed an aggressive stance in a conversation, or we have, conversely, "jokingly" taken a verbal punch at someone we dared not face off with seriously. But must we fol-low them when they explain laughter in purely evolutionary terms? Must we see it merely as an outgrowth of aggression and defensiveness? Is laughter--harmful or helpful, loving or hateful--merely an amoral by-product of our swing down out of the trees? Is it someth!ng that will van-ish once genetic engineering succeeds in bleaching aggression out of the human gene pool? The notion that laughter is rooted in the desire to figh.t and defend ultimately cloaks the most lighthearted laughter in very dark colors indeed. It is surely prefer-able, therefore, to view laughter as a God-given, inherent human characteristic and not merely as a stained leftover from some newly grounded ape with the jitters. It is a proper human attribute that can be used, like most things human, for good or ill. Why, then, was laughter so harshly condemned by the spiri-tual masters of early monasticism? It is true that they placed a high value on the gift of tears which enabled a monk to lament his sins .and, indeed, the human condition in its alienation from God, but they certainly did not favor going about under a dark cloud.~z Sadness, after all, is one of the spiritual disorders in the list of passions that John Cassian handed down to Western monasti-cism. 13 We have to keep in mind that cheerfulness is one thing, the deliberate effort to provoke laughter quite another. What Laughter Does It seems to me that, to hold the monastic condemnation of laughter in perspective, we have to keep in mind that cheerfulness is one thing, the deliberate effort to provoke laughter quite another. Cheerfulness is the mark of someone who knows the May-.]une 1993 375 R~ssell ¯ Get Serious! score, as it were. Confidence in the providence of God and faith in the resurrection of Christ make Christianity a joyful religion. Therefore, those who penetrate to the heart of things, the wise, are inclined to be cheerful. However, if they heed the warning of St. Benedict, they will not "love immoderate and boisterous laugh-ter." L4 Certainly they will "speak no foolish chatter" and will not say anything "just to provoke laughter." ~5 Yet surely there is much to be said for the effort to make peo-ple laugh. After all, jokes, wit, and "foolish chatter" function as social lubricants. They act as icebreakers and frequently provide an interlude of relaxation and entertainment in the tense envi-ronments in which many of us operate. This is certainly true, but nonetheless I am inclined to say that, even at the best of times, laughter is a movement toward the surface, toward the shallows. It is always escapist. It is always a distraction because it is always a movement away from the quiet center of one's being. The fact that clowns and clowning around distract us does not, of course, make the effort to provoke laughter an evil. Laughter has its proper, place and its uses. In the hustle and bus-tle of the large, impersonal metropolis in which most of us earn our living, it is a marvelous instrument of social interaction. It helps us survive in a world of strangers. We may not know one another's history or evefi what the person next to us does when he or she is not working in this office, serving on this committee, or attending this class; This may be regrettable on a theoretical level, but the truth is that things would not go smoothly if we had to establish a deep interpersonal relationship with the mul-titude of people we meet. We encounter them in a specific con-text where we wear, as it were, a name tag referring to only one aspect of our personal history. We are "employee," "tennis part-ner, . student," or whatever. We want to be known and to feel that we fit in, but at the same time we have no desire to expose our pri-vate life to people we meet in this one-dimensional setting. Shared laughter allows us to achieve these contradictory goals. It binds the group together by touching our common humanity and, by veer-ing away from a focus on the personal, it protects our privacy. Laughter keeps everything light and frothy as it should be among those who work in the same place or band together to pursue some common social or recreational goal. This'is not the perspective that preoccupied the early monks. Therefore, their derogatory assessment of laughter should not 376 Revie~w for Religious be read as an attack on the social use of humor nor interpreted as a put-down of stand-up comics or, for that matter, the office wiseguy. The words of the fathers were addressed to those who had withdrawn from the turmoil of life and the humor that helps it function pleasantly. They were addressed to those who had, as it were, gone apart to concentrate. An effort to deliberately pro-voke humor in a setting which, by reason of its very seriousness, was surely prone to the laughter rooted in the human condition was obviously inappropriate. Laughter was as out of place in this setting as it would be on a green during a pro tournament. It broke the pros' concentration. Worse than that, the inclination to stir others to laughter indicated that a monk had fallen victim to the restlessness and distraction that the desert tradition called acedia.16 Conclusion Does this ancient suspicion of laughter have anything to say to us today? I think it challenges all Christians to ask, "Why am I laughing?" Does our joviality spring from the confidence that gives rise to cheerfulness, or is it perhaps anxiety in cap and bells faking nonchalance in the entrance hail of death? Is it the prod-uct of faith in a loving God who demonstrated his seriousness by making humans glorious beings and his love by giving them two feet to fall over to help keep things in proportion? Or is it the by-product of unbelief that opts, despite it a

Issue 40.1 of the Review for Religious, January 1981. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every Iwo months, is ediled in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are Iocaled at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1981 by REWEW FOR RELiGiOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at SI. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year; $17.00 for two years. Other countries: $10.00 a year; $19.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write: Rt:vt~:w t'oR Rt:Lt(;tOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. .~eremiah L. Alberg, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor January, 1981 Volume 40 Number 1 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW t'ott RELIGIOUS; 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 Universily; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW t'OR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. ++Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from Universily Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Review for Religious Volume 40, 1981 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Jeremiah L. Alberg, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1981 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOtJS. Toward a Method for the Study of Spirituality Edward Kinerk, S.J. Father Kinerk is presently on sabbatical leave, doing post-doctoral studies in spirituality at St. Louis University. He resides at Jesuit Hall; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108, A former professor of historical theology once described spirituality as a "gl0b" area. He explained this rather inelegant label by pointing out that spirituality enjoys an unlimited wealth of resources but possesses no tools for getting those resources organized. "I understand what it means to do history orto do theology," he objected, "but what does it mean to do spirituality?" StUdents contemplating work in spirituality will take small comfort in his remarks but they will know exactly what he meant, for, unlike most other academic disciplines, spirituality lacks both formal definition of its content and methodology proper to itself. Studies in the history of spirituality, prayer, religious life, Scripture, psychology, theology, and any number of authors and movements can be most beneficial in themselves, but where does one find the unifying principles to bring all this knowledge together? The occasional reader, who finds this or that work personally rewarding, will not be troubled by such abstract concerns,but this vagueness of content and style can be ~a formidable handicap for those who undertake a more thorough study, either for their own enlightenment or with the thought of being of service to others. In .the latter case one must analyze spiritualities, interpret them in their historical-cultural context, compare and contrast them to other spiritualities, and finally develop criteria for criticism and evaluation. The tools for such reflection are not commonly available in the way that they are for other disciplines, including theology.' Part of the difficulty lies in the very nature of spirituality. Except for the 3 4 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries it has been rare for theological speculation to elicit passionate responses on the part of Chris-tians, Spirituality, on the other hand, always makes at least an implicit appeal to the heart; it is much closer to people's lives and emotions than is theology. This is to be expected, but it places the "academic" study of spirituality in an awkward corner precisely because the material lends itself so immediately to practical application, the pastoral. Consequently, spirituality as a discipline finds itself more often called upon to train spiritual directors and retreat-givers than to engage in reflection. This onesidedness is risky. Spirituality can-not afford to neglect the mistakes or the riches which are a part of its heritage; nor can it forego with impunity the arduous task of using the theoretical pro-cess to correct the subtle mistakes of common sense.~ In a recent article for REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Father Alan Jones chronicled the split between devotion and theology--head and heart--and called for the redevelopment of mystical theology in order to "combat the tendency to anti-intellectualism today, particularly in areas where religious experience is concerned.-3 Using William Johnston's definition of mysticism as "wisdom or knowledge that is found through love,'" Father Jones sug-gested contemplation--which includes all levels of knowing--as the means of bringing reflection into religious experience and religious experience into theological reflection. Father Jones's concern to bring head and heart together must be a con-stant preoccupation for spirituality; the great classics were developed more in the chapel than in the library, though they depended on both. However, I believe that we have an auxiliary task which is less "creative" and more "organizational" in character. In order to bring the vast and often unwieldy material from the history of spirituality into the arena of our prayerful reflec-tion it must first be arranged into digestible form. The purpose of this article will be to suggest some questions or distinctions by which such arrangement can proceed: in other words, a method for the study of spiritualities. Of course, this is an ambitious undertaking, and 1 will protest in advance that ' Theologians may protest that method is a problem for them, too, but at least work is being done. Recently David Tracy has suggested five basic models which have influenced theologica~ inquiry: orthodox, liberal, neo-orthodox, radical, and his own "revisionist" model. See David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (Seabury, 1975), pages 22-34. Tracy has been influenced in part:through. his long association with the thought of Bernard Lonergan. In a very important work, Method in Theology (Seabury, 1979; first published: Herder & Herder, 1972), Lonergan ~ipplied his transcendental method to the task of developing a method in theology. 1 will cite Lonergan only briefly in the course of this article, but 1 need to acknowledge that the influence of Method has been considerable. 2 For an explanation of the relationship of the realm of common sense and the realm of theory, see Lonergan, Method, pp. 257-258. ' Alan Jones, "Spirituality and Theology," Rt~vm'w ~oR R~.l.~G~Ot~s 39 (1980), p. 171. ' William Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love (Harper & Row, 1978), p. 20. Jones cites this on p. 170 of his article. Study of Spirituality / 5 these are remarks "toward a method." But since the need is great, I hope that .any venture in this direction might prove useful. Spirituality needs (1) a definition of itself, (2) some tools for analyzing a particular spirituality, (3) some guidelines for relating a spirituality to other spiritualities, and (4) some criteria for evaluation. In the pages that follow I will make attempts in the first three areas and then conclude with some limited thoughts about the fourth. What Is Spirituality? Everyone has a notion of spirituality, but efforts to pin it down in defini-tion can, be frustrating. It is everywhere yet nowhere; its scope is so vast-- potentially as vast as the sum and depth of all human experience--that workable content virtually disappears. Spirituality has been described as "life-style." If we realize that this means more than length of hair and particular preferences for food and clothing, this definiton is actually quite good. A person's spirituality is the way in which he or she lives in accordance with basic values. The famous Swiss theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, has given this a more philosophical formulation: "The way in which [an individual] acts and reacts habitually throughout his life according to his objective and ultimate insights and decisions.''~ The strength of such a definition lies in its completeness; its weakness is that it is too complete. We are left afloat on a sea of private human experience with no markers to make this or that dimension of experience stand out. These defini-tions are good because they include everything, but they are not workable because they distinguish nothing. And without distinctions analysis is impossible. What should we look for in a workable definition? First of all, a definition of spirituality for the purpose of study should limit the material to what is expressed. Nothing canbe studied unless it iscommunicated in some way. It is true that spirituality must deal with the mysterious depths of the human per-son in relationship to God and that. this mystery often defies conceptualiza-tion. However, it is usually open to communication through symbolization; and this, too, is a form of expression. Spirituality studies expressions, and these expressions can be conceptual or symbolic: they can be words, or they can be art, music, architecture, or indeed any form of human activity. Of course, an individual's full experience of his or her relationship with God can never be adequately expressed., not even symbolically. This is simply a dif-ficulty which the study of spirituality must accept; we can only examine what is expressed and yet we know that the expression is never exhaustive of the reality. Secondly, a definition of spirituality should contain the idea of personal ~ Hans Urs yon Balthasar, "The Gospel as Norm and Test of All Spirituality in the Church," from Spirituality in the Church, Christian Duquoc, editor, Concilium, vol 9 (Paulist, 1965), p. 7. 6 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 growth. There is no spirituality for an animal, nor do we ever speak of God's spirituality.~ What distinguishes the human condition is growth beyond self, self-transcendence. There is a restlessness which is a constant striving to move from the less~ authentic to the more authentic. This is why spirituality gravitates so readily to psychology, and it is precisely the point at which the greatest care must be exercised not to confuse the two.7 Finally, as indicated earlier, a workable definition must contain markers: terms in the definition which orient the material by distinguishing what is important from what is unimportant. Without some means of making distinc-tions the material of spirituality presents an undivided sameness inimical to study. Markers differentiate that material; and this, in turn, facilitates ques-tions for analysis. The particular selection of markers will necessarily be somewhat arbi.t.rary. Here I have chosen to view any spirituality primarily from the standpoint of expressions of the authentic and expressions of the inauthentic. A spiri'tuality, then, is the expression ofa dialecticalpersonal growth from the inauthentic to the authentic. There are three ingredients in the definition: expression, dialectical personal growth, and authentic-inauthentic. Expres-sion need not be clarified further. Growth has been called dialectical to underscore the fact that all spiritual growth is a simultaneous "yes" to one thing and a "no" to something else. Each step toward the authentic demands a corresponding rejection of the inauthentic.8 The Gospel of Luke manifests this dia.lectical character in its expression of the beatitudes: every benediction has its corresponding curse (Lk 6:20-26). Inauthentic and authentic are the markers referred to above. The total authenticity of a human person would be his or her complete self, transcendence in love. Conversely, total inauthenticity would be complete self-alienation, self-centeredness in hate. For our purposes, however, expres-sions of the authentic and inauthentic will normally be but partial representa-tions of these absolute states. In a famous line from the Imitation of Christ, for example, compunction is an expression of the authentic while vain knowledge is an expression of the inauthentic;9 they are signposts along the ~ Process theologians may take exception to this. In a di-polar notion of God one might be able to speak of God's spirituality: "God in his consequent aspect receives into himself that which occurs in the world, so that it becomes the occasion for newer and richer, as well as better~ concretions in the ongoing movement of divine activity," W. Norman Pittenger, "Process Thought: A Contem-porary Trend in Theology," Process Theology, Ewert H. Cousins, editor (Newman, 1971), p. 27. Even if one were to accept this position, it would be quite difficult to move from the idea of a spirituality of God to its description. ' It is very easy for spiritual direction to become psychological counseling. Of course, sometimes this is desirable because it is counseling which is needed, but often we slide into a counseling framework simply because it seems to have more substance than spiritual direction. This again reveals the necessity of definition and methodology proper to spirituality. a Lonergan views this as a fundamental characteristic of religious development. See Method, p. II0. Study of Spirituality / 7 way. Furthermore, specific expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic are not always univocal, even within the sam, e spirituality. In the Cloud of Unknowing, meditation on Christ's passion can be either an expression of the authentic or the inauthentic, depending on the stage of one's contemplative development.'° Questions for Analysis In an age as hermeneutically conscious as our own, it need not be stressed that a pre~'equisite for the analysis of any spirituality is some understanding of its historical-cultural context. To be unaware, for instance, that the end of the Roman persecutions coincided with the great movement to the desert in the fourth century would be to miss the opportunity for many insights into the roots of desert spirituality. The historical-cultural context is available for anyone who wishes to take the time to do someresearch. Our project assumes that this research can and will be done, but we are concerned here with something more general. Questions for analysis must serve two purposes. They must provide a means of organizing the material of a spirituality in such a way that the material can be more easily assimilated. In other words, they must teach us how to read and. how to retain what we read more effectively. The other pur-pose is that of comparison and contrast. The questions for analysis must be such that they canbe asked more or less equally of any spirituality. It is only by putting the same questions to many different bodies of material that we can begin, the,process o.f comparing similarities and contrasting differences which will lead us to deeper understanding. The first question flows immediately from the terms of the definition: what.are the expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic? An effective way to begin answering this question is to make a list. Reading through the SpiritualExercises of St. Ignatius, for instance, we would observe that shame and confusion, sorrow, tears, anguish, intimate knowledge, poverty, humility and gratitudeI' are but some of the expressions of the authentic; and we could do the same for expressions of the inauthentic. Making a list is a good way to begin because it directs us to the text with a simple and specific objective: how does the spirituality express what it values and what it rejects? An exhaustive 9 "I would rather feel compunction of heart for my sins than merely know the definition of com-punction," Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, edited with an introduction by Harold C. Gardiner (Image, 1955), Book I, chapter 1. ,o The Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous fourteenth-century Englishman, edited and in-troduced by William Johnston (Image, 1973), chapter vii. , '~ Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, translation by Louis J. Puhl (Newman, 1954). Shame and confusion, sorrow, tears and anguish are from the First Exercise of the First Week, #48; intimate knowledge of Christ is from the First Comtemplation of the Second Week, #104; poverty and humility are from the Two Standards, #147; and gratitude isffrom the Contemplation to Attain the Love of God, #233. 8'/Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 list is rarely possible or even desirable, but we do want to be certain that we ini-tiate our analysis by carefully gathering all of the pertinent expressions. A list gives us the concrete expressions from which to work, but it is too one-dimensional to be of more than limited value. By itself a list cannot single out those expressions which are of special importance, nor can it fit them into a pattern of meaning. What we lack is an organiz.ing form'2 which could give the expressions depth and a relationship to one another. In the SpiritualExer-cises an excellent illustration of such a form is the image of the Two Stand-ards: the Kingdom of Christ verstis the Kingdom of SatanI' ~ The Kingdom of Christ gives depth and relationship to t.he expressions of the authentic while the Kingdom of Satan does the ~ame for the inauthentic. Intimate knowledge, poverty, humility, gratitude and the like contribute definite nuances to the understanding of the nature of these two kingdoms; and the expressions, in turn, receive their full meaning only in relationship to the complete image. The Two Standards are the unifying image for expressions in Ignatian spirituality. While Ignatius himself gives the organizing form of the Two Standards, it is often necessary to uncover a form which is not itself one of the particular images used in a given text. Such would be thecase in the Life'ofAntony by Athanasius. ~4 Clearly the text does not lack for images, but the best organizing form is rather the structure which Athanasius employs to develop his story: a series of four withdrawals by Antony, each one into greater solitude. The authgr uses these withdrawals to highlight periods of development in Antony's life, and each period unifies a corresponding set of expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic. In the first withdrawal Antony left his home to li~,e on the outskirts of the village with an older ascetic. The expressions of the authentig and the inauthentic are characteristic of a "novitiate" period: zeal, faith, desire for purity of heart, imitation 6f the older ascetic were set in opposition to anxiety over f~mily, money, fame, difficulties of asceticism and sexuality. In the second withdrawal, closing himself into a tomb,, the chief ex- '~ The identification of basic units (expr~essions of the authentic and the inauthentic) and the discovery of the forms by which these expressions are related have a slight resemblance to struc-turalism. However, a double caution is in order. In i!s extreme sense structuralism can become an ideology in which all we can know about a system are its basic units and their associations; further meaning would be denied. In a less ideological sense structuralism is a method of inquiry which can be more friendly to theology and spirituality, but even here--as the term can be 'very am-biguous- l wish to make clear that my own use is limited to exactly what has been described in the text. '~ Spiritual Exercises, #13~,- 148. ~' St. Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, was probably the author of the Life ofA ntony shortly after the hermit's death in 356. Antony represented a prototype .for the desert fathers, and, whatever the historical accuracy of the Life, it c~ertainly had a profound influence" on desert spiritqality. This important work is once again available in English: Athanasius: The Life of St. AntOny and the Letter to Marcellinius, translation and introduction by Robert C. Gregg, preface~ by William A. CIcbsh (Paulist, 1980~ Study of Spirituality p~'essions of the inauthentic are wild imaginings, terror and the temptation to flight, while defiance of the demons, perseverance and faith are expressio ~ns of the authentic. From the tomb Antony went to live in an abandoned fort in the desert where he was besieged by the demons. A hint of weariness from the clamor of the demons is the only expression of the inauthentic while expres-sions of the authentic reflect Antony's growing strength: confidence, utter equilibrium, purity of soul, and so forth. Antony's final withdrawal was to the "inner mountain" which is described in paradisal terms. The expression of the inauthentic most characteristic of this period is pride in the power God has given him; while the expressions of the authentic are the manifestations of the power of the Spirit working through Antony: overpowering the demons, curing the sick, instructing the monks and confiz lnding the heretics.~ It is not always possibly to find a single form o of material together. One rather difficult text is tt fine analysis of this spiritual classic, Bernard SI truths which they [the four books of the Imitati~ ranged according to a precise play, a rational s~ dialectic."~6 Much of the difficulty is due to the sl of thoughts useful to the spiritual life, possibly There is a variety of equal themes, and so no sine could give unity to all the expressions. The most o is to discover, or invent, several forms which toge into useful patterns. As a corollary to the organizing forms we can i of the authentic and the inauthentic for stages of s life is a type of growth but in many well-devei specified stages,'7 and the key for detecting thesl sions of the authentic and the inauthentic. When ~ authentic becomes an expression of the inauthen growth has been crossed. An example of this ha~ i the Cloud of Unknowing: meditation on Christi! the authentic for the beginner but just the oppt vanced in the spirit of contemplation. Sometimes 'image which will tie a body Imitation of Christ. In his ~aapen has noted that "the n] enfold have not been ar-ructure, or a psychological yle of the work: a collection by more than one author. le form can be found which ne can do in such a situation ther best gather the material dso examine the expressions !iritual growth. All spiritual 9ed spiritualities there are ~ stages lies with the expres-particular expression of the tic, then a stage of spiritual dready been furnished from passion is an expression of ~site for someone more ad-the stages of growth will be '~ The four journeys: leaving his home to live on the outskirts of a village (Life of Antony, c. 4); living in the tomb (Ibid, c. 8); from tl~e tomb to the abandoned fort (Ibid, cc. 11-12); and the withdrawal to the inner mountain (Ibid, cc. 49-51). ,6 Bernard Spaapen, "A New Look at an Old Classic," from Imitating Christ, E. Malatesta, editor, Religious Experience Series, vol. 5 (Abbey Press, 1974). This work is a translation from the French Dictionary of Spirituality. " Frequently a spirituality will describe the break between an unreflective Christian life and the desire to lead a more spiritual life. Another break occurs later when the Christian leaves the period characterized by struggle and "spiritual achievement" and moves more into a climate of sur-render and "spiritual giftedness." The classical distinctions have been the three ways: purgative, illuminative, and unitive. 10 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 the structure giving unity to the material, but this will not always be the case. The second question for analysis comes from the idea of personal growth. A ~pirituality which reaches the state of expression does not appear out of the vacuum, but it is the maturation of much personal experience. One or many have traveled a similar dialectical journey from the inauthentic to the authen-tic and from this experience comes a wealth of valuable insight. This insight, which embodies both the techniques and the lived experience of the journey, can be called wisdom, and it is the ob)ect of the second question: what is the wisdom of a particular spirituality? To discover the wisdom of'a particular spirituality we must look at its teaching. In what special manner does a spirituality propbse.to find God, and what experience flows from its techniques of encounter? In the Life of Antony, for example, wisdom comes especially from the experience of solitude, x~hich for the desert fathers meant struggle with demons representing every imaginable thought or feeling. The wisdom of the Life of Antony is expressed in a long speech by the hermit to a group of other hermits assembled for the occasion.'8 This speech, often called a speech on discernment, is a description of what to expect in solitude and how to deal with whatever (or whomever) occurred. The wisdom of the desert employs some of the most colorful and varied imagery in the history of spirituality, but it is always characterized by the detection and diminishment of interior turmoil in order to find and preserve apatheia.'9 A very different example, though with striking parallels, is fouhd in the wisdom of St. Ignatius. The Spiritual Exercises express wisd6m not in speeches but in appendices: rules for thinking with the Church, rules for eating, rules for discernment, and so on. Ignatian wisdom, however, is not contained equally in all these rules but in one special and famous set: the rules for the discernment of spirits.2° As mentioned above, the primary image of lgnatian spirituality is the Two Standards, and the go~.l is to serve with Christ who wishes to spread his Kingdom and defeat the Kingdom of Satan. Now these kingdoms will enjoy victory or suffer defe~t as a result of our particular choices. However, the kingdoms are distinguished from each other less by the ,8 Life of Antony, cc. 16-43. ,9 Apatheia was the ascetical goal of the desert fathers. It was not apathy but rather a state of in-terior calm and recollection. Athanasius described this state in the Life of Anthony: "The state of his soul was one of purity, for it was not cpnstricted by grief, nor relaxed by pleasure, nor affected by either laughter or dejection. Moreover, when he saw th'e crowd, he was not annoyed any more than he was elated at being embraced by so many people. He maintained utter equilibrium, like one guided by reason and steadfast in that which accords with nature" (c. 14). Perhaps the best summary of desert wisdom is contained in the writings of Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399), especially in his Praktikos. This has been translated together with Chapters on Prayer and published as Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer translated and edited by John Eudes Bamberger, O.C.S.O. (Cistercian Publication, 1970). ~o Spiritual Excercises, #313-336. Study of Spirituality object of a particular choice than by attitudes. Consequently, the disciple of Christ must differentiate between objects of possible choice according to authenticating.feelings (attitudes) or their opposites. The rules for the discern-ment of spirits, are Ignatius' wisdom for making this all important differentia-tion and decision. There is no need to multiply examples. Wisdom gets at the heart of a particular spirituality because it taps the special experience of the person or persons who have lived it. Often referred to "thoughts" in describing the struggle of solitude and to apatheia as the goal of that struggle. For Ignatius, the key word would be discernment. On the other hand, there need not be but one wisdom for every spirituality. Moving beyond the Spiritual Exercises one could speak also of a wisdom of obedience in Ignatius. The 0b)ective~is to identify the central insights of a spirituality; insights, however, that flow from matured experience. Finally, we.should underline the fact that questions for analysis--expres-sions and wisdom--are effective for focusing and organizing the material, but they certainly do not exhaust its riches. In addition to the fact that no set of questions can ever draw everything from the material, a spirituality will always retain a certain opacity regardless of how carefully it is scrutinized; ~and we will always find ourselx~es returning to the source for clarification, new insight, and personal edification. However, at some point in time we must determine that an analysis is finished, both in the number of questions asked and in the depth of the answers. It is the suggestion of this article that the two questions given above will focus and organize the material sufficiently to enable us to turn to the wider arena of comparison and contrast of different spiritualities. Questions for Comparison and Contrast Bernard Lonergan has described method as"a normative pattern of recur-rent and related operations yielding cumulative and progressive results.''2' What we have thus far isnot a complete method but its foundation. Questions for analysis provide a normative pattern of operat!ons which can be applied to. any number of particular spiritualities, but only continued application fol-lowed by comparison and contrast will yield cumulative and progressive results. Now the general matter for any comparison and contrast would normally be the exprbssions of the authentic and the inauthentic, the images and forms which give them unity, and the expressions of wisdom. From this one could proceed in any number of ways depending only on time, interest, and avail-ability of sources. Let us suppose, for example, that someone was interested in the general topic of prayer and that he or she had some familiarity with both 2, Lonergan, Method, p. 4. 12 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 the Cloud of Unknowing and the works of John of the Cross. Even an exami-nation'of the titles would reveal that "cloud" and "night" are expressions of the authentic for both. A study of the similarities and differences between the Cloud's understanding of "cloud" and John of the Cross's understanding of "night" might prove to be a straightforward and interesting investigation into the meaning of apophatic prayer.2' Ordinarily the work of comparison and contrast will draw heavily on our ability to understand the relative hist6rical-cultural contexts. This can be given some direction, however, if we keep in mind two principles for compari-son. The first is that a spirituality cannot help but reflect certain cosmological perspectives. As a result we should always ask: what understandings of space and time shape the relationship between self, world, and God for a particular spirituality? For example, the Life of Antony used a simple cosmological framework which placed a person on top of the world but under two concen-tric hemispheres: the air, which was the abode of the demons, and the sky, which was heaven and the abode of God. Thus, to go to God one had to leave the world and ascend through the air, and this meant battles with the demons. Today we experience ourselves through a cosmology which is couched in evolutionary and psychological terms. Instead of place, time is the important parameter: it is no longer "up" and "down" which correspond to the authen-tic and the inauthentic but "transformation" and "regression." The discovery and investigations of the unconscious have forged a new vocabulary for our descriptions of evil, human growth, and the nature of freedom. The unconscious has also given us a new locus for expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic. The cosmology of the day--be it Antony's, our own, or any other--will not only shape the expressions of spirituality but it will also locate those expressions in accordance with its perception of the relationship in time and space of self, world, and God. ~: The cosmological questions can be made specific. The question, "'Where is Christ?" yields interesting resolts when asked of St. Basil the Great (fourth century) and St. Ignatius (sixteenth century). Each has a passage about Christ the King and his call to men and women to follow him, but note the different images for describing where Christ is and the practical consequences for discipleship. For Basil: "Where is Christ the King? In heaven, to be sure. Thither it behooves you, soldier of Christ, to direct your course. Forget all earthly delights.''23 Ignatius, however, perceived the world as friendlier potential for the self's encounter with God: "Consider Christ our Lord, standing in a lowly place in a great plain about the region of Jerusalem . ,,2, And instead of forgetting the world in order to go to Christ in heaven, Ignatius See note 28 below. Basil, "An Introduction to the Ascetical Life," From St. Basic, Ascetical Works, TheFathers of The Church vol. 9, translated by Sister M. Monica Wagner, C.S.C. (New York, 1950), p. 9. Spiritual Exercises, #144. ¯ Study of Spirituafity / 13 encourages people to follow a Christ who "sends them throughout the whole world to spread his sacred doctrine among all men, no matter what their state or condition.''25 We can do similar comparisons for time. "'When will Christ come?" For St. Paul and the early Christians the answer was, "Soon!" But for most of the Church's history until recently, the question of time hasn't been that impor-tant. Most Christians tended to regard the world as having a certain timeless stability. The important time was not Christ's coming in glory but the individ-ual's meeting with Christ at death. Today, however, an evolutionary con-sciousness has made time very important. When will Christ come for someone imbued with the vision of Teilhard de Chardin? He will come when the human race, now responsible for cooperating in its own evolution, will have (with God's grace) brought about the kingdom. Statements about time and place are not theological statements; they are descriptions of world views. The location of a spirituality within its particular cosmological framework makes possible the comparison and contrast of similar expressions which come from widely different historical-cultural con-texts. It would be far beyond the scope of this article to attempt to outline the world views which have shaped and been shaped by western thought, but it is worth mentioning here two books which are particularly insightful: Romano Guardini's The End of the Modern World and John Dunne's A Search for God in Time andMemory.~6 Guardini has mapped out four cosmologies fun-damental to the history of western thought: classical, medieval, modern, and post-modern. If we take into account that much has occurred which might further clarify his analysis of the present (post-modern) period, this work is very useful. Dunne has given the study of world views an interesting refine-ment by pointing to the different~ ways in which autobiographies have been written: a story of deeds (classical), a gamut of experience (Augustine), a lad-der of experience (medieval), and a story of appropriation (modern and con-temporary). This does not do justice to the nuances given by Dunne, but the distinctions he introduces are invaluable for appreciating the genres under which spiritual growth has been described. A second principle for comparison and contrast is that there exist specifi-cally different, yet equally valid, spiritualities within the Church. In other words, spiritualities differ not only because of various historical-cultural backgrounds, but they also differ according to type. Of course, a rigid and exclusive classification would be impossible and undesirable, but the varied emphases of many spiritualities suggest that we might discover several models which would help us to better understand similarities and differences. ~ lbid, #145. 2~ John Dunne, A Search for God in Time and Memory (Macmillian, 1967). Romano Guardini, The End of the Modern World, edited with an introduction by Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, translated by Joseph Theman and Herbert Burke (Sheed and Ward, 1956). "14 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 To develop models it Js necessary to select criteria for differentiation. This selection, always arbitrary, establishes the parameters by which the models are distinguished. Here the criteria will be "attitudes" toward two potential loci for expressions of the authentic: the world--including human society and institution--and history--especially change and conversion. We can deter-mine the models by asking this question: does a spirituality view the world and/or history as a positive locus for expressions of the authentic?2' If a spirituality is not positive toward either we will call it apophatic; if it is positive toward both we will call it apostolic; if it is positive toward the world but not toward history we will call it city-ofrGod; and if it is positive toward history but not toward the world we will call it prophetic. At one extreme, answering "no" to both the world and to history, are the apophatic'8 spiritualities. These are the mystical spiritualities known to us today primarily through the Cloud of Unknowing, John of the Cross, and Thomas Merton. For an apophatic spirituality, the chief expression of the authentic is negation of the specific image: one goes toGod through unknow-ing or through darkness. It should be stressed, however, that the apophatic spiritualities do not necessarily hold that the world is evil or that history is meaningless; one need only think of the concern and involvement of Thomas Merton. The apophatic spiritualities emphasize a wisdom of contemplation through negation, and the goal of that contemplation is the love and knowledge of God. A curiosity of apophatic prayer is that its central insight-negation- should never be practiced by a beginner. Both the Cloud and John of the Cross counsel that apophatic prayer is not for everyone, that beginners should definitely rely on the media.ting image, and that there are signs by which one can know if he or she is called to this form of prayer.'9 At the other extreme, answering "yes" to both world and history, are the apostolic spiritualities. An apostolic spirituality views the world and history as a locus for self-transformation, Its expressions can vary greatly. Ignatius was concerned with "the defense and propagation of the faith and the progress of souls.''3° For Ignatius holiness was found through an involvement with the 27 The idea for this came to me from reading John Macquarrie, Christian Hope (Seabury, 1978). In a s~ction called, "A Typology of Interpretations" (pp.86-88), Macquarrie works out four types of Christian hope: individual vs. social, this-worldly vs. other-worldly expectations, evolutionary vs. revolutionary, and realized vs. future. 2a Apophatic: in speaking of God one can either affirm certain truths (kataphatic theology) or, realizing that God is beyond any conceptualization, one can speak o'f him by negation (apophatic theology). The apophatic mystics are those whose way the the way of unknowing. This can be found to a high degree in many mystical writers, and the chief source for ~their apophatic vocabulary is the work of a mysterious Syrian monk of the t:ifth or sixth century who has been known through the ages as Dionysius the Areopagite or pseudo-Dionysius. 29 Cloud of Unknowing, c. 75. John of the Cross~ Ascent of Mount Carmel, translated, edited, and introduced by E. Allison Peers (Image, 1958) Book I1, c. xiii, pp. 219-223. ~0 Ignatius Loyola, The Formula of the Institute, as contained in the papal bull, Exposcit debitum Study of Spirituality world in an attempt to spread the kingdom. Ignatius' successor, Father Pedro Arrupe, wants "the conversion of the individual" but he also wants to "transform the world into a fit habitation for justice and humanity.''3' It is important to distinguish apostolic work from apostolic spirituality as that model is being described here. Everyone is called in some way to the apostolate, but not everyone seeks God primarily through involvement with the world and the transformation of its history. When a particular spirituality adopts the vocabulary of involvement and transformation in its expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic and in its statement of wisdom, then it exem-plifies the essential marks of the apostolic model. A city-of-Godspirituality, saying "yes" to the world and "no" to history, is characterized by the location of expressions of the authentic in one special place in the world to the exclusion of others. This place, which then becomes a reflection of the kingdom of God, could be a monastery, the home, or even the individual human heart. St. Benedict summarized his wisdom in the form of a Rule: how to live the kingdom together in the monastery. The Imitation of Christ counsels flight to the safety of our own hearts where "you will see the kingdom of God come into your soul.''32 A city-of-God spirituality has probably been the norm for most Christians throughout history, and it is also a characteristic of every other type of spirituality, even if not the primary one. Whenever we focus on a particular community or on our own heart we are highlighting the city-of-God dimension of our spiritual lives, The prophetic spirituality finds expressions of the authentic in .history but not in the world. The Old Testament prophet offered interpretations of history as well as judgments. The radical poverty of St. Francis of Assisi was a judgment of the abuse of material wealth and it was a sign of hope in a God who would fulfill all promises. Prophetic spirituality is often characterized.by living one or more of the gospel values to an extreme: Francis and poverty, the virgins and ascetics living a life of celibacy while awaiting martyrdom in the early Church, or the gospel-motivated civil disobedience in our own times. While prophetic spirituality often contains the dimension of a "challenge" it certainly need not be a gloomy spirituality--as witnessed by the joy of St. Francis. Once again, we must not adhere to these models too rigorously. The ex-amples given above illustrated the tendencies of their respective models to a marked degree; but most spiritualities, includ!ng those mentioned, are mix-of July 21, 1550. Translation from Th~ Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, translated and edited by George Ganss (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), p. 66. ~ Pedro Arrupe, "The Challenge of the World and the Mission of the Society," opening address to the Thirty-Second General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. Published in .4 Planet to Heal translated with notes by John Harriott (Ignatian Center of Spirituality, Rome, 1975), p. 312. ~ Imitation of Christ, Book 11, c. 1. 16 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 tures of all four, with perhaps one or more predominating. With this caution. in mind we could make use of the models to organize and clarify the dif-ferences and similarities we observe among the various spiritualities. For ex-ample, both Ignatius of Loyola and John of the Cross were sixteenth-century Spanish saints who shared the same geography and culture. The spiritualities of both these men are familiar enough to us that we would not be surprised to find a number of significant differences in spite of similar backgrounds. We know that consolation is an important part of the spirituality of Ignatius: it is an expression of the authentic, something to be sought in prayer. For John of the Cross, on the other hand, consolation in prayer was often a sign of the in-authentic: the contemplative advancing in prayer should neither seek consola-tion nor trust it when it came.~3 This apparent contradiction is resolved when we remember that we are dealing with two very different models of spiritual-ity. John, the apophatic mystic who shuns specific images so as to approach God in the "night," is consistent within his model when he rejects consola-tions. Ignatius, the apostolic man who finds God in the world through specific choices, is consistent in asking to have these choices confirmed through con-solation. Apophatic and apostolic are different paths of spiritual growth. Towards Evaluation Ultimately evaluation is the responsibility of the Church, and over the cen-turies she has generally given a wide latitude to the expressions claiming to be of the Spirit. As long as a spirituality refrained from making its charism nor-mative for all Christians, maintained a balanced view of theology and human nature, and did not habitually defy the directions of the hierarchy, the Church has been at least tolerant if not actively supportive. Ronaid Knox has catalogued a number of exotic spiritual movements beginning with the Corin-thian community, and his very thorough work is an encyclopedia of spiritual aberrations together with the appropriate judgment of the Church.3' Negative criteria are much easier to establish than positive, and the records of the Holy Office detail specific distortions to be avoided rather than positive principles on which to build. But, then, most great spiritual leaders did not consult the Vatican archives in order to construct a charism; they responded to the work of the Spirit and left the editing to others. Nonetheless~ it is possible to point out three indicators of a good spirituality: good theology, good sense, and good results. Good spirituality must flow out of the Christian communi-ty's understanding of the gospel and hence must exhibit good theology. Spirituality is a human movement, and so good spirituality should reflect a keen sensitivity to the human condition--good sense. Finally, a good spirituality will produce good results because it will be the work of the Holy Spirit-- "Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty" (Jn 15:5). John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, cc. 4, 7. Ronald Knox, Enthusiasm (Oxford University Press, 1961). Study of Spirituality / 17 Good theology and good sense are not abstract principles which can be ap-plied unerringly to any new situation. In most cases they are the culmination of a long process of give and take between the Church and the proponents of a new spirituality. On the one side there must be an increasingly sympathetic understanding of the expressions of the new spirituality; on the other, there must be a growing clarification of the meanings of those expressions. Let us take St. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscans as an example. The cry for the vita apostolica--a return to the life of the gospels in penance, poverty, and preaching--did not appear suddenly in 1206 when Francis over-came his fear of leprosy. The twelfth century had already witnessed a large nu.mber of spiritual movements toward the vita apostolica, and many of these movements were in tension with the Church. A change in the socio-economic climate, the abuses of wealth especially among the clergy, and the Church's own reforms of the eleventh century had brought about a hunger for new ways of expressing the spiritual aspirations of those who did not feel called to the cloistered life of the monastery. The Cathars,3~ the Humiliati,~6 and the Waldensians~' were some of the better known movements which answered to this hunger. Almost inevitably there was resistance from the official Church. If we leave aside misunderstandings and personal animosities, this resistance was usually on theological and pastoral grounds. Theologically, the new movements presented opinions ranging from the outright dualism of the Cathars tothe denial of the validity of a sacrament administered by a corrupt priest. Such theological opinions, which touched the sacramental nature of the Church, could not be tolerated. Pastorally, the issue was normally over the right to preach. Did a person who took the gospel seriously and lived poorly have the right to preach without the permission of the local clergy or bishops? Both the Waldensians and the Humiliati approached Rome for approval but were rebuffed on the question of preaching. No one denied the need for greater poverty, and the pope himself called ~' The Cathars, also known as Albigensians, were especially active in southern France from the middle of the twelfth century. They were virtually a distinct religion with their own organization of dioceses. Theologically they were influenced by the Bogomils of Bulgaria whose theology can be traced back to a Manichean dualism. ~6 The Waldensians were an evangelical movement founded by Valdes, a merchant from Lyons~ They attempted to remain orthodox but were forbidden to preach at the time of the Third Lateran Council (I 179). ~' The Humiliati appeared in northern Italy during the second part of the twelfth century. They were forbidden to preach in 1179 but were eventually reconciled to the Church by Innocent III in 1201. He gave them a threefold rule which regulated the men as canons regular, the women as religious, and a group of married people as a type of third order. For an interesting treatment of the dealings of Innocent Ill with the Humiliati see Brenda Bolton, "Innocent lll's Treatment of the Humiliati", from Popular Belief and Practice, edited by G.J. Cuming and Derek Baker (Cambridge University Press, 1972). 18 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 the bishops and clergy to task for their failure to preach the gospel;38 it was a c/uestion of finding the right form. What took place in the twelfth century was a twofold development whereby the new expressions of spirituality were being clarified against the theological-pastoral demands of the Church; and the Church was learning to listen with more sympathy to the different spiritual needs of her people. By the end of the century the time was ripe for Francis and Dominic. Of course, the phenomenon of St. Francis was not just the inevitable out-come of an historical development. It was also the special work of God's grace in a man who was both generous enough to respond to the call for a life of radical poverty and humble enough to listen to the voice of the Church. Nonetheless, that long century of development points to the kind of prepara-tion and hard work out of which true spiritual insight is born. Nor did Innocent lII's approval of Francis in 1209 complete the process. As numbers increased problems did also. Good sense and a sound understanding of human nature called for certain modifications. More structure and organiza-tion were needed which could channel the charism without destroying it. Pro-vinces were established, local houses and superiors appointed and a year's novitiate was required.39 If we shift back into our own century we realize that the Church is con-stantly faced with new expressions of spirituality arising from the legitimate aspirations of a people hungering for God. These new movements need ~to be examined in the light of good theology and good sense, and they need to receive the sympathetic understanding of the Church. A serious study of spirituality can make a genuine contribution to this endeavor. First of all, a new spirituality needs to identify, and then clarify its expres-sions. This is the work of analysis described earlier. What are the expressions of the authentic and the inauthentic and the forms which organize them? What is its wisdom? Only after these questions are carefully answered does theological evaluation become possible. When we know the expressions of the spirituality and their relationship to one another, then we know its theological stance and we can judge it. The analysis will also reveal the spirituality's perspective on human nature, its understanding of the human condition. While great care must be exercised here, it would violate good sense to have a ,8 In his treatment of the twelfth century, M.-D. Chenu wrote: "Peter the Chanter had denounced the 'most dreadful silence' (pessima taciturnitas) of the clergy, and both Peter and Innocent Ill had invoked a phrase from Isaiah (56:10) to repudiate "these muted dogs who don't have it in them to bark," M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century." Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, selected, edited, and translated by Jerome Taylor and Lester L. Little. preface by I~tienne Gilson. (University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 244. ~9 For a discussion of these developments, see Cajetan Esser, Origins of the Franciscan Order, translated by Aedan Daly, O.F.M: and Dr. lrina Lynch (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1970); see especially Chapter Ill: "First Crises and Attempts to Overcome Them." Study of Spirituality / 19 spirituality which proved to be psychologically destructive. It has unfor-tunately happened in the history of spirituality that "leaving the world" has become an occasion for hatred and destruction of the self or the body rather than a love for God?° Finally, analysis of a new spirituality will reveal its in-ternal coherence or lack thereof. This is important because personal growth demands a certain degree of unity of purpose and technique, and a spirituality which seems to move in many different directions at the same time will only provoke confusion and frustration. While this may appear to be obvious, it is not always so easy to recognize. For example, a spirituality expressed entirely in a nineteenth-century idiom might exhibit good theology and good psychology, but unless it is able to translate itself coherently into the language and forms of the twentieth century there will always be an unnecessary tension from trying to operate in a world view, a cosmology, which is no longer our own. This was one of the reasons for Vatican II's call for adaptation in religious life. In addition, a new spirituality needs to be understood externally, and this is the work of comparison and contrast. From the Church's standpoint, evaluation will be enhanced wfien a spirituality is known in relation to other spiritualities both past and present. This much goes without saying~ But such an external understanding'can also be quite useful for the spirituality itself. One of the habitual dangers for a new movement is to see itself as being unique in respo ~nding to the call of the gospels. Time and time again this has resulted in sectarianism and heresy. When a spirituality understands itself in the con-text of.history it will be better able to appreciate its uniqueness without overestimating its importance. 40 An extreme example of this might be found in the Cathars who practiced (though rarelY,) a form of suicide by starvation called endura. This occurred only after the reception of the consolamen-turn which was a conbination of baptism and Eucharist. Once the believer received the con'- solarnentum he or she was to live without any sin whatsoever. It was in fear of a relapse that some chose to end their lives as soon after consolsmentum as possible. The Treasurer As Professional Paschal Phillips, O.C.S.O. Father Phillips is a member of the monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey; Lafayette, OR 97127. Ulnder the bland title of this article lurks a contentious thesis. I hope to demonstrate that the function of the provincial treasurer is a specialized, pro-fessional calling, importantly distinct from related professions such as accounting or management, but every bit as clearly definable and of crucial importance to religious communities. The practical issue of all this appears in the damage done through failure to recognize or effectively utilize this unique function, and the concomitant misjudgments concerning training, qualification, and role recognition. Problems of Definition At the outset, the multiplicity of terms presents a hurdle with symbolic overtones. Titles such as "procurator" "econome" "cellarer" "fiscus" and "minister" vie with more commonplace old standbys like "treasurer" and "business manager" in vague but roughly interchangeable usage. The fact that such nebulous nomenclature has continued points to a lack of reflection on the common nature of the office underlying the multiple titles. Admittedly the office, which we shall for simplicity's sake henceforth call "treasurer," does admit of multiple definitions, since it changes not only from congregation to congregation, but, even more radically, with the person-alities of the incumbent and of the major superior served by the incumbent. In fact, it is usually easier to note major differences in the function which ensue from each provincial election than it is to discover a consistent pattern of divergence between the "economes" of congregation X and the "proc-urators" of congregation Y. 2O The Treasurer as Professional / 21 Besides, any congregation is free to define the duties of its various officers without having to make special reference to neat patterns convenient to the writers of magazine articles. It might follow that analyzing the functions of a treasurer is spreading nets to catch the wind, and that the function--if indeed there is a function at all--is characterized mostly by its lack of fixed form, for its utility lies largely in adapting to present circumstances and local custom. This is certainly true so far as peripheral duties such as bookkeeping go. But, under all the pluralism, a hard core of significance remains that may reward further reflection. The Core Function We live in a world of professionalism. Our first thought, in any need, is to call in a specialist. But routine can create problems. We are so used to calling in an "ologist,"'or training a member of the community to become one (which amounts to the same thing) that we hardly notice, much less reflect upon, the rather delicate set of questions that ought to proceed the call: Do we need help? Is this area important? Wti6m shall we consult? How Will the answers we get be conveyed to the community and its superiors? How will they be adapted to our needs? And how will we know that the answers have been accurately grasped, and emotionally accepted? The core-function of the provincial treasurer appears to be discovered through asking questions such as those, and providing some approaches to the answers. The function might be defined as liaison between the religious pur-pose of the community, and "the world" as organizational (business, legal, financial aspects). An example may clarify. Take the question of accounting: in many a congregation, any sentence which connects the words "treasurer" and "professional" automatically elicits the image of technical accountant. After all, the thinking goes, do we not carefully train teachers and cooks, pro-vincials and novice masters? So send the treasurer off to the university, and turn him or her into a C.P.A.! But there's the rub! We may have trained a C.P.A. who can perform a useful function-- but we have not trained a treasurer. This is not to deny that technical accounting abilities are one of the building blocks, but it does sug-gest that one building block does not make a whole structure. Reconstruct the scene from, that unfamiliar vantage point which defines the treasurer as the person who provides the liaison between the religious com-munity as religious and "the world" as organization. Obviously, accounting expertise is essential to understand and analyze much of what the organiza-tional world has to say to the religious, as it is also essential to translate some of the organizational and support problems of the community into a concise form that can be understood by speakers of "business-ese." But to stop at that point sets the stage for a familiar scenario: a treasurer who conceives his entire function to be that of expert in accounting (and he exists in a milieu where the tacit assumptions all reenforce this point of view), produces ever 22 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 more sophisticated and technically accurate quarterly reports, and submits them in all their complexity to a superior and council whose ability to under-stand them is no more sophisticated than it ever was. In practice the community ends with some poorly conceived mixture of ad hoc remedies. For example, the superior himself burns the midnight oil, hoping to assimilate the skills which enable business executives to glean their impressive insights from such corporate accounts. What has happened is that the already overburdened superior has taken on what is actually the core role of the treasurer. He is attempting to interpret to himself what the business world is saying, and the results are not always happy. The major superior has no time, really, to handle this added, and usually unwelcome chore. Neither does the training nor the personality traits which qualify a good religious superior easily blend well with the demands of business administration. Fur-ther, the superior is there~by subtly insulated from one key source of counsel, and this in an ominous way, since the change is scarcely noticed. Another common reaction of sophisticated reporting to .an unsophisti-cated audience is one of bland beffiddlement. An increasing percentage of council and community simply announce that they have no time for that sort of thing. They are sure that"such i~pressive figures must mean something, and "it is so comforting to realize that we can depend on such a skilled and dedicated treasurer." This remedy: so called, operates in the reverse of the one before. Now it is the treasurer who is isolated from needed feedback and in-telligent questioning, and the treasurer slowly begins to make decisions (or, more commonly, subconsciously to set things up so that only one decision can be made) which should have involved the superior's informed judgment from the start. The misunderstandings and confusions which result, and which so often are blamed on instincts for power or on exaggerated professionalism, are at root only the natural concomitants of poor role-definition. The above examples are painted in bold strokes. In practice any trained treasurer makes a more or less intelligent effort to translate the economic trends revealed by the analysis of the community books and by a general familiarity with the business cycle (changes of interest rates, increasing cost of government, red tape, inflation), and in those cases where this function is handled with skill and sensitivity, there is no doubt that the treasurer's office is being well served by its present incumbent. However, the main point is precisely that a function so delicate and so important should not be performed in a fit of absentmindedness. Few realize that there is the exact point where unreflective instincts, presenting a hastily conceived adaptation of the secular counterpart found in stockholders reports, as unverified assumption that "they" got the message, in short, amateurism, can effectively negate the benefits arising from professional accounting, skilled business analysis, and all the rest. The Treasurer as Professional / 23 Title and Function It should be apparent that one of our problems stems from the very title "treasurer," with its built-in connotation of "bookkeeper." Things are slightly better in more ancient Orders where the person filling this liaison role is called by some more generic title such as "procurator," but the basic prob-lem of role-definition usually remains unexamined. It is entirely possible that the "core function" we have been elaborating could be performed by someone other than the titular treasurer. Indeed, one of the problems is precisely that such is often the case, that, for lack of reflec-tion on the situation, this crucial liaison function is poorly performed by per-sons who scarcely realize they are even involved in such a role. Take, for example, these instances where some dedicated lay person now holds the office of provincial treasurer. There can be no question of these indi-viduals' technical skills, but, on the other hand, there can be little chance that they could ever deal with the community on the deep level of two-way com-munication that is needed to perform this liaison function. Yet someone must be performing that function--however imperfectly--or else the community would be left on the legendary "Cloud 9," a not unknown circumstance, sad to relate. Whoever that "someone" is, he or she is the de facto treasurer, while the holder of the titular office doubtless remains, skilled in his other profes-sion which is valid in itself but different in scope. Still, the very essence of the liaison function does d~mand an alert, in-formed, and up-to-date acquaintance with modern business and government trends. It is doubtful that any community officer except the treasurer would have the time, or even the inclination, to remain permanently qualified for the role. So if the titular treasurer is not the one functioning in the liaison role, our foregone conclusion is that sooner or later the function will be indifferently served. The essential connection between membership in the religious community and the liaison function is illumined more by practice than theory. At the risk of running one example to death we return to the quarterly accounting report. If the treasurer saw liaison as his or her primary function, the first question would still be "where can I hire a skilled .accounting technician to generate thoroughly reliable and professional figures?" Even the second question might be equally unsurprising: "Have I assured myself that I have the technical expertise to evaluate, accurately and professionally, the implications of the figures so presented?" (Already the field has broadened: the evaluation would, of necessity, include factors not strictly within the purview of an ac-countant.) It is the next step which becomes more demanding. "Exactly who are the real power-people and opinion-molders in the congregation, ~:egardless of title? And which items in this mass of data are the ones they need in order to make the decisions pertinent to th'eir role?" And, "Considering the individual personality, background training, and press of duties experienced by each such individual, what is the most effective way to present this data to him or 94 / Review for Religious, I/olume 40, 1981/1 her?" (These questions can lead to the elaboration of some very unorthodox but extremely effective financial reports!) /. It is a rare treasurer who sees the answer to the last two questions as so cen-tral as to demand more skill, more time, more thought and, if available, more training than the elaboration of the figures themselves. It is a rare community which would not be enriched and facilitated if the treasurer did just that. But it also seems next to impossible that any outsider, no matter how sagacious or trusted, could really have the indispensable in-depth understanding of the per-sonality limitations, the real power distribution (as distinguished from a table of organization), and the sundry lapses in hearing skills which form the living matrix of intramural communications. Perhaps fortunately, the liaison function is not usually looked upon as at-tached to the highest echelons of power. Yet, it is all too easy for casual observers, who already have the treasurer pigeonholed in a relatively trivial technician's role, to see any such outreach into the one indispensable function as an intrusion on the role of the superior. Such a reaction, though, is more concerned with shadow than substance: the very essence of the liaison function is to assist, not supplant, the superior in making informed decisions, and to assist, not supplant, the community in understanding the options open to them. Areas of Practical Concern The many excellent circulars on taxes, social security and related subjects coming from the offices of CMSM and LCWR provide opportunity for a quick, but necessarily very rough, check-up. These documents certainly sug-gest impending changes in life-style, deteriorating legal immunities, new norms of economic security and other important long-term adjustments of our community lives. Are these coming changes being considered in advance in every community? Do the CMSM circulars filter down at all? If not, perhaps the liaison function could improve to fill the void. Before noting more current problems, a somewhat dated example might provide historical insight. Between Leo XIII and circa 1970 there was a grow-ing rift between the papal social encyclicals and the employment policies of certain Catholic institutions. Areas of tension have run all the way from the areas of unionization through wages, pensions, and fringe benefits, to on-the-job working conditions. The business world of the United States had somehow tended to come more into line with the encyclicals than religious! Fortunately, this is largely water under the bridge; the majority of Catholic religious orders have recently shown an informed awareness of the problems of Christian employment, even in cases where lack of funds has made it very difficult to know how to respond. But it did take a long time, in some cases a scandalously long time. And the evident surprise which has overtaken more than one provincial administration when the "dear, dedicated lay-teachers" or the "sweet smiling nurses" hit the picket lines, would argue some degree of The Treasurer as Professional / 25 failure in their early-warning system. It is hard to imagine that the fumbling, uncertain--sometimes obscurant-ist- labor relations poli~ie~ ~l:iich charaCteriZed churchly institutions before 1970 would not have been improved if there had been in each congregation one person who was consciously aware of his or her duty to become fully in-formed concerning these trends, and to communicate them to a congregation which was itself aware of having appointed him to such a post-- and respected his function. In short, if each community had possessed a treasurer who was expected to perform the core-function of that office, and trained t.o do it, and if each such treasurer had been left enough time from routine mechanical ac-counting chores to function thus, the whole tale would have been quite dif-ferent. In the absence of that function filled, too often surprise and misinfor-mation proved a poor substitute for expertise at the bargaining table, and in the delicate reestablishment of truly Christian relationships afterward. Even though the labor relations example can be classified as historical in most communities (not all!), it still cannot be written off. For example, the presence of Douglas Frazier of the United Auto Workers on the Chrysler Cor-poration Board of Directors is no doubt just the tip of a large iceberg. Already in Europe workers' representatives on the top levels of management are a commonplace. Is anyone looking up from the accounting books long enough to start formulating a response, or thinking out alternatives, or evaluating present practices, or otherwise preparing for the day when the staff at Hospital A and High School B will be demanding board representation-- per-haps on the management level of the parent religious community itself? Insurance programs reveal another type of need. Too often "profes-sionalism" in the treasurer has been equivalated to the qualification requisite in some other profession simply because no one has noted that the liaison function is a separate profession in itself. We have already noted how this tends, in the accounting function, simply to distance the treasurer from the needs of the community superiors who are not businessmen and therefore can-not be reasonably expected to get maximum benefit from financial anal~,sis designed for business executives. In the related questions of insurance coverage, the problem takes a slightly different twist, although profes-sionalism (again the wrong profession!) here also ends up searching for the solutions that are most effective in the business world. In practice, we end by asking "How can we most expeditiously fit our community into insurance programs written for secular concerns?" The results are often ingenious and admirable examples of the professionalism of the insurance industry. But if someone in the communitY were professionally alert to the peculiar nature of a religious organization as such, he might well end up asking, "What are tl~e unique needs of this community, regardless of what fits the secular organization?" The answer may be quite surprising, and almost always results in unexpected savings and administrative simplification. Fortunately, the question is being asked more and more, and, as a result, some 26 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 specialized insurance policies are being written from the ground up to fit the unique needs of Catholic religious orders. But it should have happened sooner, and the questions should have been asked in many more quarters. Even today too many religious are paying insurance premiums for maternity benefits! The center-stage projects of the hour are probably energy conservation and socio-political activism via proxy voting and the like. Both problem areas carry implications of long-term and profound changes in community life-style. Both, too, are typical in their relations to the treasurer as professional. The current pattern of response is often enough characterized by aimless drift, unplanned, sporadic action, or responses evidently dominated by oen-thusiasts in the community who may or may not have a grasp of the long-run legal and economic implications. Since these areas do have overtones which are none of the treasurer's pro-fessional concern (although hopefully he or she will be deeply concerned as a committed Christian and religious), it follows that the treasurer should not be trying to direct the basic policy decisions in these affairs. But the complexity and multiple legal interlockings involved also suggest that someone--some one-- in each community has to be in a position to study the question from an overall point of view, and to do so with a trained expertise. Some individual must eventually take responsibility for gathering all available information and casting it ina form that alerts both officers and community to the implications for life-style, future economic security, hazards to legal immunities, and all the rest. Further, whereas ad hoc studies can be commendable, some one has gotto stick to the job and follow through, lest the community of 1985 be still acting on the circumstances of 1975. Both by a process of elimination and by logic, this important and irreplaceable function sooner or later (probably sooner) comes home to roost in the treasurer's office, If the incumbent is viewed as a mere technician who handles the computer printout, the community response will, in all probabil-ity," follow the too familiar pattern of muddling through very deep muddles. The rapid erosion of those tax exemptions which form.the practical economic basis of most religious communities provides another field of con-cern for the treasurer as professional liaison officer. Few communities have ever even done any daydreaming, much less planning, about the impact of various all,too-probable changes in the. tax laws. The tendency is to cling mutely and hopefully to the leaky ship. Thisis a wise procedure so faras day-to- day operations are concerned. But some one somewhere in the community should be monitoring, injecting caution into long-range plans, alerting superiors and community to the dangerous side effects of this or that policy, and noting, at least in passing, such unexamined drifts as the slow tendency of both tax courts and local officials to forget the tacit but once universal assumption that religious communities are families (for example: the recent The Treasurer as Professional / 27 tendency to raise zoning problems about sisters living together in a convent situated in a zone for single families; the erosion of the rights of superiors to make decisions for dying, unconscious, or elderly confused members of the community; difficulties with state officials who insist on nursing-home regulations instead of family rules for convents caring for a few elderly sisters, and so on. It is all of a pattern: we are being redefined as "strangers" -- and no one seems to notice). Unfortunately, the personality who gets maximum satisfaction out of the tidy details of bookkeeping is only rarely the same as the one who can perceive social or economic change from afar off. The rare exceptions are indeed pearls of great price. But the core-function is impossible, even for the pearls, if the only training they receive and the only role expectation they encounter are directed exclusively toward the routine of day-to-day administration. Conclusion In the twelfth chapter of Romans, St. Paul surprisingly lists "administra-tion" among the gifts of the Spirit. Indeed, he lists it just after prophecy and before teaching, preaching and almsgiving. It would be ridiculous to apply his thought literally to any specific church functionary, treasurers included--no doubt he had wider nets to spread. But Paul does thereby warn us not to trivialize the administrative functions in the Church into routine mechanics and technological computer-feeding. Faith, judgment, and spiritual insight are necessary, and the community which restricts its gifts of time, training, and trust to major superiors, novice masters, and theology faculties may be quenching the Spirit in a vital area of action. Reflection on the real core-function of the treasurer may lead in most cases not only to a deeper appreciation, of that office, but t9 some understanding of the damnable frustrations connected thereto. Hopefully such reflection could also lead to a major review of the qualifications for the office, along with adjustments in the organizational and psychological matrix which is required for its effective fulfillment. Admittedly there is no place where anyone can go for training in this most delicate function (the author is hatching a plot in this regard!), but probably such training is little needed at least at first. The first Step is to identify who, if anyone, performs the liaison function in the community and then to recognize that function as needed, legitimate, and welcome. Much else will follow naturally. The Eucharist, Priesthood, and Renewal Neil J. Draves-A rpaia Father Draves-Arpaia is a priest attached to Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish. The mailing address is: P.O. Box 160; Scottsdale, AZ 85252. Priesthood is not intrinsically linked to celebration. It is first, and ultimate-ly, united with self-giving, and therefore, sacrifice. And since the sacrifice of-fered by Christians at Eucharist is the victory of Christ which has brought us salvation, it is impossible, once we have grasped the depth of meaning and the redemptive grace of the eucharistic sacrifice, to be any other way than "celebrative." Those who would reduce the Mass to sober ritual, executed with rubrical precision and stone-faced devotion, or those who would see it as a moment for "religious merriment" have moved awfiy, in either direction, from the core mystery that the eucharistic celebration is. For me, the amuse-ment of one group and the solemn piety of the other are both suspect, and neither adequately speak or witness to priesthood to being a priestlypeople. What then might we look for? 1 believe it is necessary to move away from speaking on the Mass for a moment and concentrate on the daily life of God's people. Self-giving, self-forgetting love, sacrifice (whichever term we use) once placed within Christianity must be evaluated in light of the Cross. The eucharistic sacrifice then has "cruciform" implications, and we must look to a cross section of responses and attitudes that come forth from God's people in Christ. Priesthood is a visible sign in our midst of the reality of sacrifice, specifically in the life of a person who is priest, and in the believing communi-ty that would be priestly. Both must express in clear terms and behavior that something two-fold is happening in their lives: that, first, their personal rela-tionship with God is solid and radically oriented towards incarnating the first 28 The Eucharist, Priesthood, and Renewal and greatest commandment, and, then, that their human relationships are more than superficial and nice, but solid, radically oriented towards incar-nating the second and greatest commandment. How might we begin to make evaluation of these? I'm convinced that the priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood must look to the life of prayer, be it expressed in formal, informal, public or private prayer-styles. There we must begin to ask if, when we go before the Lord, we are truly inter-ceding on behalf of one another. This will give us an indication of how much and to what degree we are in touch with human life and the genuine human needs of those around us. If we cannot bring ourselves to intercede, then we cannot fulfill our principle role as priests or as a priestly people. This is especially significant to the role of the priest-president at the eucharistic sacrifice, for without a continuous sense of intercession in the daily life of the priest, the eucharistic prayer will be formula-oriented and not at all like the priestly prayer of Jesus, who went to the Father on behalf of the people. Next, we must look, priests particularly, to our horizontal prayer: our beseeching and inviting the people to come forward as instruments and missionaries of love. It might not always mean using words, nor may it require lengthy "shar-ing sessions." Priestly people and ordained priests need to know more about the fact that in any "priestly" experience, the action must speak louder than the words. The religious leaders of Jesus' day, from the picture we get from the Scriptures, had words that spoke more loudly than their actions. Jesus called his disciples to the converse: action over words, both in G~d-oriented matters (faith) and people-oriented matters (charity). It's also important to keep in mind that Jesus had the least to say when he was crucified. It was at that moment alone that his Gospel call to love hung totally on pure act. What can we conclude with regard to priesthood and its place within pres-ent renewal and the Eucharist? Liturgical renewal cannot have the impact it is meant to have if it is not preempted by a priesthood that speaks clearly on the issue of "self-giving." For the decade and a half since the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was issued by the Council, the Church has heard stressed that "the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed," and that the faithful should approach the sacred mysteries with the proper dispositions so as to cooperate with grace, for the liturgy to produce its full effect. If the Eucharist is the summit, what is the base of Christian activi-ty, if it is not self-giving? And what is the proper disposition with which we ap-proach the eucharistic celebration, if it is not a readiness and willingness to be of praise and thanksgiving, openness and intercession, primarily in attitude, secondarily in words? Priesthood, both ministerial and the priesthood of the faithful (but prin-cipally the ordained priesthood)in itself must begin to look more like the eucharistic sacrifice to the Father with the people of God assembled. It must show itself "in the flesh" to be a continuum between brokenness and wholeness, of movement from the confines of secular humanism and/or 30 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 religious elitism (clericalism, fundamentally among priests themselves and the structures in which they function) to a sharedness, not solely in matters of, priestly service to the Church, but in the basic issues of their lives, issues which are common to all lives. Priesthood, as an instrument of renewal and in its ef-fect upon the Eucharist, becomes an incarnational experience, for it takes the Word and makes it a Verbum Dei: fleshes it, clothes it, directs it towards the kingdom. The moment becomes a means for priesthood to have within it a holiness that is greater than that of the scribes and pharisees since it acts on rather than talks about the concrete issues which face the world today. So, at the base of Christian existence the priesthood is motivation for the Lord's people to join in sacrifice both at the table of the Lord and at the table which is the world. The nature of this life of self-giving requires unconditionally simple signs which speak to the people, like the signs of bread and wine. But signs of love in the daily life of the priest become obscured when humanness is over-taken by a rank-ism in the Church which, in turn, degenerates priesthood into a separate class aloof from the laity and ineffective in speaking about their life experience except in the most "lofty" sort of ways. As the liturgical renewal called for a stripping of secoridary elements which found their way into the eucharistic celebration over the centuries, the priesthood, too, if it is to be an aid in the deep renewal of the Church, must have itself stripped of non-essentials. Like the eucharistic sacrifice of the Roman Rite; priesthood must begin to face the people and become more accountable to them. It must have its distracti'ng bells quieted. Priests, one would hope, can more effectively speak the language of the people and must appreciate how much priesthood's unique gifts come from the people and must return to them. It must witness a praise of life by the priest's readiness to help the human condition in each per-son's struggle to become reconciled to God. Priesthood, to me, expresses its thanksgiving best when priests themselves show a humbleness (which active thanks implies) before God and people, plus an openness which allows for the person of the priest to be nurtured by the community he is calling into fullness. This call to intercession is a vehicle, not for doing some thing for others, but as a preparation, a prayer, to be with them. To pray on behalf of others re-quires that the priest be half of the person who is neighbor. This would mean that we move beyond any limited and debilitating spirituality which might suggest that God hears the prayers of priest over those of the laity. The truly intercessory prayer that is Christian is the one which seeks from God a "oneness" with the p,eople to whom the priest is sent, as did the prayer of Jesus, "that all may be one as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; I pray that they may be one in us." Intercessory prayer speaks of sacrifice, for it moves away from the tendency to badger God for things for ourselves and others, and, when made by a priest, requests that he, here and now, will become the response the Lord would make to those in need. It is occasion for furthering solidarity in the Body of Christ (person to person) and for furthering solidar-ity in the Body of Christ (person to person) and for allowing the Holy Spirit to The Eucharist, Priesthood, and Renewal use priesthood as sacrament (God to his people). When intercession is made by a priestly, people, they pray to be the response the Lord would make to the world's needs, and the Church then can be a "kind of sacrament of union and unity." In this way, personal needs, while neither denied nor overlooked, become secondary for the moment, and the needs of others become primary for the moment. Intercessory prayer does not give us the chance to be self-seeking, or to approach God with the long multiplication of words that would make prayer manipulative and evasive. It helps us to understand more precise-ly why Jesus r~jects this as authentic prayer and replaces it with a simple prayer of unity that begins, "Our Father in heaven." The prayer of the priest (or of a priestly people) allows for lives to blend, and there will be less cause for disparity in the p.riest's daily life and his ministry at Mass, for this sacrificial celebration at the "summit of the Church's activity" will be an authentic summation of what has been. Priesthood has everything to do with self-giving, and as it forces its way out of entrapments it becomes an event, an encounter with what is real. The same applies to the entire people of God in Christ. Events, or moments of self-giving, are times of celebration and joy for they are an exodus from slavery, from the death of isolation and self~centeredness. It is on this issue where renewal is most needed: moving people away from thinking in terms of what they "do" to how they position themselves towards God and neighbor, the way they choose to be. The vocation of priest and of the priestly people leaps away, so to speak, from cultic functions and attendance at such, to a covenant in the eucharistic sacrifice, because there have already been preliminary celebrations ofthis mutual, self-forgetting love among Christians wherever they meet between the times they gather at table in the grace and peace of God, our Father a'nd the Lord Jesus. Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua: A Friendship in Perspective Paul Conner, O.P. Father Conner teaches moral and spiritual theology at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. His address is: St. Albert's Priory; 5890 Birch Court; Oakland, CA 94618. Catherine Benincasa's public life is more widely known than her personal life: during the six hundred years since her death, attention has been so drawn to her astonishing political impact on the Europe of her day that she is fre-quently called one of the most influential women of history. Within our own decade Catherine's enduring intellectual and spiritual authority has been heightened through her being declared one of the two women doctors of the Church. Little wonder, then, that the private life of this Sienese woman has escaped widespread notice, and yet in regard to human friendships, for instance, few life histories are as intriguing, both in scope and depth of development. I would like to focus attention in this article on the dominant human rela-tionship of her short life of 33 years, her friendship with Blessed Raymond of Capua. This relationship could be understood adequately on its own merits, but I find that it takes shape so much better within the immediate religious setting of Dominican life in which it was born and flourished. Looking to the Lord Jesus is indeed first; but after this, every religious family that seeks the essential features of its life must turn to its founder. Tempting as it might be, I do not claim that friendship is an essential feature of Dominican life, at least as friendship is ordinarily understood--though there are superb examples of it in the Dominican heritage, past and present. What is interesting though, is that Dominic did give the spirit of friendship to 32 Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua / 33 his followers, since his own life was so rich, even overflowing, in friendship, human and divine. A glance, then, at his life, together with what might be termed a theological consideration of Dominican friendship, will form a helpful con-text within which to view Catherine's and Raymond's unique friendship. St. Dominic In spite of popular misrepresentation of St. Dominic in later centuries as a stern, inquisitorial figure, conclusive, historical evidence shows him to be an exceptionally loving person. More than three hundred depositions for his canonization; his first biography written by his friend and successor, Jordan of Saxony; the Lives of the Brethren, collecting eyewitness accounts of the early years from all over the order, all tell of the many men and women in various walks of life who cherished friendships with him. Jordan speaks of Dominic's lifelong, radiant mixture of charm and reserve that attracted and held men's hearts. His best modern biographer in English, Bede Jarrett, puts it this way: "God's greatest gift to man in the order of nature, and almost the greatest even on the supernatural plane, is the gift of making and securing friends; and judged by this, Dominic was indeed blessed by God.'" The first brethren assure us that perhaps no one among them had a greater taste for fraternity than Dominic. He enjoyed friendships of varying degrees with his followers, and, like his Lord, chose from among them a "beloved disciple," John of Navarre. With the many communities of sisters that he founded, Dominic always maintained a personal bond, helping them in temporal but particularly spiritual needs, instructing them so that they absorbed his own spirit and dedication to truth. Besides 16aving us a descriptive portrait of Dominic, Blessed Cecilia kept a valuable record of his Roman ministry. She relates that during his visits to the sisters he either "exhorted them to greater spiritual ef-fort or merely sat among them, refreshing them with the charm of his conver-sation and sharing with them the experiences of the day.''2 The range of Dominic's friends outside the order was extensive. Legendary is his beautiful relationship with St. Francis. TheLives of the Brethren records that the two "became but one heart and one soul in God and enjoined their sons to foster this brotherly spirit until the end of time." Dominic befriended men and women converts; family members of people with whom he worked, such as the two daughters of Count Simon de Montfort; women recluses in Rome; bishops and cardinals--even popes. Gregory IX, in the bull of Dominic's canonization dated 1234, wrote that Domin'ic was ' Bede Jarrett, O.P., Life of St. Dominic (New York: Image Books, 1964), p. 122. 2 See M. H. Vicaire, O.P., Histoire de saint Dominique (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1957), V. 11, pp. 278-279. 34 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 bound to us by ties of deep friendship, before we were raised to the pontificate; his life carried with it in our eyes certain proofs of heroic holiness . We are convinced, as also are our people, that through his prayers God may do us mercy, and that one who was our friend on earth will still in heaven hold us in no less ~ffection. Wherefore. we have determined to add his name to the number of the saints.~ The prominence of friendship in Dominic's life noticeably influenced his early followers. Numerous touching friendships among them are a matter of historical record: Jordan of Saxony and Henry of Cologne, Jordan and Diana d'Andalo, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, and the two Dominicans of particular interest to this article, Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua. Theological Atmosphere A certain theological atmosphere has surrounded and, I would say, condi-tioned the development of Dominican friendships throughout the history of the order. This is as it should be, since Dominican life, like Christian life, tends toward fullness of love--primarily with the I ndwelling Divine Persons, but secondarily with all men and women whom God loves. This Christian love, or charity, is the main indicator of vitality and growth in the life of grace. Thomas Aquinas was the first theologian to penetrate into the mystery of charity by way of human experience of authentic friendship, applying his understanding to God's love for us and our love for him.4 A distinctodynamic seems to have resulted, creating the theological atmos-phere to which I refer. Dominicans have looked first to faith for conviction about divine love and friendship with God and God's friends. They have then looked to their personal experience of human friendship with God. They have found, particularly in prayer, that their experience 6f divine friendship served as corrective, if need be, and certainly as goal for their human friendships. These two experiences, the human and divine, mutually illumined and en-riched the other, each according to its competency. I would hazard a guess that a practical result of this theological atmos-phere has been that individual Dominicans were richer or poorer in friend-ships with other Dominicans depending on the age in which they lived. Let me explain. In all ages genuine Dominicans are very discriminating about their friends, owing largely, I think, to this conditioning theological atmosphere. They tend not to let natural instincts for friendship predominate, unless each particular relationship can be harmonized with divine friendship. Authentic charity as their chosen goal must determine everything in their lives. Besides rarely find-ing people enough to their natural liking in the baffling assemblage the Lord calls together in religious communities, their faith and theological orientation ~ See M. H. Vicaire, O.P., Saint Dominique, La vie apostolique Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1965), p~ 90. ¯ See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, lI-ll, q. 23, a. I. Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua / 35 yield such a high ideal that natural potential alone is not enough to satisfy them. But in ages when many members of a Dominican community or province or the worldwide order are deeply one in mind and heart about essential goals and ways of Dominican life, friendships abound, even without much founda-tion in natural similarities. Close bonds are formed on the basis of similarity of thought, love for and dedication to the highest, most valuable, and most permanent of realities. On the other hand, history indicates that Dominican friendships are rare in times of wide diversity in mind, heart, and life concerning essentials of a com-mon calling. In these circumstances, with little in common by nature or by grace, profound friendships are the exception. Masculine-Feminine Complementarity in the Order of Preachers Before focusing on the profound relationship between Catherine and Raymond of Capua, let us look at an additional feature which Dominic built into the very structure of his order, namely masculine-feminine complemen-tarity. In Dominic's mind, the men and women of the order were each to con-tribute something essential to the order's goal of contemplating and spreading sacred Truth. His plan was that the nuns should pray and do penance, and the friars should preach. With this complementary power, no obstacle could pre-vent the accomplishment of goals. To assure from the beginning this complementary feature of the order, Dominic established at Prouille (southern France), in 1207, an arrangement he had known from his years as a canon regular in Spain: the "double-monastery" where friars and nuns lived side by side, each in separate convents yet joined in one common life. Later, wherever he had men, Dominic himself established the feminine counterpart: in Madrid in 1217; in Segovia, Saragossa, and Palencia in 1218; in Rome in 1221. He intended the same in Bologna with Diana d'Andalo and a group of her friends, but died before doing so. This planned masculine-feminine complementarity was emphasized throughout the order by the custom of calling the friars "Preachers" and the nuns "Sisters, Preachers, or Preacheresses.' '~ Saint Catherine, Doctor of Friendship Our context is now sufficient for turning to Catherine and Raymond, two Dominicans who personified in their friendship the masculine-feminine com-plementarity of their order. In her writings, Catherine was such a preacheress that, as noted above, she has been declared a Doctor of the Universal Church. Happily enough, she has See Paul M. Conner, O.P., Celibate Love (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1979), pp. 54-56. ~16 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 left explicit teaching on human friendship, particularly :in Chapters 41-44 of her famous Dialogue. Briefly, she sees positive temporal and eternal benefits as well as distinct dangers. An enduring benefit is that we do not lose human friendships at death. Rooted in happiness in God, the saints in heaven also share one another's hap-piness and so color their own beatific joy with "more abundant., delight and contentment." Catherine looks at friendship on earth as "consolation, sweetness, com-fort, and joy." Friends here help one another "grow in grace and virtue," and they provoke each other to honor and glorify the heavenly Father. A serious danger arises from human friendship which begins primarily as spiritual love but slowly becomes predominately sensual. To bring con-secrated persons to this end, Satan will insidiously engender a distaste for religious life, inducing them to search for pleasurable compensations in friendships. Prayer is judged in terms of self-satisfaction and is eventually dropped. "Worldly conversations" become more and more appealing and help stifle former desires for prayer, purity of spirit, suffering for God, and fraternal charity. Why does God permit this outcome? It is because he desires to purify the person from his unrecognized imperfection of loving creatures with a love mainly "passionate" or "sensible." After a friendship becomes established, the person might observe, for example, that his friend pays more attention to others than to him. He experiences disappointment and suffering. There are, then, two possible outcomes. His suffering can bring the deepened awareness that he has been seeking self in a love he thought wholly generous--the Father's hoped-for outcome. This insight will give birth to healthy "distrust of self" and to a more perfect love, charity, for all persons, including his par-ticular friend. This happy result, Catherine asserts, can occur only i.n someone "enlightened by faith," who desires "to walk in the virtues.especially prudence and discernment." A person, however, who is "ignorant in the faith" and not striving to walk in virtue, a person who "has no life," as Catherine puts it, will find the experi-ence of diminishing sensible satisfaction in prayer a great danger. He may well follow Satan's lead and give himself up to "confusion, tedium of mind and sadness of heart, abandoning any virtuous exercises." To such a person, friendship will eventually mean ruin and inner "death." Despite her medieval view and expression of things, Catherine's general teaching on spiritual friendship stands clear: it is good if the result is authentic charity, not self-love. Catherine lived her teaching, filling her short life with an amazing range of men and women friends. One among them was unique. Catherine and Raymond Born of the noble Delle Vigne family of Capua in 1330, Raymond entered Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua / ~17 the Dominican Order at age seventeen. During studies at .Bologna he excelled in scripture and patrology before obtaining the lectorate degree in sacred theology. He taught in Dominican priory schools between 1358 and 1362, and for the next four years served as spiritual director to the nuns of his order at the monastery of Montepulciano. In 1367, he was elected prior of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, a principal Dominican community of men in Rome. Raymond was sent to Siena some six years later to be Regent of Studies for the young men of the order in training there. And so it was that this man of extensive education and experience came to meet Catherine in 1374, the consequence of both her praying for a confessor capable of guiding her in her evolving mystical experience, and of the order's appointment of Raymond tO investi-gate and direct her life. Catherine promised Raymond obedience, and after some time of testing her authenticity, he came quickly to understand her and her spirituality. From the beginning they admired each other, Raymond recognizing in Catherine a woman of fine intellect, intense striving for sanctity, and tireless apostolate; Catherine in Raymond, a man of intelligence, tact, breadth of understanding, and development in virtue. Upon this basis their friendship grew firm and profound. Frank admission~ in their writings and biographical events reveal that they came to know each other intimately. Catherine opened her whole soul to Raymond, who by his counsel and authority over her, helped her come to full self-knowledge. In four short years their relationship had become very important to both of them. When the pope called Raymond to Rome in 1377 to be prior again of the convent of the Minerva, Catherine's letters speak of her "torment" and the "particularly hard and painful" experience this first separation from her "intimate friend" occasioned. She asked the Lord, who had "imposed upon me a royal and very poignant trial., to strengthen me in this privation which language is so incapable of expressing.''6 Understandably, news from Raymond alwaysbrought her joy. Later correspondence gives further indications of the quality of their love. Once, when Raymond had turned back from a papal mission to Avignon because of impending ambush, Catherine affectionately reproached him. He misread her intention, and so she wrote: "You have thought that my affection for you had diminished; but you are mistaken . l love you as I love myself; and I have hoped that the goodness of God would also make your affection perfect.-7 In her numerous letters, Catherine customarily addressed Raymond as her ~ See Letter 119 quoted in Johannes Joergensen, Sainte Catherine de Sienne (Paris: Editions Gabriel Beauchesne, 1929), p. 187. 7 Josephine Butler, Catherine of Siena (London: Horace Marshall & Son: 1894), pp. 289-290. 38 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 "beloved Father," or "friend of predilection," or by the pseudonym that so pleased her, il mio Giovanni singolare--presumably in comparison to the Lord's preferential friendship for St. John. During the last months of her life, in extreme weakness and suffering, Catherine wrote a long report of her mystical experience to Raymond,. ad-dressing him lovingly over and over again: "My most sweet Father." In Letter 232 she tells him of a vision wherein she saw .herself entering by love and desire into Christ through the wound in his side, "accompanied by my Father St. Dominic; Giovanni, my friend of predilection; and all my spiritual children." It had been revealed to Catherine that the pope would send Raymond to King Charles of France and that she would die before his return. Raymond relates that she took him into privacy and "talked continuously, her large eyes shining., saying such strong and beautiful words." Often she "grasped his hand and smiled beautifully." Then, accompanying Raymond to the port of Ostia, she "knelt,., and crying, made the sign of the cross.''8 In their few years together, Raymond and Catherine collaborated in many undertakings, helping each other both naturally and supernaturally. Raymond, for example, was cured through Catherine's prayer from the plague which decimated Siena in 1374. He then joined her in relief work among the city's victims. Afterwards they went together in retreat to the tomb of St. Agnes of Montepulciano. Later in Pisa, Raymond was with Catherine in the Church of St. Christina when she received the stigmata. She prayed that the wounds be made invisible, and so it was that Raymond was the only person to bear public witness to the miracle. In 1376, the two met in Avignon in a successful attempt to persuade Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome. They traveled back to the Eternal City together, spending some time there with each other before Raymond's final departure. During their political actiQity, Catherine and Raymond turned to each other for support. She admired his political wisdom, most often following his advice which opened up new dimensions and possibilities to her. Together they promoted the crusades and prayed and worked for the reform of the Church. To counter a fear and reluctance in his character, Catherine would urge Raymond, when events demanded, to act bravely and with courage. In-deed, they cooperated in every way, so much so that one biographer con-cludes: "Catherine and Fra Raimondo were both working for the same ends, and aided each other with a mutual exchange of ideas, energies and counsels.''9 In the realm of grace, Raymond received instruction from Catherine for his spiritual progress. She was ever mindful of him in prayer, and even after See Hyacinth M. Cormier, O.P., Blessed Raymond of Capua (Boston: Marlier, Callahan & Co., 1900), p. 58. Arigo Levasti, My Servant Catherine (London: Blackfriars Publications, 1954), p. 140. Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua / 39 her death, Raymond testified that his spiritual stamina came from his con-tinued communications with Catherine in spirit. Before their final parting, Catherine wrote to Raymond: "1 beseech you to collect into your own hands any writings of mine which you may find and the book (the Dialogue); do with all of them whatever you deem is most for God's honor and glory.'''° Even in his overbusy life as Master General, Raymond worked successfully to promote Catherine's canonization, gathered and preserved all her writings, and found time to compose her first biography, a task that took him fifteen years. Dealing principally with her personal rather than public life and bringing to light the most touching incidents and her most characteristic traits, Raymond's is a surprisingly objective account. From it all later biographers have drawn their material. Conclusion Without doubt, in their close knowledge and love of one another and in the cooperative ministry they exercised, Blessed Raymond of Capua and St. Catherine of Siena exemplify the masculine-feminine complementarity of the Dominican Order. Their friendship helped each of them, as well, toward sanctity. We began by saying that Catherine's personal life could be better understood within its Dominican context. It has also become clear that through her own personification of the spirit of St. Dominic and of the charism he gave to the order, the latter itself stands better revealed. Friendship between Dominicans may not be an essential feature of Dominican life, but throughout the last seven hundred and fifty years, few friendships recorded by history surpass those between Dominicans. The order is fertile soil for close ties between persons fired by its goals and fully given to its ways. Could one not even say that the more Dominicans are Dominican, the greater the likelihood, today as in past centuries, of Dominican friend-ships? Letter 102 cited in Cormier, op. cit., p. 134. Service of the Heart: The Quest for Authentic Prayer in Judaism Michael Maher, M.S.C. Father Maher teaches Scripture at the Mater Dei Institute of Religious Education in Dublin. His last article appearin.g in these pages was "Old Testament Poetry and Religious Experience Today" (March, 1979). Father Maher's address is Woodview; Mount Merrion Ave.; Blackrock, Co. Dublin; Ireland. Everyone who has made an effort to develop a meaning,ful prayer-life knows how easy it is to allow regular prayer to become a mechanical ritual rather than a vital and elevating experience. But the danger of allowing prayer and worship to become a perfunctory recitation of hallowed formulae or a conventional performance of traditional rituals is not special to our age. The problem seems to be permanently contemporary, and Jewish religious tradi-tion seems to have been continually on guard against it. Ever since Isaiah sternly chided his co-religionists who honored the Lord with their lips while their hearts were far away (see Is 29:13), the leaders of Israel continued the prophet's task of safeguarding the truly spiritual and per-sonal character of the people's devotional life, and of ensuring that the indi-vidual's prayer should always be animated by a living faith, should always be the expression of sincere love, and should always involve deep feelings and devotion. The rabbis, and their successors right down to our times, used the word kavvanah to express the attitude of interior devotion and personal involvement that should accompany every prayer and every religious observ-ance of the devout Jew. Directing the Mind The word kavvanah which became part and parcel of Jewish devotional 40 Service of Heart / 41 literature is derived from a verb meaning to direct, and implies directing the mind to God, concentrating the attention on the prayers being recited, saying them in a spirit of devotion, and excluding thoughts and feelings that distract one from the experience of encountering God. When one prays with kavvanah one's heart and lips agree, and one's whole person is involved in the awesome act of appearing before one's Creator and Lord. This is what the Talmud' means when it says that "when a man prays he should direct his heart to heaven" (Berakoth 31 a). Another Talmud text declares that if a man does not put his mind to the performance of a religious duty his act is not a religious act at all (Rosh ha-Shanah 28b). These same ideas find another formulation in Pirke Aboth or the Sayings of the Fathers, a compendium of maxims that have been popular among all Jews since the early Christian centuries. Here the sage's warning runs as follows: "When you pray do not make your prayer mere routine, but a plea before God for mercy and grace" (PirkeAboth 2:13). To avoid the routine against which this saying warns the reader, and to minimize the danger of prayer becoming a merely mechanical recitation, the rabbis of the Talmud urged that something new should be introduced into one's prayer every day (Berakoth 29b). These and similar declarations created among the Jews an awareness of the importance of personal involvement in prayer, and by the Middle Ages the statement that prayer without kavannah or concentration is like a body without a soul or a husk without a kernel, had become proverbial. The Shulchan Aruch, a sixteenth-century law book which was regarded by all Jews up to our day as the authoritative guide to religious living, stated that "a little prayer with kavvanah is better than a lot without it." Although this declara-tion did nothing to diminish the prolixity of Jewish prayers or to shorten synagogue services--the Sabbath morning service, for example, lasting more than three hours--the spirit behind it continued to motivate pious Jews in their quest for sincerity and moral earnestness in their prayer. Just as the prophets of old rejected prayer that did not come "from the heart" (Ho 7:14; see Ps 108:1), the.rabbis o f the Talmud regarded prayer and worship as"a ser-vice of the heart" (Taanith 2a; see Sifre on Dt 10:12), and the Jews in general knew that prayer which was not a heartfelt, experience was not prayer at all. ' The word Talmud means "teaching," and is the name given to a body of writings that incor-porates what were at one time the oral traditions of Judaism. The Talmud records the laws that regulated the daily life of the Jews, as well as the general lore, legendary and otherwise, that formed popular Jewish culture. One version of the Talmud developed in Palestine from about the year 200-350 A.D., while another version was formulated in Babylon in the period between 200 and 500 A.D. The'Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah (see next note), and like the latter is divided into six orders, which in turn are divided into tractates. Both Mishnah and Talmud are quoted according to tractate. Each tractate deals mainly with one special topic. Thus, for exam-ple, the tractate Berakoth--the word means "blessings"--deals largely with prayer matters. 42 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 Calm and Composure However, if the teachers in Israel regarded kavvanah as an indispensable quality of true prayer they realized that it was not something that can be easily acquired or retained. A text which has come down to us from about 200 A.D., and which is recorded in the Mishnah,' declares that "none may stand to say the Tefillah3 save in sober mind" (Mishnah, Berakoth 5:1). The text then goes on to say that "the pious men of old used to wait an hour before they said the Tefillah, that they~might direct their heart to God." The Talmud commen-tators on this passage remarked that one should not say the Tefillah while im-mersed in "idleness or laughter, or chatter, or frivolity or idle talk" since these are obvious impediments to the concentration and composure that should characterize one's communion with the Holy One. So important was this concentration and composure in the eyes of the rabbis that they recom-mended that one should not attempt to pray at all when one is agitated or preoccupied by distracting thoughts. They state, for example, that one should not pray on return from a journey in case one might not be able to give proper attention to prayer (Talmud, Erubin 65b). Another text which dates from the early Christian centuries declares that "One whose dead relative lies unburied before him is exempt from reciting the Shema" and the Tefillah . Because when a man sees his loss before him he is distraught" (Dt Rabbah 9:1). These recommendations convey the idea that one must control one's mind, one's imagination, and one's feelings before engaging in prayer. This teaching of the rabbis was to be expressed by Maimonides (died 1204), the great Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, who wrote as follows: Before engaging in pra'yer one must free one's heart from all preoccupation~s, and regard oneself as standing in God's presence. It is therefore proper to sit a while before praying in order to direct the heart and then pray calmly and devoutly. However, the Jewish teachers realized that the proper dispositions for prayer cannot be acquired during a few moments of concentration before ac-tually beginning to pray. The quality of one's prayer is greatly influenced by 2 The Mishnah, literally "repetition," is the name given to a collection of teachings that are attrib-uted to rabbis who lived in the period between 150 B.C. and 250 A.D. These teachings were codified by Judah the Prince in the middle of the third century A.D. However, in the compilation of~his Mishnah, Judah used earlier collections of rabbinic teachings. ~ Tefillah, meaning "prayer," is the name given to the Jewish prayer par-excellence which con-sisted of eighteen benedictions or petitions. The Tefillah was recited three times daily, in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. Those who attefided the synagogue recited it there, while others recited it in private. The petitions of the Tefillah substantially go back to New Testa-ment times. ¯ The word Shema simply means "hear." It is the name given to a prayer traditionally recited in the morning and in the evening by every male Jew. The prayer, or rather confession of faith, begins with the passage, "Hear, O Israel." (Dr 6:4-9)--hence the name--and continues with Dt. 11:13-21 and Nb 15:37-41. Service of Heart / 43 the whole tone of one's daily life. Nahmanides, a thirteenth century Jewish mystic and scholar of Spain, was aware of this when he wrote: When you pray, remove all worldly considerations from your heart. Set your heart right before God, cleanse your inmost thoughts, and meditate before uttering your devotions. Act thus all your days and in all things, and you will not sin. By this course your deeds wil! be upright, and your prayers pure and clean, innocent and devout, and acceptable before God. Know Before Whom You Stand When Amos wished to warn his fellow-Israelites about the punishment that awaited them because of their infidelity he said simply: "Prepare to meet your God!" (Am 4:12). These blunt words were given a broad interpretation and the rabbis applied them to the preparation needed for prayer. Such an interpretation of the text is by no means unreasonable, because prayer is a meeting with God, and as such it cannot be lightly undertaken. Prayer for the rabbis in particular was a matter of what they called chutzpah, that is, an act of, boldness, even of impertinence. For who can have a right to appear before his creator and Lord, to address him, and to expect an answer? Yet the Jewish sages knew that prayer was part and parcel of Israelite life, and that the great heroes of old, like Moses, David, Jeremiah, had all prayed. Therefore, although the rabbis spoke of God as ".the Holy One, blessed be he," and addressed him in prayer as "Lord, King of the Universe," they never hesitated to present their every plea before him. The Talmud teaches explicitly that "'chut:&ah, even against God is of avail," meaning that God cannot resist one who prays, and that the Lord of Glory does not rejec~ his servants who approach him. Yet, lest the chutzpah involved in prayer go beyond boldness and con-fidence, and become insolence and offense, rabbinic tradition was careful to insist on the reverence and respect that should characterize one's attitude in God's. presence. The rabbis recalled tha,t when the Israelites saw the glory of God on Sinai "their souls fled" and the~, trembled in holy fear. If Moses and the generation of the Exodus who had experienced so many manifestations of God's power and goodness were unable to stand with confidence in his presence, how much more should the less privileged generations of the people feel overcome by his might and majesty? Rabbi Eliezer (c. 100 A.D.) gave this advice to his disciples: "When you pray, know before whom you stand, and in this way you will win the future world" (Berakoth 28b). A slightly modified version of this text became known to generation after generation of Jews who read the words "Know before whom you stand" inscribed in many synagogues over the ark which contained the scrolls of the law. Such an inscription reminded the worshippers of the awesome meaning of prayer, and forcefully suggested that all levity and casualness were inappropriate in the praying congregation. Other synagogue inscriptions that conveyed the same message were Jacob's words as recorded 44 / Review for Religious, Volume 40, 1981/1 in Gn 28:17: "How awesome is t his place! This is none ot her than t he house of God, and this is the gate of heaven," or the psalmist's declaration "1 keep the Lord always before me" (Ps 16:8), or the well known verse from Isaiah, "Ho-ly, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts," which was also to have an important place in Christian churches and in Christian prayers. These, or similar words, were continual reminders of synagogue worshippers that an attitude of flip-pant self-assurance or a casual or indifferent mood are unbecoming in one who genuinely strives to enter into communion with his God. However, lest the dignity of God and the serious nature of prayer frighten off the would-be worshipper, other texts which instill an attitude of trust in God's presence were at the disposal of those who went to the synagogue to pray. The Jerusalem Talmud laid down the general principle that the Jew need never hesitate to approach God in prayer: "When a man is in trouble let him not cry out to the angel Michael or to the angel Gabriel, but to me, and I will answer immediately" (Berakoth 9, 1.13a). The traditional Jewish Prayer Book began with a series of biblical texts which were designed to create an atmosphere of adoration and devotion in the worshipping community. Texts such as "O Lord, I love the habitation of thy house" (Ps 26:8), or "But as for me, my prayer is to thee, O Lord" (Ps 69:13) were calculated to set the scene for serene reflection, and to express an awareness of God's love and goodness without which prayer is impossible. So while the Jew's attitude to God contained an ingredient of reverent fear, and while his approach to his Lord was characterized by a sober recogni-tion of the divine majesty that 'cannot be flouted, his relationship to God was also marked by trust in a personal Being who, far from being an arbitrary despot, is a God in whom power and love are one, and who cares for those who approach him with faith. The Talmud taught that "one cannot deal familiarly with heaven" (Berakoth 33b-34a), but it did not set God outside the reach of the average Jewish believer. Gestures of Reverence In Old Testament times the temple in Jerusalem was for the Israelite "the house of the Lord" (Ps 27:4). The perpetual lamp which burned in the temple (see Lv 24:2f) was for the rabbis of later times a witness to mankind that God dwelt among his people (Talmud, Sabbath 22b), and the religious leaders of Israel strove to instill into the people a deep respect for the place where God had set up his abode. The Mishnah records the following prescription that was framed in order to ensure that the biblical command to "reverence the Sanc-tuary" (Lv 19:30) would be fulfilled: A man should not behave himself unseemly [in the temple area]. He may not enter the Temple Mount with his staff or his sandal or his wallet, or with dust upon his feet, nor may he make it a short by-pass; still less may he spit there (Mishnah, Berakoth, 9:5). Of course the ultimate aim of this prescription Was to honor the God who Service of Heart / 45 was worshipped in the temple~. The rabbis are explicit about this when they state that just as one does not revere the Sabbath but him who commanded the observance of the Sabbath, so one is not to revere the sanctuary but him who gave the commandment concerning the sanctuary (Talmud, Yebamoth 6a-6b). The authors of these rabbinic statements understood the importance of an aura of sacredness that can help to make one conscious of being in the divine presence, and that can help to generate the I~avvanah that makes prayer meaningful. Biblical tradition prescribes no particular postures or movements for prayer. But we do find mention of several physical postures that are meant to give expression to one's spiritual and menta

Issue 37.3 of the Review for Religious, 1978. ; Obedience in the Contemporary World Impassioned Presence: Religious Life and Leisure Cosmic Dimensions of the Eucharist Volume 37 ~ May 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 May, 1978 Volume 37 Number 3 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review. should be sent to REWEW FOa I~L~OtJS; 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 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. Ministry Rooted in the Vows Mary T. Rattigan, C.S.J. Sister Mary is presently director of the formation program in her province. She also teaches theology at St. John's University in Queens, NY. She resides at 39 Gifford Ave.; Jersey City, NJ 07304. Simply stated, ministry refers to the service rendered in the name of Jesus Christ. Such service is a faith-response to our being sent to continue the mission of Jesus in the world. At the moment, religious are experiencing new vistas of ministry being opened up to them. They also perceive their call to service as stemming directly from the acknowledgment and de-velopment of their gifts and talents. Current involvement in ministry, then, calls for an increased ability to discern individual gifts for service and an appreciation of emerging diversity in form and style. We are asked to keep in mind St. Paul's injunction: "There are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord, working in all sorts of different ways in different people . The particular way in which the.Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose" (I Co 12:5-7). Regardless of its form, ministry can be broadly defined as those efforts directed to bringing the love and power of God to fruition in the world. Such efforts to build up the kingdom of God ultimately spring from a consciousness of the meaning of Christian mission. Hence, an understanding of ministry, which is normally the way mission is expressed, must be sought in the theology of mission. In the first place, mission theology pinpoints the Church's need to become a perfect sign of Christ in the world. It reminds us, moreover, that the whole Church, everywhere and in all its members, ismissionary. To be Christian and to be Church means to be "chosen" for service, to carry on the work of Christ in the world. It also places a heavy emphasis on the fact that although a 321 322 I Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 plurality of ministries exists, there is only one mission--the mission of the risen Jesus. This single mission; which has been entrusted to the members of his Church, is said to incorporate three elements. First, we share in this mission when we announce the new life received in Christ which makes the love and power of God available here and now. Second, acceptance of this mission demands that our life-style give credibility to this announcement. This requires a witness to the process of being personally transformed by the love and power of God. Third, we are invited to extend God's love and power by our actions so that the kingdom may be realized to a greater extent in history. From the the~ology of mission, then, it is possible to delineate the essential features of a life of service. And, to the extent a sense of mission becomes a personal reality for us, we can experience a reason for being "sent" and an urgency to respond to the kingdom-vision. Both a growing consciousness of the meaning of mission and the de-velopment of multiple forms of ministry are demanding that a second look be given to the evangelical vows. These factors, among others, are forcing religious to face the question of how the vows commit them to ministry. The need to understand the vowed life in relation to ministry is especially felt by those actively engaged in combating social injustice. The call to work for justice, equality and peace is demanding an articulation of the vows which is consonant with the social mission of the Church. By the same token, religious are wondering whether new aspects of the vows might not be emerging as they seek to confront the issues of justice, peace and equality. In either case, an understanding of the vowed life in the context of mission and ministry is deemed extremely important at this point of time. In fact,. a more adequate theology of religious life cannot be expected until an examination of the vows in .relation to ministry is undertaken. Apostolic religious have a heed to deepen their insights into the vows as a renewal of their baptismal commitment to service, to conceive of themselves as a community with a "commission" that shares the Church's mission re-sponsibility, and to think of religious profession as the public acceptance of ¯ this mandate to mission. The reflections which follow are intended to in-crease our understanding of the role of the vows in ministry, whether that ministry occurs within the Christian community itself or in society at large. Another Look at the Vows Religious have traditionally expressed their response to the call of dis-cipleship through the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Until Vatican II, a certain clarity of understanding and expectation accompanied the evangelical life. But all too often in the past, the expression of the vows was equated with certain kinds of behavior, such as using material goods, abstaining from genital sexuality, and listening to the superior. With the renewal of religious life, however, the interpretation of the vows began to shift. Developments in theology, psychology and the social sciences forced Ministry Rooted in the Vows / 323 traditional notions of the vows to be placed under severe scrutiny. For more than a decade now, serious questioning and confusion have surfaced over the relevance of the vowed life to contemporary society. The ambiguity which surrounds the present living of the vowed life is multifaceted. Un-certainty has emerged as to whether the vows themselves constitute one's religious consecration. Objection has been voiced over the traditional vocabulary still employed for the vows. Doubt has also arisen regarding their very number, with the attendant suggestion that a single, more com-prehensive term be used to designate the commitment to religious life. The complexity of the situation is brought to even sharper focus when divergent interpretations are includedin the picture. Some perspective can be gained, however, when we recall that the internal thrust of the early years of renewal, with its intensely personalistic and communal concerns, perme-ated most attempts to rethink the vows. In retrospect we can appreciate the emphasis which had to be placed on calling forth individual religious to fuller personhood and responsibility. We also realize that community life demanded that interpersonal relationships be fostered and that new struc-tures of authority and government be adopted. But religious have now reached the point of desiring that their vows be perceived as integrally related to mission, as giving expression to their call to minister in Jesus' name. While much study remains to be done on the relation of vowsto the personal and communal aspects of our life, consideration must presently be given to the strongly sensed need to relate the vows more concretely to the apostolic or service dimension of religious life. The desire to seek ways of living the vows which will best express the call to mission can be recognized from the type of question being asked: What contribution can the vows make toward a more effective realization of the mission of Jesus in the world today? In what way do the vows enable religious to be effective ministers of the gospel, particularly in the area of social justice? It may be asked, why the current trend to relate the vows to mini~stry? Why do religious feel challenged to examine the vows as a source from which true ministry can flow? It i.s significant, I believe, that the renewed interest in the vows occurs at a time when religious have already given considerable attention to the spiritual resources needed for ministry. They have opted, for the most part, for a more intense personal spirituality. In an effort to reaffirm the importance of a deep prayer life, they are actively pursuing the charismatic movement, directed retreats, continued spiritual direction, and so forth. In line with this interest in spirituality, attention now focuses on the vows as spiritual resources which can be brought to bear on a life of service. As the thirst for spirituality extends itself to the vows, it represents a search for both a depth-dimension to life and a greater sense of integration. This depth-dimension can be characterized as a rootedness or centeredness which will serve to ground our apostolic ser-vice. The vows hold out the promise ofeffecting a sense of rootedness since 324 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 they encapsule basic orientations arid values which, if explicated and claimed as one's own, can provide roots o.r centering. Besides seeking deeper roots for service, religious are taking a fresh look at the vows out of a need to experience a greater degree of integration. They are led to wonder in what sense the vows can be considered an integrative force. Faced with a frequent sense of disharmony and discrepancy in ministry, they are led to inquire about the ability of the vows to "make whole." In other words, can the vows act as a unifier between the vision proposed by ministry and the reality actually achieved? In a world where it is ex-ceedingly difficult to experience any synthesis or integration, religious feel that the vowed life deserves to be reappraised for its integrating impact on their lives. Assumed in the quest for integration, however, is the underlying assumption that the vows cannot be viewed as external to service. Any authentic living of the vows will consist of ministering to the needs of others, especially those who are victims of injustice and oppression. We turn now to consider the spiritual resources offered by the vows when ministry is conceived as the presence of God's love and power in the world. Ministry as Presence One way to look at ministry is to regard it as presence. As the word is used here, presence is synonymous with the term sacrament taken in its broadest meaning. As an expression of mission, the object of ministry is to be a sign of God's transforming love and power. One who ministers is seen to be a symbol through which the God-life received in Jesus is embodied. The form which this kind of ministry takes is that of leading others to experience the divine element in their own lives and of bringing this to fuller expression. Ministry as sacramental, then, is concerned with fostering a response to the transforming love and power of God at work in the world. As a participation in the mission of Jesus, ministry partakes of the very mystery which marked the mission and ministry of Jesus himself. In this regard, St. John's gospel offers a clarification of the nature of this mission, and consequently, contributes towards an understanding of ministry as presence. The chief work of Jesus, as presented by the fourth evangelist, lies essentially in revealing the Father's love and power: "To have seen me is to have seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). The concept of ministry espoused here centers on Jesus being the presence of God in the world. Important for us, however, is the promise which accompanies this revelation for those who believe: ". to perform the same work as I do myself" (Jn 14:12). As the perfect image of the Father, Jesus gives his Spirit so that we may enjoy a similar relationship to God, and thus share his likeness of being a revelation of God in the world. Despite our limitations, we have been commissioned to be sacraments of the transforming love and power of God. This is the great mystery of ministry--a mystery which the vows help to disclose. Still further reinforcement for viewing ministry as presence is found in the fourth Ministry Rooted in the Vows / 395 gospel with the recorded statement of Jesus: ". I consecrate myself for their sakesnow, that they may be consecrated in truth" (Jn 17:19). Central to this Johannine emphasis is his notion of truth, which means to "make holy." Jesus himself is the truth, the holiness of God visibly manifested. His mission is to effect a greater possession of the truth which he is. Judged in this light, discipleship becomes a mandate to bear the message of the Father's love in our life. To be consecrated in truth, therefore, implies a process whereby the love and power of God can become enfleshed in us~a process which designates our apostolic mission: to make visible the presence of God in the world. From this perspective, ministry rests on the conviction that our life itself, which is a primary form of presence, is meant to be shared with those around us. It summons us to be vehicles of God's transforming love and power. Above all else, then, a ministry of presence asks that we witness to life in its transcendent dimension. The religious consecration of perpetual chastity, in particular, conveys a presence which elicits belief in the mystery of God's transforming love and power. This becomes possible when being unmarried for the sake of the kingdom is understood for what it actually encompasses. As St. Paul indicates, an unmarried woman "can devote herself to the Lord's affairs." His reason for extolling virginity, however, stems from the fact that she can give her "undivided attention to the Lord" (1 Co 7:32-35). All too often this passage has been interpreted solely in terms of the availability which religious possess for apostolic activity. But suggested by this Pauline directive is a relation of intimacyma relation characteristic of those who have allowed the love and power of God to come to fruition in their lives. Seen in this light, chastity commits re-ligious to deepen their own relationship to the Lord, and to undertake the task of concretizing this love in their relations with others. The goal of vowed chastity is judged to be concomitant with the witness called for in ministry--a witness to the mystery of God's transforming love and power. To remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom is itself a sign, and one which inserts religious into the very heart of mystery. It signifies a mystery not only to those we serve but it also continues to be an enigma even for those who have embraced it. The vow of chastity provides a way of saying concretely with our life something of the mystery which must be. accepted by all persons, namely, we are made to live in and for mystery, particularly its eschatological aspect--the final destiny which brings this mystery to fulfillment. Its witness might well be to offer others the opportunity to question their lives, what is the meaning of their lives, their goal. Quite simply, this becomes possible when religious cause others to wonder why. To be a catalyst for eliciting these questions requires that our life-style palpably express a personal consecration to the mystery of God's trans-forming love and power. Consequently, a ministry of presence is concerned with the values and attitudes which we embody in our relationships with 326 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 others. Granted this, the challenge facing religious is whether people around us can even glimpse the mystery of God's transforming power from the way we live. both as individuals and as communities. It must be asked, too, whether we facilitate the possibility of others arriving at a fuller sense of themselves as vessels of God's presence in the world. Since a ministry of presence centers on personal relationships, it places a high priority on the kind of.person we are rather than on any works we may perform. To what extent, then, does the vowed life enable this focus of our personhood to be reflected in our service? One instance worth noting is the way the vows help religious to go beyond the "performance principle." In a culture which tends to judge persons according to the efficiency with which they execute tasks, it is extremely difficult to maintain the primacy of personhood. Vowed chastity can foster the possibility of our being person-oriented. By refusing to be defined by our work or achievements, we can offer a chal-lenge to the pragmatic strain underlying our culture. When we identify ourselves in terms of our relationships, we should be in a better position to view others in terms of who they are rather than what they accomplish. To strike a happy balance between a life of presence and a task-oriented one is no easy achievement. In the interests of reality, the vows should at least prevent our service from being dominated by the standard of efficiency-- despite the fact that our service must indeed be efficient and competent. In connection with a work-ethic, a certain "market-orientation" can easily creep into the ministry of religious. Such marketable elements as success, relevance, prestige, and income should not form the criteria for apostolic service. Neither a choice of ministry nor a judgment regarding its effectiveness should be made on the basis of popularity, remuneration, low-risk factors, or other marketable values. In this regard, both the vows of poverty and obedience, as steps taken in faith, have a great deal to do with ministry. They offer a direction and a challenge to the choices we make and to the attitudes we espouse. The recent association of vowed poverty with work, the fact that religious are "subject to the common law of labor," serves to illustrate how a market-orientation might become operative for us. Since Vatican II, as we know, poverty has shifted from limiting the use of possessions to the consent of the superior to earning one's own living and aiding the poor with one's resources. Because of this expectation that they be self-supporting, religious might find themselves choosing an area of service based on remuneration. Also, in view of the growing elderly population in religious communities, they might feel pressured into ac-cepting a form of ministry which would contribute to the financial support of the community. Whatever the reasons, religious must at least recognize the subtle temptation posed by the exhortation to earn one's own living. Vowed obedience, which is concerned with the choices we make, demands a prayerful discernment regarding our motives for service. It asks that our choices proceed from values clearly based in the gospel. When we seek the Ministry Rooted in the Vows / 327 Spirit's direction for engagement in ministry, obedience makes it incumbent upon us to see that apostolic choices are not subjected to market values. The vowed life, then, is meant to root ministry in its transcendent and relational dimensions. And the concept of personal presence allows us to perceive the dynamic relationship which exists between ministry and the vows. While ministry refers primarily to the presence or sacramental em-bodiment of God's love and power in the world, it must also bear the marks of suffering love. To ~vitness to God's transforming presence requires that we undergo the sufferings inherent to bringing the kingdom of-God to a fuller realization. Ministry as Suffering Love Suffe.ring love is the h'allmark of Christian ministry. This kind of love demands some explanation due to the recent emphasis on personalism and fulfillment in religious life. Clarification is also needed because the word suffering is ordinarily thought in terms of pain of mind or body, or as bearing the consequences of some illness or wrongdoing. At times it even conjures up a kind of self-sacrifice typical of the past which is now seen as destructive to personal growth and holiness. As the term is used here, suffering refers to the capacity to be acted upon, to be changed or moved by another. Suffering love means that we allow persons and events to enter our life so as to shape the response we make. It implies a vulnerability which results from permitting our actions to be defined by what the°other requires. When our ministry takes its shape from the needs around us, it opens the door to true empathy and compassion in serving others. Person~il conflictl, adjustment, and denial will necessarily flow from this kind of loving, thereby contradicting a common misunderstanding that love always results in personal satisfaction. Suffering love is none other than the reverse side of self-giving love. Both aspects of love constitute the true nature of personalism. Otherwise, we have a pseudo-personalism which calls for the giving of our personal being but does not allow usto be transformed by our relations with others. For ministry, suffering love means that interdepen-denc~ and reciprocity will mark the experience of truly serving others. Those WhO minister must have the capacity both to receive and to give, the willingness to be shaped as well as to create. Suffering love can best be understood in the context of the mission of Jesus. Although we tend to equate Jesus' sufferings solely with the events surrounding the crucifixion, the gospels reveal that his sufferings resulted from the demands which love made upon him. His identification with the poor and outcasts, his contention with evil in its many forms, and his assistance to the sick and infirm are but a few examples of how Jesus allowed persons and events to elicit the kind of response needed. In a very real sense, then, his response was shaped by his ministry in that he allowed himself to be moved by the other, to take in the truth of each situation. As 328 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 a consequence, his suffering love became the sign of his vocation to es-tablish the kingdom, of his love for the Father and for all persons. The suffering involved in taking in the needs of others and responding ac-cordingly had i~ndeed the power to communicate love and to effect a new bond or communion with those to whom he ministered. Ultimately, it can be said that Jesus~ sufferings resulted from fidelity to the mission he had received. The vulnerability entailed in his being faithful exemplifies an actiye suffering rather than a patient submission to fate. In other words, Jesus suffered because of what he stood for, because of his message and deeds. For us, too, the witness entailed in ministry will be the personal vulnerability of suffering love. In this sense, the vows, particularly obe-dience, have implications for ministry. Of the three vows, obedience seems to exert little influence on our day-to-day service. Often it is relegated to community life or to situations which involve a change of ministry. It is possible, however, to view the vow of obedience from a much broader p.erspective, namely, as a participation in Jesus' vocation to suffering love. This notion finds support in The Epistle to the Hebrews where we find obedience and suffering linked together. Speaking of Jesus, the author notes: "Although he was Son, he learned to obey through suffering.'" (5:8). As the word "learned" indicates, Jesus" obedience was chara~:terized by personal growth, and this process of growth extended over his lifetime. Also connoted by growth in obedience through suffering is an active re-ception of all that his ministry entailed as well as an intensely personal struggle. As the temptations suggest, Jesus was no stranger to the human longing for control and power over his own destiny in that he wrestled with the possibility of adopting a messianic role which would effect a more "successful" ministry. The obedience of religious, like that of Jesus, consists in being faithful to our mission of service. It rests on a vision of faith which sees persons and events as indicators of the kind of response we ought to make in a given situation. To labor with Christ today requires that we undergo a similar e.xperience of suffering love, with its active reception of struggle and mis-understanding. Listening to the direction of the Spirit and enduring the t~nsions which are part and parcel of ministry are avenues which will open tis up to growth in faithful obedience. Because of the long-suffering in-volved in learning obedience, sporadic attempts will be less than adequate. Only a constant adherence to one's mission of service will suffice as a witness to this dimension of suffering love. As we engage in ministry, moreover, we can expect to deal with the temptation to dull the kingdom-yision. Perhaps one of the surest signs of participating in the mission of Jesus is that we experience a sense of being "stretched" beyond ourselves. If we are truly ministering we can expect the frustration and tension which accompanies all service, namely, the tension between the vision and the actuality, between the yet-to-be-fulfilled aspect of the kingdom and its Ministry Rooted in the Vows / 329 present degree of actualization. Because of our basic yearning for com-pletion and satisfaction, we find it difficult to live with brokenness, un-finished business, to be forever simply "on the way." At times we are tempted to adopt a "messianic complex," thereby relating to the world around us in god-like fashion. In so doing, we would seek to take things into our own hands, to manage and control their outcome, and to set up our own standards for judging the effectiveness of our actions. The vows help to remind us that we have been called to work for the extension of God's'reign of love, and that it is.God who gives the increase. Quite pointedly, suffering love brings us face-to-face with the deepest mystery of ministry, that of being servants of the kingdom. Because the ministry of suffering love requires a critical evaluation of our vulnerability and creative receptivity, the vow of poverty has an important role to play. Specifically, vowed poverty asks that we be open with respect to the form or expression which our ministry takes. It calls us out of any sense of self-sufficiency which might accompany a competency achieved. A sense of self-sufficiency in ministry can only prove to be distracting. Far too much energy can be expended in effortsto protect positions of real or imagined importance. This proclivity for being self-sufficient is most clearly evidenced in the resentment of newcomers for the threat they pose to our replace-ment. When. driven by a fear of loss, whether in status or in replacement, we begin to.operate at a low-risk level. When grasped by a sense of pos-sessiveness, we undertake only those activities which are considered safe, those which ensure prestige or eliminate competition. Vowed poverty, therefore, enjoins us to assess those sources of security which we may have erected for ourselves. It asks that subtle forms of self-worship such as success and prestige be unmasked for what they truly are. Because pos-sessiveness impedes the kind of vulnerability demanded by suffering love, religious poverty asks that we assume a posture of tentativeness with re-spect to the form which our ministry takes. Such tentativeness presupposes a willingness to let go of the security of the past in order to move into the future. In some cases, the risk involved in remaining flexible will result in a call to a new form of ministry or to a modified response in our present ministry. In any case, a radical trust and dependence upon the loving power of God is being called fourth in us as we search for the particular expression our ministry should assume. The vulnerability required~by suffering love also finds nourishment in vowed chastity. The "mystical" dimension of chast!ty, with its faith-decision to embrace the non-rational or mysterious aspect of life, exacts an acceptance of the fact that life can be neither totally controlled nor ultimately possessed. Of its very nature, vowed chastity leads to risk, to the unpredictable, and to the unknown. It beckons us to love with an openness which prevents intrusions and other forms of in-conveniences from being regarded as impingements upon our "projected plans" for service. In its "social" dimension, vowed chastity is also an 330 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 important asset for ministry. To the extent we have personally embraced a non-possessive stance towards life, we can expect to be non-threatening persons. Those in our presence should not find it necessary to draw upon their defenses, to play games or to put on false facades. By a simple and vulnerable life-style, religious can become disarming persons, those who grant others the freedom to be who they truly are. Consequently an at-mosphere can be created which maximizes the acceptance and contribution of personal gifts and talents, thus paving the road to ministry becoming a mutual venture between those who serve and those who are served. Ministry Rooted in Freedom Both views of ministry being addressed here--ministry as presence and ministry as suffering love--will necessarily engage us in the struggle to attain a greater degree of Christian freedom. And Jesus, as the paradigm of this freedom, offers us the model. When we meditate on the gospels we find that he ministered in a way that freed others, that empowered and enabled them. For example, Mary Magdalene and the Samaritan woman were en-abled to accept the seeds of new life which had come within their reach. In such cases, Jesus used his power to empower others. If we are t6 engage in a life-giving ministry, we must be freed from those obstacles which hinder this kind of service from occurring. The vowed life, understood in the sense of personal liberation, can be said to foster the freedom needed for ministry. First of all, how does the vow of poverty free us to serve in a life-giving manner? As we know, evangelical poverty does not center on either economic status or material deprivation. For apostolic religious, the vitality of one's service, with its attendant signs of peace and joy, has always been intrinsically linked to evangelical poverty. Poverty implies a freedom from ourselves (detachment) and a single-heartedness (attach-ment) for the service of God's kingdom. Stated in other words, poverty aims at a self-emptying so that we can devote everything that we are and have to others. By a voluntary limitation of possessions and other forms of self-sufficiency, a self-emptying ensues which places us in a situation of being poor, namely, of being ultimately dependent upon God's love and power. Inner freedom, which is a goal of vowed poverty, comes from placing our- trust in God rather than in our own resources. Its specific apostolic witness consists in having chosen to have less than we could .have attained. In so doing, we can demonstrate our belief that the kingdom of God is not dependent upon success in the areas of prestige, possessions or power. Vowed poverty, it is hoped, should also free religious to give a fuller response to Jesus" injunction: "You have received without paying; you must give without charge" (Mt 10:8). As we come to a greater awareness of our God-given gifts, we should be enabled to give of ourselves, in par-ticular, to share our talents, education, time and psychic energy. The freedom for ministry which vowed chastity promotes is thai of Ministry Rooted in the Vows / 331 non-possessiveness. In vowing chastity, we promise to eradicate the strong natural desire to restrict our love and concern to those claiming a priority through family or friendship. At times, we are even called to love without reciprocity. In such cases, we are asked to love those persons not in a position to respond to the love we offer, the fearful, the lonely, and thee voiceless minority in society. In a positive sense, then, vowed chastity facilitates the freedom needed to develop multirelationships, to move be-yond our personal propensity for exclusive and reciprocal relationships. Because all relationships are fragile, but specifically those demanded by vowed chastity, a freedom is needed to sustain them and keep them from deteriorating into avenues of self-aggrandizement. If our ministry is not to turn into a forum where unfulfilled personal needs are ventilated, we must be in touch with our own drives and needs. In fact, only when such personal ¯ needs as the desire to be the center of attention or the need to exercise control over the lives of others have been acknowledged, can we bracket them in order to address the needs of others. The basis for freedom in ministry also lies in vowed obedience. Often ministry is not experienced as life-giving because of our insensitivity to the gifts which others possess. All too easily we become oblivious to the po-tential of others and succumb to our own myopic view. Religious obe-dience, on the other hand, implies a freedom to experience the world around us so that persons and events can mediate the kind of response called for-in ministry. In this way, our ministry will be able to align itself more closely in both form and content to the spiritual, social and political needs of the people we serve. Vowed obedience, a pledge to carry out the mission of Jesus in a public manner, requires that our decisions be aug-mented by a faith-vision. As the gospels indicate, Jesus never did his "own thing," but sought to do his Father's will. In a special way, obedience can prevent us from acting out of impulse, mood or selfishness if we bring our choices to the authority which resides in the community for ratification. In so doing, obedience will direct the choices we make and free us to under-take with hope and courage the service which faith identifies with the will of God. Reciprocal Relation of Ministry and Vows Ministry and religious vows can be said to exert a reciprocal influence on each other. Engagement in ministry offers a challenge to the vowed life, and likewise, the vows provide for a deeper immersion into ministry. One way this reciprocal relation of vow and ministry is being experienced today is through the call to stewardship. As a matter of justice, Christians are being asked to exercise responsible stewardship regarding the resources of the world. The concept of stewardship, which is based on the idea that the world's resources do not belong absolutely to any individual, group, nation, or generation holds that resources should be viewed as gifts received and 332 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 entrusted to our use and care. As such, it calls for a sharing which stems from a consciousness of the common good and a concern that the poor can participate in these available resources. Although the notion of stewardship is directed mainly to the resources of food and energy, it can be extended to include a much broader sphere. Stewardship and its consequent sharing can be applied to all the gifts of life which have been entrusted to us, whether they be talents, time, or psychic energy. Certainly, a life-style which incorporates the right use of material resources as well as a voluntary limitation of material goods is a need in today's world. The concept of stewardship, then, can find a valuable source of support in vowed poverty. The question is: will religious place the "sharing and sparing" aspects of their life in relation to the wider social issue of justice? Put in other words, how can our sharing and sparing be increased to bring about a more sig-nificant social witness? Just as the social demands of ministry can contribute to a greater under-standing of the vowed life, so too, a lived experience of the vows can enhance our vision of ministry. Involvement in ministry, as we have noted, immerses us in the paradox of discipleship. And like any paradox, the tension involved is difficult to maintain. Although not a condition for dis-cipleship, nevertheless, the vows are gifts given to realize this end. In fact, the values symbolized in the commitment of the vows are those which are basic to ministry itself. They designate a life committed to the kingdom, and hence, call for a transformation from our old self, with its attitudes, ways of thinking and acting. When the vows are perceived in terms of the trans-formation required by discipleship, they can then be translated into a life-style consonant with the call of ministry. A truly powerful means of witnessing to God's transforming power in the world is offered to those called to love as celibates for the sake of the kingdom, to live in a simple and sharing fashion, and to be obedient to finding ways of serving others. Obedience in the Contemporary World Alan W. Jones Father Jones is an Episcopal priest, a director of the Center for Christian Spirituality; 175 9th Ave.; New York, NY 10011. His paper was delivered before a meeting of the Episcopal religious Order of the Holy Cross. l was beset with an absurdity in attempting to deal with the subject of obedience. For one thing, I am not particularly obedient, and yet I am going to attempt to tell religious what the structure of their obedience ought to be, vis-a-vis the world and the coming realities. What rescues me from these absurdities is the fact that what I am really doing is telling you religious what I want you to be for me, for the sake of the Church, for the sake of the world. Underneath my prescriptive approach there is, in reality, a cry for help. You religious, my fellow Christians, are desperately important to me. Forgive me, then, if I begin with an apparent insult used to describe religious life. "Monks are like bacteria. Bacteria live in communities, but by their increase in numbers they produce a by-product (as acid in milk) which ¯ inhibits their increase and eventually kills them. Now community living is a most economical way of living, and religion is the greatest money-spinner on earth; so monasteries get rich, and if the riches are not allowed to flow on to the poor, the community begins to stagnate and becomes, like a bacterial colony, a prey to its own by-product.''~ ICiaran O'Sabhaois, "Community in the Early Irish Church," in Cistercian Studies, Vol. X, 1975:1, p. 67. 333 334 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 Monks are like bacteria. All forms of community life have their dan-gers~ not merely the danger of becoming rich (that might seem remote today), but also the danger of becoming inward, self-regarding, and self-sustaining. I want to share with you some thoughts on modern monasticism, centering on the question of religious obedience. I will argue that Christian obedience is at the heart of Christian liberation and that obedience in the religious life is a symbol, for the sake of the Church, of the freedom we are all to enjoy as sons and daughters of God. Obedience is a Matter of Surrender: Saying "Yes!" to God To put it simply: obedience is a matter of surrender, submission, abandonment to Someone or Something. It is, first and foremost, a question of yielding, of saying "Yes!." It is, therefore, related closely to questions concerning our sense of identity (who we are) and the object of our worship (God, or the gods). That is to say, who we are will depend on the object of our surrender. When you "have finally said "Yes!" to Someone or Some-thing, then who you really are begins to emerge. So obedience is tied up with both problems of identity and objects of worship. It is also bound up with the search for intimacy, for union. Obedience is a matter of love. It is, therefore, of vital importance that we Christians be extremely sensitive and careful in matters of obedience. To say yes to the wrong things is to embark on a course of action which will infect the total life. Like the bacterial colony, the religious community in surrendering to anything less than God begins to suffocate, become paralyzed, and will eventually die. Christian obedience is right worship. Misplaced obedience is idolatry. And idolatry is the path of death. Our theme, then, is an enormously heavy and complex one which involves the very core of our being. Awareness, identity, intimacy, and worship: all these things are involved in our under-standing of obedience and will affect the way the Christian community is structured and organized. Obedience is the Means of Heightening Awareness I want to begin by looking at the structures of Christian obedience as such with no peculiar reference to those called to religious life. Christian obedience (listening to, being under, being formed by the Word) is the means of heightening Christian awareness, which in turn undermines our former sense of identity and turns who we thought we were upside down. The pattern is, obedience (i.e., listening), awareness--transformation of identity. Our mission in the world is determined by who we are and not only that, who we think we are. Our "novitiate" is the beginning at least of the undermining of our self-image and the reforging of a new identity. There are tremendous dangers because there are countless people who would like to tell us who we are. There are many, many forms, some very subtle, of psychological and spiritual tyrannies. The evil of misplaced religion in Obedience in the Contemporary Worm / 335 general is its tendency to tell people who they are and what to do. This is the tendency of those who talk about obedience. To be Obedient is to Listen to Someone: Christian obedience is to listen to the Word of God and to be formed by the Word that has been heard. This Word comes to us in the communal, convivial experience of scripture, of the eucharist, and of the community. It is a common obedience: not a private obedience. All other forms of obedience are derivative--religious obedience, obedience to the superiors, to bishops, to those in authority. There are peculiar dangers, however, for those who are committed tO a life of the discipline of prayer. Prayer continually relativizes our obedience. That is to say, prayer is always a movement towards a higher allegiance, a deeper obedience, a more intense "Yes!." As such, it puts a question mark beside all our lesser obediences. Taking as our model the religious, he is, ex professo, the person who prays and is therefore explicitly a symbol of the highest obedience. It is not that other Christians are not called to this obedience; it is that the monk symbolizes in a palpable way my obedience, the obedience evoked in all Christians. That is why I have need of the monk, why I have need of you, my brothers and sisters, to be true to your vow of obedience which is rooted in contemplation. Prayer and contemplation (how comforting they sound!), however, can seem to be subversive activities of the human spirit. They threaten our shallow allegiances, our easy "Yes!" to the merely penulti-mate things, to the things of this present age which are passing away. This is why the "no~,itiate" has to be reasonably rigorous because the monastic life brings with it the kind of "consciousness-raising" which only those who have been tested can tolerate. The pattern of monastic life, if it is not to degenerate into a sickening enslavement, is geared towards height-ened awareness: of God, of others, and of self; and heightened awareness always threatens and undermines our self-understanding. New insights challenge our present sense of identity. To be unaware of God, of others, and of ourselves is to deny any growth in identity and, in the end, such a denial turns everything sour, like the activity of bacteria in milk. To be unaware is to be unfree, to be enslaved. To be aware is to live with the mystery and terror of an ever-growing and developing identity. In critical and conflict situations th~ lesger obediences come into' play and we lapse into idolatry. The religious is peculiarly prone either to sur-render himself to the order, the community, the society, or to be trapped in the illusions of his own self-will. The .choice, for us too, seems to be slavery to the System or slavery to the unredeemed ego. We live in a time of conflict and where there is conflict, awareness is diminished. In a crisis, the pressure is there for us to caricature ourselves as well as our enemies. We may develop a strong sense of identity, but it is not based on awareness but on illusion, on a lesser obedience. This kind of caricaturing has be-deviled the movement towards genuine renewal. The labels we pin on our 336 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 brothers and sisters often reflect a low sense of awareness with a strong sense of identity.2 Obedience is a Matter of Identity Much of the discussion concerning "the state of the Church" and the monastic vows has centered on external things. We have tended to be technological rather than scientific. "It is technology--the technique of doing thingsnrather than science--the art of understanding things--that prevails.''3 One of the functions of the monastic vow of obedience vis-h-vis the modern world is to challenge us With this higher obedience, to stretch our self-understanding to the limit, to be a sign of contradiction against our impoverishment and diminishment as human beings. Monastic obedience challenges me to believe that there is more of me than I have dreamed: so much more. To do this, the monk's identity must be secure in the highest obedience. This involves a common life capable always of reforming itself, capable always of daring to raise and face ultimate questions. The monastic rule is the charter of freedom for those men and women who,for the sake of the worM, live constantly on the edge of the future. In theological terms, the monastic call is to be the people of the eschaton, for the sake of others. This requires a peculiar resilience which, in the end, cannot be a matter of personal worth or inner strength. It is a matter of faith. The monk or the nun, insofar as he or she is "successful," is an example of the triumph of grace over nature! The "bad" religious, the "bad" priest, is one who manages to combine a low sense of awareness with a strong sense of belonging. It is manifest in the classic monastic sin of acedia, "the sickness that destroyeth in the noonday." Dante talks somewhere of "the sullen, lazy smoke within the heart." The religious, the priest, in short, has missed the focus of his obedience; his awareness is diminished, and his identity, false. The highest obedience of which the contemplative life is the highest manifestation means that we give penultimate significance to everything and yet acknowledge that it is through these penultimate things that the Ultimate comes to us. This is freedom: hold to Christ and, for the rest, be totally uncommitted! We are obedient to superiors, to bishops, to the com-munity, for the.sake of the Church. These lesser obediences are the means by which, in a world of time and space, of partial insight, and distorted vision, we express our higher obedience. It is a constant rhythm of re-pentance, of metanoia, of turning, of critical self-examination. Benedict Clarkson writes, To some extent, we are all frightened to question our religious beliefs, because we are fearful that such questioning will take away from our lives all truth and meaning. Yet ~See Adam Curie's Mystics and Militants, Tavistock Publications, Ltd. (London, 1972). 31bid., p. 7. Obedience in the Contemporary World / 3:37 if our religious convictions are to become mature and intelligent, there must be, in this sphere as in all others of our lives, a critical self-examination. It is necessary for growth in faith. The more certain we are about our religious convictions, the freer we shall be to test them . The alternative to not dotibting our faith, not questioning our vocation, is immaturity. Research done by G. Allport showed that those who accepted their religion and their vocation too unrefiectingly and too uncritically tended to react in an unequally critical way to Iheir fellowmen and to political issues. When one's religion is unquestioned, one's values become institutionalized, exclusive and self-centered, and this can hinder growth in contemplation which is simple gaze.4 Obedience is a Matter of Saying "Yes!" to Others and to Ourselves The '~Yes!" we make to God in Christ makes possible our acceptance of ourselves and others, and fosters growth. Obedience, the saying of yes to the wholly Other who is God is a means of self-actualization. Maslow outlines twelve observable characteristics of people who are growing as human beings? Two of them are of particular interest here: an increase in problem centering and an increased identification with the human species. "Problem centering" is an unfortunate phrase because it suggests the kind of person who is always concerned about his problems. In fact it is meant to suggest quite the opposite. "Problem centered people" are those who have a mission, a problem outside of themselves. "They seem to see every-thing sub specie aeternitatis, in the widest frame of reference, and this imparts a certain bigness, a lack of pettiness or care for trivialities. It gives them a serenity and a freedom from worry over immediate concerns, and this makes their lives easier both for themselves and for all associated with " them.' '~ One hopes that this is a characteristic of Christian spirituality and a result springing from our common obedience. Maslow's second point is equally important: "increased identification with the human species." Obe-dience to Christ in common life liberates us and enables us freely to love our brothers and sisters. Maslow's word for this is GemeinschaftsgeJ~hl, which is this feeling for community, not only in the larger sense, but also the feeling that exists between two people. It is the sense of being at one with others. Pope Paul VI wrote, "The Church urges monks to be present to man-kind in a more profound way, namely in the heart of Christ. It expects them to share the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of this age."7 This is a marvelous rationale for the existence of religious in the moder~ world. Obedience becomes the way in which religious express this Gemein-schaftsgef~ hl. By virtue of their profession, religious orders contribute to 4"The Rule of St. Benedict and the Concept of Self-Actualization,'" in Cistercian Studies, Vol. X., 1975: 1, p. 24-25. 5Ibid., p. 24. ~lbid., p. 28. 7Quoted, ibid., p. 30. 338 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 the life of the world simply by being intensely present. The religious in his obedience to common life helps to keep human life human by the giving of hospitality. This hospitality is the ministry of presence. It is the creation of what Henri Nouwen calls "a free and friendly space.''8 The modern world is crying out for such space and you are the ones called to create it. The relentless reaffirmation of your obedience in liturgy, in order, in common life, creates this space and gives you, ahd countless others like you, the space to live and breathe. I know monks and nuns too well to idolize them, but the monastic, warts and all, points away from the success-oriented, utilitarian culture which is destroying me and tells me there is more, much more. The needs of the modern world demand more of the monk or nun, of the priest, of the Christian, than ever before. We can no longer hide our identity in community, in status, if we are to create a free and friendly space. The idea th~it the Christian life embodies a fixed tradition which is beyond question must go, along with a concept of religious obedience involving blind submission to a superior. This, however, is not the danger confronting the Church today. Nowwe need signs of a transcendent humanism. It is desperately needed and that is why I have hopes for a revival of the re-ligious life. Obedience is an Effective Sign of Self-Transcendence The ideal Christian community is modeled on self-giving obedience in the Trinity. God, ultimately, is the obedient One whose love is manifested in self-emptying. This trinitarian love which we are to embody is totally dependent and totally independent. In God there is no pathology of identity. Unlike us, he knows who he is. This trinitarian identity points to the mystery of being human. "My being me will enable you to be you; your beingyou will enable me to be me; not me without you; not you without me; perfect identity, perfect freedom.''9 This trinitarian pattern of identity revealed in self-giving is manifested in Christian obedience. It is a love which not only creates a free and friendly space, but also shapes and orders things. Obedience is a matter of order, too~for the sake of the world. Obedience is the key to the kind of co-herence and co-inherence without which it is impossible for a community or a people to survive in any meaningful way. The Christian life is a pioneer experiment in community living which provides the rest of humanity with models for the future. You religious hold out to me the promise of integrity. That is what love does. When someone really loves me, he holds out to me the promise of that integrity I feel that I have lost. Is this too much to lay on you? No, not if we remind ourselves that the key to our being and to our 8See Reaching Out, Doubleday (N.Y., 1975), p. 50. 9David Jenkins in The Passiontide Lectures (unpublished) at Lincoln Theological College, England, 1975. Obedience in the Contemporary World / 339 identity is liturgical. Worship is that which gives human life its focus, its purpose, its significance. We live by those things which offer us self-transcendence. The Christian is a sign of self-transcendence and, as such, is liturgically oriented, Worship is directly related to obedience, awareness, identity. Christian Obedience is a Matter of Right Worship The theme of worship as an obedient "Yes!" of surrender has been beautifully portrayed in Peter Shaffer's play, Equus.~° The play concerns a psychiatrist's struggle to "cure" a seventeen-year-old boy who had gouged out the eyes of six horses. The main theme is the mystery which pervades our understanding of man, a mystery that ultimately claims our obedience, demands our yes. When confronted by the boy and his particular pain and horror, the psychiatrist is confronted with his own mystery. For him a human being, to be human, has to have an object of worship, a focus of obedience. He knows himself to be a contemplative but only by way of being a voyeur. Classical Greece is his passion, but then only halfheart-edly, through glossy pictures and planned tours. He longs to be able to say to a companion: "Look! Life is only comprehensible through a thousand local gods. And not just ten old dead ones with names like Zeus--no, but living geniuses of Place and Person! And not just Greece but modern En-gland! Spirits of certain trees, certain curves of brick wall, certain chip shops, if you like, slate roofs--just as of certain frowns in people and slouches. I'd say to them--' Worship as many as you can see--and more will appear'!''1~ If we could see, life is full of wonder, is fraught with mystery. The negative side of Christian obedience, that is, saying no resolutely and often to other allegiances, provides the liberating detachment that worship and love demand. The more you contemplate, sit still, and see, the more the gods appear, present in your brothers and sisters, in glance and gesture: the gods of self-transcendence that give human life its significance. The psychiatrist's dilemma is that he can see these gods, he does make the connection, but this vision does not conform to what "normal" people call "normal." While there is a good aspect to the word "normal," it not only means the smile in a child's eyes, it 'qs also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills~like a god. It is the Ordinary made beautiful: it is also the Average made lethal.''v' The Christian is a sign of ilbnormality, in contradiction to what the world calls normal. Christian obedience places the unnerving question mark be-side everything in the secular world. It reminds the psychiatrist that he ~°Equus: Shrivings, Athenaeum (N.Y., 1974). ~ffbid., p. 61. Vffbid., p. 63. ~140 / Review f or Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 cannot comprehend the reality of a horse, let alone the mind of a child! The horse, Equus, stares at the doctor, "Do you really imagine you can account for Me? Totally, infallibly, inevitably account for Me? . . . Poor Doctor Dysart.''13 To "cure" the boy, to make him "normal," the psychiatrist has to take away his passion, his obedience, his object of worship. To save him there has to be a lobotomy of the soul. The boy worships horses, idolatrously and even demonically, but at least he worships something, he has made the great "Yes!." Every three weeks, at midnight, he would strip naked and gallop into the night on the back of his sweating and steaming god. It is this that unnerves the doctor and makes him hesitate to take away the boy's pain. Doctor Dysart tries to explain to his friend, the magistrate: "Look. to go through life and call it Yours--your life--you first have to get your own pain. Pain that's unique to you. You can't just dip into the common bin and say 'That's enough!' . . . He's done that. All right, he's sick. He's full of misery and fear. He was dangerous, and could be again, though I doubt it. But that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt any second o~" my life. And let me tell you something: I envy it. ¯. Don't you see? That's the Accusation! That's what his stare has been saying to me all this time. 'At least I galloped! When did you?' ,,14 Without worship, without obedience, human life is impoverished and diminished. The Christian may risk being a little or even totally mad in terms of this world, but his "Yes!," his surrender, is a sign that he is willing to gallop with the Holy Spirit. Even the possessed boy lying prostrate ¯ before his slave-god, the Mighty Horse, points to a passion, an obedience, a commitment we can scarcely imagine. "I sit looking at pages of centaurs trampling the soil of Argos---and outside my window he is trying to become one, in a Hampshire field! For, me, this points to the heart of Christian obedience in the modern world. The commitment of the Christian, no matter how much he fails, is an effective sign of the seriousness of the gospel, of its radical passion, its ultimacy, its finality. I need you to be--simply be--for my sake, as reminder of all those things in life which tell me that I am more than I think I am. Some may be disappointed with me for not being more specific regarding Christian obedience. To tell the truth, I simply cannot prescribe set patterns of obedience for anyone else. I am convinced, however, that once the primary allegiance is at least seen, then nurtured and developed day by day, all these other things fall into place. A loving look at God, steadily and daily, helps me to seek the good of the whole community, to "obey" as an act of love--to say "Yes!" to my brothers and sisters because you too are struggling to make the great "Yes!" to God. talbid., p. 74. l~lbid., p. 80. ~51bid., p. 81. Obedience in the Contemporary World / 341 Obedience is unavoidable. Enslavement to one god or another is in-. evitable. Like love, obedience is part of that which constitutes, forms, shapes us as human beings. Augustine says, in effect, "Love by all means, but take care what you love." I would add: You must obey, but take care what you obey. Only the gospel offers that service which is perfect freedom. The obedience of the Christian serves the wider community by wit-nessing to both the revolutionary character of Christian obedience and the provisional character of all those other things which demand our allegiance. The Christian is a trafficker in mystery. The so-called "unnatural" life of the monk invites me to dig deeper into the abyss within myself. Christian Obedience is a Movement in the Holy Spirit Two recent books, both by religious, give a positive rationale for Chris-tian obedience which to me is the most important of the three vows. Henri Nouwen does it indirectly in outlining three movements in the spiritual life.I~ The first movement is from loneliness to solitude where a suffocating loneliness is transfigured by one'~ "Yes!" into a receptive solitude. The second movement is from hostility to hospitality. Obedience again is the key to our being free enough to create a "free and friendly space" for others. The final movement is from illusion to prayer. This, in ~eality, is the hardest area of obedience. It is at this deep point thatChristian community is forged. The marks, then, of our obedience are solitude, conviviality, and con templation. The second book is by the Mirfield father,~7 Harry Williams, called Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience.~8 He writes, "Fundamentally, obedi-ence consists of discovering what you most truly and deeply are, or, better, what you have it in you to be, and of being loyal to the insight you have thus received. Such loyalty,., may sometimes, perhaps of.ten, involve a degree of submission to some external auth~ority or other. But its root is not submission to anything external, it is being true to yourself."'~9 Williams uses the example of the creative artist as the most eloquent instance of obedience. It is saying "Yes!" to the vision. Obedience, then, is obedience to one's true. self, and who I am, in the end, is a matter of faith. Williams offers "a test we can apply to anything which demands our obedience. Is the authority demanding obedience only external, nothing more than the imposition upon myself of an alien will. ? The external authority . . . may turn out to be an apparatus, inevitably (since human beings are fallible) no more than a rough and ready 160p. cit. ~TReference is to another Anglican religious order, the Community of the Resurrection [editor|. ~SMitchell Beazley, London, 1975. ~Slbid., p. 83. 349 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 apparatus, to enable people to be obedient to themselves by making pos-sible that give and take between the self and others which man needs because he is a social animal."z° Is the higher obedience what matters in the end because we can only be true to ourselves insofar as we are true to that which is greater than ourselves? "My 'me' is God, nor do I know my selfhood save in him," wrote St. Catherine of Genoa.21 For the real me to emerge there has to be a free surrender to the transcendent. It is in obe-dience that I know that there is more to me than my self-regarding ego. Christian obedience is the denial of anthropological reductionism. I am more than my moods, my emotions, my preferences. Obedience is, Finally, a Matter of Love Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, these three remain, and the greatest of them is obedience. Christian obedience is the only form of surrender which secures our true liberty. It is, therefore, vital that we keep our obedience Christian, because obedience unfocused and unexamined is the harbinger of demonic tyranny. I call upon you, my brothers and sisters, to be signs of a pioneering, obedient humanity in the decades ahead. The Church, the world, needs men and women who enflesh the final obedience, who, by their very profession, are those who create the open, free, and friendly space for the dying, poor and cramped children of the earth. Christian obedience in the modern world is finally a matter of love--a wild, mad kind of love in a world gone mad. It brings with it a self-authenticating authority which affirms the beautiful and strange dogma of freedom in surrender, of resurrection in death, of joy in self-offering. Perhaps I may be forgiven, so close to our Bicentennial, to twist the words of that unpleasant patriot, Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty or give me death!" To Christians in the modern world, I say, "Give me liberty and give me death!" This is the life-bearing power which comes to those who have died, who have been buried with Christ, and raised with him to life everlasting. We follow the One who was obedient, the One who said "Yes!." "The Son of God, Christ Jesus, proclaimed among you by us ¯ . . was never a blend of yes and no. With him, it was, and is, yes. He is the yes pronounced upon God's promises, every one of them. That is why, when we give glory to God, it is through Christ Jesus that we say 'Amen' " (2 Co 1:19-20). Finally, this self-emptying yes is the prelude to being filled. Christian obedience is a miracle of grace. Like the priest in Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest, we are saved in surrender. He discovered the miracle of the empty hands, the wonder of being able to give to others what we ourselves do not possess. The yes Of our emptiness and of our agony is God's oppor-tunity, the supreme source of the healing and redeeming power of love. ~°lbid., p. 93-4. 21Quoted by Williams, ibid., p. 98. The Annual Dialogue With the Major Superior Richard P. Vaughan, S.J. Father Vaughan, as a former provincial in his region, has had ample experience with the annual dialogue. Presently he is engaged.in counseling and psychotherapy with priests and sisters, and teaches psychology at Loyola-Marymount University; 7101 W. 80th St.; Los Angeles, CA 90045. A yearly dialogue with the provincial or major superior is an accepted practice among most religious. How this dialogue is conducted and the attitude of the participants frequently determines its value both to the provincial and the individual member. It can be a formality, made out of a sense of duty, and consequently with little fruit, or it can be a most useful means of bringing about spiritual and apostolic renewal within both an individual and a congregation. Changing Role of the Provincial During the past decade the nature° of the provincial's position has changed. Previously the provincial was primarily the chief administrative officer of a unit called a province; today he or she is expected to demon-strate greater leadership in both temporal and spiritual affairs, in addition to handling province business. The emphasis is more on the welfare of individual members and communities and less upon paper work and in-stitutions. In many instances a large portion of the administration has been delegated to others so as to give the provincial more time to devote to the members and to programs which affect their lives. Vatican II has called upon provincials to exercise leadership in bringing 343 344 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 about a renewal within their congregations.1 If provincials are to be effec-tive in responding to this call, they must understand the present state of their provinces. Such understanding can best come through a personal knowledge of the individual members and where they stand in their own lives and on issues and problems confronting the congregation. The major superior who knows each member in a personal way is certainly in a better position to decide on measures to improve the state of a province. Aim of the Dialogue Not infrequently the annual dialogue is the sole opportunity a provincial has to meet with and gain an understanding of each member of his province. For this reason it is most important that the interview be conducted in such a way as to meet both the needs of the provincial and those of the individual member. Effective leadership and the welfare of the province often depend upon its success. In addition to helping the major superior govern the province in a per-sonal manner, the dialogue also serves as an opportunity for each member to receive something in the way of guidance and direction. For those who do not have a spiritual director, this may be one's only occasion to evaluate his or her progress in the apostolic and spiritual life, and to plan strategies for improvement. And, after participating in many similar interviews throughout the province, the provincial is in a unique position to offer counsel according to the spirit of his or her congregation. Finally, the annual dialogue can be most useful in effecting renewal within a local community. Information gathered from all the members of a ¯ given community allows the provincial to understand that community in a unique way and affords him the opportunity to deal with any difficulty that may be brought to his attention either through the local superior or through his meetings with the members of the community. The Kind of Information Needed What kind of knowledge does the provincial or major superior need so as to exercise the leadership expected of him today? First of all, he should know each member of the province on a personal basis, or at least a significant portion of the membership if the province is large. He needs to know how each feels about himself and his life: how he gets along in the local community; how he relates to others in the congregation and outside of it and how he thinks he is doing in his apostolic work. Most of all, the provincial needs to know how each member relates to God, the level of his faith and commitment, and the depth of his spiritual life. The accumulation of such data from interviews with most of the members in the province allows the major superior to make an accurate estimate of where the prov- 1The Documents of Vatican H. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (Ed.). America Press, 1966, pp. 469-470. The Annual Dialogue With the Major Superior / 345 ince stands and then settle upon the directions his leadership should take. Without this knowledge he may well decide upon a course of action which the members are incapable of following. Moreover, this type of information is essential for any guidance he might offer individuals and local commu-nities as a consequence of the visitation. Approaches The approach taken by a member often determines whether the major superior finds the dialogue profitable. As previously mentioned, some come to him out of a sense of duty. They chat about inconsequentials in a friendly manner, air a complaint or two, assure the provincial that everything is going well, and depart, all in a matter of a few minutes. Obviously such an approach is of little value to either participant, since the purpose of the dialogue is never realized. The provincial comes to no better understanding of the member as a person and a religious under vows, and the member receives no guidance. The member who wishes to help the provincial fulfill his leadership role and at the same time profit from his guidance can take either of two ap-proaches: he can attempt to be an objective historian or he can be an involved autobiographer,z If he chooses to be an historian, he will certainly offer the provincial valuable data which can be used in governing, but the provincial will most probably never come to know him on a personal basis. On the other hand, if he chooses to be an autobiographer, he offers the provincial needed information both about the province and about himself, and at the same time, he affords the provincial the opportunity to know him as a person and as a Christian under vows, following the charism and spirit of his community. Historian The historian centers his attention on past events which he tries to describe in an accurate and objective way. He makes every effort not to allow personal reflections and involvement to color these events. The member who takes the historical approach usually reports a number of significant--and sometimes not so significant--happenings in his life and that of his community since the last dialogue. Because he distances himself from them in his narrative, the provincial often does not come to a better understanding of him as a person. Rather he gets the impression that the member is standing outside of himself as he relates what has happened in his apostolic work, his i:ommunity life and his prayer. There is little emotional involvement. He may even give the impression that any problem he presents is not his own but someone else's. In such an approach, it sometimes happens that the dialogue becomes a monologue with the member moving rapidly from one topic to the next 2Egan, Gerard, Face to Face. Brooks/Cole, Monterey, CA, 1973, pp. 45-46. 346 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 and giving the superior little or no time to react to what has been said until the end--and by that time so many topics have been covered that the superior has either forgotten them or does not know where to begin. Should the superior try to break into the flow of the narrative, he meets with evident signs of displeasure. The message comes across loud and clear: "Take account of what I have to say about the community and our work but keep your distance from me." While such a dialogue does help in later decision making, at least to a degree, it does not contribute to that pool of information the provincial needs if he is to understand where the majority of the members of the congregation stand in their personal and spiritual lives, which is often an important factoi" in future planning. Autobiographer At the other end of the continuum of those engaged in dialogue is the approach of the autobiographer. Here the member gives an account of his own personal experiences and spiritual odyssey. Frequently he does not give an historical narrative in logical sequence or a series of difficulties according to priorities, but rather tries to describe himself as he is now through what has happened during the past year. The focus of attention is on himself rather than on past events. He attempts to have the superior understand who he is at this moment as a person, a Christian, a religious with vows, and a member of a congregation with its own charism and spirit. He relates facts about himself, chosen principally to achieve this end. If he presents a problem or difficulty, he indicates how he personally is reacting to it. He states clearly his own feelings and attitudes, even though the problem involves something outside of himself, such as a complaint about the way a superior is handling another member of the community. He may pass over points which on the surface appear important but, as he sees them, add nothing to the picture he is trying to paint of himself. In the process of talking about himself, the member will most probably also offer observations about the local community, the province and the congrega-tion, all of which will be a help to the major superior both in exercising leadership in the province and in directing the individual involved in the dialogue. The autobiographical approach means lowering defenses and exposing oneself as one actually is at the moment. Such a process calls for humility and risk-taking. In self-disclosure one is never sure what he will discover about himself or how the listener will react to what he hears. Sources of Anxiety Built into the psyche of each of us is a reluctance to talk freely about personal matters, especially to one we would not consider a close friend. As we approach the annual dialogue with the major superior, some knowledge about the sources of this reluctance can be helpful in handling our un-easiness and anxiety. The Annual Dialogue With the Major Superior / 347 Most of us reject some part of ourselves. We tend to block out of consciousness or to hide what we dislike about ourselves. The prospect of having to confront and talk about these unaccepted personal characteristics makes us uneasy. ,The thought of letting down the mask and revealing ourselves just as we are causes embarrassment. As a consequence, most, to some degree, have to struggle .to be fully open and forthright as they progress through the diaioguel A certain amount of embarrassment is simply a part of the human condition, but if it reaches the state where talking about ourselves becomes most~difficult, then we should ask the question: "Am I living behind a mask and playing a role much of the time so as to hide what I am both from myself and from others?" If the answer is affirmative, then We would do well to indicate this feeling to the provincial and discuss it with him. Private Self We all have a private and a public "self.'" The private self is the one we keep to ourselves, or perhaps reveal to one or two close friends: the public self we show to others. In the annual dialogue, we are asked to manifest the private self---at least to some degree. A reluctance to do so is natural. Our relationship with God, how we feel about ourselves and others in the community and, even more so, our own limitations are highly personal concerns. They are hardly topics that we are apt to discuss in a social gathering. It can be helpful to reflect upon the position of the major superior ¯ and how he will use what is discussed to fulfill the ends of his office. It is well, too, to bear in mind that what is discussed actually remains a part of the private self since it must be treated as confidential matter. The superior is not free to divulge it to any other person. In our culture, seeking help from another is often considered a sign of weakness.3 We should be able to solve our own problems and not depend upon others. The mature person should be able to stand on his own two feet, handle his own affairs. If he has a difficulty, he should look for its causes and then seek a solution. If there is no evident solution, he should wait it out, suffering in silence. This attitude is especially prevalent among men. The contemporary masculine image calls for a man to be strong, independent, and reserved in expressing his feelings to others. All of these factors militate against speaking with ease about oneself to a major superior in the hope of getting his guidance. It is not uncommon for a religious to say to himself: "I have been able to handle my difficulties in the past by myself. Why bother the superior now?" As a consequence he passes over matters that should be discussed and, in this event, one of the purposes of the dialogue is lost. As much as we like to think that we are not dependent on others, however, if we stop to reflect, it will become apparent that each of us is 3Jourard, Sidney M., The Transparent Self. Van Nostrand, New York, 1971, p. 133. 34~1 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 dependent upon a number of people. It all goes with being "social ani-mals." We need and depend upon those with whom we live and work. Seeking direction from a concerned person is not a sign of weakness but wisdom. It acknowledges that we all need counsel, that no one is totally self-sufficient. The dialogue can sometimes produce a feeling of closeness toward the superior. For some, such a feeling can be threatening. In the past, they have managed to keep a distance between themselves and others. When some-one tries to get to know them on a deeper level, they become uncomfortable and move back from the developing relationship. As such a person engages in the annual dialogue with the superior, the pressure of this feeling can deter frankness and openness. It may even demand an almost heroic cour-age on his part not to yield to the temptation to be absent at the time of the visitation. Fear of Rejection On the other side of the coin is the fear of rejection.4 The individual is never sure how the superior will react to what he has to say. There is always the possibility that he or she will be judgmental and condemning. The superior may listen with genuine concern and with a desire to help but when the dialogue is over there is a lingering question in the member's mind: "Does he respect me as much as he did before?" If the member's level of self-esteem is low, this nagging doubt can be most painful. Most major superiors have the duty of approving candidates for pro-fession and ordination, and, in some congregations, for positions of au-thority. An awareness of this fact can limit open discussion on the part of the member, for an individual usually will not reveal anything about himself which will endanger his advancement. It is not uncommon, then, for one to give the superior what he thinks the superior wants to hear, and, of course, the dialogue is reduced to game-playing. If the annual dialogue is to achieve its purpose, it is up to the superior to assure the individual that what he says will not be used against him in any way, and then be scrupulous in effec-tuating this assurance. Insight and Change Often the annual dialogue with our provincial can be a way of com-municating with ourselves, getting in touch with how we really feel. It can be a source of new knowledge and insight. As we talk about ourselves, we become more aware of our attitudes, our values, how we feel about a variety of issues and problems.5 For some this opportunity is welcomed enthusiastically; for others it is dreaded--for on such a journey we never know what we will discover. If it brings forth affirming information, self- 4Egan, ibid., pp. 55-56. 5ldern, pp. 53-54. The Annual Dialogue With the Major Superior / 349 esteem is enhanced; if it reveals previously unknown negative qualities, we are forced to look at something that we may find difficult to accept. Not infrequently new self-knowledge calls for change within ourselves and in our lives. Change is never easy. It can place demands on us that we are unwilling to meet, at least at this particular time. As we prepare for the annual dialogue, most of us are aware that the outcome may call for reform. It is this prospect that causes us sometimes to approach the dialogue as an ordeal rather than an opportunity for personal and spiritual growth. Yet, if properly made, the annual dialogue with the major superior can be a means of helping that superior fulfill his role as the leader of the congregation in that region and, at the same time, an opportunity for the member to receive valuable guidance. Whether these aims are attained frequently depends upon the approach taken by the participants, as well as by their openness. Understanding each member in the province on a per-sonal level allows the provincial to determine the state of the province and then to formulate directions which will lead to spiritual renewal and greater apostolic effectiveness for the province, the local community and the in-dividual who has engaged in the dialogue. A Conversation at Final Profession We talked-- First, he ~poke to me: a Word in the a Word in the a Word in the a Word in the Then, he ~poke to me: a Word in the a Word in the a Word in. the a Word in the Love of my family, Pain of growing up, Laughter among childhood friends, Tears at leaving home. Hope of the man 1'11 be, Fear of the silence I've felt, Strength of my brothers and friends, Weakness of the people I serve. Finally, he spoke to me: a Word in the Flesh of a man called Christ, a Word in the Heart touching, challenging, changing, a Word in the Call to live like Him, a Word in the Answer of death and life. Standingspeechless before God, 1 live: all of my days. Thomas J. Burke, O.SS.T. Trinity House 949 Gorsuch Ave. Baltimore, MD 21218 The Charism of the Community: Does It Really Make a Difference? Charles E, Bouchard, O.P. Brother Bouchard is a member of St. Rose Priory, the Dominican Community of Aquinas Institute; 2570 Asbury Rd.; Dubuque, IA 52001. His last article, "Journey of Faith . . . appeared in the July, 1977 issue (p. 592). The whole question of what a commu.nity's charism means was brought to my attention one day while I was teaching a group of high school juniors. I was trying to convince them that the Dominicans had a particular character, a way of doing things, and that consequently their education in a Dominican high school would be in some way different from that in a Jesuit or a Benedictine high school. They were slightly less than convinced. Even though I knew that the spirit of my order was special and different from the Jesuit spirit, it was very difficult to convey that mixture of feelings, experiences and training that made me a Dominican. Then I began to wonder if indeed it really made any difference. Should we attempt to dif-ferentiate ourselves from other religious communities in our ministries? Was our "charism" really worth dwelling upon? My formation placed great emphasis on what is unique to Dominicans: what we are about, who we are, why we exist. It seemed to me that it would be wasteful to put all that aside when I entered the classroom, but I didn't know how I could convey what had been impressed upon me in formation and what had initially led me to commit myself to the Dominican ideal. The document on the renewal of religious life calls members of religious communities to a "constant return to the sources of the whole of Christian life and to the primitive inspiration of the institutes, and their adaptation to 35o The Charism of the Community / 351 the changed conditions of our times" (Perfectae Caritatis, 2). Religious, like all Christians, must constantly re-evaluate their lives in the light of the gospel. They must also identify their particular charism if they are to be effective in their ministry. Perhaps a look at the New Testament roots of these charisms can help us more clearly discern our role today and our mandate for the future. What Are Charisms? The word charism comes from a Greek word meaning "a favor, an expression of kindness or a gift; a special manifestation of the divine presence." A charism is a gift, an ability, a talent, an inclination to be of service in a particular way. John Carroll Futrell, in an excellent article which appeared a few years ago in The Way, "Discovering the Founder's Charism," says that a charism is "simply a graced way of seeing and of following Jesus for the service of the whole Church, which can cease to exist if and when this vision and this service cease to be a true good for the Church.''1 These charisms are gifts of the Spirit to assure the growt.h of Christ's body despite our sinful and incomplete natures. They cannot be earned or demanded of God, but are nevertheless everywhere present and are often readily recognizable by the community. Jesus hinted at this when he said, "By their fruits you shall know them." The first gifts to the early Church were made known at Pentecost in a passage familiar to all of us: And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like that of a strong driving wind, which filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues like flames of fire dispersed among them and resting on each one. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to talk in other tongues and the Spirit gave them utterartce. Ac 2:2-5 (emphasis added). Later, Peter tries to explain the phenomenon and quotes the old Tes-tament: "I foresaw that the presence of the Lord would be with me al-ways." Three things are apparent in this event: first, the Spirit is given to all (~'each one"); secondly, the Spirit empowered them to do something ("gave them utterance"); and thirdly, as Peter makes clear, it is a sign. of a continuing event, the abiding presence of the Lord. Later, St. Paul expounds on the gifts of the Spirit that were first made present at Pentecost with the symbolic flames when he writes to the Church in Rome: Just as each of our bodies has several parts and each part has a separate function, so all of us, in union with Christ, form one body, and as parts of it we belong to each other. Our gifts differ according to the grace given to us. If your gift is prophecy, then 1John Carroll Futrell, "Discovering the Founder's Charism," The Way Supplement 14 (Autumn 1971): p. 63. 359 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 use it as your faith suggests; if administration, then use it for administration; if teaching, then use it for teaching. Let the preachers deliver sermons, the almsgivers give freely, the officials be diligent, and those who do works of mercy do them cheerfully. Rm 12:4-8. While Paul speaks here about very specific gifts which were evident in the early Church, we can obviously extend this to our time. We see these and many more gifts manifested today. Hans Kfing lists three major categories of charisms: l) those of preaching (which include teaching); 2) those of service; 3) those of leadership,z Just as Jesus Christ in his physical body on earth preached, taught, fed the hungry, healed, and forgave, the Church is called upon from its be-ginnings, and is empowe.red by the Spirit which came initially at Pentecost and continues to be present, to continue those works which Jesus did. What Does Jesus' Life on Earth Call Us to Do? An examination of the New Testament reveals Jesus ministering in diverse ways. His whole life was an example for us and the Church to follow. Jesus healed. Perhaps we could cite the healing of the lepers as just one example of his healing (Lk 5:12ff). One healing incident stands out as representative of Jesus' attitude toward those who came to him: A leper comes and says, 'qf you want to, you can cure me." Jesus responds: ~'Of course I want to! Be healed!" (Mk 1:40). Here we find a warm example of Jesus' willingness to cure and relieve suffering. The Church continues that work today in health care and in charismatic and sacramental healing. Jesus preached and taught. Besides the numerous examples we could glean from the parables which served to reveal the Father to those who followed him, Jesus revealed the New Covenant through his preaching of the beatitudes (Mr 5: lff). ~'Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in'heaven" signified an entirely new message: there was no need to despair because of present circumstances; a far greater destiny had been won for man by Christ. Preaching remains a primary mission of the Church, both in the in-stitutionalized sense and in the witness to which we are all called. We here consider preaching and teaching together because of their essential simi-larity. Teaching and preaching do not seem to have been distinguished as we know them !oday until after the sixteenth century when a secular society be.gan to emerge. In teaching, Jesus sought to expand the message he preached through his use of parables and his occasional use of more dramatic actions such as the cleansing of the temple. Although preaching is now normally considered to be the proclamation of God's word by those specifically commissioned ZHans K~ing, The Church. (New York: Doubleday and Co., Image Books, 1976), p. 242. The Charism of the Community / 353 to do so, it is very closely related to Christian witness, which is the vocation of every Christian. Preaching, if we consider it in its broadest sense, need not be limited to a solely liturgical setting. Christians, in teaching and witnessing to their faith through Christian lives, are constantly called upon to proclaim the message of salvation. Jesus prayed. Besides the obvious example of his instruction of the Lord's prayer which gave the apostles a new view of God as Father and enabled them to address him as such in prayer, Jesus showed us the im-portance of solitary and petitionary prayer in his agony in the garden (Mk 14:33) and in his temptations in the desert. The Church has followed this call to prayer through its contemplative religious communities, through the Liturgy of the Hours, and through its many exhortations to prayer in private and in a liturgical setting. The Prayer of the Faithful in the Liturgy of the Eucharist is a good example of this emphasis. Finally, Jesus fed the hungry. Sensitive to the crowds that had been following him without food, Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes and thus provided for this material need (Mk 6:37ff). The Wedding Feast at Cana provides a similar example of his concern for the needs of those with whom he associated. Jesus' visits to the homes of Zacchaeus and Mary Magdalene give us examples of his concern for the human need for com-panignship and affirmation. The Church, as the Body of Christ extended in time and space, con-tinues all these works today. Spreading the Good News, it imitates and follows Christ as it heals, preaches, teaches, feeds and prays. Special abilities (charisma) are given in each of these areas to the members of the Body, and since each is indispensable to the whole, we have an essential unity. Some feed; others teach (study); some have special care for prayer or healing. Religious communities are usually dedicated to one or other of these specific tasks, and we can easily think of at least one religious com-munity that is primarily concerned with each of these duties of the Church. The Alexian Brothers, for example, are specially dedicated to health care, and in that way carry on Christ's work of healing and extend his concern for the sick. Charisms and Religious Life Today, our identity as religious is in question. We have come through a traumatic period during which most of the formhl structures which had supported and signified our lives have melted away, leaving us, at best, with the job of reconstructing our purpose and place in the world, and, at worst, with little idea of which way to turn. Confusion has resulted for older members of our communities who can no longer find the life they once lived; new members entering often find a diffuse selection of life-styles and interpretations to choose from and no longer have a sure external formula after which to pattern their lives. 354 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 I believe, however, that the matter of the place and function of religious life in the world today is somewhat simplified if we recall the idea of charism and the unity of the body of Christ. These charisms are present in the Church, are its lifeblood, and are God's assurance that the Church will be able to continue its work and be a vehicle of salvation. If we see each religious community as a communal realization of one of these charisms, we can see much more clearly what the goal and purpose of that religious community is and what direction.it should take today. Although all of us have the gospel as primary goal, it is important for us to attempt to isolate our community's charism and determine to what extent it is an expression of one of these works of Christ and to what degree it affects our ministry. If Benedictines, for example, can be considered to be primarily an extension of Christ's work of prayer, isn't it reasonable tO assume that a Benedictine school will have a different thrust in spirit than one would expect to find in a Jesuit school whose charism may be more apostolic or a Dominican school where study and "truth" are high values among the religious faculty? If we believe that the Spirit of our founder remains valid and vital, I think we need to evaluate to what extent we live that spirit in our work. In fact, although we must remember the essential unity of the Body of which we are all parts, I think we would be doing the Church a great disservice by losing sight of the particular gifts which our communities seek to foster. The color and diversity that must be a part of the universal Church are greatly enhanced by a realization of the varied ministries and gifts that are present within it. If the charism of the Benedictines is one of prayer and work for the sake of the gospel, then that spirit should be cultivated and held high as one Christian ideal among many others. Religious communities can be of great service to the Church by living their calls to the full and providing many strong examples for others to emulate. None of these orders offers the complete spirit of Christianity, but all together, with the thousands of personalities and talents they represent, symbolize the many-faceted but unified body of Christ. Isolating a community's charism is only half the problem, however. I may be well aware of what it means to be a Dominican, that my call is to preaching and a communal life centered around contemplation and apos-tolate, but how do I communicate that to a group of high school students or to the parish I serve? How do I offer the charismatic elements of my life to the Church at large? How do I convey the vitality that I, as a Benedictine monk or nun, derive from Ora et Labora? How do I express all that the Jesuit motto, Ad majorem Dei gloriam, means to me as a Jesuit? This is a question that is not easily answered, but I would propose a few practical suggestions: 1) First of all, it is necessary to discover one's charism. What was my community founded to do? What was the founder's original intention? How The Charism of the Community / 355 does that translate into the United States in the twentieth century? Are there some parts of my community's charism that no longer remain valid today? (Again, Futrell's article is particularly helpful here.) 2) How does this original insight affect what I do today? If the Dominicans, for example, were founded to combat error in the thirteenth century, is there something in this for me as a high school or college teacher today? Certainly I'm not going to adopt an inquisitorial teaching method. But might the Dominican pursuit of truth lead me to a particularly inquiring stance with regard to my teaching? 3) Am I in my religious community because my talents, interests and personality mesh with the thrust of my community? If so, it is likely that just my personality says volumes about what my religious community is all about. Often the peaceful feeling of prayerfulness that one finds in a mon-astery is due primarily to the fact that most of the monks exude that peace and prayerfulness. Not many extremely boisterous, apostolicaily oriented people would find monastic life to their liking. Similarly, Dominicans are often seen as academic and erudite. One who despises the discipline of study would probably not find the Dominican life palatable. 4) Besides the natural aspects of my personality, how do ! attempt to cultivate consciously the elements of my community's calling into my life? I may be naturally talkative and curious, but those characteristics alone don't make me a Dominican. Discipline in study and a search for truth through prayer and contemplation must accompany any personality char-acteristics that may incline me toward Dominican life initially. The purpose of such an examination and re-emphasis of our purpose and' character is not to separate or divide us. It is simply a recognition that many different parts are necessary to the body of Christ, and that they must work together well. We are in an age of intense self-awareness when every advertisement, book and program compels us to develop ourselves fully and to eliminate, as one author puts it, our "erroneous zones," or those parts of us which function least effectively, to the detriment of our whole selves. Religious communities should do no less. We must take what is strongest in our traditions and build on that, remembering our inter-dependence and ultimate membership in Christ's body. John Futrell states the need well when he says: "What religious communities are called to do in the renewal of their spirit and the adaptation of their life to the signs of the times is really to re-found themselves. They are called to a re-founding because they must communally discern the radically new ways of incar-nating this charism in life and action to which the Holy Spirit, speaking in events, calls them in the world today."''~ Religious charisms do make a difference. They are signs of the presence of the Spirit in our midst and of the rich variety with which he equips the Body of Christ for life and mission. They mutually reinforce one another, aFutrell, idem, p. 70. $56 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 and, together, make the Church both a powerful force for good and a home for an endless variety of people. Religious communities don't do anything different from the rest of the Church, but they should be leaders and ¯ examples. Clearly, if we are part of a religious community that is involved in one of these works which Christ wished to be continued, we should constantly renew our efforts to identify and intensify those works. If we can isolate our community's particular calling, identify in our-selves those inherent traits that suit us to that community and then try to develop our natural talents along the lines of the community's identity, I believe we will have gone far toward unifying and strengthening our com-munity's witness. Throughout history one of the primary tasks of religious life has been that of witness--witness to one of those works of Christ which I pointed out earlier. Whether as a Little Brother of the Poor feeding, as a School Sister of Notre Dame teaching, as a Dominican preaching, as a Benedictine praying, or as a Sister of Mercy healing, we witness to the love of Christ and to the abiding presence of the Spirit in the world. The very fact that we exist to preach, teach, pray, heal and feed can be an invaluable sign to the world that Christ is still with us. But signs must be clear and easily readable. By examining our lives and our callings we can clarify that sign which our ministry and lives are and make them point more effectively to the Kingdom which we have been promised and which has already begun. Now Available As Reprint An apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice by Max Oliva, S.J. Price: $.50 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Bivd, St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Impassioned Presence: Religious Life and Leisure Janie Gustafson, C.S.J. As have so many religious, Sister Janie has reverted to her given name. When last her work appeared in these pages, "The God of Brokenness" (March, 1977, p. 178), she bore the name "'Jean Annette." This article is a chapter from her most recent book, to be released by Harper and Row in May. She mentions of the book: "Celibate passion is a deep-seated life force that courses within each of us, whether we are male or female, lay or clergy, married or single, young or old. It is a passion that longs for intimacy yet leads us to discover our essential aloneness." The title of the book is Celibate Passion. To burn for and to be grounded in the reality of God is the most important thing we can do with our lives. But even this is not enough. Once we have caught fire and have found our deepest center, then we must call forth the birthing of God in others. We must be midwives of new life; we must do something creative with our relationship to God. To be fully religious, we must share him with those around us. This insight has been one of the traditional justifications for choosing a celibate or solitary life-style. Celibacy supposedly gives us more freedom to pursue a career or to give ourselves in creative service. But this is only partly true. Instead of fre.eing us for greater creativity, celibacy often be-comes a synonym for addiction to work. How easily we drown our lives in too much verbiage and paper work, and limit our relationships to the stimulation of one small part of our anatomies. We spend so much of our time reproducing the past or maintaining the status quo that we neglect to develop the multi-dimensional, psycho-physical-spiritual beings we are. In the book of Genesis, when God directs Adam and Eve to be fruitful, 357 3511 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 multiply, and fill the earth, he is referring to more than biological repro-duction. Our vocation is to be co-creators with God, to fill the earth with unique and unrepeatable forms of life. To do this, we must awaken our-selves to new levels of consciousness and experience. Such awakenings~, however, always require time. Thus, I find that implicit in the call to wholeness (which is exactly what religious life is all about) is the call to leisure. I stress leisure as opposed to work because it implies attitudes which are essential to creativity. In the ancient creation stories and myths, divine creativity is never the same as work. Work is purposeful activity, a duty marked by drudgery, a mechanical reproduction of something already existing. Divine creativity, as presented in Genesis, is so leisurely that it seems to be play. God savors, applauds, and rejoices in creating unique and beautiful things. And he does this, as is stated in the books of Ecclesiasticus and Proverbs, only after eons and eons. Before the beginning of the created universe, there was neither activity nor rest. God alone was there. Alone and yet not alone; one and yet three. And there was leisure: an intense, intimate relationship of presence and reciprocity. It is not difficult to understand why we have lost sight of the importance of leisure for creativity. Inherent in our Protestant Ethic is an emphasis on work which has gradually evolved into its ove~:valuation and a very limited concept of what it means. The utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham has persuaded us that our greatest motivation for work is pleasure, which can only be measured by the utility, or usefulness, of the work. We have learned to equate usefulness with happiness, and the amount of work we do with virtue. In today's society, we are measured by the job we hold and by how many luxuries of the culture we can purchase. Utilitarianism has so saturated even our religious concepts that it is almost impossible for us to be leisurely. Somewhere in our cerebral memory banks, we know that idle hands are potentially evil, and that we are slothful if we prefer to "be" instead of to "do." To be "good" is to work hard and to work always. We suspect options that smack of a Bohemian pursuit of pleasure and we feel guilty when we are not engaged in anything. To relieve ourselves of this guilt, we make leisure work-oriented and centered around the values of progress and production. Our leisure must have a purposi~, even if it is merely to rejuvenate our minds and revitalize our bodies. Thus, many of us in religious life are simply modern-day re-incarnations of Sisyphus, a worker chained to his function, never pausing from fruitless toil and never reaping the rewards of labor. We can only become human, I am convinced, by taking time for leisure and by acquiring the attitudes of leisure. The call to be religious is a call to leisure in all of its most self-actualizing expressions. Aristotle, in his Politics, says that leisure is so important that it is the center about which every.thing revolves. When we become more creative and playful, we be- Impassioned Presence: Religious Life and Leisure / :359 come more like God. As Robert Neale says, "the maturation of the indi-vidual presents the opportunity of growing from playlessness to full play and., to 'fully play' in the adult is religion.''1 "Full play," which "uses ¯ all the potentials offered at the particular developmental stages of the individual's physical, psychological and social growth,'' is the same as what Mortimer Adler calls "leisure work" or Abraham Maslow terms "self-actualization." And this type of play is always an experience of the "holy,''3 which results in wisdom. Ironically enough, when we experience the "holy," the wisdom we perceive often seems more like foolishness (1 Co 1:27). Leisure leads us to a wisdom which seems crazy. It is this.madness which characterizes King David as he danced before the Ark of the Covenant, and St. Paul, who became a fool for Christ. True leisure in relationship to the holy produces what the Greeks call eutrapelia, a nimbleness of mind which enables us to play. It is a wise balance between too much laughter and too much seriousness. The seventh day of creation, then, is not a rest after a week of hard work; it is a festive celebration of new life and love. It is a time of uselessness, a time "where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.''4 Usually, the only time we really play is when we are children. This is why I find it significant that several ancient religions have myths of infant gods who create from their play. Dionysius, Hermes, Apollo, and Heracles are all world-creating children. The Christian Savior is the child of Bethlehem. Children seem to know what leisure is. A child enters readily into the spirit of play, imagination, and creativity: A child can waste time, and love every minute of it. A child can see things for the first time, and can be delighted with beauty. Children express wholeness, Carl Jung tells us, because they do not get lost in the one-sidedness of adulthood. A child is thus a "symbol of the union of opposites: a mediator, bringer of healing, ¯. one who makes whole."5 Perhaps this is why Jesus insists that we must become like children to enter the kingdom of God. We know very little about the childhood of Jesus. But we can get clues of what it was like from Luke's report that "the child Jesus grew in wisdom and grace" (Lk 2:40). Luke could have told us that Jesus grew in carpentry skills, but instead he uses wisdom and grace, two words associated with leisure. During those thirty years I think Jesus came to realize that, to be a person of God, one must take time to really see, to marvel at the mystery of being, and to penetrate the essence of things. It is only by being there, ~Robert Neale, In Praise of Play (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 82. 21bid., p. 84. 31bid., p. 97. 4Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath (New York: World, 1951), p. 1. 5Carl Gustav Jung, Psyche and Symbol, ed. by Violet S. de Laszlo (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1958), p. 128. 360 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 in the presence of God, that one can grow in wisdom, discernment, and vision. The gospel tells us that when Jesus called the apostles they left behind their work to follow him (see Mk 1:16-21). We could hardly say that the apostles never worked from that day onward. What I think is meant is that when they came to know Jesus, their attitudes changed. They left behind their pragmatic, workaday attitudes and learnt from him to be still, to suffer with others, and to appreciate the small things in life. Jesus taught them to see the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the widow with her mite, and the little children at their feet. He taught them to think creatively, to expand their thoughts beyond traditional logic. God, he told them, is everywhere and in everyone: the saint as well as the sinner, the Samaritan as well as the Jew, the woman as well as the man. And he taught them prayer, not that of rote memory or constant petition, but that of simply being in the presence of God in silent adoration. I have often wondered why Jesus referred to himself as a shepherd. He never tended sheep; instead, he was a carpenter. In the context of leisure, his identification as shepherd becomes understandable. The carpenter symbol has always been equated with hard work, usefulness, efficiency, productivity, and common sense. All good qualities, but qualities that can easily become lost in attitudes of pragmatism. The shepherd-symbol, how-ever, has always denoted a person of vision, someone who knows wisdom and leisure. The shepherd symbolizes the responsible adult who has recaptured the essence of childhood. He or she embodies a sense of the ineffable, an awareness of the grandeur of creation, a radical amazement at all of reality. In various myths, the shepherd sees the sacred in the ordinary and thus is the first to discover the abandoned prince or the newly born offspring of the gods. It is certainly not strange that a group of shepherds first discerned the signs of Jesus' birth. Nor is it strange that so many leaders of God's people--Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and David--were also shepherds. Lei-sure produces the vision necessary for good shepherding and wise lead-ership. In taking time to stop and be still for a while, to forget our thoughts and plans, to listen to the sounds of the universe within and around us, we reach new levels of awareness. Our minds are suddenly absorbed by the beauty of particulars, whether immense or infinitesimal. Common things which once seemed boring now loom before us as exquisite works of art, capturing our interest and engaging our curiousity. The frying pan we are washing suddenly becomes a marvelous sculpture; the rose in the garden becomes like no other flower we have ever seen. Uniqueness intoxicates us; we yearn to discover more of the mysteries that surround us. In each particular we contemplate the universal. The world seems more profound, more all-embracing, and more wondrous than we have ever before realized. We are Impassioned Presence: Religious Life and Leisure / 361 awed by a deepened sense that being itself is something penetrable and comprehensible, but at the same time unfathomable, everflowing, and inexhaustible. I have found that the contemplative awareness found in leisure may remain on a purely natural level, or it may soar to the heights of religious experience. This awareness ushers us simultaneously into our full human potentialities and into the silent ever-loving presence of God. For this reason, the ancient Greeks considered the contemplative life as the highest form of existence. In contemplation we become most like God the creator and the lover, and thus, as Aristotle believed, achieve perfect happiness. This contemplation is not an intricately contrived state of altered con-sciousness, but the "relaxed and useless, focused attention of the whole mind on reality, a simple intuitive gaze born of wonder and love."'6 In leisure, we learn with T. S. Eliot to regain our childlike eyes and "'to know the place for the first time.''7 We look and we reverence. We are delighted once again and rejoice continuously in new loves and new ad-ventures. We give recklessly of our undivided attention and once again "resume our childhood love affair with single, concrete objects: with one coffee table, with one backyard, with one human face.''a We learn to love with no purpose; to face life without manipulation or exploitation. With no expectation whatsoever, we come, we are silent, and we take a long, undistracted look. Our prayer ceases to be an obligation Or duty. God and the soul "have fruition of each other in the deepest silence.''9 God becomes the heart of our being, the center of our lives, the priority of our day. We take time and make time, perhaps consciously at first, but then uncon-sciously, until at last we realize this is the way it must always be. The wisdom of leisure is the knowledge, of firsthand experience: a sa-pientia of communion, a tasting of the right things. More than contem-plation of the beautiful, it is a vital union which obliterates all barriers and joins the lover and beloved as one. It is an experienced knowledge in which the separateness of the ego begins to fade, and we enter rapturously into the object we are contemplating. Such union leads to a new creation on both the natural and the religious levels (see 2 Co .5:17). So absorbing is this ex-perience that we often lose our sense of time. Everything, past, present, and future, becomes here and now. Slowly, we learn to live wholly in each moment. Everything, in this frame of mind, is a gift to be celebrated. We are inundated with a new zest for life. We are so joyfully caught up in the 6Fr. William McNamara, "The Meaning of Festivity," Desert Call (Special Anniversary Issue, May, 1971), p. 50. ~T. S. Eliot, "'Little Gidding," Four Quartets (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1943), p. 59. 8Walter Kerr, The Decline of Pleasure (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962), p. 207. aTeresa of Avila, Interior Castle, trans, by E. Allison Peers (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1961), p. 223. 369 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 moment that we learn more and more the ability of present. Everything is thus made holy. Living in the present moment teaches us a certain dependency and trust. There is more to life than what we put into it; the future is not always determined by our own efforts or plans. One of the saddest consequences of the growth of technology is that to a great extent we are no longer dependent on the seasons and the sun, the amount of rainfall or the fertility of the soil. No longer are we ,forced by nature to wait until the right time of growth or maturation. It was not until I spent a year in the wilderness of Nova Scotia that I made time in my life for nature and waiting. The garden was not just a garden, but a miracle of new life; the forest was not just a forest, but an eco-system made up of individual trees and fascinating animals. Dogs were no longer dogs, but creatures who taught me about the exuberance of living and the humor of God. I learned that I had to wait until the chickens decided to lay their eggs before I could gather them. To go to the nearest town, I sometimes had to wait until a fallen tree had been rolled aside or the muddy road had dried up. This natural experience of waiting led to an intense awareness of the sacred. As the natural ground exploded into its harvest, so too my ground ignited with the divine fire. God was not only real but present. In Nova Scotia I also learned of an ancient Jewish custom which changed my understanding of leisure. This custom regards the Sabbath as a time of presence. On the preceding night, a vigil is held to heighten our awareness and to usher in the Sabbath in a revered way. The Sabbath thus is neither a dutiful time of worship nor a day of rest. Instead, it becomes a day of true leisure, the celebration of reciprocity: we come to God and God comes to us. Shekinah, the divine indwelling, comes in a special way seeking human love. God chooses to linger with his creation and to have intercourse with it. "'When that day comes, it is Yahweh who speaks, you will call me, 'my husband'." (Ho 2: 18). There is a celibate part of us that is in some way engaged to eternity, to holiness, to the God of all creativity. This part of us anticipates the footsteps of God's coming, sees the wonderful in the ordihary signs of his advent, and savors every glimpse of his being. When we come to recognize this celibate part of ourselves, I think we will spontaneously make special room in our lives for prolonged vigils and sacred days. These times will be so sacred that they can be gloriously celebrated, revered, and con-sequently, wasted. By entering into this leisurely dimension of celibacy, I believe we will be better able to respond passionately to the whole of life. We will learn to be present to both the comedy and the tragedy, with both laughter and tears. We will become more real, more intensely saddened and more hilariously joyous, because of our faith that all these experiences are Impassioned Presence: Religious Life and Leisure / 363 reconciled in God's presence. I think the absence of this faith is one reason why Jesus got so angry with the Pharisees. "We played the pipe for you, and you wouldn't dance; we sang dirges and you wouldn't be mourners" (Mt 11: 17). They did not believe enough in God to let life seep into their bones and profoundly move them. Jesus himself knew happiness and tears, gentleness and anger, harshness and compassion. What sustained and supported him in both p6sitive and negative situations was his faith in God's presence. He could believe with Job that even in the darkest of nights he would again know laughter and the cries of joy (Jb 8:21). I sense in Jesus a conscious feeling not only of the rhythm of these alternating opposites but of their intrinsic harmony, their essential place in the eternal order. To respond to this divine order is, I believe, the essence of religious obedience. It is an interior and exterior sense of harmony, of being in step with the music, of doing the right things at the right time. Whenever I experience this harmony, I am filled with peace. I am one with God, and this makes my heart light. My spirit soars; it y~arns to express its delight. "You have made known the way of life to me; you fill me with gladness through your presence" (Ps 16:11). Lightheartedness, with its spirit of play, is often expressed in dance. Dancing has always been an excellent symbol of leisure, for it embodies all of the characteristics which also lead to creativity. To dance means to immerse our whole selves in the present moment. We focus our attention on the other, whether that other be a partner or the music or a particular rhythm, and we become one with the movement. Dancing has been re-garded by many people as a waste of time, for when we are dancing, we cannot do anything else. But that is precisely the point. And that is why dancing has always been an expression of divine worship and.why I wish we would dance more in our liturgical services. As Van der Leeuw writes: "The dance, by its very nature, is ecstatic. It makes us beside ourself, lifts us above life and the world, and lets our whole earthly existence perish in the maelstrom.''1° For the ancient Hebrews, dance was an expression not only of joy but of intense praise. Only by wasting time, in losing oneself in the Beloved, can one really come to praise. The essence of real worship is the useless, selfless affirmation of the Other. Thus, when the Hebrews worshipped Yahweh, they put their whole hearts and souls into it. The book of Exodus speaks of timbrels and dancing (15:20-21); Judith writes of garlands and palm branches in the hands of all (15:12-14); the First Book of Samuel tells of dances to the sound of music and joyous cries (18:6). "David and all the House of Israel danced before Yahweh with all their might, singing to the accompaniment of lyres, harps, tambourines, castinets, and cymbals . David danced whirling round before Yahweh . leaping and., displaying ~°Gerardus Van der Leeuw, Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art, trans, by David E. Green (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1963), p. 29. 364 / Review for Religious, Volume 37, 1978/3 himself as any buffoon" (2 S 6:5, 17, 20). The Scriptures repe~atedly invite us to praise God in a way that is more than verbal (see Jdt 16:1-2; Ps 149:2-3). The New Testament accounts are no different. Everywhere Jesus goes, he makes people lighthearted. "The blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life" (Lk 7:22). Through the ages, Christians have repeatedly come back to this concept of leisure as it relates to religious life. Sixth-century Christian art portrays the resurrection of Jesus as a dance in which he draws the redeemed upward toward heaven. Christ, as the firstborn of the dead, is the leader in the eschatology of freedom, and the Church, as his bride, dances along. Ac-cording to these paintings, to dance is to see God. Dante, probably more than any other Christian writer, sees the entire universe laugh with delight in God's presence. He writes 6f innumerable dances.~1 Heaven is filled with "the dancing and great festival of the singing and flashing of light with light, joyous and benign.'w' Everything for Dante whirls around the Center in perfect harmony and ecstatic rapture. The traditional association of leisure with religious life, in my opinion, expresses a profound wisdom. Only when people began to equate creativity with work instead of with leisure, did our concepts of prayer and heaven become passive and uninteresting. Time spent in mutual loving presence between God and ourselves can never be static or never become boring. In being called to be religious, it is important to remember that we are also called to leisure. This call--which contains a lifetime of creative attitudes and expressions--embraces both activity and passivity, play and work, contemplation and apostolic service. Abraham Heschel puts it thus: ~'Ev-ery instant is an act of creation. A moment is not a terminal but a flash, a signal of be.ginning. Time is perpetual innovation, a synonym for con-tinuous creation.''~3 To become fully human, fully religious, I believe we must embrace everything with an impassioned presence. l~Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans, by H. R. Huse (New York: Rinehart, 1958). Dante.writes of the dance of the fiery spirits (Paradise VII:4, p. 359), of the lofty Seraphim (Paradise VII1:25, p. 365), of the blazing stars---who seem "to be ladies not ending a dance but silently waiting and listening until they have heard the new measure" (Paradise X: 75-80, p. 376), and of the Principalities and Archangels (Paradise XXVIII: 124-125, p. 458). ~Zlbid., Paradise XI1:22-24, p. 383. ~aHeschel, op. cir., p. 100. Poverty and the Space Around Us Charles A. Law, S.J. Father Law has been missioned for twenty years to Nepal, having originally entered the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus. His present address is: St. Xavier's School; Jawalakhel; G.P.O. Box 50' Kathmandu, Nepal. 'In| this article I would like to share with you some personal reflections on how the practice of religious poverty helps to develop a sense of God. Many nowadays develop the meaning of poverty in relation to our apostolate. Poverty for them has its meaning in helping Christ's poor. Some develop this idea further by equating poverty with a