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Issue 60.5 of the Review for Religious, 2001. ; A Discerning Way Personal Wi~tne,ss Consecrated Life Religious Vows SEPTEMBER' OCTOBER 2001 VOLUME 60 NUMBER 5 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faithful to God's universal call-to ,holiness , by making available to them 'the spiritual legacies that flow from the charism~ of catholic consecratea 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 ° V~reb site: "~wcw.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. ©2001 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. 0 religious LIVING OUR CATHOUC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Henseli OSB Bishop CaHos A. Sevilla SJ Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2001 VOLUME 60 NUMBER 5 contents 454 466 474 a discerning way Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits Janet K. Ruffing RSM alerts us to the ways we are called to be attentive to both subtle and profound movements of the Spirit of God in our midst and attentive to our need for ongoing conversion in our use of power personally and communally. Personal and Social: Shared Experience Can Renew Us Dennis J. Billy CSSR examines the interplay between the individual and the community which releases creative energies to help the community remain faithful to its tradition while adapting to the challenges and needs of the present. Examining My Conscience: Do I Have an Attitude? Brendan Kneale FSC proposes a refinement of our examination of conscience that deals with acquired attitudes or mindsets or preconceptions over which we have some supervision. personal witness 479 Mother Teresa's Charism 494 J. Neuner SJ, using some of Mother Teresa's writings, sketches the charism of the Missionaries of Charity, the loving appropriation of the crucified Jesus' "I thirst." Mother Teresa: Joy in the Night Albert Huart SJ shows--from letters which are part of the beatification process for Mother Teresa--that spiritual darkness was a constant companion of this joy-giving woman of our day. Review for Religious 503 507 Multicultural at Our Very Heart: The Little Sisters of Jesus Cathy Wright LSJ shares some of the story of the Little Sisters of Jesus, founded by Magdeleine Hutin, as an example of multicultural religious living. Millennial Stirrings in Religious A. Paul Dominic SJ reads the signs of the times to picture the healthy stirrings of growth in religious life. 52O 536 re~Ogious vows Poverty as Charity: The Search for a Lifestyle Norm Garth Hallett SJ presents a resolution to the confused practice of religious poverty by a more definite norm, one more surely grounded in the New Testament. Untying the Nots: Vowed Commitment Today Philip Armstrong CSC traces his own transition in understanding the vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity with the three key identifying words of onptiness, openness, and ftTziq%lness. departments 452 Prisms 543 Canonical Counsel: Exclusion from Profession at the Expiration of Temporary Profession 548 Book Reviews September-October 2001 prisms Hospitality has become a popular theme recently in the commentaries of scrip-ture scholars and in the books of current spiritual writers. Perhaps the popularity is a reactive response to the individualism prevalent in contemporary cul-ture, to the isolating security measures in the face of crime, and to the anonymity of suburbia or apart-ment living. But stressing hospitality is not a con-temporary creation. Hospitality as a theme runs through both Old and New Testament writings. Hospitality describes succinctly the double com-mandment of love of God and love of neighbor. Hospitality has two aspects: being at home one-self and making another feel at home. There is an old saying: Home is were the heart is. Home may be connected with certain physical surroundings, but location is not the focus of being "at home." Any place can become home for us when our heart finds its rest there. When we make others feel at home, we have welcomed them in such a way that, by being with us, they find rest at their heart's center. Welcoming the other, welcoming the stranger, may often seem to put the focus only on the object of hos-pitality. But welcoming involves relationship. It takes two--the one being hospitable and the one receiv-ing hospitality--and it is for both to experience that "home" is being shared because the hearts of both parties are involved. Review.for Religious The incident of Jesus' enjoying the hospitality of Mart_ha and Mary in Luke's Gospel (10:38-42) has traditionally led to an interpretation of personality types labeled as Marthas or Marys or to an interpretation of the alternative religious ori-entations of active and contemplative life. Perhaps greater insight into our Christian and Catholic living will be gained if we view both Martha and Mary under the lens of hospitality. Martha is certainly esteemed by biblical tradition for being busy about the efforts of making another feel at home. Mary, for her part, is praised by Jesus in the provocative expression of "choosing the better part" for making him feel so much at home. Together Martha and Mary represent the essentials of hospitality. Mary, listening to Jesus and sitting at his feet, symbolizes the stance of every disciple. She finds her home in God, and her heart is at rest. She has the more essential quality (the "better part"), because she is at home in the deepest part of herself with God. Knowing her true home, she is empowered to offer hospitality to others. Martha represents the other essential quality of hospitality--the work of seeking out and actively inviting others to find a home. Hospitality is the prac-tice which images our living the one commandment of love of God and neighbor. The exercise of hospitality in our personal interaction with friends and strangers, in our religious community, and in our parish life provides us today in our times and cultures with the sign similar to the one distinguishing the first Christians: "See how they love one another." In the midst of the contentious-ness that we often find in our dealings with people who differ with us or who are different from us, we are called to live a hospitality that remains true to our biblical tradition and to the best that is in human hearts. Hospitality becomes the expression on the faces of people seeing Christ in one another. David L. Fleming SJ September-October 2001 JANET K. RUFFING .Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits a discerning way A critical relationship to our exercise of power is a spiritual task for all Christians. This is true, then, for all the sisters who participate in congregational assem-blies or chapters, and not just for those elected to lead-ership. There are many sources of power: wealth, education, ethnic origin, family status, professional role, elective and appointive offices, reputation, organiza-tional skill, control of information, and personal gifts. In a number of situations, we fail to take into consider-ation the presence of these various powers among us. As Christians we are responsible for our exercise of power on behalf of the human community and of indi-vidual persons within our spheres of power. We are called to live our lives in the service of the kingdom of God and the values of the gospel regardless of our par-ticular settings and regardless of how others may exer-cise power around us. Choices about our exercise of power may be difficult if we have not had helpful role models. Nevertheless, it is through the critical exercise of power that we inhabit more fully our humanity, empower others, respond to the power of Jesus' spirit Janet K. Ruffing RSM, professor of spirituality in Fordham's Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, last wrote for us in July-August 1997. Her address remains GSRRE, Fordham University; 441 East Fordham Road; Bronx, New York 10458. Review for Religious within the community, and effect change in the world. Our response to God's Spirit in us is such an exercise of power. The New Testament speaks about a kind of power that is based neither on domination nor position. It is the power that comes from on high over Mary: the Holy Spirit, who effects her con-ception of Jesus and who comes upon the community gathered in his name after the resurrection. Jesus' ministry is characterized by a release of God's power as he expels demons and heals those who believe. The woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus, and power goes out from him. In Luke, all try to touch Jesus in order to be healed because power emanates from him. When Jesus sends out his disci-ples to preach, he confers power on them, not to rule but to heal and to cast out demons. Jesus brings into our midst freedom from all that binds us. He heals and forgives sin, and through the Spirit he shares this power for good with us. We share in this healing and reconciling power. The Spirit is poured forth on the entire gathered community after the resurrection, and our gathered communities continue to share in that outpouring. We, as apostolic women, are empowered by that same Spirit. We are called to develop ways of making decisions, organizing our lives, and harmonizing our gifts so that this holy power is released in each of us and in the group as a whole for mission. The disci-ples had trouble understanding this, too, for they kept mixing up these two kinds of power--wanting to rule and lord it over others rather than releasing the God life to its own ends. Religious communities are meant to be places where this power of God's Spirit is manifest in concrete and particular ways. It is part of our witness to the world. Many of us have worked long and hard to change the way we relate to one another through our shared exercise of power so that the life of God filling us with desire might be released in God's people. In She Who Is, Elizabeth Johnson describes what the experience of the Spirit is like at the level of institutions: Religious communities are meant to be places where this power of God's Spirit is manifest in concrete and particular ways. September-October 2001 Ruffing ¯ Exercising Power and Discernin~ Spirits On the le,bel of the macro systems that structure human beings as groups, profoundly affecting consciousness and patterns of relationship, experience of the Spirit is also medi-ated. Whenever a human community resists its own destruc-tion or works for its own renewal; when structural change serves the liberation of oppressed peoples; when law sub-verts sexism, racism, poverty, and militarism; when swords are beaten into ploughshares or bombs into food for the starving; when the sores of old injustices are healed; when enemies are reconciled once violence and domination have ceased; whenever the lies and the raping and the killing stop; wherever diversity is sustained in koinonia; wherever justice and peace and freedom gain a transformative foothold-- there the living presence of powerful, blessing mystery amid the brokenness of the world is mediated. And it is known not in the open, so to speak, but as the ground of the praxis of freedom that survives and sometimes even prevails against massive violence; as the ground, in Peter Hodgson's telling words, of those partial, fragmentary, disconnected, transient, tiny, yet transforming rebirths that enable history to go on at all in the midst of vast discontinuities and meaninglessness. So universal in scope is the compassionate, liberating power of Spirit, so broad the outreach of what Scripture calls the finger of God and early Christian theologians call the hand of God, that there is virtually no nook or cranny of reality potentially untouched. The Spirit's presence through the praxis of freedom is mediated amid profound ambigu-ity, often apprehended more in darkness than in light. It is thwarted and violated by human antagonism and systems of collective evil. Still, "Everywhere that life breaks forth and comes into being, everywhere that new life as it were seethes and bubbles, and even, in the form of hope, everywhere that life is violently devastated, throttled, gagged, and slain-- wherever true life exists, there the Spirit of God is at work." This is not to say that every person who reflects on the world would arrive at this same conclusion. But, within the Jewish and Christian faith, the Spirit's saving presence in the con-flietual world is recognized to be everywhere, somehow, always drawing near and passing by, shaping fresh starts of vitality and freedom.' We are often privileged to witness the vitality of freedom in these fresh starts and often fragmentary rebirths around us. Yet, I believe, all of us still have much to learn about our exercise of power. This task requires us to be attentive to both subtle and profound movements of the Spirit of God in our midst and atten-tive to our need for ongoing conversion in our use of power per- Review for Religious sonally and communally. Where God's Spirit is authentically at work, individuals experience an increase in energy, creativity, and humanization. Challenge and Conflict Because we live in times of unprecedented cultural change, leadership in women's communities i~ increasingly charged with tasks of"nonroutine" or adaptive work, to use the vocabulary of Ron Heifetz. Leadership in such times is charged not only with routine administration, but also with guiding a community through adaptive challenges. We have commonly used the vocabu-lary of transformational leadership for this function. Adaptive or transformational change requires changes in values, beliefs, and behaviors. It requires much more of both leaders and members than simple modification; it will not occur unless leaders identify con-flict and work with it rather than avoid it. Groups themselves rarely, if ever, correctly identify the deep-level challenges to which they need to respond. The work is simply too hard, and the ordinary members are frequently lacking the "big picture" or the specific informa-tion that would impel them ko initiate change. Members are usually so thoroughly immersed in their own ministries that these eclipse the bigger picture even if they have access to it. Leaders often work with this bigger picture every day. This is one reason why leaders have a responsibility to share infor-mation and to articulate their perceptions to the group engaged in deep change. For communities to flourish at the present time, they need skillful administrators who effectively direct the tech-nical or routine details of the group's life and mission, and they need leaders who can distinguish among these tasks while attend-ing to the transformational change process and orchestrating it. Change at this level can result only from a collective and con-templative process. Religious communities are now at risk of stow extinction if their leaders think their only task is to implement the consensual decisions of the group. Septentber-October 2001 Ruffing ¯ Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits Religious communities are now at risk of slow extinction if their leaders think their only task is to implement the consen-sual decisions of the group. Although this function is necessary, the process is slow 'and cannot keep up with the pace of change. Leaders need to anticipate and help the group keep moving toward the next change. Yes, women leaders do tend to use their collaborative skills to achieve consensus instead of imposing their solutions on the group, but a group can come to consensus on only so many issues, values, decisions. The energy and skill used in developing consensus, if not focused on really important choices, may drain energy from hard adaptive work that remains to be done. In religious life today, leaders often need to initiate change by correctly identifying unavoidable challenges and helping the group see that some of these challenges must be resolved by a deep level of change, and not merely by technical solutions or skill. For this task, leaders need all of their motiva-tional skills to keep the group engaged in the process, and they need to create a safe enough space for fearful and distressed members to do what they would just as soon avoid doing. Tranformational change is the occasion for a considerable amount of distress. Leaders need to anticipate this distress, which often manifests itself as resistance, and endeavor to alle-viate enough of it so the group can do the work required. From leaders this requires all of the qualities the FORUS study in the early 1990s identified in authentically spiritual leaders. Leaders must demonstrate, on the bne hand, a radical and genuine trust in God and in the future into which God invites us and, on the other hand, must not minimize the distress in the group. Leaders need to hbsorb a great deal of the distress and not pass it on, but also to get the group to confront the change. This graced abil-ity to remain unflappable under pressure is difficult. Leaders need to have acquired considerable spiritual, psychological, and emotional resources to do this without damage to themselves. Leaders need not convince members to resolve challenges exactly as they would prefer. What they must do is continue giving the task of finding creative solutions back to the group-- or to one or more committees if that seems more practical. Effective responses can and do emerge out of careful handling of conflicting points of view. Frequently the resolution is not going to be what the leaders envisioned. This is why nominees, when asked what they would do in a particular situation, can Review for Religious rarely answer convincingly. They simply do not know what the emerging issues are or will be. Only as new issues arise can lead-ership identify them and focus attention on them. To ignore these late-rising issues would be to ignore the rest of the work to be done. Leadership serves the group by continually trying to think ahead of it and be ready to help the group respond to emerging issues. For the prophetic or dissenting voices to have any impact in the group at all, leaders will need to make room for both the novel and the differing until they get enough hearing to enable the group to shift. Whenever the novel emerges, the group needs time to welcome the possibilities it offers and to negotiate the many subtle interior shifts that such a change might require. It is difficult for people to receive the novel if its herald is not one of the more acceptable and respected members of the group. Yet the proposed newness may be exacdy what is needed. This deeper level of change can never happen in a group unless the positional leaders, the women elected to leadership and bearing the right to exercise authority in the name of the group, use that power skill-fully until the tensions can be resolved.2 Some of the studies on women in leadership show that women leaders tend to rely more on their personal power than on their official authority. If those of you who are leaders in a specific situation are wondering if you have authority or not, it may be because you are not making enough use of it as you invite, cajole, encourage, inspire, and entice the group to do what it needs to do. Some of you may avoid using your posi-tional authority in order not to evoke old transferences to authority. Women leaders and their communities need to see authority as a resource to be used for the sake of the group. Most members want to be challenged to be their best selves, even though everyone is aware that conversion and growth cannot be coerced. In facing the particular challenges of transformational change, we as women let our historical wounds regarding authority heal. We develop the skills of being leaders and mem-bers in partnership, in mutuality. We focus our energies in harmony with the divine energies for the sake of mission. I want now to reflect more at length on the exercise of power in a discernment mode--in the context of choosing leaders and gath-ering together in assembly or chapter. Septentber-October 2001 Ru~n~ ¯ Exerdsin~ Power and Discernin~ S~irits Discernment of Spirits My reflections draw on some themes from Catherine of Siena's teaching on discernment of spirits and also on the skills and wisdom of the Quaker tradition of communal discernment. Although Catherine of Siena does reflect incidentally on various interior movements in the course of her Dialogue, she emphasizes discernment. For her, discernment has more to do with right relationships and living in harmony with God, whom she often calls Truth. Because discernment is rooted in supreme Truth, "it rightly sets conditions and priorities of love where other people .are concerned. The light of discernment, which is born of charity, gives order to your love for your neighbors . The pri-orities set by holy discernment direct all the soul's powers to serving Me courageously and conscientiously.''3 Discernment is born of charity. This implies that an open, unselfish, loving heart fosters discernment by the ordering activity of love. Discernment is a virtue that puts everything in perspective and shows us what we owe to each person and situation. Catherine insists it grows and develops as we do in the life of God; it enlarges our capacity for love expressed in ministry. As we grow in our love for God, so do we grow in our discernment. Catherine has three stages to the spiritual life, to growth in charity, and to discernment which she calls the first, second, and third lights. Discernment is the light which" dissolves all darkness, dissi-pates ignorance, and seasons every virtue and virtuous deed. It has a prudence that cannot be deceived, a strength that is invincible, a constancy right up to the end, reaching as it does from heaven to earth, that is, from the knowledge of Me to the knowledge of oneself, from love of Me to love of one's neighbors. By this glorious light the soul sees and rightly despite her own weakness.4 There are, I believe, several implications that we might draw from this teaching. As a community gathers for decision making in a discernment mode, no two people in the group are able to participate in" exactly the same way. As we assemble, we are all in different places. The more each of us knows and loves God, the more we understand ourselves. The more we know and love our neighbors, the more we love God. Catherine recognizes that dis-cernment as a virtue grows and develops over the course of our graced history and in proportion to the intensity of our love for God and for others. This growth reveals to us our particular weak- Review for Religious nesses, blind spots, cowardice, and resistances and our reactions under stress--all of which, sowing confusion and doubt, may keep us from making costly decisions. This self-knowledge is extremely important. If we do not know our characteristic ways of responding to stress or distress, our blindness may increase the confusion and doubt of the gathered community. Some members may be skilled in this discernment, and others, for various reasons, may not have the same clear perception of a situation or the same capacity to accept God's invitation to move forward. This incapacity may come from current cir-cumstances: a recent bereavement, phys-ical illness, or recent ministry challenges that have left them benumbed. The best preparation before we gather for communal discernment is to increase our prayer, to seek self-knowl-edge in the present moment, and to heal and reconcile anything we can with other members. Intensifying our connection to God, gaining self-knowledge, and recon-ciliation efforts can remove potential blocks within the group. If any member speaks the truth about an issue, situation, or challenge that the group needs to face, every other member must receive it and "test" its possibilities for herself and for the group. If this truth is spoken by a member whose opinions people frequently perceive to be "off the mark" or whom they tend to dismiss because of past performance, the others may fail to respond with openness to conversion, that is, with willingness to change their minds. Individuals and the group need to allow enough time for such a potential shift to occur among themselves. This is a quite different process from the response those readily receive who--by reason of their education, their election, or their previous performance--are customarily taken seriously. In Catherine of Siena's system, those who practice discern-ment according to the third "light" are those who have "clothed" themselves in God's will. They are attuned to God and God's desire. This harmony with God's will is not necessarily about specific issues; it is a matter of practical insight into the Mystery If we do not know our characteristic ways of responding to stress or distress, our blindness may increase the confusion and doubt of the gathered community. Septentber-October 2001 Ruffing * Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits of Jesus' total self-giving love for us in the paschal mystery. The touchstone is not seeing a single issue clearly, but living constantly within the Christ mystery. Such "seeing" elicits desire to imitate Jesus' self-giving love without counting the cost to self. In Catherine's words, such a person "loves me sincerely without any other concern than the glory and praise of my name. She does not serve me for her own pleasure, or her neighbors for her own profit, but only for love." Such persons are alive with the charism of their community. Full of apostolic zeal, they basically love in un-self-serving ways. Such persons are not prevented from choosing God's will because of their own selfishness, nor does suffering or antic-ipated difficulty prevent them from choosing what is best for God, others, and self. What is sought is God's will, which Catherine assumes leads us to what is best for everyone. Communities today face many pressing issues. What is best for one community may not be best for another. What God may be calling one community to at a particular juncture is not the same as another. With who we are, where we are geographically, and where we are in our communal and personal histories, what is best for our mission, our selves, and those with whom we minister? From the rich Quaker tradition of discernment, I will discuss only three themes: unity, peace, and clarity. Quakers, like other Christians, draw on the "fruits of the spirit" as sketched by Paul in Galatians 5:23 as a touchstone for discernment. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, trust, gentleness, and self-control." This cluster of outcomes or fruits resulting from behaviors, attitudes, spiritual practices, and interactions with others reveals lives authentically lived in the Spirit. These fruits are all interrelated. For the Society of Friends, privileged unity in God's love was an important result in commu-nity life of various impulses or "leadings" of the Spirit in individuals. At certain times of corporate "waiting on the Lord," they experienced their unity, their being gathered in God, as a palpable mystical experience. This unity bore fruit in love of neigh-bor. For them kindness and gentleness were dimensions of the fruit of love. Traditionally they came to ask whether a particular course of "action would produce more or less love, greater or less unity, more or less joy.''s They valued Truth as well, assuming that, once the community Review for Religious was deeply "gathered in unity," an individual under divine guidance would be consistent with the perceptions of others who were also attuned to divine guidance. So the quality of love which could gather the community in unity also led to discerning the truth. As Patricia Loring describes it, the unity sought is not simple agreement, not consensus, compromise, or an irreducible minimum of views. What is sought is a sense of deep interior unity which would be a sign that the members are consciously gathered together in God and may therefore trust their corporate guidance: The felt gathering in God tends to illuminate and clarify motives, to dissolve or harmonize differences-or allow them to stand side by side in the tenderness accompanying gath-ering in the spirit of God. Unity may enable a way forward to be found even if members continue to hold differing views. Divisiveness, disruption, or simple lack of unity indicate that one, all, or some members of the group are not fully under guidance.6 Peace is yet another important touchstone of the gathered community. The unity of the gathered community brings about peace by harmonizing disparate elements within the community and within the self. Quakers discovered that "the reconciliation of disparate parts of one's self or of one's experience in a new, sometimes unexpected direction or action can issue in a deep interior sense of peace . Living close to the Spirit has the effect of such harmonizing and reconciling both within and between persons." For Quakers, peace as a touchstone in communal discernment is "the feeling of being at peace with a decision or an outcome, even if it is not what one sought or hoped for, even if it calls for considerable hardship or change.''7 Often a new burden or task disturbs one's peace initially. Peace or ease is restored only when one accepts the burden or fulfills the task. In leadership selection processes, frequently those being considered experience considerable lack of peace. Sometimes, when a nominee is graced to accept a potential call to leadership, a flood of peace results. When or if this deep peace makes itself felt, a leader may confidently trust the election and will often return to this initial grace of leadership in difficult times. Lack of peace is as important as peace. When peace is disturbed, some action is called for. Sometimes the action or resolution is neither simple nor obvious. At times individuals and groups suffer a prolonged period of living with disquiet before the fitting response becomes clear. September-October 2001 Ruffing ¯ Exercising Power and Discerning Spirits Quakers often used the word "clear" as in "getting clear" to describe an outcome of discernment. Sometimes it had the con-notation of being released from a burden. At other times it involved acting on a "leading" (that is, a matter discerned) and faithfully carrying it out. In this early form, getting clear was closer to how we might describe feeling free. Quakers now use the term clarity or clearness in the sense of coming to intellectual clarity about what they are to do or what a "leading" might be about, and much of their individual discernment is aided by convoking a clearness committee. The membdrs of such a group are invited on the basis of their spiritual sensitivity and typically only ask questions which might help the individual discerners clarify their inner truth. They help them clarify their situation, motives, and "leadings": they do not offer advice. As Patricia Loring describes such a gathering, it first of all opens itself to divine guidance. For Quakers this is not a per-functory moment of silence, but a much deeper recollection: "for an intentional return to the Center, to give over one's own firm views, to place the outcome in the hands of God, to ask for a mind and heart as truly sensitive to accepting of nuanced intimations of God's will as of overwhelming evidences of it.''s This is an attitude of receptivity to subtle hints of God's will as well as to unmistakable clarity. Discernment is, then, a habit of the heart. From my perspec-tive it is intimately linked with our spiritual development. When we exercise power in any context, but especially when it is time for major decision making in community or when we are in offi-cial positions of authority, we need discernment to ensure that we are exercising our power in service of the reign of God and not for self-serving benefits of any kind. When we or our communities are thus "gathered" in God, an incredible amount of energy is released for the sake of others and of ourselves. When we enter into this discernment in partnership with God, whose Spirit impels us toward goodnes{, toward love, toward peace, and toward patience, the results are energy, enthusiasm, gentleness, and joy. Notes l Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 126-127. 2 Katherine Clarke, "Leadership When It's Time for Adaptation," Human Development 18 (Fall 1997): 5-11. Review for Religious 3 Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, ed. and trans. Suzanne Noffke (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1980), §11, p. 44. 4 Dialogue, § 11, p. 44. s Patricia Loring, Spiritual Discernment: The Context and Goal of Clearness Committees, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 305 (Wallingford, Penn.: Pendle Hill Publications, 1992), p. 7. 6 Loring, p. 8. 7 Loring, p. 9. s Loring, p. 24. The Woman Arusha, Tanzania So short the bridge on the main road in the city few notice the deep stream, nor see, among the bustling feet, a woman, in rags, on the dusty pavement, leaning against the stone parapet, clutching a begging cup. One sprawling leg wears a tattered shoe, the other a soiled bandage lying loosely where a foot should be. I walk grimly on, and on, and on. Troubled, I turn, walk back two blocks and share my conscience with a leper. Hugh Sharpe CFC September-October 2001 DENNIS J. BILLY Personal and Social: Shared Experience Can Renew Us Religious live in community and profess the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience. These common features make religious into countercultural and eschatological signs of radical discipleship. Living together under a rule dedicated to the spread of gospel values, they remind others and themselves of the presence of the kingdom of God within them, in their midst, and still to come. Religious do this through the individual and communal expression they give to the vows. In this essay I will look at the reciprocal relationship between the personal and social, giving special attention to discrepancies between vision and practice and to the value of interpersonal sharing of experience for the community's renewal. A Circular Relationship I begin with a hypothesis: A relationship of circularity exists between people's personal expression of the vows and the gospel culture promoted by their community. This link between the personal and the communal comes from the vows themselves. They embrace all of human existence: the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual, and the social. ~ Human existence is constituted by individual consciousness, which itself is shaped, at least in part, by social ties (parents, family, schools, churches, social clubs, charitable organizations, athletic Dennis J. Billy CSSR continues to write from Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma, Italy. Revie~v fbr Religious teams, and so forth). From birth, infants interact with this social environment; gradually maturing, they have a greater impact on it. This creative interplay contributes to the values people adopt and affects the choices they make in life. The formation of religious in discipleship roughly parallels this human growth and development. By their very nature the evangelical counsels are derived from, fostered by, and oriented toward life in community. This social dimension of the vows has its origin in the reality Paul found in the body of Christ, and it appears on various levels within the religious community itself, in the community of the church, and in the world at large.2 In this circular relationship, the individual and the communal presuppose and cannot do without each other. Every religious community comprises a variety of members who bring their unique potentials, gifts, and perspectives to the living out of their congregation's charism. Each individual has an impact on the evangelical life of the community. Although this impact may be greater for some than for others, no contribution may be regarded as insignificant. Each individual, moreover, is supported by and lives out his or her vows through life in community. Although group will vary from group in external expression, the purpose of each community is a life of discipleship within a common evangelical witness. A community helps to shape individuals' understanding of the evangelical life in many and varied ways (initial and ongoing formation, community structures, common devotional practices). That understanding, that vision, gives meaning and relevance to their individual lives and, in turn, has an effect on the community's self-understanding. This, again, further refines the individuals' experience of religious life. This circular interplay between the individual and the community releases creative energies to help the community remain faithful to its tradition while adapting to the challenges and exigencies of the present. When this adaptation occurs, the community has struck a healthy balance between the individual and the communal expression of the vows. When it does not, something has gone awry that, if not checked, can do serious harm to all involved. " Finding Discrepancies The question arises: What happens when this circular relationship Septentber-October 2001 Billy s Personal and Social is interfered with or in. some way broken up? A number of things can happen. Individual religious may distance themselves psychologically from the community and gradually lose touch with its motivating gospel principles. The community, moreover, may be too rigid (or too flexible) in the way it adapts to the cultural milieu of the day. The lack of vocations and a steady flow of people leaving the community may seriously affect its morale and self-confidence. Secularizing trends in society may also tear away at the fabric of community life and eventually leave little or nothing for members to share. Any of these factors could affect the reciprocal relationship between the individual and communal expression of the VOWS. Added to these possibilities is the gap that can grow between the community's officially stated vision of itself and its actual lifestyle. If the inconsistencies become too numerous, the community may be unable to attract new members and those already within it may become disillusioned or, worse yet, numb to their need for change. To some extent, every community experiences a discrepancy between its ideals and the way it practices them. Any attempt by sinful human beings to embrace the high ideals of radical discipleship falls short in some respect. If the discrepancy is too large, however, community members need to reexamine its structures and processes. The question to ask is whether the gap between their stated ideals and their lifestyle is decreasing or increasing. If decreasing, they need strategies to continue the trend and, if possible, even accelerate it. If the gap is increasing, they need to find ways of reversing the process so that the community can once again "live with itself." If they fail to do so, the circular relationship between the personal and communal expression of the vows will continue to break down, and the community will in time become a loose collection of individuals united only by externals (such as name, shelter, and finances). If this occurs~ it will be difficult, if not impossible, to decrease the gap between their ideals and their lived experience. One way of estimating the discrepancy between vision and practice in a religious community is to keep in mind the various levels of spirituality commonly accepted by scholars: the experiential (level one), the doctrinal (level two), and the academic (level three).3 Since the Second Vatican Council, religious communities have spent much time and effort rewriting their rules and statutes (level two) and studying the history of their founders Re~ie~ for Religious and the nature of their founding charism (level three). At this time they need to put equal effort into level one, the actual living of the vows in the context of community and their founding charism. Since religious communities need a strong, positive continuity between all three levels of spirituality, now is the time to raise level one, the experiential dimension, up to the other two. An Experiential Turn For this shift in emphasis to occur, a retrieval process is needed: Communities need to get back in touch with the circular relationship between the personal and the communal in their expression of the vows and the common life. They could begin by forming small dialogue groups to share their experience of religious life with one another. From there, they could comb their tradition for hints of bold initiatives they might undertake in the life of discipleship. They could ask communities with a similar charism what they have been doing to make their vision of religious life relevant to people's needs. Most importantly, they could rediscover the value of certain forms of prayer in common and choose to make practical daily use of the best of them for uniting the personal and the communal. The question is whether they have the courage to do so and are willing to pay the price that such a decision might entail. To speak of an "experiential turn" in religious life today means that community members need to step back from the swirl of their activities and take stock of their lives on every level: the anthropological, the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual, and the social. Once they have done so, they will more easily ponder the ideals they profess and discover if they are living up to them. This means taking steps individually and together and naming what they are 'going through, evaluating their experience against specific criteria, and responding to the evaluation in a responsible, practical way. Another way of making this experiential turn is for religious to seek a proper balance between action and contemplation. Such a balance requires time and effort. Once achieved, however, it helps Every community experiences a discrepancy between its ideals and the way it practices them. September-October 2001 Billy ¯ Personal and Social religious to put petty differences aside and to unite around matters of common concern. Such balance helps community members to recognize the discrepancy between their ideals and their lifestyle, to be disturbed by it, and to do something about it. They become motivated to overcome their past indifference, and they take steps toward personal conversion and the renewal of their institutes. By concentrating on both the personal and the communal aspects of their experience, community members are well on their way toward reintegrating the two and bringing steady incremental change for the better into their individual lives and their communal life. Observations At this point, a number of remarks are in order concerning the effect of this "experiential turn" on religious life and on a community's wimess. 1. Living the vowed life in common contains experiential components that affect religious both as individuals and as a group. Religious should be aware of these components. In this light, chastity is not a mere solitary concern, but a gift to be nourished in a vibrant, caring community. Poverty, in turn, takes both personal and communal forms in the daily life of a religious community, and obedience makes little sense except in terms of an individual's free and loving response to the needs of the common good. Even community life itself must take into account both an individual's and the group's experience of its general regimen. In their response to the call to radical discipleship, religious must keep in touch with their personal and communal experience for their reciprocal interaction to be helpful and creative. 2. When a community gives adequate attention to the personal and communal dimensions of its lived experience, a noticeable change takes place in the quality of its witness to the life of discipleship. This change normally occurs in a gradual, incremental manner. It comes about because members of the community are no longer relating to each other as isolated individuals, but as members of a family with stories to tell, experiences to share, and suggestions to offer. Once individuals have been given the opportunity to share the wide range of their life experiences as religious, there occurs a growing tendency within the community to treat each other with gentleness and respect. The sharing of these experiences gives community .members the impetus to make appropriate changes in Review for Religious the structures of community life so that the gap between their ideals and lifestyle may be reduced. When this happens, community members begin to feel that they have more say in the day-to-day activities of the community. They begin to take ownership of their community and are willing to invest more of their time and energy in its success. 3. To say that the quality of a community's witness to the life of discipleship will rise as a result of its paying close attention to the personal and communal components of its members' lived experience does not mean that the road to renewal will be without problems. On the contrary, buried memories and pent-up frustrations may give way to heated displays of anger. These outbursts should be expected and even wel-comed. When they occur, those venting their anger should be carefully listened to so that the issues behind their raw emotions can be understood. When anger is expressed, the com-munity should not run away from it or feel threatened or intimidated by it, but should confront it, letting the under-lying needs come to the surface and seeking appropriate ways of dealing with them. Some may be so angry at the community that they can see no other alternative than to leave. Others will stay, but may have strong issues to deal with in their personal relationship with the community, even as that community tries hard to change. Still others may wish that the community had never begun to make changes in the first place. Focusing on lived experience elicits different responses from community members. They should all be listened to with care and dealt with sensibly. The community should be aware that its numbers may have to decrease before the quality of its witness begins to rise. 4. After giving its attention to the members' personal and communal experiences, the community needs to weigh matters carefully in the light of its charism and the church's teaching on religious life. As for the charism, the community should examine its The sharing of experiences gives community members the impetus to make appropriate changes in the structures of community life so that the gap between their ideals and lifestyle may be reduced. Septentber-October 2001 Billy ¯ Personal and Social constitutions and statutes to see where the experiences that have surfaced fit into its stated self-understanding. As for the church's teaching, the community should give its attention to the Vatican II documents, the Code of Canon Law, and Pope John Paul's recent apostolic letter Vita consecrata (1996). The goal here would be to strengthen the continuity between the experiential and the doctrinal levels in Christian spirituality, that is, the community's lived experience and official teaching about itself. By comparing the personal and communal experiences of the community (level one) with the pertinent ecclesial (level two) and congregational (level three) documents, the community can gauge which experiences are part of the call to radical discipleship and which are not. Then the members can discuss what elements of their constitutions and statutes need to be adjusted or perhaps even changed. The very rereading of these documents in the light of their experience can be inspiriting. 5. Diminishing the gap between a community's vision and its lived experience is a thorough process. A single attempt, however intensive or prolonged, will do little. Practical arrangements are needed whereby members can examine their personal and communal experiences and then make reasonable proposals for change. These arrangements should not be imposed, but should evolve from within the community. Whatever they may be (weekly or monthly reviews of life, common retreat days, group spiritual direction, dialogue groups with a facilitator, and so forth), they need to be evaluated regularly to ensure that they continue to be perceived as vital to the community. Their purpose is not to turn the community in upon itself in an unhealthy, introverted way, but to enable it to see its shortcomings and take steps to get beyond them. These arrangements should provide continuing support for members' personal lives and their communal life. A Final Observation Healthy communities are always seeking practical ways of narrowing the gap between ideal and practice, in the hope that the gap will one day disappear entirely. An awareness of the circular relationship between the individual and the communal experience can do much toward this goal. Such awareness may include wading through powerful streams of emotion to get to where unmet needs can be understood, acknowledged, and addressed. Review for Religious Religious are called to be signs of hope to the hopeless. To do this, they must be aware of what they themselves are called to become and take positive steps to attain it. Only by confronting first the discrepancy between vision and lifestyle in their own lives will they be able to help others to do the same. Religious cannot remove this discrepancy through their own efforts. They must cooperate with the Spirit in their following of Christ. They need to put complete trust in the Lord's love and concern for them. His Spirit alone will shape them and sustain them. His Spirit alone will carry them into intimate fi'iendship with God. His Spirit alone will reveal to them, and to those whose lives they touch, the kingdom that is within them, in their midst, and still to come. Notes ~ See Dennis J. Billy, "~'ta Consecrata and the Anthropology of the Vows," Review for Religious 58, no. 4 (July-August 1999): 384-392. 2 See ~ta consecrata, §51. 3 See Walter H. Principe CSB, "Toward Defining Spirituality," Studies in Religion / Sciences religieuses 12 (1983): 135-136. There is something made known each autumn in the voices of leaves, red, orange, yellow clear choral anthems conducted by the wind which sends me into the chilled morning my breath a white wraith staring back, touching my face. I open my eyes to thankfulness singing and waving, carelessly brushing away my own apparition too briefly present before I could ask, dear child, who are you. ? C.J. Renz September-October 2001 BRENDAN KNEALE Examining My Conscience: Do I Have an Attitude? ~wehen we first were trained to examine our conscience, probably confined ourselves to matters of stealing, lying, swearing, disobedience, bad thoughts, and fighting. As we grew older and had new responsibilities, we enlarged our scope beyond the commandments of God to the "the commandments of the church"--attendance at Mass and similar requirements. Later, perhaps, we looked beyond action to habit, that is, to. the virtues and the vices--our faith, our humility, our temperance, as well as our anger, gluttony, sloth, and so forth. If we became members of the consecrated life, we added concern about the vows connected to the evangelical counsels. What may lead us to refine our examination of conscience even further is the experience of recidivism, our repeated lapses into the same sins and failings. We suspect a root cause, some factor or factors below the surface that lead us to fall again and again into the same culpable behavior. Another occasion for deeper search might be a friend's calling our attention to some failing of which we were unaware. And we may occasionally sur-prise ourselves by an act of sudden anger or other fault and then wonder, "Where did that come from?" As Isaiah says, "The heart is more devious than any other thing, perverse too." A tendency at this juncture is to claim that we are victims. We may feel that we fall repeatedly or unexpectedly into certain faults Brendan Kneale FSC, a previous contributor (1988), writes from 4403 Redwood Road; Napa, California 94558. Review for Religious because of forces beyond our control. For example, traumas early in life may later induce us to behave neurotically and compul-sively. However, as one prominent non-Catholic psychologist has written, a great value of the Catholic practice of confession (and its attendant examination of conscience) is that it gets us to take personal responsibility for our bad conduct, and not to claim victimhood when it is not justified. Notice that the implication here is that we are dealing with "conscience," not the subconscious. We are not urging personal psychoanalysis, however valuable that may be. Rather, the ques-tion here is about morality, a domain that deals only with actions and omis-sions in which there is at least some degree of improper behavior (or omission), sufficient awareness, and some consent of the will. For exam-ple, it does not take a person addicted to swearing (and currently more or less unmindful of his habitual behavior) much effort to realize that he has set up the habit himself by per- Without a correction of attitude, recidivism and recurring "surprise" behaviors can be expected. sonal choices made long before. He was not, and is not, an unblamable victim. It is only right that he be responsible for the consequences of those choices, that he examine himself on the personal sources and the moral responsibility involved. Our Attitudes The kind of probing advocated here, and requiring a refine-ment of examination, has to do with ~cquired attitudes or mind-sets or preconceptions over which we have supervision. Do we approach situations with an "attitude"? For example, persons brought up in an atmosphere of racial prejudice may need to examine more than their overt actions or even their more or less conscious behavior patterns, and take a close look at their basic attitudes. Repeated lapses into offensive words or deeds may require not only regret but also examination of deep-seated causes, basic attitudes that perhaps were acquired nonsinfully. Otherwise, without a correction of attitude, recidivism and recur-ring "surprise" behaviors can be expected. Of course, there may be other causes for our repeated sins--the three concupiscences-- Septentber-October 2001 Kneale ¯ Examining My Conscience What are our preconceptions about the homeless, the panhandler, the handicapped, the addict, the "great unwashed"? but here we are looking at an .operative cause that may precede (or follow) such passions and that we can bring into examination when we try to analyze our moral behavior. Are we rightly accused of being "judgmental"? Are we saddled with attitudes that damage our relations with God, our neighbor, and our own self?. Is it a false estimate of our present stance--whether we are in youth, maturity, old age--that is the source of our sassiness, bossiness, crotcheti-ness? Does our ironic view of things lead to hurtful sarcasm? Does our cynicism lead to real contempt? Insofar as our culture shapes our attitudes or outlooks on such matters as promiscuity, illness, consumerism, status, race, authority, work, time, privilege, food, fun, humor, recreation, comfort, entitle-ments, adventure, celebrity, revenge, violence, death, and so forth, we should search to see if these attitudes need revision as part of our effort to turn away from gen-uinely culpable thoughts or actions that we notice in ourselves. Typical questions for ourselves might be: Has my culturally induced attitude toward illness led to hypochondria or to an objectionable fussiness? Does an attitude toward entitlements make me an unpleasant person or a seeker of unjust privilege? Do people find my attitude threatening? To be sure, our culture induces many good attitudes--about democracy, equality, service, private property, education, nonex-ploitation, rewarding merit, conservation, and so forth. We should look at these good attitudes, too, in order to check whether we have blocked some of the good ones along with the bad. A recommended test of our attitudes is to ask what our out-look is on cultural icons, TV heroes, and popular fictional char-acters. Do we find ourselves adopting the mentality of, say, the headline-hunting celebrity, the compromised politician, the self-indulgent artist, the know-it-all intellectual, the snobbish sophisticate, the ruthless tycoon, the swaggering athlete, the gos-sipy columnist,~ the rash liberal, the entrenched traditionalist? If we are quick to praise one of these, why 'is that? Do we almost unconsciously try to shape our self-image to be like them? On the Review for Religious other hand, of course, we need to look at our inner view of those whom our culture tends to despise. What are our preconceptions about (and our resultant behaviors toward) the homeless, the panhandler, the handicapped, the addict, the "great unwashed"? Motivating Ourselves It is probably not easy to refine our examination of conscience to these levels--and surely not to levels beyond them. Why make the effort? Such an examination is one way to get closer to a state of "justice beyond that of the scribes and phar-isees," that is, to grow in the justification talked about by St. Paul. When I think of "justification," I think of what carpenters and mechanics mean by the word, namely, a fitting together and good lining up of items in their handiwork. If these items are all squared away, then they are fully "justified." The Pauline usage seems analogous. He sees God giving us the grace to be squared away, to be right with God, to be righteous, in perfect relation with Him. This justification or righteousness is initially and rad-ically conferred in baptism and is capable of growing and being perfected. In the process, the basic need is for us to adjust our attitudes to those of Christ, to "put on the mind of Christ" (to accomplish literally a metanoia, a change of mind for the better) and thereby get closer to a final justification or righteousness. In the case of Mary Immaculate, of course, such perfection was unimpeded. Since she was conceived without darkness of intellect, weakness of will, or disorder among her passions, it fol-lowed that her attitudes needed no further rectification, and so her growth in holiness and her ability to overcome temptation were rapid. In our case, we need the special help of fasting, prayers, and sacraments. The sacraments help us to pursue a perfection like hers. And a penetrating examination of conscience helps us profit more from those sacraments. The purpose here is not to induce scrupulosity (which is gen-erally a sign of pride), but to get at factors behind or beyond the routine examination lists of commandments, virtues, and vices-- important and revealing though they are. Surely the capital sins of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth deserve scrutiny vis-~l-vis ourselves. But, if we fail often in their regard, we may need to look further into our unexamined lives, into those attitudes that we adopt as normative and that stoke September-October 2001 Kneale ¯ Examining ~Iy Conscience the fires of our behavior. The basic question: Is my attitude that of Christ? Attitudes lead to priorities in our values, values lead to our choices, choices to our actions, actions to habits, habits to deeds of consequence. Each element of this sequence can be conducive to something Christian or to something not Christian; each deserves inspection. Confession to Sumac Anonymous before the frost, the sumac, frozen, blooms resplendent on the freeway grade, innocent of motives, yet sensuous, seductive. Red, orange, or scarlet - blood, a Rothko, Rauschenberg. What it is and must be one, with no apologies. Review for Religqous The beauty of the trees accuses me. My greater gifts I squander by my sins; in dying autumn color they proclaim obedience unto death. Rebellious, though, I languish in the dark. Ed Block J. NEUNER Mother Teresa's Charism On 26 July 1999 the cause for the beatification of Mother Teresa was officially opened in Calcutta. Pope John Paul II had granted an exception to the general regulation that such proceedings can be taken up only five years after the death of the Servant of God. Mother Teresa had died only on 5 September 1997. The early inauguration of the proceedings was granted on account of the worldwide request to have her officially recognized by the church as a model of compassionate love reaching out to all strata of society, especially to the rejected and exploited. For the proceedings in Calcutta, all the documents connected with her life and work had to be collected.1 They opened insights not only into the incredible complexity of her work spread over all continents during a short time but also into her personal life, which had remained hidden from the public and, to a great extent, even from her own community. They reveal many details of the development of the Missionaries of Charity (MC), but also the hidden sources of Mother Teresa's untiring work and inspiring personality, which fascinated people of all strata of society and of all religions. These few pages are an attempt to present this inner sphere, God's work in her heart, which bore so much fruit in her life and work. J. Neuner SJ, who knew Mother Teresa, writes from Sanjeevan Ashram; 38 Sassoon Road; Pune 411 001; India. September~ October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism "I Thirst" Among the Missionaries 10 September 1946 is celebrated as the birthday of the congregation. Mother Teresa had come to India as a novice of the Loreto Sisters. She was very happy in her community and as a teacher in Loreto, Entally (Calcutta). A totally unexpected experience came to her on that day in the litde train climbing up from Siliguri to Darjeeling: the thirst of Jesus and a call to give her life in service to the poor and rejected in the slums. She was deeply disturbed: it might have been a temptation of the devil. But her confessor was convinced of the divine inspiration and told her to communicate it to Archbishop E Perrier of Calcutta. The archbishop hesitated more than a year and kept her waiting--a painful time--but finally supported her application to Rome to leave the Loreto Sisters and start her own congregation. According to her constitutions, it is the aim of the congregation "to quench the infinite thirst of Jesus on the cross for love of souls by the profession of the evangelical counsels and the wholehearted and free service of the poorest of the poor" (Const 3).z This twofold aim is the ever recurring topic of her instructions. But only towards the end of her life does she speak more explicitly about her transforming experience. On 25 March 1993 she writes to all the sisters, brothers, and priests of the Missionaries a letter that is "very personal" and "comes from Mother's heart." She is deeply concerned for her society not to lose our early love, especially in the future after Mother leaves you . The time has come for me to speak openly on the gift God gave me on Sept. 10th, to explain as fully as I can what means to me the thirst of Jesus. For me the thirst of Jesus is something so intimate, so I have felt shy until now to speak to you about September 10th . Everything in MC exists only to satiate Jesus. His words on the wall of every MC chapel are not from the past only, but alive here and now, spoken to you . Jesus Himself must be the one to say to you "I thirst." Hear your own name, not just once, every day. ¯. "I thirst" is something much deeper than Jesus just saying "I love you." Unless you know deeply inside that Jesus thirsts for you, you cannot begin to know what He wants to be for you and what He wants you to be for Him. This personal union with Jesus must become fruitful in the service of the poor--the Missionaries' fourth vow: The heart and soul of MC is only this: the thirst of Jesus' " heart hidden in the poor. This is the source of every part of Review for Religious MC life. : satiating the living Jesus in our midst is our Society's only purpose. The two dimensions of M. Teresa's charism, the intimate union with Jesus and the' work for the poor, can never be separated: "I thirst" and "you did it to me," remember always to connect the two . Do not underestimate our practical means, the work for the poor, no matter how small and humble; they make our life something beautiful for God. The poor are the medium through which we touch Jesus: They are God's most precious gift to our Society--Jesus' hidden presence so near, so able to touch. (Srs 25.3.93) Mother Teresa sees her vocation, the life and work of her sisters, as part of the mission of the church, to participate in the saving passion of Jesus. The Epistle to the Colossians understands the trials of the Apostle as the continuation of Jesus' saving passion: "I am rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's affliction for the sake of his body which is the church" (Col 1:24). This participation in Christ's redemptive passion is realized in the mission of her sisters: Try to increase your knowledge of the mystery of redemption. This knowledge will lead you to love, and love will make you share through your sacrifice in the passion of Christ. My dear children, without suffering our work would just be social work very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the redemption. Jesus wanted to help us by sharing our life, our loneliness, our agony and death. All that He has taken upon Himself and has carried it in the darkest night. Only by being one with us has He redeemed us. We are able to do the same. All the desolation of the poor people, not only their material poverty but their spiritual destitution, must be redeemed, and we must have our share in it. Pray thus when you find it hard: I wish to live in this world which is so far from God, which has turned so much from the light of Jesus, to help them--to take upon myself something.of their suffering. Yes, my dear children, let us share the sufferings of the poor, for only by being one with them can we redeem them; that is bringing God into their lives and bringing them to God. (Srs Ist Friday, July 61) She herself had to experience the pain of poverty in a very personal manner. We have a diary of the early months of her new life when she was struggling to find a place for her small group and had to experience the trials of helplessness. Mostly the notes of the September~ October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism booklet are factual, the daily happenings. Once they have a very personal ring: Today I learned a good lesson: the poverty of the poor must often be very hard for them. When I went rounding, looking for a home, I walked and walked till my legs and my arms ached. I thought how they must also ache in body and soul looking for home, food, help. Then the temptation grew strong: the buildings of Loreto came rushing into my mind, all the beautiful things and comforts, the people they mix with, in a word, everything. "You have only to say one word and all this will be yours again," the tempter kept on saying. Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy Will in my regard. I did not allow a single tear to come. Even if I suffer more than now, I still want to do your Holy Will. This is the dark night of the birth of the Society. My God, give me courage now, this moment, to persevere in following your call. (Notebook 16.2.49) It was her charism not only to work for the poor, but to share in their pain and so to have her part in Jesus' redemptive work. But, even more, she was also called to share in the pain of his thirst. How Mother Teresa Lived Her Charism Thirst is painful longing. Mother Teresa saw it in Jesus on the cross, and her life was devoted to satiate it. It became her most personal vocation to share in it through the lasting darkness that enwrapped her life. Some experience of darkness is part of every spiritual life. She knew it also in her earlier years. At the time of preparing for her final vows, she wrote to her spiritual guide that her life was "not strewed with roses . Rather I have more the darkness as my fellow friend . I simply offer myself to Jesus" (Early letters 8.2.3 7). These were passing experiences. But, with the beginning of her new life in the service of the poor, darkness came on her with oppressive power. In the diary of those early months mentioned above, we have another very personal entry: Today, my God, what torture of loneliness. I wonder how long my heart can suffer this . Tears rolled and rolled. Everyone sees my weakness. My God, give me courage to fight self and the tempter. (Notebook 28.2.49) Father C. Van Exem was her spiritual guide at the time. She had told him to destroy all letters--so we have no letters to him Review for Religious from that time. However, he had asked her to turn to the archbishop, who in the early years--before her own constitutions were approved and she could take vows in her new congregation-- was actually the superior of the young community. She turned to him in growing confidence: I want to say to you something that I do not know to express. I am longing--with painful longing--to be all for God, to be holy in such a way that Jesus can live His life to the full in me. The more I want Him, the less I am wanted. I want to love Him as He has not been loved--and yet there is that separation, that terrible emptiness, that feeling of absence of God. For more than four years I find no help . I am not writing you as His Grace--but as the Father of my soul, for to you and from you I have not hidden anything. Tell me what I should do~I want to obey at any cost. (AP 8.2.56) And again: There is so much contradiction in my soul, such deep longing for God, so deep that it is painful, a suffering continual--yet not wanted by God, repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal . Heaven means nothing to me, it looks like an empty Place. yet the torturing longing for God. (AP 28.2.57) One day, wfien the archbishop celebrated the requiem Mass for Pope Pius XII in the cathedral, she asked for a sign: There and then disappeared that long darkness, that pain of loss, of loneliness, of that strange suffering of ten years. Today my soul is filled with love, with joy untold, with an unbroken union of love. (AP 17.10.58) Still, soon she has to write: Our Lord thought it better for me to be in the tunnel--so He is gone again, leaving me alone. I am grateful to Him for the month of love He gaye me. (AP 16.11.58) She received new life through Father T. Picachy, at the time rector of St Xavier's College, later archbishop of Calcutta and cardinal. Besides personal letters to him, we have also two documents written at his request (undated, but probably written in 1959 or 1960), in which she presents her state of mind in a coherent manner) In prayer form she writes of her closeness to Jesus in earlier years, yet now, Jesus, I go the wrong way. They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God . In my soul I feel just this terrible pain of. loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing. Jesus, please September-October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism forgive the blasphemy--I have been told to write everything--that darkness that surrounds me on all sides¯ I can't lift my soul to God: No light, no inspiration enters my souk And yet, though there is no faith, no love, no trust, there is so much pain, the pain of longing, the pain of not being wanted. I want God with all the powers of my soul, and yet there is that terrible separation . I no longer pray, my soul is not with you, and yet, when alone in the streets--I talk to you for hours of my longing for you. This darkness, however, does not hinder her work: [Though] the dark holds no joys, no attention, no zeal . . . I do my best, I spend myself. I am more convinced that the work is not mine. I do not doubt that it was you who called me with such great love and force. It was you . . . it is you even now--but I have no faith. In spite of the lasting pain, she is ready to accept the darkness as her special way to satiate Jesus' thirst: If my pain and suffering, my darkness and separation give you a drop of consolation, my own Jesus, do with me as you wish. ¯. I am your own. Imprint on my soul and life the suffering of your heart . If my separation from you brings others to you and in their love and company you find joy, my Jesus, I am willing with all my heart to suffer all that I suffer . Your happiness is all that I want . I want to satiate your thirst with every single drop of blood that you can find in me . Please do not take the trouble to return soon. I am ready to wait for you for all eternity. (Pi, undated) Experiences of darkness are found in the lives of many mystics, but it may be difficult to find a parallel to the lifelong night that enwrapped Mother Teresa. It must be seen in the context of her particular mission. It came to her at the time when she embarked on her new life in the service of the abandoned. From the beginning she had to experience not only their material poverty and helplessness, but also their abandonment. This same darkness, however, was for her also the special way in which she shared in Jesus' saving passion. It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus' passion: I have begun to love my darkness for I believe now that it is a part, a very small part, of Jesus' darkness and pain on earth. Review for Religious It is the spiritual side of her work: Today I really feel a deep joy that Jesus can't go any more through the agony but that He wants to go through it in me. More than ever I surrender myself to Him, more than ever I will be at His disposal. (undated) Thus we see that the darkness was actually the mysterious link that united her to Jesus. It is the contact of intimate longing for God. Nothing else can fill her mind. Such longing is possible only through God's own hidden presence. We cannot long for something that is not intimately close to us. Thirst is more than absence of water. It is not experienced by stones, but only by living beings that depend on water. Who knows more about living water, the person who opens the water tap daily without much thinking, or the thirst-tortured traveler in the desert in search for a spring? The darkness and the painful longing for the Jove of God became also her safeguard in a danger that could have harmed her mission: her ever growing popularity, the admiration she received all over the world, the numerous rewards bestowed on her. They could not touch her heart, which was absorbed in an unfulfilled longing for God. When she had to go to Manila to receive the Magsaysay award, she wrote: "I had to go to Manila . It was one big sacrifice. Why does He give me all these but not Himself?. I want Him, not His gift or creatures" (10.9.62). The eyes of the whole world were focused on her when she received the Nobel prize. She thinks only of the poor: "Hundreds of letters still keep coming. The reward has helped many people to find the way to the poor" (9.1.80). And later: "The year offered many opportunities to satisfy the thirst of Jesus for love of souls. It has been a year filled with the passion of Christ. I do not know which thirst is greater, His, or mine for Him" (15.12.80). Mother Teresa's charism comprises both the contemplative and active dimensions of Christian life. Contemplative and Active Mother Teresa's charism comprises both the contemplative and active dimensions of Christian life. The congregation aims at September-October 2001 Neuner *Motber Teresa's Charism quenching Jesus' thirst by the union with him in "the profession of the evangelical counsels and wholehearted and free service of the poorest of the poor" (Const 3). From the beginning she insisted on their inseparable complementarity. Both dimensions must be realized by every member of the congregation. Though in later years she established contemplative branches for sisters (1976) and brothers (1979), she insisted on the oneness of the society: ONE Society, bound by ONE Constitution, with the SAME vows and spirit, with ONE Superior General" (Const i1). "We are consecrated to Him. Jesus has chosen us for Himself. What joy is ours that we can at all times be in close contact with Christ in His distressing disguise" (Srs 1 st Friday, June 61). This mutual penetration of personal union with Christ and actual service of the poor is rooted in the gospel. Jesus himself was united with the Father in a unique manner and made this union fruitful in his daily care for the people. In his message the love of God, whom we cannot see, is tested in the love of neighbor, whom we see. Also the council has emphasized that the union of the self-gift of God and of apostolic concern for the neighbor are part of all religious life: it includes listening to God's word and engaging in his work. "The members of each community should combine contemplation with apostolic love. By the former they adhere to God in mind and heart, by the latter they strive to associate themselves with the work of redemption and to spread the Kingdom of God" (PC 5). Thus Mother Teresa does not accept the frequent division of religious communities as active or contemplative. Of the contemplative sisters she demands, along with their duties of "eucharistic adoration, contemplation, silence, solitude, fasting, penance," also "going out to the spiritually poorest of the poor for two or three hours a day and proclaiming the word of God by our presence and spiritual works of mercy" (Const 5). For the contemplative sisters, "going out" is not meant as a relaxation of the severe seclusion: "Never miss it--for you it is a temptation, for this is our fourth vow" (ContS 20.10.82). Contemplation does not consist in seclusion from the world but closeness to God in every sphere of life. According to the "Spiritual Directory," which contains the guidelines of her spirituality, "a contemplative is a person who lives twenty-four hours with Jesus. and all she does is to Jesus through Mary and Joseph" (Intro. to Section B). Review for Religious She also considers her active sisters contemplatives because their entire life and work consist in beirlg close to Jesus, whom they meet in the poor: "you did it for me." She wanted her whole work to be understood in this perspective even by outsiders. When she received the Nobel prize she said it before the whole world: We are not really social workers--we may be doing social work in the eyes of the people, but we are really contemplatives in the heart of the world, for we are touching the body of Christ 24 hours. We live 24 hours in His presence. All are invited to do the same by truly loving each other, beginning at home: How much we do does not matter., but how much love we put in that action, how much we do to Him in the person we are serving. (Oslo 11.12.79) This is the spirituality she tries to communicate to her sisters in countless instructions. She never proposes a systematic method--in her own dark night it would have been of no help. She tries to lead them to total surrender to Jesus. Four features seem particularly prominent in this spirituality. It begins with a firm decision to free ourselves from all clinging to our own needs, our ambitions: The first step is to will it . My progress in holiness depends on God and myself--on God's grace and my will . Into this "I will" I must put all my energy. A saint is "a resolute soul . The resolution to be a saint costs much. I will despoil myself of all that is not God; I will strip my heart and empty it of all created things." (Srs 1st Friday, Oct. 60) The readiness to renounce self opens the heart to a life of loving service. Mother Teresa finds the inspiring example of loving, humble service in Mary, who holds a central place in her spirituality. Her life overflows with God's generous gifts, yet it is totally empty of any form of conceit. She conceives Jesus, who is her child, but she knows that he belongs to the world. Her entire life is drawn into the mystery of God's love giving Jesus, his Son, to the world. Her closeness to Jesus "engenders in her zeal and charity, zeal to give Jesus through works of charity. . The fruit of this union was service of love for the neighbor . She only thought how to serve." So she becomes the model for the Missionaries of Charity: "This life of Mary is so much like ours."' The sisters, too, are united to Jesus: Septentber-October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism Now that Jesus and I are one, has Jesus in me given me that zeal and charity as the fruitof this union? . . . Do I really go to the poor as the handmaid of the Lord, filled with Jesus, to give only Jesus to the poor I serve? Is my service to the poor devoted, tender, intimate? Do I [do] to them what Mary did to Elisabeth? (31 Oct. 66) We may still ask how she could teach her sisters to pray, for she confesses frequently that in her darkness she was unable to pray. She never taught a method, but wishes her sisters to learn the simplicity of personal union with Jesus: "A Missionary This cleaving of Charity who is not united heart and soul with Christ will not be able to live the spirit of total to each other, surrender, loving trust, and cheerfulness." The mere recital of prayers has no meaning: "To pray the prayer Jesus and I, means to be completely united to Jesus in such a way is prayer, as to allow Him to pray in us, with us, for us. This cleaving to each other, Jesus and I, is prayer." This union with Jesus is realized equally in the silence of the chapel and in daily work: "Learn to pray the work as Jesus did in Nazareth for 30 years . Learn from Jesus to pray and allow Him to pray in you, and put the fruit of prayer into living action of love in loving one another as Jesus loved each one of you" (Srs 27.7.83). We only need a humble and pure heart: "We could see God in our Sisters and the poor we serve. Is it not wonderful that we could be real contemplatives 24 hours if only our hearts were humble and pure?" (Srs Aug. 84). Finally the life and work of a Missionary of Charity must be filled with joy. Such was Jesus' desire: "He wants to share His joy with the Apostles: that my joy may be in you." Joy is not a matter of temperament, it does not consist in comfort: "The service of God and of souls is always hard." But true love brings joy: "A joyful heart is the result of a heart burning with love." Joy not only enriches our life but is "a net of love by which you can catch many souls." It is vital in the life of the sisters: "A cheerful disposition is one of the main virtues required in a Missionary of Charity" (Srs Easter, Apr. 64). The Four Vows The concrete form in which Missionaries of Charity live their union with Jesus are the four vows. In their profession they "bind themselves by the four vows to Jesus Christ Review for Religious with undivided love in chastity through freedom in poverty in total surrender in obedience in wholehearted and free service to Him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor. (Const 36) In the early constitutions of 1954, Mother Teresa still followed the traditional order of the three evangelical counsels beginning with poverty. But the core of her charism is the total union with Christ expressed in the vow of chastity. She explains the coherence of the four vows: The vow of chastity makes us cleave to Christ, and the fruit of our union with Christ is the vow of charity (4th vow). We must love to be pure, we must use every means to keep ourselves pure, body and soul; Jesus must be able to use us fully. To enable the vow of charity to grow we make the vows of poverty and obedience; just as a lamp cannot burn without oil, so the vow of charity cannot live without the vows of poverty and obedience; and all three vows are because of chastity. So live the vow of chastity. (Srs 27.6.65) Poverty is needed in the total self-gift to Jesus: "To be able to be all for Jesus, to love Him with undivided love, we need a pure heart purified by the freedom of poverty." Poverty is not primarily economic want but an attitude of sharing, self-giving. Mother Teresa liked the paradox: "The less we have [for ourselves] the more we can give [of ourselves]. In possessing Jesus we possess everything. That is why we can give more, because we can give Jesus" (Srs 23.1.82). "Jesus saved us through His poverty: He made Himself poor for your sake so that through His poverty you may become rich (2 Co 8:9): We too must become poor for love of Jesus and the poor we serve. For to be able to.understand the poor, to be able to proclaim the Good News to the poor, you must know what poverty is." After enumerating the legal implications of poverty, she continues: "Our poverty should be true Gospel poverty--gentle, tender, glad, open-hearted, always ready to give an expression of love. Poverty is love before it is renunciation" (Srs 23.1.82). Similarly obedience is part of our self-gift to Jesus: "We have to belong to Jesus fully, in total surrender without any reservation, for He alone is worthy of our love. If we really fully belong to Him we must be at His disposal that He may be free to use us and to do with us whenever and whatever He wants--through our Superiors, whoever they may be" (Srs 8.7.76). Obedience is the most beautiful September-October 2001 Neuner ¯ Mother Teresa's Charism --490- offering to God because our will is the only gift of God which is our own and which God will never take by force. He will accept it only when we surrender it" (Srs 2.1.87). This is a sublime vision of religious life. We are, however, not surprised that Mother Teresa had to experience disappointments. The life of the sisters is hard, the work in the slums is dangerous. Day after day the sisters have to work together with people of all strata of society. Each time she received the news that a sister left the community, she felt deep pain. Poverty also caused many problems. Most sisters came from simple surroundings and had never handled large amounts of money. Most disturbing were reports about the disunity among sisters, about young superiors who were not sensitive to the feelings of the sisters, about jealousies, offensive language, hurting, humiliating. In a letter from the hospital she wrote: "You do not know what terrible pain these words cause to my heart . I have to take five different medicines for my physical heart, but I long for the best medicine, your love for one another" (Srs 27.10.67). All such texts in her letters must be read against the background of Mother Teresa's joy and appreciation of her sisters, of their spiritual growth and their faithful work, of which her letters are full. Still, they point at some limitations in the development of her Society. There is first her own traditional background. She received her own religious formation in the firm disciplinary frame to which young religious had to conform, under the authority of the superiors. It became a great help for her: discipline and firm authority were absolutely necessary for the fast-spreading communities. But community life and the work for the slum people also demanded initiative, creativity, and much personal responsibility. More training in community relations and in dealing with difficult situations was needed. Mother Teresa was very much concerned with the formation of the young sisters. But with the growing number of novices--there were over a hundred in the crowded house in Calcutta--it became ever more difficult. In the chapter of 1997, in which she laid down her responsibility as superior general, it was admitted that more ongoing formation was needed for the sisters, mostly for superiors. Connected with the training is also the almost exclusive spiritual motivation of her sisters for their personal and community life and for their work. The love of Jesus Christ surely remains the firm basis of the entire life of the Missionaries of Charity. But God's Review for Religious grace becomes operative within the frame of human life, personal and social. Formation must include the entire person and the concrete social conditions. The emphasis on authority resulted also in a centralization that created difficulties in the growing complexity of administration and work. This obviously is not the place to discuss these tensions in detail. They lead us, however, to the underlying problem: How can a charismatic vision be realized in a concrete organization? The problem became even more acute with regard to the co-workers. The Co-Workers The work of the sisters in the slums naturally demanded much collaboration with many people, men and women of different strata of society, including Hindus and Muslims. It gradually developed into the organized group of Co-Workers. In the introduction to the constitutions we read: From the early days of the Society, the Missionaries of Charity attracted lay people in every part of the world who wished to have some part in the work of loving service to God in the person of the needy. Out of this group grew the international association of the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, whose Constitutions were blessed by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, on 29th March 1969. Mother Teresa never considered the Co-Workers as an organized extension of her work. She saw in them the spreading of her community into all strata of society. The important thing was not merely their work but that they shared in the spirit. In one of her letters to them she wrote: I can give you "no better message than copy of one of the rules which applies to each one of us." Then she quotes from the (old) constitution, no. 92: As each one of this Society is to become a Co-Worker with Christ in the slums, each ought to understand what God and the Society expects of her. Let Christ radiate and live His life in her and through her in the slums. Let the poor, seeing her, be drawn to Christ and invite Him to enter their homes and their lives. Let the sick and suffering find in her a real angel of comfort and consolation. Let the little ones in the streets cling to her because she reminds them of Him, the friend of the little ones. (CoW 20 Apr. 66) From Co-Workers she expects the same attitude as from sisters: September-October 2001 Neuner ¯ Motber Teresa's Charism to know the poor, to love the poor, to serve the poor (see CoW 4.10.74). With the growth of the Society, the association of the Co- Workers also spread. It was inevitable that it developed into a full-fledged organization on the pattern of modern enterprises¯ Was this the spirit of her congregation? She felt the need to take a firm step: As we depend on Divine Providence for our needs and those of the poor, I feel that fund-raising and regular monthly contributions are against our spirit. Therefore we do not give any person or organization permission to have fund-raising or collection of contributions for our work. (CoW 27.9.81) An even more radical decision seemed necessary: "We do not need the Co-Workers to function as an organization" with governing body and officers, links and bank accounts. I do not want money to be spent for Newsletters and travel of Co-Workers . If you see anyone raising money in my name, please stop them . Let us remain united in the heart of Jesus through Mary as one spiritual family. My gift to you is to allow you to share with us in God's work, to be carriers of God's love in a spirit of prayer and sacrifice. (CoW 30.8¯93) Shordy before her death, after she handed over the government of the Society to her successor, she was once more disturbed. Was her drastic decision right? ,Once more she writes to the Co- Workers: "Do you feel the need to have an international link through a Newsletter? Do you like to have a national link as well? . ¯ . I would like to hear from you" (CoW Easter 97). Again the problem: How can a charism be organized? Charism and Institution We have tried to trace the main features of Mother Teresa's charism. She had to make it live in her Society. Can a charismatic vision be institutionalized? We know of the phenomenal development of the Missionaries of Charity during fifty and more years, spreading over the world, established in more than a hundred countries, animated by the same spirit. We have seen also, very briefly, the problems of living this life personally, in communities, in daily work and monotony, in the complexity of modern society. The charism must always remain a deeply personal commitment to Jesus Christ, but it must unfold in personal growth and in Review for Religious community and must be lived in the modern world, to bear fruit in our society. It needs planning and organization. Is this possible? The problem is common to all religious communities. One thinks of the ideas of poverty so deeply understood and radically lived by St. Francis--how difficult it was for these ideas to be institutionalized in different forms in the church of the Middle Ages! We may ask even more radically: How did Jesus himself succeed in institutionalizing his vision of a redeemed humanity in God's kingdom, of a new society comprising all people in solidarity and love, with God as the center and supporting power? Vatican Council II tells us that the church "received the mission of proclaiming and establishing the kingdom of Christ and of God among all nations." It could, however, not identify the church with the kingdom, but had to add the humble statement that "she is the seed and beginning of this kingdom on earth" (LG §5). The growth of God's kingdom on earth remains the task of Jesus' followers in all new generations, in ever new situations. This is also the legacy of Mother Teresa to her congregation: persistently to strive for the realization of her charism and make it fruitful for our society. Notes 1 Most of the documents, and the copyright ©, belong to the Missionaries of Charity; some documents belong to the archbishop of Calcutta and to St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. 2 Abbreviations: AP-Letters to Archbishop Perrier. Const-Consdtutions of the Missionaries of Charity. ContS-Letters to the Contemplative Sisters. CoW-Letters to the Co-Workers. LG-Lumen gentium, Constitution on the Church. PC-Perfeaae caritatis, Decree on the Renewal of the Religious Life. H-Letters to Father T. Picachy SJ. Srs-Letters to the Sisters. 3 Some of the texts in which Mother Teresa reveals her darkness to Father T. Picachy, at the time rector of St. Xavier's College, have been presented by A. Huart SJ in Vidyajyofi: Journal of Theological Reflection (VJTR) 64 (September 2000): 654-659, and also below in this issue of Review for Religious. September-Oaober 2001 ALBERT HUART Mother Teresa: Joy in the Night The lasting impression that Mother Teresa, Missionary of arity, left with those who met her was one of radiant joy-fulness. Who has not observed, at least in photos, her homely face all wrinkled up in smiles as she fondles a baby orphan, greets a girl in rags, or comforts a dying beggar? How, people wondered, can a person daily immersed in the depths of human misery keep going with such unflagging joy-giving vitality? Yet very few, even among her close associates, knew that for many years Mother radi-ated this joy from a heart plunged in excruciating darkness. The priests who were her close spiritual confidants have almost all departed from this world. I cannot claim to have been one of them. Yet, during a retreat that I directed for her sisters and for herself, she confided to me the pain and bewilderment that enveloped her. I was at the time a young priest with little experience. During my theological studies, I had gone through the writings of John of the Cross. Persuaded as I was that she was a true woman of God, I surmised that I was in the presence of the Dark Night of the Spirit that this great doctor of the mystical life so powerfully describes. I was confirmed in this impression when Mother added (I quote from memory): "The strange thing is: when I speak to my sisters and other people about God, Jesus, the presence of Jesus Albert Huart SJ published a different version of thisarticle in Vidyajyoti, New Delhi. He is assistant to the provincial of his Calcutta province, and his address is Xavier Sadan; 9/3 Middleton Row; Calcutta 700 071; India. Review for Religious in the poor, I cannot fail to realize that the message passes and evokes a deep response in them. But, within my own heart, it is all darkness." As I listened to her, the image that emerged in my mind was that of a chalet basking in warm bright sunshine, surrounded by lush vegetation and flowers, yet, within, all dark and cold. What I surmised in this brief encounter was confirmed many years later, after her death. I then had the opportunity of going though the letters addressed by Mother to Father Lawrence Trevor Picachy, a Jesuit priest then residing in St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, subsequently bishop of Jamshedpur, archbishop of Calcutta, and a cardinal. A folder containing these letters was found among the cardinal's papers after his death. It remained unopened until the beginning of Mother's beatification process. These letters are the one written source on which this article is based. All the signposts mentioned by John of the Cross for ascer-taining the Night are strikingly in evidence. As he describes it, when a person generously responds to grace in her spiritual pilgrimage, a time comes when she is led by the Spirit through a desert--often in two stages (which may be consecutive or overlapping). The first one--the Night of the Senses--generally follows an initial period of easy and joyful prayer. It is felt mostly at the level of the emotions and feelings. These gradually go dry and numb, at times becoming distressingly painful. The second--the Night of the Spirit--goes deeper, even to the deepest point of the human spirit. Not many are led through this (though perhaps more than we might think). The persons suffer greatly, mostly from an acute sense that God is absent or has actually abandoned them even though they have an ever growing painful longing for God. Initially they may be tempted to give in to discouragement, attributing their condition to their own sinfulness and unfaithfulness. God may send a soul friend to give them courage and hope and to help them recognize God at work within this darkness--as for some years Father Picachy did in Mother Teresa's case. According to John of the Cross, the chief signs for distin-guishing this Night of the Spirit from psychological depression or spiritual sluggishness are: (1) Most importantly: the person is unremitting in her commitment to duty and to her mission, even if she encounters trials and failures in these. (2) Although the per- Septentber-October 2001 Huart * Mother Teresa son experiences prayer as dark, painful, and fruitless, she yet feels drawn to prayer¯ (3) Gradually, underneath the darkness that weighs on her, she discovers a quiet and growing spring of peace¯ (4) Later, when she ultimately emerges from this dark trial (which may take years), she looks back on it as a most blessed and life-giving period of her life. John of the Cross sings: "Oh Night that was my guide, / fairer by far than dawn when stars grow dim! / Night that has unified / the Lover and the Bride, / transforming the beloved into Him." The extracts from Mother's letters quoted below may give the impression of a litany of gloom¯ In fact, such cries of distress only come up in flashes among a great deal of no-nonsense disposal of business at hand and joyful accounts of God's grace and help in the work for the poor. .~.:.:. ¯ "In the darkness . . . Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me? The child of your love - and now become as the most hated one. The one - You have thrown away as unwanted - unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer. ¯ Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such con-victing emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. Love - the word - it brings nothing. I am told God lives in me - and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul . "The whole time smiling - Sisters and people pass such remarks - they think my faith, trust, and love are filling my very being & that the intimacy with God and union to His will must be absorbing my heart - Could they but know - and how my cheer-fulness is the cloak by which I cover the emptiness and misery. In spite of all, this darkness and emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God . "When You asked to imprint Your Passion on my heart, is this the answer? If this brings You glory, if You get a drop of joy from this, if souls are brought to You, - if my suffering satiates Your thirst - there I am, Lord. With joy I accept all to the end of life. I will smile at your Hidden Face always" (undated). ¯ "If you knew.what I am going through - He is destroying everything in me - but I hold no claim in myself- He is free to do anything. Pray that I keep smiling at Him" (26 January 1957). ¯ "You must have prayed much for me - I have found real Review for Religious happiness in suffering - but the pain is sometimes unbearable - You don't know how miserable and nothing I am. Pray that I may love God with a love - with which he has never been loved before. What a foolish desire" (28 June 1958). ¯ "I did not know that love could make one suffer so much - that was suffering of loss - this is of longing - of pain human but caused by the divine. Pray for me" (6 November 1958). ¯ "I want God with all the power of my soul - and yet between us there is terrible separation. I don't pray any longer. I utter words of Community prayers . . . and yet when alone in the streets - I talk to You for hours - How intimate are those words - and yet so empty for they leave me far from You" (3 September 1959). ¯ "Pray for me - that 1 may not refuse God - It comes to the breaking point - then it does not break - I wish I could tell or write what I long to tell - but I find no words" (25 October 1959). ¯ "Pray for me, Father. Inside of me there is so much of suffering - pray for me that I may not refuse God in this hour - I don't want to do it, but I am afraid I may do it. Pray for me" (13 December 1959). ¯ "Keep my soul with all its darkness & loneliness, its longing and its torturing pain close to the altar - Pray for me - much and often - for now it seems He has cut off one more human help and left me alone - to walk alone in darkness. Pray for me - that I may keep up the smile, of giving without reserve - pray that I may find courage to walk bravely and with a smile. Ask Jesus not to allow me to refuse Him anything however small - I rather die. To ask you to come - I think that I will not do but if Jesus asks you to come - Please come I will be grateful" (4 April 1960). ¯ "I have been on the verge of saying - No. It has been so very hard - that terrible longing keeps growing - & I feel as if something will break in me one day - and then that darkness, that loneliness, that feeling of terrible aloneness. Heaven from every side is closed. Even the souls that drew me from Home from Loreto as if they don't exist - gone is the love for anything and any-body - and yet - I long for God. I long to love Him with every drop of life in me. I want to love Him with a deep personal love - I can't say I am distracted - my mind and heart is habitually with This darkness and emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God. Septentber-October 2001 Huart ¯ Mother Teresa God - How this thing must sound foolish to you because of its contradiction. "For my meditation I am using the Passion of Jesus - I am afraid I make no meditation - but only look at Jesus suffer - and keep repeating - 'Let me share with you this pain!' "When you go to Jesus - make one fervent act of love for me - since I can't make it myself" (20 October 1960). ¯ "He want to make sure to drain out of me every drop of self - Those weekly helps He has taken also so that darkness is so dark and the pain so great but in spite of it all - my retreat resolution was the same a hearty 'Yes' to God, a big 'Smile' to all. and it seems that these two words are the only thing that keeps me going" (15 June 1961). ¯ "As for me - thank God we have been told to follow Christ - as I have not to go ahead of Him even in the darkness the path is sure. "When some daysare above the average - I just stand like a very small child and await patiently for the storm to subside" (1 September 1961). ¯ "Often I wonder what does really God get from me in this state - no faith, no love - not even in feelings. The other day I can't tell you how bad I felt - there was a moment when I nearly refused to accept - deliberately I took the Rosary and very slowly without even meditating or thinking - I said it slowly and calmly - the moment passed - but the darkness is so dark, and the pain is so painful - but I accept whatever he gives and I give whatever He takes - People say they are drawn close to God - seeing my strong faith. Is this not deceiving people? Every time I have wanted to tell the truth - 'that I have no faith' - the words just do not come - my mouth remains closed - and yet I still keep on smiling at God and all" (21 September 1962). ¯ "I must have been so very full of self all this year - Since God is taking so long to empty me - I hope one day when I am fully empty He comes. Pray for me" (13 February 1963). ¯ "In my soul - I can't tell you how dark it is, how painful, how terrible. I feel like 'refusing God' and yet the biggest and the hardest to bear is the terrible longing for God - Pray for me that I may not turn a Judas to Jesus in this painful darkness. I was looking forward to speaking to you v I just long to speak - and this too He seems to have taken the power from me. I will not complain - I accept His Holy Will as it comes to me. If you have Review for Religious the time please write & do not mind my inability to speak to you - for I wanted to speak - but I could not" (9 January 1964). ¯ "I want to want it as He wants it. Only pray that I may keep up joy exteriorly. I deceive people with this weapon - even my Sisters" (undated). Even in her darkest moments, one thing always remained with Mother: the unshakable conviction that the mission entrusted to her and to her sisters among the poorest of the poor was God's, his entirely: ¯ "I know that I want with my whole heart what He wants, as He wants, as long as He wants. Yes Father - this 'aloneness' is hard. The only thing that remains is the deep and strong conviction that the work is His" (18 May 1962). It is no doubt from her own experience of the night that she could reach out to those who were journeying along a similar road. In a page of breathtaking beauty she wrote to a priest: ¯ "You have said 'yes' to Jesus and He has taken you at your word. The Word of God became Jesus the poor one. And so this terrible emptiness you experience. God cannot fill what is full. He can only fill emptiness - deep poverty - and your 'yes' is the beginning of being or becoming empty. It is not how much we really 'have' to give - but how empty we are - so that we can receive fully in our life and let Him live His life in us. In you today - He wants to relive His complete submission to His Father - allow Him to do so. It does not matter what you feel but what He feels in you. Take away your eyes from yourself and rejoice that you have nothing - that you are nothing - that you can do nothing. Give Jesus a big smile each time your nothingness frightens you. This is the poverty of Jesus. You and I must let Him live in us and through us in the world [.] Cling to Our Lady for she too - before she could become full of grace - full of Jesus - had to go through that darkness" (7 February 1974). At times God provided an oasis of peace: ¯ "You must have prayed very fervently for me because it is now about a month that there is in my heart a very deep union with the Will of God. I accept not in my feelings - but with my will, the Will of God. I accept this Will - not only for time but for eternity" (9 January 1964). Yet, in 1970, she still could write: ¯ "I can't tell you how bad I feel - but this too I have to accept. The devil must be mad September-October 2001 Huart * Mother Teresa with the good the Sisters are doing- & so the revenge" (16 September 1970). Most of these letters are from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s. In later years, in her letters to Bishop and then Cardinal Picachy, she seldom comes back to this protracted trial. Does this mean that the darkness has by this time been lifted and that she now dwells in light and peace? When Father Picachy was appointed bishop of Jamshedpur and left Calcutta in 1962, she wrote to congratulate him and told him that, as he would be busy with weightier affairs, she felt she should not burden him any more with her own troubles. Is this why her spiritual confidences to him became gradually much less frequent? Or had she come to recognize that this darkness was God's way for her, along which she could be one with the poor and abandoned, and with the Sitio (the "I thirst") of Jesus on the cross? In the chapels of the Missionaries of Charity, next to a large crucifix, you will always find the words "I thirst" prominently displayed. Whatever happened afterwards, I hold it from reli-able witnesses that, in the period immediately before her death, she was in great and agonizing spiritual darkness. Further docu-ments and witnesses are likely to throw light on this, but per-haps fewer than we might hope. Mother always enjoyed speaking about God, Jesus, and the poor, but she was very reserved about her own inner life, except in those moments of night when she could not suppress a cry of pain. To Cardinal Picachy she confided how painful it was for her to open about it even to him. After meeting him she more than once wrote: ¯ "I wanted so much to speak to you, but something kept me back." In fact Mother tried persistently to get at confiding letters to destroy them. Many got lost in this way: ¯ "Please. destroy my letters or anything I have written - God wants me to open my heart to you - I have not refused. I am not trying to find the reason - only I beg you destroy everything" (26 April 1959). Cardinal Picachy did not comply, but kept all these letters-- presumably because he foresaw what would happen after her death. Her fear was that, if divulged, the letters might draw attention to her. She was convinced that the work she had been entrusted with was entirely God's, not hers. She was--as she repeatedly said-- only the small pencil stub that God used in writing his poem. She would add: ¯ "If God could have found a person smaller and more worthless than me, He would have chosen her instead." Review for Religious :" Would Mother, now that she is no longer with us on earth, still object to these letters having been preserved by Cardinal Picachy and now, after her and his death, brought into the open? By now she no doubt has understood that she belongs to the church. It is traditional teaching that the mystical charism of God's close friends is meant not primarily for themselves but for the good of the whole church. Many people who go through similar trials may gain courage and hope from these letters. There are probably many more such persons than we think---though in various degrees of intensity. About the Nights anyone can read in the writings of great mystics. Yet is it not encouraging to real-ize that darkness has been daily bread for a most joy-giving little woman of our days? At first sight Mother Teresa might stand in sharp contrast to little TMr~se of Lisieux. The latter lived within the routine of a contemplative convent, the for-mer was fully immersed in the world of the poor and later trav-eled incessantly around the world to visit her sisters. There may, however, have been a great closeness of spirit between the two. When Mother was asked whether she took her name from the great Teresa of Jesus, she answered: "Oh no, nothing so grand for me! For me it is the little one." She often fondly spoke of her. Just before dying she wrote a letter to her sisters, making special mention of her little life-friend. We mentioned above Mother's small parable comparing herself to the useless little pencil stub in the hand of God, Does this image not remind us of Thtr~se of Lisieux's Little Way? Would their similai'ities not come in large measure from their pilgrim-age through the same Night? It is well known that Th~r~se of Lisieux, for years before her death--and increasingly as she approached death--lived in a deep darkness of the spirit. This she bore heroically in union with the many in her age who were over-whelmed by the spirit of unbelief. Mother lived it in union with the vast world of those who live in misery, loneliness, and rejection. This article does not attempt to give a balanced account of Mother Teresa's spirituality. It is very one-sided, emphasizing In the period immediately before her death, she was in great and agonizing spiritual darkness. September-October 2001 Huart * Mother Teresa Mother's Night pilgrimage, a dimension of her life that is little known. There is any amount of documentation focusing on her immense compassion for the poor, her organizing dynamism, her spirit of faith and joy-giving. It seems good now to bring out the dark mystical dimension, which might place her along with the great contemplative apostles of the world. Some trends nowadays would claim that a Christian is called to be carried on an ever flowing stream of spiritual joy. Here there would be no darkness of spirit that a good mix of psychotherapy and spirituality could not do away with. I remember Cardinal Picachy, the recipient of the letters we have been quoting above, asking in gentle bewilderment after listening to a talk on such lines: "What on earth has become of the Night?" He may have been thinking of what his friend had gone through, and of the joy-giving fruit it has borne for many. Leaves Dried, dead leaves, brown, brittle, broken, scraping the concrete, whisked by the wind. Fodder for fire, fun for squirrels and birds, who walk, scamper, and squawk in the midst of them. Pounded by nature, they melt, mushy, into the ground, giving nourishment, substance, peat to a new generation. I am not unlike the leaf. Michael J. Lydon Review for Religious CATHY WRIGHT Multicultural at Our Very Heart: The Little Sisters of Jesus There is a lot of research and talk today about multi-culturalism in religious life. My reading about it has been limited, but I think that my community, the Little Sisters of Jesus, has a certain experience of it that might be interesting to simply share. We were founded in 1939 by Magdeleine Hutin, who started in Algeria among nomadic tribes of the Sahara, intending to be a simple presence of friendship and God's love. By that very presence in love and respect, she sought to break down barriers of prejudice. While not monastic, we are called to be contemplatives, to seek the face of God in a life that is lived amid ordi-nary people who have suffered from poverty or exclusion of one kind or another. Magdeleine never expected her community to be more than a small group fitting into the desert's nomadic Muslim population. But a strange thing happened. After World War II many women, especially in her native France, became captivated by this way of "presence." As the numbers increased, some began asking to go to other countries, and in 1947 Magdaleine understood that this "vocation of Bethlehem and Nazareth" could be lived Cathy Wright LSJ lives in Chicago. More information and resources about the Little Sisters are available on their Website: www.rc.net/org/littlesisters. September- October 2001 Wright ¯ Multicultural at Our Very Heart anywhere. With the audacity of all our founders, she got herself a ticket to travel around the world. Wherever she found a willing bishop--and there were many who refused her--she would leave a few young sisters behind to "do it." With many adventures they did. Some of those places were the industrialized urban centers, where the sisters worked in fac-tories. Some of those places were deep in the Amazon or in remote villages of Alaska or Australia. And some were in areas torn by the violence of hatred and war. She would go almost anywhere, but particularly where the church was not present or where people suffered from discrimination, violence, division, or poverty. Foundations on every continent resulted in women from those countries asking to join. Magdeleine saw in this a wonderful way of being a living sign of unity. She was not a woman of theories, but one of dreams, seemingly undaunted by the inconveniences of what she was undertaking. She was not naive about the demands of the lifestyle, but was convinced that the power of love could continue working miracles in our day. If anything, Magdeleine erred on the side of multicultural-ism. As soon as women from a country were professed (and some-times even before), she gave them leadership roles in the congregation. She encouraged sisters from different countries, races, and cultures to live together as visible witnesses and signs that love can overcome the divisions created by prejudices. She quickly had sisters from different countries and races taking their place on the general council. Ag a way of further encouraging this intermingling, forma-tion sessions and theology studies were organized first in Algeria and later in Rome so that all could have the experience of living together for a significant length of time. When people from around the world spend a year or two together deepening their faith and their common vocation, friendships are created that sustain us when we return to our own little corners of the world. As I said, Magdeleine was not a woman of theory. She just went on and dreamed wonders into being. She knew how to celebrate and rejoice in the diversity of cultures. Besides the personal letters exchanged by friends now living all over the world, we have a system of circular letters, very con-crete sharings gathered from those faraway places. We know about land-reform issues in the Amazon through our sisters who have lived among the Tapirape people for fifty years, and the genocide Review for Religious in Rwanda had a personal face to it--sisters and their families and friends. I have lived with sisters from many countries and partic-ipated in their celebrations. We have eaten each other's food, sometimes with delight and sometimes just trying to get it down. We learn to laugh and cry together, both by sharing about what goes on back home and by the inevitable joys and pains of learn-ing to live together. Being part of such a community has its challenges. It is not always simple to bring such diversity together, especially from peoples that may have a long his-tory of conflict and misunderstand-ing. These can be painful situations, and trying to find a way together can only be done through the heart of the Crucified One. But finding a way is a gospel imperative. In my own experience, the cul-tural differences are not the hard-est. We expect them to be there even if sometimes we are surprised by them and trip. The differences of personality and temperament-- realities that are present in each cul-ture- are much harder to deal with on a daily basis. On one occasion I spent the better part of a year in a group of eighteen of us. Within that group there were two sisters each from Nigeria, Japan, Germany, India, and Ethiopia. In each instance the personalities and temperaments of the two from the same country were so different as to wonderfully break down any national stereotypes that we might have had of each other. And, rather than trying simplistically to think that all national cultures are much the same, is it not better to notice the many variations on a theme? It seems to me that the most important element of any cross-cultural community project is the attitude with which we approach it. Do I believe that each culture is good even if I will always be more at home within my own? Am I comfortable enough within my own culture so as not to be threatened by another's? As obvi-ous as it may seem, I found myself realizing one day that each cul- When people from around the world spend a year or two together deepening their faith and their common vocation, friendships are created that sustain us when we return to our own little corners of the world. ¯ September-October 2001 Wright ¯ Multicultural at Our Very Heart ture, including my own, is in need of evangelization in the deep-est and best sense. There is no need to idealize away our sins and shortcomings. We are all in need of redemption. In crossing our cultural boundaries, it is important to be not only willing, but eager, to learn from each other--and to be convinced that others have something to reveal to me not only about themselves but also about myself and God. I have learned much by simply being part of a diverse com-munity. I have especially learned that my way of seeing the world is very relative. I have been privileged to visit or live in other countries and cultures, and this has fashioned the way I see the world. At present my community numbers about 1300 women from 67 nationalities living in 72 countries. There are only 25 of us in the United States. Of that number about half have been born in the U.S. 9f European or Mexican ancestry. The rest come from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, and Sri Lanka. Little sis-ter Magdeleine dreamed us into existence through the grace of God and her audacity to believe that what was deemed folly in the eyes of many was really the wisdom of God. She just went on and did it, believing that "Jesus is the Master of the Impossible." None of us will ever do it perfectly. We have made plenty of mis-takes, and will find new mistakes down the road. In a global world, I am grateful for Magdeleine's vision. For her the differences of culture, race, religion, temperament, and age were cause for celebration and mutual enrichment. She believed that embracing these differences is a sign of the reign of God. It is a response to Jesus' call to be one, to build a world where we are all sisters and brothers to one another. Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Millennial Stirrings in Religious Life ~/ n~w spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture, an awakening brought about by a critical mass of indi-viduals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a jour-ney in which we are led by mysterious coincidences.'" No matter who wrote those words--though in fact they are by James Redfield, author of the bestselling Celestine Prophecy--they are likely to evoke a pleasant, hopeful response in many a reader around the world. I asked myself whether such an awakening is occurring in religious life. I answered yes at once. But, as I wanted to share my convic-tion with others, I began wondering how to express it in a way that would be both familiar and striking. No ideas came, and, without a library at hand, I laid aside my little project and devoted some time to prayer. Afterwards I was about to do something else when I felt urged to pick up at random one of a little collec

Issue 59.1 of the Review for Religious, 2000. ; Vowed Life Featur~ Religious Mission ~ Finding God Living Celibat,ely Balkans Report JANUARY FEBRUARY 2_000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER I Review for Religious helps people respond and be faithful to God's universal call to bollness by making available to them the spiritual legacies 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: foppema@slu.edu Manuscripts, books for review, aud 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; V~rashington, D.C. 20017 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. 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Such pertnission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. restrictions, in a world of hate and division, of civilian bombings and life-snuffing concentration camps, this iournal spoke about dialogue and intercommunication, about ministries of love and service, about vocations to align oneself with God's peaceable king-dom and to pray for that kingdom to come. I am thankful for the gift this journal has been to the church, to religious life, and to the spiritual-life developments of our times. I thank God for raising up and inspiring the founding editors to begin the dialogue--something not common in the 1940s--across the different spiritual heritages which are represented by Catholic religious congregations and which continue to feed the spiritual life of church members everywhere. I am grateful for all the writers who have shared their insights, raised questions, instructed in prayer and in ecclesial history, and inspired our ministerial efforts. For all that has been---Thanks! With this first issue of the year 2000 a new-look cover greets our readers, along with a revision of our secondary title. For the previous eight years, because of the creative contribution of the advisory board and the staff, the journal had this shorthand way of stating its content: Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living. After more discussion with current board members and staff, we now state our content even more simply: Living Our Catholic Legacies. Our mission statement, too, has found new expression for things our journal continues to have in view (see inside front cover). This is our way of saying Yes as we look to the future. While we say "To all that shall be--Yes," I have some con-cern about a shrinking subscriber list. We know that the primary readership--women and men religious--continues to grow less in number in the United States and in European countries. I would not like to say Yes to a declining subscription number without encouraging all of you tostir up your own efforts to increase our readers, hopefully even our subscribers, among your own congre-gation members and associate members if you are a religious, and among friends and colleagues who share spiritual companionship and ministry with you. Review for Religious remains a unique journal in the English-speaking world for our continuing educa-tion, formation, and inspiration in living the rich Catholic legacies that form our church spirituality. I hope that you, our readers, share in our appreciation and enthusiasm. "To all that shall be-- Yes!" allows plenty of room for our best efforts. David L. Fleming SJ Januaty-Februa~y 2000 MICHAEL HIMES Returning to Our Ancestral Lands feature I am a little more daunted than I usually am because you are vicars for religious and you bring me in, a dioce-san priest, to talk to you. I can plead two things. One, I lived, during my happy years at the University of Notre Dame, at Moreau Seminary in the company and with the hospitality of the Congregation of Holy Cross and came to have the greatest affection and respect for them. I am now living and working with the Society of Jesus at Boston College and have the greatest respect for the Society of Jesus. My brother, and sometime col-league, is a Franciscan. And so, though I am not a reli-gious, I shared a bedroom for years with a religious, my brother Ken. Besides these attachments to and connections with religious communities, I plead that your having a pas-sionate outside observer may be useful. That is what I come to you as--a concerned, passionate, outside Michael J. Himes, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn and formerly on the faculties of the University of Notre Dame and of the Seminary of the hnmaculate Conception (Huntington, New York), is currently a professor of theol-ogy at Boston College. He presented this paper (here some-what revised) in March 1999 at the 32nd assembly of the National Conference of Vicars for Religious, in whose 1999 Proceedings it was originally published. His address is Boston College; Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467. Review for Religio us observer of religious life in the church. I am going to talk with you from the perspective of history. My field is the history of Christianity, with a particular interest in ecclesiology. I am going to be looking at both the history of religious life in the church and at its connection with the mission of the church at large. I took my title from Leviticus. The passage in Leviticus on the jubilee year says to mark the jubilee year by returning to our ancestral lands. In Leviticus the reason for doing this is appar-ently that, because every clan, every group, in Israel's history is of importance in God's plan and in the working out of the covenant, no family, no clan, should be allowed to disappear from the land of Israel. And so, if a clan or family gave up its land, within fifty years it would get it back again. I suggest that some of those same themes are true of religious life in the church today. There are too many important, vital, necessary experiences, images, sources of wisdom which have grown up in religious life in the Western church over the course of fifteen centuries to allow them to be lost to the life of the church. We need to go back periodically and reclaim those ances-tral lands, To do that, I want to discuss three issues--and so there will be three parts. Part One: I want to say something about the nature and pur-pose of religious life in the Catholic tradition, but I want to say it from a somewhat unusual perspective. I will explain what that is in just a moment. Part Two: I am going to offer you a thumbnail history--and it is very thumbnail history--of the development of religious life in the Western church. There is quite a distinct history to the development of religious life in the Eastern church, but up to the present moment in the Western church, I suggest, there have been three central moments in the development of religious life. We may be at the end of number three and the start of number four. In Part Three I am going to make some observations about what can be done to reclaim ancestral lands. How do you reclaim values without trying to resuscitate forms? How do you reclaim the value without saying we have got to replicate the history? Nature and Purpose of Vowed Life Let me say something about the nature and purpose of reli-gious life--of vowed life within the Christian community and espe- January-February 2000 Himes ¯ Returning to Our Ancestral Lands cially within the Catholic tradition--from a somewhat unusual perspective. That perspective I take from an immensely productive, distinguished, and influential figure in Protestant theology and philosophy of religion at the beginning of the century that is now ending--a man named Ernst Troeltsch, who died back in 1923. Before the First World War, Troeltsch produced his masterpiece, a thick volume titled The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches. The tide may be misleading to us. You may say to yourself, "All this is well and good, but I do not see what bearing it has on the topic." Let me explain. Just when you least expect it, over the hill will come the topic. Just at the point that you have given up hope of ever hearing anything relevant to your interest, lo and behold, it will make its appearance. Today, when we hear a title like The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, we might expect that it is going to be about what we have come to call social teaching, namely, the teaching of the Christian community about the nature of political and eco-nomic justice within society. That is not what Troeltsch meant by his title. By the Christian churches' social teaching, Troeltsch meant what they taught about tl~eir own natures as societies. I mean, here you have different communities, different societies of Christians that have come together and organized themselves in very different ways. How did these various Christian societies explain themselves? What is their teaching about their own nature as a society? To trace the development of how different church communities and traditions in the history of the Christian tradition have structured themselves as churches, as communities, Troeltsch approached it in a very interesting and important way. He bor-rowed an idea from a colleague of his at Heidelberg, where he was teaching at the time: one of the great fathers that you may very well know if you have an interest in sociology, Max Weber. Troeltsch borrowed from him the notion of an ideal type. Weber's ideal type means this: You explicate different ways, different models of how a community could be organized with-out reference to any concrete existing community. Then you look at the existing communities--at the actual communities as you find them--and ask: Which of these communities is like type one? Which is like type two? Which is like three? He found this to be a particularly fruitful way of getting people" to look at com-munities and raise questions about them which they might not ordinarily raise. Review for Religious Well, Troeltsch took that notion of an ideal type and sug-gested two ideal types as ways of digging in, as tools for analyzing how different Christian communities have understood their own role, how they structured themselves. Those two ideal types he refers to as church and sect. Sect, let me emphasize, is for Troeltsch by no means a bad word. For us today in America it has come to have all sorts of bad connotations. He means none of those connotations. By sect, Troeltsch means a community of people who come together in fidelity to their under-standing of the gospel, who are united first of all by a powerful, dramatic, and deeply personal experience of conver-sion. So, for Troeltsch, one of the hall-marks of a sect type of community is (1) that all of its members are people who have personally experienced some deep and often strikingly dramatic con-version experience. You have to experi-ence being born again into Christ. You must personally "accept Jesus as your Savior," to use language that is familiar to us from some sect types of community in this country. Another hallmark is (2) that these communities see themselves as peculiarly and specially commissioned communities. There is a vibrant sense of mission. There is a kind of urgency about the fact that you have been called, you have been chosen, you have been commissioned to perform an extremely important work in the name of the gospel. So there is a striking and urgent sense of mis-sion in a sect community. Often a sect community (3) sees itself in terms of being over against the larger community. You are the people who have been called upon; you have been set up as a city on a hilltop, as a light for all the world. You are commissioned in a way that is not true of the community-at-large. You may be called to serve them, but you are different in some way from that larger community, and there should be a clear difference between you and that larger community. The sect community (4) is frequently radical in its vision of what needs to be done in the larger community. That is, it takes positions which the larger community may find to be too diffi-cult, too dangerous, too uncomfortable, too impractical. The Different societies of Christians that have come together and organized themselves in very different ways. Janual~-FebruatTy 2000 --10A Himes ¯ Returning to Our Ancestral Lands smaller sect community can advocate radical reform and radical movement. The problem with the sect community, however, as Troeltsch points out, is that it seldom survives beyond the second or at most third generation because the first generation (who have had this striking, personal experience) cannot guarantee that their chil-dren's or their grandchildren's generation is going to have that same striking experience. Very often, then, the sect begins to evap-orate or split up in various ways. My favorite image for that may be seen in one of Flannery O'Connor's letters. She has a wonderful description of why she liked to travel in the south on local trains, trains that made every stop. She said you could always, back in the 1940s and 1950s, see such interesting things. She says: "Why, you stop at one little town and you look out the window and there's a white clapboard church. And out in front of the church is a sign that says 'First Church of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior of All Humanity, Coming Again in Glory to Save All People Who are Faithful to Him and Moved by the Holy Spirit.' The train goes five miles down and stops at the next little town, and there is a white clapboard church with a sign in front of it that says, 'Church of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior of the World and of All Humanity, Coming Again in Glory to Save the Living and the Dead and MI Those Who are Faithful to the Gospel and Motivated by the Holy Spirit, Reformed.'" And she said, "You knew there was a history here somewhere even though you could not tell quite what it was." There's a tendency for sect communities to splinter or to evaporate. By contrast to the sect community, the church-style community is a community that (1) sees itself as incorporating all sorts of peo-ple into the Christian community. It does not claim that all of its members are equally, highly, or deeply motivated--depending on your point of view. It does not claim that all of its members have striking personal experiences. It allows for the fact that there are different levels of membership, not official membership perhaps, but in terms of involvement in the community. Not everyone is at every moment of her or his life equally fervent or actively engaged in the life of the church. A church (2) does not see itself as necessarily over against the world. There are all sorts of things in the world-at-large that the church wants to embrace and celebrate. You cannot imagine, for example, says Troeltsch, that a sect is necessarily going to embrace Review for Religious the world of the arts and sciences, whereas the church commu-nity will. It embraces the artistic values and the scientific hopes and dreams and goals and methods of a community at any given time. In comparison with a sect, there is a much greater sense of collaboration between people in the church and people outside it. It tries to build bridges. It is a community, therefore, that is much more stable than a sect community. You can be born into a church community; you have to be reborn into a sect community. The idea, for example, of an infant baptism or an infant initiation into a sect would be simply impossible, whereas it is perfectly possible for a church community. The church community sees itself as a process of lifelong nur-ture, whereas the sect community emphasizes radical, dramatic conversion experiences. The danger for church-style community, says Troeltsch, is of course that it can become too secular, it can end up being, as it were, a tool for social stability used by the soci-ety- at-large. Notice that he is not claiming one is better than another; he is setting up--and I am just giving a thumbnail sketch--he is setting up two types of community that he can use as tools with which to examine the history of various church communities. He wants to ask: What is this like? Is it more like a sect? Is it more like a church? In what ways is it like a sect? In what ways is it like a church? Now, why do I propose to you that this is an interesting way to think about religious life? Because Troeltsch makes, almost in passing, one of the most suggestive comments that I have ever seen about religious life in the Catholic tradition. The Catholic Church--certainly back in the first decade of this century when he was looking at it from his own vantage point--is one of the purest church types of organization. He says, however, that the Catholic community has had for many centuries a peculiar and brilliant way of incorporating into itself the most vital, most insightful, most valuable elements of sects that grow up within the ambit of the Catholic community. It makes them religious orders. I suggest to you that--if you think of a community gathering around Anthony in the desert, gathering around Benedict or Scholastica, gathering around Francis and Clare, gathering around Dominic or Ignatius Loyola--you certainly can see those groups as matching up very closely with what Troeltsch has to say about sect communities. You cannot be born into these groups, you have Janua~. -Feb~wa(y 2000 Himes * Returning to Our Ancestral Lands got to choose to join. It is a matter of discerning a vocational call. There is a radical break with a previous kind of life in order to enter one of these groups. They are marked by clear and certain images of what mission is and what goal is, and how you shape people to accomplish that goal. The goal includes seeing this com-munity as being very much over against the community-at-large. The group is not simply part of this world, and it is marked as not being part of this world by a kind of rejection of this world's dom-inant values. The danger here is that, if the group is not in some way stabilized by the structure of a church, it can melt away in two or three generations. Troeltsch, of course, pointed out the other danger too. The problem for the Catholic tradition is that, although the church model stabilizes the sect model by "turning sects into religious orders," in Troeltsch's phrase, it can suddenly turn the religious order into simply another branch of the church model--and thus lose the vibrancy of the sect model. I suggest that, if we are going to reclaim ancestral lands, one of the things we have to do is look to vital religious communities to be sects in the Troeltschian sense of sects. We have to look for communities of people who see themselves as personally called, called to a clear and decided mission, and who see themselves as in some way in contrast to the community around them, even in contrast to the church-at-large around them. Now, for how that happens, let me move to Part Two. Some History of the Development of Church Life I would like to make a hundred thousand qualifications, but, so that you can go to bed tonight, let me just give a very general description. I suggest to you that, up to the present moment, there are three stages to the history of religious life in the Western church. The first stage in the Western church--quite apart from the origins in Egypt and Syria and Asia Minor in the East--runs for about seven hundred years, from the middle of the 5th century to the middle of the 12 th century, roughly from A.D. 450 to 1150. If we are looking for an example of that first period, it is the Benedictine movement. What is religious life? Religious life for those first seven hundred years of the Western church is first and foremost a community of persons who have come together and Review for Religious pledged themselves to a life of poverty, a life of celibacy, a life of prayer and contemplation done in community. Why is it so important that it be done in community? Well, there are two versions of St. Athanasius's Life of Anthony of Egypt. We do not know which is the real one--whether the shorter one is due to somebody's cutting it down after Athanasius died or whether the longer one includes stuff that somebody added after his death. But the longer one, whoever wrote it, has a striking comment. It says: "Anthony went out to the desert to lead a life of radical devo-tion, deep prayer, and obvious poverty, and in doing so he became a source of wonder. But, when a community of others gathered around him, then he became a sign." That is a very perceptive comment. Living out your life in a radical gospel way makes you a source of astonishment, but what validates you as a sign to the church is that you can do this in a community. Let me put this another way (much less eloquently than the author of the longer life of Anthony does): It is possible to be poor, chaste, obedient, and nuts. We all know that. What guarantees that you are poor, chaste, obedient, and sane? Your ability to live with other people without either killing them or being killed by them. The community is what validates the vows. So this idea of living in community is very important and was very important in the Benedictine tradition from its outset. Clearly there are multiple variants of the monastic ideal throughout those seven hundred years, but that is the image of religious life that dominates the first stage. What is religious life? It is a community of people who come together to live lives of poverty, of celibacy, of devotion and prayer and contempla-tion- and often study too--and who do it in community. That is religious life. That reality has something brand-new added to it in the middle of the 12th century, and for a very practical reason. A whole new class of people emerges in Western Europe in the 12th century: the urban poor. One of the things that marked the end of the ancient world was the collapse of cities in Western Europe. In the early Middle Ages, society is essentially rural, A whole new class of people emerges in Western Europe in the 12th century: the urban poor. Janualy-February 2000 2 Himes ¯ Returnin~ to Our Ancestral Lands largely agricultural. There are no great cities for very obvious reasons: the barbarians. Let me remind you here, when we talk about the barbarians, not to picture Jack Palance with a mustache and a horned helmet swooping down to burn and pillage cities! That may have hap-pened along the way too, but, when we talk about the barbar-ians, all of us who are English, Irish, Welsh, or Scottish, Scandinavian, German, Polish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Sicilian, or northern Italian (from anywhere in Europe but a little piece of land stretch-ing from Naples to just north of Rome)--when we talk about the barbarians we are ta!king about grandma and grandpa. The bar-barians are our ancestors. As they moved into Western Europe, as the empire collapsed, these ancestors of many of us were not stupid. They knew stuff. They knew it takes a lot out of you to burn and pillage. A really good pillage takes a lot of energy. You are not going to waste your time burning and pillaging little one-horse towns. You are going to burn and pillage big cites--that is where the loot is to be got-ten. Since the inhabitants of the Roman empire in its last days were not stupid either, they quickly realized it is much safer living in the little towns than in the big cities: you are less likely to get sacked and pillaged. So, at the end of the ancient world, all over Europe, there is a sort of massive flight to the suburbs. Cities decline, lots of small towns spring up. In that world, how did the church care for people? Well, it was not a money economy. If you were going to found a parish, you were not going to do it with cash. Cash did not mean any-thing in the Middle Ages. Value was in land: it was the land's produce that could support a parish. So some wealthy donor says, "In this town I am giving this field to support the church. It can support two priests so that they can minister to the needs of the people of the town." The problem is, of course, that land is not easily transferable. At the start of the High Middle Ages, from around 1050 on, small towns began to decline in population as people moved back into big cities. In towns where once there were a hundred house-holds, now there were twenty, but there still were two priests for those twenty. Other towns were growing as centers. Where there used to be a hundred households, there were now five thousand households, but there was still only one priest, who was supported Review for Religious by the land donation from centuries before for that town. It is not easy to adjust parish boundaries and clergy resources. So there were growing numbers of people in the major cities of Western Europe who were largely unchurched. Nobody was preaching to them, nobody was teaching them, nobody was lead-ing them into the Gospels, nobody was celebrating sacraments for them. Who was going to tend to these people's needs? New reli-gious communities appeared, communities dedicated above every-thing else to the service of the urban poor. What do they need? Do they need evangelization? We preach. Do they need teaching? We teach. Do they need nursing? We nurse. Whatever they need, that is what we provide. If Benedict and Scholastica are the obvious figures of the first stage, Francis, Clare, and Dominic are the great figures at the start of the second stage, approximately I 150 to 1550. In the course of the Catholic reformation, both prior to and as a response to the Protestant reformers, the church realized that it was going to have to do much better regarding the challenges of a new world. One of the reasons that Luther had such an immense impact--besides the fact that he was immensely insightful--is that he wrote well. He wrote in German and, with the printing press available, turned out lots and lots of copies of relatively short books in the vernacular. Why was it that people like Cajetan and Eck did not have much luck responding to Luther? Because they were turning out thick books, in double columns, in Latin. Nobody was going to read them, even other professors, and so Luther had an impact, whereas initially much of the Catholic response did not. For this third stage we needed a new way to respond to people's needs. Although nobody calls it this, one of the ways was, in effect, the division of l~bor. What we needed was to streamline our styles of pastoral ministry. Instead of communities of people doing what-ever was needed, we were now going to have communities of peo-ple, both women and men, who specialized. We taught young women, we taught young men. We went to the foreign missions. We did nursing. We took care of the elderly. It became clear that different communities had unique apostolates. That model--and I think one can take the Jesuit~ as in many ways the example of this third stage, the embodiment of it--has lasted with great power and great success right down into our own lifetimes. Let me point out something that pertains ~o both the second and the third stages. Something enormously important shifted in Janua~:y-February 2000 Himes ¯ Returning to Our Ancestral Lands the course of the 12th century and, after more than eight hun-dred years, is still decisive for today's religious communities. It still affects what members do: we do this ministry to the urban poor. We do this particular kind of ministry for those who "need" it. What does this presuppose? It presupposes the situation during the second and third stages of Western religious life; it presup-poses people in need. It presupposes a world, and a church, in which the laity were essentially passive. Who was going to do the teach-ing, the preaching, the nursing, the caring, the evangelizing? It was going to be people in religious vows. The simply baptized members of the church--they were the recipients of ministry, they were not people who ministered themselves. An enormous shift happened when Vatican Council II called for a truly alive, energized, and ministerially responsible laity. Because of that shift, inevitably there was going to be some sort of identity crisis for religious life. If what makes me a religious is that I am one of group of people who perform such and such a ministry, and if nowadays other people who are not in vowed life, who are not celibate, and who are not living in community are doing the same ministry that I am doing, then what makes me a religious? Previously the identity of the religious--and I could make a similar case regarding the clergy--has been: "We are the people who do x, Y, and Z, and the laity are the people who have x, ¥, and Z done for them." The laity have been essentially passive recipients of ministry. The moment one begins to talk about the church as a community of people all of whom are called to some kind of ministry by baptism .(and not primarily by religious pro-fession or ordination), then everything shifts. That is why I suggest that we are at the end of the third stage and the beginning of a fourth stage. What does the fourth stage look like? Well, I have not a clu& Actually I may have a clue, but it is nothing more than a clue. Let me hasten to say that one of the occupational hazards of people who pretend to know something about the past is to think that they know everything about the future. With that caution in mind, I speak now with a good deal of self-suspicion, and you should hear it with even more suspicion. It is at least possible that a mark of the next great stage of development of religious life in the Western church--it may look more like the first stage than like stage two or three--is that there is a recentering on the nature of living vowed life in community rather than on any apostolate or mission of ours. That, perhaps, is Review for Religious the characteristic of the next stage of religious life. If that proves true, then a category that may be helpful for religious to consider more deeply and theologically is sacramentality. I am not referring to the great seven public and communal sacraments. I mean the much wider and in many ways much richer notion of sacrament, with a small s. And what is that sacrament called? What does sacramentality consist in? I give you Himes's handy-dandy definition of the sacra-mental principle. I have given it often, and it seems true. (After I hear myself say something long enough, it seems to me that it is true!) The definition of the sacramental principle is, I think, this: Whatever is always and every-where true must be noticed, accepted, and celebrated somewhere, sometime. Those things which are always true, those things which are constantly present to us, are almost always ignored. You do not pay attention to the oxygen in a room until it starts t6 go stale. While you have been reading this, you have surely been blinking periodically. Unless you have found my words altogether boring, you have not been counting your blinks. A couple of years ago ] got hit with a bout of Bell's palsy. I could not move anything on the left side of my face, and I could not blink. Throughout the day I had to periodically pull and hold my eyelid down, and tape it down at night. You become very aware of blinking when you cannot do it. When you can do it, when it takes care of itself, you do not pay any attention to it. In order to accept something that is there all the time and make it effectively present, to us, we have to learn to attend to it, to say yes to it, and to celebrate it. What is omnipresent to us? Well, God is: the self-giving of God. That self-giving of God we call, with the benefit of theological shorthand, grace: the self-gift of God's Trinitarian life outside the Trinity itself. It is everywhere. The whole world is just dripping with it; the whole thing is satu- A mark of the next great stage of development of religious life in the Western church is a recentering on the nature of living vowed life in community rather than on any apostolate or mission of ours. Himes ¯ Returning to Our Ancestral Lands rated with grace. But, precisely because that is true, it can be ignored. What is always present is seldom noticed. Whatever calls you, whatever person, place, thing, whatever sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, whatever experience leads you to he aware of, to attend to the reality of God's self-offering to you at that moment, to be able to say yes to it and to rejoice in it-- that is a sacra-ment. All told, how many sacraments are there in the world? How many things are there in the universe! That is what I mean by sacramentality. In that sense of the word--and this is where I am going to pick up the theme from Troeltsch in Part One--in that sense, religious life is a sacramental state within the church. We do not recognize that this is a sacramental state the way we recognize marriage as a sacramental state within the church. But it is in fact sacramental because, after all, religious are called to a deep sense of poverty, to a deep sense of responsibility toward and obedi-ence to the needs of those around us, to a responsible use of celibacy that recognizes our dependency on one another and on God. Is there anything there that everyone in the church is not called to by baptism? Why, then, do we need religious life so much? Because religious life "clearly, strikingly, astonishingly" (in the words of St. Athanasius's Life of Anthony) leads the church to see what the whole church is called to by baptism, to see it clearly and strikingly in a public and communal embodiment that helps people toward realization. Sacramentality is something that may be crucial for everyone's lively understanding of whht religious life is about and what its relationship to the church-at-large is and can be. How to Be More Sacramentally Aware How do you enliven this sense of sacramentality without repli-cating past forms? How do you rescue age-old values? How do you reclaim ancestral lands without simply going back to old build-ings or forms or structures? What can be done? I begin with a perceptive definition I learned from Jaroslav Pelikan, the distinguished historical theologian recently retired from Yale University. In his Jefferson Lectures at the University of Virginia a few years ago, he said: "We must be very careful to dis-tinguish between tradition ahd traditionalism. Tradition is the liv-ing faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." Review for Religious One is the continuing, living, vital faith that energized those who have gone before us; that is tradition. Traditionalism is faith main-tained by some among us that in fact is already ossified, entombed, embalmed; there is nothing left in it that is energizing. It is the dead faith of the living. How do we begin to reclaim the living faith of our ancestors? I know that this is going on in religious communities at this moment; it has gone on for a good deal of time. But I urge that it continue, and continue precisely in terms of sacramentality. How do we reflect on the meaning of the vows again? Is it possible that the fourth stage of religious life in the Western church into which I believe we are entering is more like religious life in the first stage than the second or third? As a word of preface, let me say that I have thought about this a good deal. Though I am not a religious, I do share with you a vow of obedience and I do share with you a vow of celibacy. I do not share with you living in community, although in fact I have lived in community. My brother Ken lives in a community of Franciscans with only six other people, and I lived in a house at the seminary in Huntington with fourteen other priests and sixty-five seminarians. I used to tell him: "You became a Franciscan and live in a rectory. I become a diocesan priest and live in a monastery." It is wonderful how God moves things around! The thing that has led me to think about this most is the vow I do not have, the vow of poverty. I find that the things I have vowed are not something I have to think about. I know what obe-dience means. The bishop calls me up and says, "I want to see you about doing x, Y, and Z." And I. say, "Okay, bishop, let me come and talk with you." There is'a structure to that. I do not have to get up in the morning and think: What does it mean to be obedi-ent today? That is taken care of. I do not have to think about what it is to be celibate. I know what means: that is taken care of. There is a structure to that too. What is not structured for me is poverty, and so it is a real problem. What does it mean for me as a university professor to talk Much as been written about poverty in recent years that is very powerful, but it is useful rhetorically more than actually real. Januat3~-Febrtta~y 2000 Himes ¯ Returning to Our Ancestral Lands about poverty when I do not have a vow of poverty? How, then, as a baptized member of the Body of Christ, do I incorporate poverty? That is a big issue, and I have thought about it. This is my pref-ace to what I am now going to say about the three vows. Much as been written about poverty in recent years that is very powerful, but it is useful rhetorically more than actually real. It assumes that poverty is about identification with the poor--I am convinced that it is not. I expect some people to say "Oh, but it is.t" I wish it were, but I do not think so. My reason is this: There is an enormous difference between my deciding "I will not eat today" and actually having nothing to eat. If I decide not to eat (even though there are tons of food in tt(e refrigerator) because I want to identify with the poor by going to bed tonight with an empty stomach, I am forgetting something. For me there will be break-fast tomorrow morning, but overnight the poor are thinking: "I would love to have eaten today and I couldn't, and God knows whether I will get anything to eat tomorrow morning." These are simply totally different experiences, and I think it is nothing but self-serving romanticism to say, "Isn't it wonderful that we have identified with the poor!" I think that is just false, and I think it is dangerously false because it is overly romantic. 20 What Is Poverty? I turn to my brother's tradition. Who is the wisest one to have talked about poverty in the Western church? Francis of Assisi. Nobody is wiser on it than Francis. And I suggest that what Francis saw is very much in a line that starts with Augustine. But Francis saw its implications in brand-new ways. What is the most famous line from Augustine? What line does everybody know from St. Augustine? "You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." (A pastor in a diocese not far from here famously used to get up on any saint's feast and say, "Ah, today we remember St. Cuthbert of Auxerre, who is famous for that wonderful statement of his, 'You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless . '" According to this pastor, every saint had said it--or must have said it.) Well, what is Augustine saying? He is saying that all crea-tures- not just all human beings, please notice, but all creatures-- have one deep characteristic. That was what Francis saw so clearly. That deep characteristic is this: At our core, at our heart, we are Review for Religious empty. There is hunger, there is restlessness. The characteristic human experience is "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but more!" You have never known a human being who did not want more. The totally satis-fied, totally fulfilled human being is dead. If you want to see a totally filled human being, drop into your local cemetery. The fact is that what marks us as human beings is endless restlessness, end-less hunger--more, more, more, more, more. I say sometimes to students: "If somebody you know ever says, 'I have everything, I am everything, I know everything, I have experienced everything that I could possibly want, I am perfectly and totally satisfied,' ask the person this: 'Would you like it to last?'" If you had everything, what you would want is more time. There is never a moment when we do not want. That is the characteristic of being a creature. This is what Francis saw and recognized as uniting us with all of creation. That is what Francis saw in the mystical marriage with Lady Poverty, and it is what motivates the Canticle of the Sun. V~y is it Brother Sun and Sister Moon? VVhat is it that makes the moon and the sun, earth and water and air and fire, what makes everything my brother and sister? The fact that we all are marked by one great family resemblance: we are all poor. We did not make ourselves. We are all ultimately dependent. Nobody is fulfilled. If that is true, then poverty is what unites us with all other creatures. If that is so, then I suggest that poverty is the key value in the vows. My own reading of the relationship of the vows is that there are not three. There is one, and two further explications. The cen-tral vow is poverty. Celibacy and obedience are ways of being poor. But poverty is the central one. And the point about poverty is: It is not a social condition first of all, it is not an economic condition first of all. First of all, it is metaphysical; it is what makes you you. To embrace poverty publicly is to embrace, publicly, being a human being. Being poor is being human publicly. It is to embrace the human condition. It is to recognize that there are radical limits on me, limits of time, ultimately. A time is going to come when I will breathe out and think "Gee, I'd like to breathe in"--and it will not happen. There is going to come a time when I will say, "I would like just to get to tomorrow morning," and there will not be time for me to get there. There are limitations on time, there are limitations on energy, there are limitations on strength, there are limitations on courage, there are limitations on wisdom, there are limitations on knowledge. Ultimately I have to look at that and say, "And it is a good thing! I embrace it." Poverty is central. Januao,-Februa~y 2000 '-3! Himes ¯ Returning to Our Ancestral Lands Celibacy is a way of saying that very publicly. I told you that I think there is an overly romantic element in much that has been said about poverty in recent years. I think a huge amount of fatu-ous slop has been written about celibacy. I think that much of what has been done on celibacy in recent years is the most patent non-sense. We have all sorts of stuff saying it is perfectly possible to be celibate and a completely fulfilled and happy man or woman. Junk! The fact is that 99.999 percent of the human race has found, does find, and presumably always will find that the most significant relationship in their lives is being someone's spouse and someone's parent. If I come along and say: "Well, I am no one's spouse and I am no one's parent, and it does not matter a hill of beans. I am just as happy as can be. I am just as fulfilled as you can get. What 99.999 percent of the human race thinks is so important really is not important at all"--well, that is arrogance, stupid arrogance. The whole point of celibacy is, of course, that you are unfulfilled. But, if you can be publicly unfulfilled and still be an intelligent, free, responsible, loving, brave, wise, concerned human being, then your life suggests that maybe "fulfillment" is not what human-ity is about. Your life is a public witness to the fact that unfulfill-ment is what is characteristic of being a human being. To go around saying "Oh, we're all fulfilled" is to make hash of the whole of the Franciscan tradition. It is to make nonsense of Augustine's restless heart. Manifestly the human race is unfulfilled, and so, when some-body says "Here I am, a publicly vowed celibate," he or she loudly proclaims: "I am unfulfilled, and that is okay. We are all unful-filled. I am just publicly noting the fact. I am a reminder, a clear picture, of the fact that you are as unfulfilled as I am. I am just publicly acknowledging that fact in a particularly striking way." The same thing is true with obedience. Obedience has nothing to do--or almost nothing--with the submission of one person's will to another person's will. That is anti-Christian thinking. The whole point of our relationship to the will of God is that I do not subject my will to God's will. I discover that God's will really is my will, that God's will is what undergirds my will. It is not a question of "Gee, I want this and God wants that and, by hook or by crook, I've got to pull myself around to want what God wants." That is a misunderstanding of God; that is a destructive picture of God. What does obedience mean? Above everything else, it means poverty in the face of facts. Obedience is, above everything else, a responsibility to what is: not what you would like, not what you had Review for Religious hoped, not what you wanted, not what you wished, not what you feared, but what is. I used to tell my students that, when you are talking about obedience to a superior, when you are talking about obedience to a bishop, the point is this: You are newly ordained and you get assigned to a parish. You are just the best thing that ever happened to kids. John Bosco looks like a piker. This is just the best thing that ever happened to teenagers. You are gung-ho to work with kids. It happens, however, that at the moment you are needed in this parish. There are not a lot of kids; younger fam-ilies have moved out; it is, in fact, a very elderly neighborhood. If you say, "Well, I just don't work with the elderly, I work with kids," you are being disobedient. You are not being disobedient to the bishop, you are not being disobedient to the pas-tor, you are being disobedient to facts. The fact is that these are the people who are here. You are the person on the spot--serve them! If you find yourself saying inside, "Well, you know, I am not really good at serving them," let yourself hear them saying "Yeah, I know. We've noticed." And then notice that you are the only one there. If the Titanic is going down and you are the nearest ship, do not say, "Well, you know, it would crowd breakfast so terribly to take on these other passengers." The ship is going down. Get over and save them! That is obedience to facts, and it is poverty. It is the recogni-tion that, hey, there are some things I am good at and some things I am not good at. Sometimes I am in positions where what I am not good at is what is most necessary. Then I have to give it my best even though it is clear that I am not going to do very well at it. I may also have the responsibility to say, "Somebody else in here might be a lot better at this than I am." But until that happens I am here, and I will get to work. That is real obedience. It is, once again, poverty. It is a recognition of the limitations of our histor-ical placement. I have been given this time and this place. I would have been just a knockout in the 18th century. In the 18th cen-tury I would have been just wonderful. But there was a problem: I was not begotten until the middle of the 20th century. So, no matter how great you would have been in the 18th century, you What does obedience mean ? Above everything else, it means poverty in the face of facts. January-February 2000 Himes * Returning to Our Ancestral Lands were not there. Likewise, you might be the best thing that could ever happen to the church of the 24th century. But, unless you have really good genes in your family, you are not going to be there. This is the only century you have; this is the one you bet-ter relate to even though it might not always be the one you wanted. That is the experience of poverty. Celibacy, obedience--both variants of poverty! Why is it so important that religious life seize that value of poverty and be a sign of it for the whole church? Because it is the experience of being a human being. It is the deepest truth about us as human beings. It is what the rest of us, in all sorts of ways, come to grips with or else try to hide from ourselves. Amid all these human beings, there should be communities of women and men who say in the strongest, clearest, and most striking way: "I, too, am poor, and it is good. This is what it is to be a human being." Now, how do you convey that truth to people? Well, it will he different from person to person, from community to com-munity, and from place to place. You cannot replicate the past. If you had known Dominic or Francis, Scholastica or Teresa of Avila, if you had known Ignatius or Vincent de Paul or Jane Frances Fr~myot de Chantal, perhaps they would have said, "I never had a disciple as good as this." But, you see, they never said that. You are not a contemporary of theirs; you are a con-temporary of mine. Francis of Assisi does not need you, but I do. So do not try to relate to Francis of Assisi or Jane Frances, but make a good attempt of getting to me. When, by retaining or recovering important values we "return to our ancestral lands," we are not thereby called to sow the ances-tral crops. Ancient lands can bear new crops, and new crops are needed for a new generation of people. I predict that, in the next fifty years, religious life is going to experience an explosion of growth. It may look different than we expect. Some older com-munities may die or merge--or meld into newer communities. Not every community will experience an explosion, but there will be an explosion of people living publicly vowed lives in community as sacramental signs to the rest of us of how the Christian tradition understands genuine humanity. I predict that sects, in Troeltsch's meaning, will be powerfully witnessing to the church so that the church is not allowed to become a hidebound and ossified insti-tution. This explosion will happen because the church could not survive without it--and we have the Lord's word that the church Review for Religious will survive. But I do not know how it will happen. The how ques-tion has never been the forte of the church, which, in its own poverty, only just manages to keep going. These observations are those of a passionate religious watcher. In some new ways, religious life will still be there in the future, for the church needs you. I have no doubt that, if only I could live thousand years longer, I could write a whopping good book about that future. Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. What elements of religious life have been eclipsed in recent years and need to be reclaimed? 2. How do we reclaim values without retreating to past forms? 3. Where do our particular religious communities fit in the development of vowed life in the church's history? 4. How can we establish community in religious life when the community is not its own center? Blink I like to think of thegn sledding, graceful, flying down some swift hill, the white in their hair only snow, bright gloves flashing in the wind above the aluminum board not as this aged couple she scarved in purple, taking careful steps in ankle boots, clutching a brown grocery bag, he shuffling two steps ahead, the long cool silver ironing board tucked beneath his arm. Doretta Cornell RDC January-Februmy 2000 religious mission JOHN KLEIN Transforming Mission: A Spirit of Adventure On 22 March 1999 a headline appeared in the New York Times reading: "Voyage End Brings Crew Back Down to Earth." The article recounted the voyage of the first two balloonists to circle the globe, aboard Breitling Orbiter III. The trip lasted nineteen days, twenty-one hours, and fifty-five minutes and covered a total of 29,054.6 miles. During their news conference one of the adventurers, Dr. Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss psychiatrist, reflected upon their experience: "It was not a matter of setting records; it was a fabulous metaphor of life. To try is the only way to survive." His compatriot, Brian Jones, a former member of the British Air Force, added: "We are not heroes. We just proved that dreams could come true.m Later in the interview Dr. Piccard admitted that the journey posed significant risks, struggles, and sacrifices. Confined in their 16.5 foot-by-10 foot capsule, freezing cold, and often lack-ing water, the adventurers nearly abandoned their effort several times. Piccard said, "When one of us was about to give up, the other would support him." This Magellanesque journey offers us a fabulous metaphor for our lives as religious leaders. Like Piccard and Jones, we find ourselves on a journey demanding John Klein FMS gave this presidential address at the August 1999 assembly of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM). His address is Marist High School; 1241 Kennedy Boulevard; Bayonne, New Jersey 07002. Review for Religious that we move beyond preconceived boundaries, one that forces us to tap into unsuspected personal and corporate resources, one that calls us to risk and trust and sometimes upset the status quo, one that invites us to dream of new possibilities and challenges, one that beckons us to move from the center to the margins. Religious leadership today is truly an adventure extending Jesus' mission to proclaim the kingdom and to make God known and loved. Mission is a description of Jesus, the Son of God, who invites us to be adventurers and dreamers with him. The daily realities of our work, however, do not permit us to escape being administrators, managers, fund-raisers, therapists, legal experts, and arbiters. Who has the time and the energy to dream and to participate in an adventure? How can we become "unstuck" and move forward the renewal of religious life? The church historian John W. O'Malley SJ has said, "It is more diffi-cult to reform a religious order than to found one.''2 Our expe-rience during the past thirty years certainly confirms this. Nonetheless, our role as leaders offers us a wonderful opportu-nity to influence and design the future, remembering that this project of religious life is God's work and not ours. With hope, like Jacob waking from his dream at Bethel, we can say of our time and our struggles, "Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it" (Gn 28:16). With confidence, like St. Paul in his Second Letter to Timothy (1:6-7), we can remind each other that "God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but rather a spirit of power and of love." It is in this spirit that we can face the future and set out on an adventure not of our design, but God's. John Gardner in his book Self-Renewal offers a sobering pre-diction if we opt to respond otherwise. He says: "If people are apathetic, defeated in spirit, or unable to imagine a future worth striving for, the game is lost.''3 We cannot lose this game. On the contrary, we need to see our present situation as opportunity. We need to articulate a high level of expectations for ourselves, the members of our congregations, and the institutions we own and sponsor. We are called to do this in a culture that does not share our values, but rather extols individualism, tends to privatize reli-gion, and fails to engender a true sense of community. Archbishop Rembert Weakland recently highlighted this challenge, asserting that "one of the most difficult pastoral tasks of our day., that has challenged the renewal at every turn is precisely how to overcome the cultural bias of our age toward the individualistic. ''4 Janumy-February 2000 Klein ¯ Tran~fomning Mission Our religious communities have not remained immune from these societal influences. On the contrary, society has tended to co-opt us and has led many religious to make private accommo-dations to religious life. This cripples our mission, diminishes a sense of esprit de corps and solidarity, and saps our energy and possibilities for the future. "The Nygren and Ukeritis study already warned that, despite their language of prophecy and sol-idarity with the poor, many religious in the United States may be far more accommodated and assimilated into the dominant cul-ture than they like to believe. The penchant for individualism and self-fulfillment so characteristic of this culture has found a ready berth in many religious communities. Self-determination has eroded communal and institutional commitments.''s Given this situation, how are we as religious leaders called to respond? I believe that we can discover the answer by reflecting on the example that Jesus provides us. The Letter to the Hebrews (12:2) refers to Jesus as the pioneer. He is the one who goes before us to offer the example and then returns to us to point the direction and to reassiire us that he is always present with us. Jesus is the adventurer calling us to join with him in mission and to fan the embers our commitment into a flame spreading new life and hope. Like us, Jesus found himself engaged in mission, searching for ways to engender new life, struggling and sometimes discour-aged with a disparate band of disciples, and confronting a society at best indifferent to his values and vision. How did he respond? What was and is Jesus' mission? How did he endeavor to foster new life? How did he pursue his mission and commitment? How did he accomplish the transformation of the lives of his disciples and the many others whom he touched as well? By probing these questions we will begin to perceive ourselves as part of a unique adventure that will transform our mission and foster new life. However, we do not probe the questions alone. This effort must be a collaborative and communal one. While we do not need everyone in our province or congregation to participate in this effort, we do need a "critical mass" of people to share the adventure. Only this will move our mission and our group for-ward. "What we dream alone remains just a dream, but what we dream with others can become a reality.''6 If we willingly dream together in faith, then our mission will be transformed and we will have the confidence that our best years are ahead of us. In all of Review for Religious our efforts together, Jesus, the pioneer, presents the lens through which we can discern our course of action and catch a glimpse of the religious life of the future. This is particularly true in three aspects of his mission that challenge us today: Jesus' deep spiri-tuality and relationship to his Father, his commitment to mis-sion at the margins of society, and, finally, his formation of an intentional community of disciples to carry his mission forward. Our following his response in these areas will, I believe, offer the compelling ways through which we will discover our unique role in society and the church. Jesus appreciated better than anyone that to be in close, intimate relationship with God inevitably makes people countercultural and dis-tinctive. It places them in a dangerous situation, making them as disciples part of a cultural minority. This minority cannot help seeing the world and society through different eyes, the eyes of Jesus. This vision encourages those who follow Jesus to choose new life by loving the Lord, our God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him (Dt 30:15-20). Seeing reality this way meant new life for Jesus also, for his profound spirituality caused him to turn society's values on their head and, in the process, made him a dangerous person. We see this clearly in Jesus' table fellowship. He ate with scribes and Pharisees, with the poor and destitute, with tax col-lectors and sinners. By breaking boundaries, risking disapproval, and "imaging" the reality of God for the people of his time, Jesus made his mission, the proclamation of the kingdom, tangible. It was in food-and-drink situations that he revealed the divine gifts of joy (Mt 9:15), pardon (Lk 7:47), salvation (Lk 19:9), and super-abundance (Mr 14:15-2 I). It is at table that we witness the trans-forming conversion of Zacchaeus, Jesus' example of servant leadership, and the opening of the weary disciples' eyes at Emmaus. It is therefore primarily at his table, at his Eucharist, where we religious will find new life for our mission. It is at his table that we will encounter him through the lives of sinners and outcasts, our brothers and sisters, realizing that the margin is our home too. In his message for the World Day of Peace, Pope John Paul II exhorted us to "recognize Christ in the poorest and the most marginalized, those whom the Eucharist--which is communion What was and is Jesus' mission ? Janualy-Februaly 2000 Klein ¯ Transforming Mission in the body and blood of Christ given up for us--commits us to serve. As the parable of the rich man, who will remain forever without a name, and the poor man called Lazarus clearly shows, 'in the stark contrast between the insensitive rich man and the poor in need of everything, God is on the latter's side.' We too must be on this same side.''7 The side of the poor and disenfran-chised is the side where the religious man and woman must be found. Whether or not we work directly with the poor, we can-not escape the imperative of seeing the world with the eyes of the poor. This attitude, then, will inform our prayer, our work, and our lifestyles. The Gospel of Luke reminds us that the sign that Jesus is "the one who is to come" is that the poor are having the Good News proclaimed to them. In this Jesus gave flesh to his kingdom and illustrated that the reign of God is now. Our mission as reli-gious leaders represents the continuing participation in his incar-nation. Our mission calls us to illustrate that economic and social boundaries are artificial, made by human hands. Our mission proclaims that, if "we truly want to see the glory of God, we must move downward with Jesus. This is the deepest reason for living in solidarity with poor, oppressed, and handicapped people. They are the ones through whom God's glory can manifest itself to us. They show us the way to God, the way to salvation.''8 To ignore the sorrows and needs of others is to ignore the flesh of Jesus and to deny the incarnation. For us to make the "option for the poor" a reality will mean a conversion of mind and heart. It is a conversion that will find its source in prayer, reflection, and Eucharist. It is a conversion that demonstrates itself through simplicity of lifestyle and sensi-tivity to those less fortunate than we. Too often we have claimed the adjectives prophetic and countercultural for ourselves. It would be far better that others attribute them to us after seeing the way we live and work and pray. They will do so if we make certain that our rhetoric and our reality coincide and that our lifestyles reflect charism rather than just personal choices. Johann Baptist Metz once wrote that "religious orders are a kind of shock therapy. ¯ for the church as a whole. Against the dangerous accommoda-tions and questionable compromises that the church . . . can always incline to, they press for the uncompromising nature of the gospel and the imitation of Christ. In this sense they ire the insti-tutionalized form of a dangerous memory within the church.''9 Review for Religious Our mission today is to be dangerous as Jesus was and to make Metz's description of us real. This mission is by its very nature a communal one, and I believe that new life for the mission of Christ will be found, not necessarily in endeavoring to enliven already existing local com-munities, but rather in forming new intentional communities within our groups. In addressing the obstacles to refounding a religious community, Gerald Arbuclde acknowledged that efforts to "move" or "change" a group inevitably encounter significant resistance. Hence, he says, "The new belongs elsewhere." These communities, similar to the one Jesus formed with his disciples, have mission at their center and heart. Mission conse-quently operates as their chief source of connectedness and energy. Members of an intentional community realize that they cannot minister to others outside unless they live in a community founded on inter-dependence and a mutuality informed by faith. This faith life sensitively balances the needs of the community and those of each individual and finds sharing of faith to be indispensable to its life. This inevitably leads to a high level of trust that allows mem-bers to challenge one another's behavior in light of a commonly accepted vision and goal. While these intentional communities meet some of the emotional, social, and intellectual needs of its members, they are in no way therapeutic support centers. An intentional community is "a group of religious living together who feel the need to be supported in their ministries and willingly commit themselves to develop a gospel-centered intimacy to be expressed in shared faith, ongoing conversation, and shared action."1° In short, an intentional community is one that has a clear and visible and easily identifiable way of life. Such a group offers the world what it does not find elsewhere: a community of faith, friendship, and mutual support engaged in an adventure larger than itself. In writing about his hopes for Dominican communities, Timothy Radcliffe OP, the master general, highlighted the impor-tance of such communities for the future of religious life. These groups, he maintained, carry within themselves seeds of new life. Communities similar to the one Jesus formed with his disciples have mission at their center and heart. January-Februaty 2000 Klein ¯ Transforming Mission "Unless a province plans the building of such communities, then it dies. A province with three communities where the brethren flourish in their Dominican life has a future, with the grace of God. A province with twenty communities where we just survive may well have none." it To say the least, we religious at the threshold of the new mil-lennium face significant challenges as we participate in Jesus' adventure. Allowing God to transform our mission and ourselves will not be a process devoid of risk and some pain. Nonetheless, to do otherwise would rob our religious families of the new life necessary to bring them into the future and, as a result, would put at risk our contribution to the mission of Christ. In the conclu-sion of Vita consecrata, the Holy Father asserts that religious "have not only a glorious history to remember and to recount, but also a great history still to be accomplished! Look to the future, where the Spirit is sending you in order to do even greater things" (VC §110). A real test of our faith and gospel hope is our belief in the truth of John Paul's words. Martin Heidegger once compared the journey of life to a person walking in a huge forest where it is pitch dark, where it is raining and thundering, and one has completely lost the way. There is a bolt of lightning and for an instant the way is clear. Then it is dark again. All one can and must do is keep going in the direction one saw illuminated by the lightning flash. This is our challenge and our opportunity: to keep going, to trust that God is faithful, to remember the way in the light of those key moments through which God intervenes in our lives. Most of our life we must move ahead in darkness, sustained in our faithfulness by what we once glimpsed when, if only for an instant, everything was clear.12 Notes ~ New York Times, 22 March 1999, p. 8. -' John W. O'Malley SJ, Tradition and Transition: H#torical Perspectives on Vatican II (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989), p. 97. 3 Albert DiIanni SM, Religious Life as Adventure (New York: Alba House, 1994), p. 108. 4 Rembert Weakland OSB, "Liturgy and Common Ground," America 180, no. 5 (20 February 1999): 9. s Robert J. Schreiter, "Challenges and Directions of Religious Life at the Turn of the Millennium," Address given at the inauguration of the Center for the Study of Religious Life, 21 June 1998, p. 11. Review for Religious 6 Ronald Rolheiser OMI, "Religious Life in America Faces a Change of Epoch," paper prepared for the Inter-American Meeting in Toronto, May 1999, p. 13. 7 Pope John Paul II, "Message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace," 1 January 1999, p. 21. s Robert A. Jonas, Henri Nouwen (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1998), p. 35. 9 Gerald A. Arbuckle SM, From Chaos to Mission: Refounding Religious Life Formation (Strathfield, N.S.W.: St. Paul's Publications, 1996), p. 11. ~0 Arbuclde, From Chaos to Mission, p. 15 I. " Timothy Radcliffe OP, Pastoral letter "The Promise of Life," 2 February 1999, p. 3. ~2 John Fullenbach, Prodaiming His Kingdom (Manila: Divine Word Publications, 1992), p. 190. The Joys of January Beautiful month of the cold, clean slate: nothing mars its pristine glare. Starlings stare, perched on empty limbs shaking in their purity. The air bears thoughts of ice. Wind cuts through whispers. Walls show us where twigs scrape messages: deliver words, deliver us: bend, blow beautifully, winter stems. Wake us. The dark recedes, we see our breath, a flickering. Light. Mary Kennan Herbert Janua~. -Febmtmy 2000 A. PAUL DOMINIC Evangelization as Religious Mission of Joy Spurely, in the Indian experience, joy has not been a strong oint in religious life, in fact or in principle. This came to me as a rude shock twenty-odd years ago during a chat with a couple of sisters. As I was leaving their place, one of them made a particularly religious sort of request: "Father, will you please pray for vocations to our congregation?" I replied at once, though with some inner hesitation, "Why pray? If you are all happy, the girls will simply flock to you!" When I said this, I did not know I was echoing the mind of Pope Paul vI revealed in his 1971 apostolic exhortation Evangelica testificatio (§55). I must not have impressed them, for one of them said to me later, "But you must know we are religious!" Though that was not a recent event, attitudes of this type do not change in a single generation--though I would like to be proved wrong. Incidentally, the rumor of joyless religious life is not an exclusively Indian phenomenon: most of the religious con-gregations here have been transported from the West. Why, the very fact that a paper on consecrated life as anointed with joy was read in 1998 in San Antonio, Texas, at the annual confer-ence of vicars of religious implies that even modern American religious are not above the need of awakening to joy in their life of consecration.' A. Paul Dominic SJ last wrote for us in November-December 1995. His address is Satyodayam; 12-5-33, S. Lallaguda; Secunderabad 500 017; India. Review for Religiota This sad state of affairs in religious life is a reflection of Christianity in general, which has been accused of joylessness by both Westerners and Easterners. Nietzsche, for instance, has ridiculed the claim of Christians to have been saved by Christ. If it were really so, he argues, why could they not look joyful instead of appearing so remarkably gloomy? The Indian Shree Rajneesh, quite celebrated in his way, has been no less categorical in his attack on Christian attitudes. "Christians say that Jesus never laughed!" he alleges, and counters: "Now this seems to be the ulti-mate in stupidity. Jesus . never laughed? Then who else can laugh? . . They have made his picture very sad-looking, long-faced, burdened. This is not possible. This is utterly wrong.''2 All this non-Christian aspersion may well serve as a goad, particularly for us religious, to discover or rediscover the characteristic joy of Christ and enter into it (see Mt 25:21 and 23) and thus be evange-lized, that is, "gladdened by the good news" of our redemption. The Oil of Gladness It is heartening to observe that, in the biblical experience, there is a joyous anointing, besides several others. This joyous anointing is bestowed on the righteous king, that is, the king who loves justice, producing the pleasure of the people without seeking his own fortune (Ps 45:3-8). Who can this joyously anointed king be but him whose very name is Christ, meaning, of course, "the anointed one"? He is the one who, as no other, can witness to his joy in this fashion: "I was beside the master crafts-man, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere on his earth, delighting to be with the children of men" (Pv 8:30-3 I). If, by virtue of baptismal consecration, every Christian shares in the life of the joyously anointed Christ, what may we conclude about those consecrated further by religious profession? Being anointed with the oil of gladness is no doubt a charism person-ally received; it is, however, not to be enjoyed as a private pos-session, but to be ever passed on for the surprise enjoyment of others. If religious are genuine enough, they will necessarily make their anointing evident, for the joyous enhancement of others. Leading lives of contagious joy" because their God is the joy of their never ending youth, they will liberate the masses from their oppressed lives and lead them into the same joy. January-Febrnary 2000 Dominic ¯ Evangelization as Religious Mission of Joy All truly enlightened persons, whatever their religion, would share in this lofty, uplifting, and truly religious sentiment of theirs. People's innermost recesses would be affected, and there-fore the social fabric too. For instance, among the Hindu Tamil saints was Tayumanavar, who prayed out of the abundance of his holy joy: "That all should be happy is my one wish, Almighty One! This is the only thing I know!" The Christian ashrams here in India have, in proper inter-religious spirit, followed suit in earnest and have introduced, somewhere at the beginning of Lauds, the singing of the Sanskrit sloka "Lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu," which means "May all the world be happy!" This vision of joy, flowing to us from God and necessarily flowing to others from us, is certainly wonderful. How do we make this vision vivid to ourselves and transparent to others in a practicable, communicable way? The Religious Way of Joy The way to experience joy in God is, first and foremost, to enjoy our life, basically and paradoxically, in its human and of course ecological dimension. There God will be available, not absent. For one thing, where joy is there will be no room for complaining. Complaining is a root of the atheist's mindset (see Ph 2:14-15). Habitually complaining persons construe everything as wrong, in sharp contrast to the divine intention exhibited in creation and providence (see Gn 1 and Mt 5:45), and so they can-not subscribe to any belief in God. Even if they claimed to believe, their belief would be the result of some psychological or religious conditioning and so only superficial, if not spurious. Rajneesh warns against such joyless nominal faith, advocat-ing an increasing enjoyment of life as the way to find God-given joy in ourselves. He says: Any small thing is full of God! So love this life . Eat, enjoy the food, and let God come to you as a taste. Listen to music, get lost in it, and let God come to you as sound ¯ . . as harmony. Let God descend on you slowly, without any hankering to catch hold of him . Just open yourself as much as possible--to the trees, to the birds, to the rains, to the sun, to the sands¯ Open yourself wherever you are; absorb, and gratitude will arise . And you will not know towards whom this gratitude is arising. When you don't know towards whom., it is towards God) Review for Religious Does this not read like a poetic rendition of the Contemplation to Attain love offered by St. Ignatius at the very climax of his Spiritual Exercises (§§230-237) to train people to find the joy of God no less outside their retreat than in it? Again, does this not evoke the following bold and originally controversial remark of St. Paul? "If I partake with thankfulness, why should I be denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God" (1 Co 10:30-31; see also Col 3:16-17). Again, does this not read like an expository commentary on the praxis and pronouncements of Jesus? He, whose mission was to make known the heart of God to humanity, did not speak explicitly about God as much as he spoke about the happiness people longed for. He assured them that they were des-tined for joy, and, to prove it, he went about doing good for them in ever sur-prising ways. He fed them in their hunger without being asked, and he sat-isfied them. In that way he led them to discover for themselves that it was God who fed them to their heart's content. He healed them of their many illnesses and gladdened them and in that way enlightened them about how God meant them to be healthy and happy. His teaching was new precisely in proclaiming that they were at the threshold of an altogether new blessedness, thanks to the unique intervention God was initiating in humanity. He declared a new law, the law of beatitude (see Mt 5:1-10), for all, but particularly for the poor, that is, for those who longed for blessedness (see Lk 10:23-24). All this would have been offensive to people who abided by their fixed religious ways without, however, conspicu-ous happy living. To those who made much of fasting, for instance, he declared himself against it unless times and seasons made sense of it and demanded it. Indeed, he approved of feast-ing before fasting, gladly characterizing himself as one who came in the spirit of God's new time, eating, drinking, and partying in marked contrast to his predecessor, and not fighting shy of the The way to experience joy in God is, first and foremost, to enjoy our life in its human and of course ecological dimension. .~anualy-Februa~y 2000 Dominic * Evangelization as Religious Mission of Joy nicknames "glutton" and "drunkard" that some hurled at him. Because he found the joy of God in feasting in God's name, he could also, paradoxically, find the God of joy while abstaining from any feast. Is it not quite revelatory, when we come to think of it, that the word feast denotes both a lavish meal (as at a wed-ding) and a periodic religious observance? Christ was persuaded . that God himself was feasting, and so he would urge people undertaking a fast to present an appearance of joy (Mt 6:16-18). Whatever delightful stories of God he told had invariably the magic spell of joy in life. The stories suggest that only those who have known the joy of a wedding feast, or a bumper harvest, or an unexpected catch of fish, or giving birth to a child, or finding a lost coin or son, or stumbling on a treasure, or seeing and being a child, and so forth, could understand and delight in God. They as much as say that anyone who has known none of life's ordinary joys would be unable to know, let alone enjoy, God in their life-- even though God, as the source of all other joys, is a joy well above life's mundane joys. So Christ's call to joy was constant and compelling, encouraging us to be open to unnoticed joys around us and then to greater joy: Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? . . . Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? Therefore do no worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?". Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. (Mt 6:26-32) All who have known and enjoyed God thus in life will hope-fully carry this, their basic thrill of happiness, all through their life and will further develop their happy character through life's tasks, trials, and temptations. Anointing Others with Joy Like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, the more we become what we are (namely, anointed with joy) by growing in the joy that abides in us from our looking at Jesus, the pioneer Review for Religious of our joy, the more we shall be able to anoint others with joy. Sensing this dynamic of joy, how does one move in this mission of joy (evangelization, translated literally)? Basic to any move in relation to others is openness to all so that all may have life. The joy within us, if genuine, will be free from all conditioning by others and will contrive to make every-one welcome indiscriminately. This is what Christ did. He who said "Let the little children come to me" in an age when they counted for little had much the same attitude of welcome towards all, Jew or gentile or Samaritan, Pharisee or Sadducee or rogue, man or woman, young or old, high or low, rich or poor, clean or dirty, learned or illiterate, virtu-ous or sinful, and so forth, irrespec-tive of all segregations prevailing in his day. When he did make choices, however, it was doubtless towards the poor of all sorts, showing compas-sion for the multitude that was like sheep without a shepherd, saying that he had come for sinners, not the virtuous, and that the Spirit had anointed him to bring good news to the poor, to prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed. And so they, the poor masses, who Jesus sadly foretold are with us always (more glaringly now than ever before), have the greatest claim on our mission of joy. How do we set about this privileged mission? Thefirst move must be to initiate or maintain solidarity with people in their joyless situation, following the incarnation's prin-ciple of bringing joy to the world. We need to be one with them as far as possible. Ideally, of course, we should be so much one with them that nothing differentiates us from them in sur-rounding society. Meanwhile every attempt we make in this direc-tion will be an opening of joy to the unfortunates with whom we seek to share our own joy. During my turn as chaplain at a home for the aged, the day I began eating with them at their own table (something they had never seen before) was a matter of undreamt-of joy for them, far more beneficial than my liturgical or homiletic performance. The ontological principle actio in distans repugnat is no less sociological and evangelical. When Jesus sent his disciples The joy within us will be free from all conditioning by others and will contrive to make everyone welcome indiscriminately. January-February 2000 Dominic * Evangelization as Religious Mission of Joy on mission, what was he doing but bridging the gap between the teaching tribe and the taught? In his clear instruction to them to stay and eat happily with their hosts, what was he aiming at but their insertion into their very midst? When he himself was at home in the company of the sick and suffering and sinful, what was he exhibiting but his identification with their milieu? The second move must be to respond to the felt desires of those whom we have chosen to serve foremost in the promotion of joy. The Bible has as much to do with this as with the worship of God (see Is 58:6-10, Am 5:21-24, Mi 6:6-8). However much we may have identified with various persons, we may be mistaken about their drives and urges. That is why we have not had in great numbers the likes of St. Peter Claver and Blessed Katherine Drexel in the history of slavery, or of Bishop Romero and Corazon Aquino (once president of the Philippines) in the much delayed popular struggle, or of Little Sister Madeleine of Jesus and professor-turned-preacher Peter Reddy pitching their tents on the fringe of society.4 To work today toward a better future, it would on our part be best if we had people spell out their desires and then responded to them. Though at times Jesus' benefac-tions were a surprise to the beneficiaries of them, often he led people to be aware of their needs and then proceeded to respond to those needs, and bring joy (see Mk 10:46-52, Jn 4:4-42, Jn 5:1-9, even Mt 20:20-23). Besides this, he was quick to sense and fill the deeper spiritual needs they felt in spite of, or along with, their physical or social ones (as in the cases of Mary of Magdala and Joanna, Bartimaeus, Zacchaeus, the Samaritan outcast, and the Gerasene demoniac). Unlike him was the North American priest working in a South American parish who, to his dismay, discovered from his old cat-echist that his people, whom he had raised economically to a sat-isfactory level, were leaving him for a newfound evangelical pastor because they wanted to hear the glad news of the gospel. The third move in our mission will be, therefore, to lay bare the hidden needs of the spirit, at whatever level people may be, and to bring them to a higher level that engages their own inner resources. There is a time and reason for attending to and filling their mate-rial needs, and also for sensitizing themto higher needs and, with the conviction learned from Jesus, inviting them to higher joy: "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Mt 6:33). Review for Religious Reality may seem to fly in the face of this assurance, but can-not negate it altogether. People like Paul, who by God's grace knew a deep joy in penury as well as in plenty (Ph 4:11-13), show the truth of Jesus' words. In declaring that God has a higher claim on people and fills a deeper need than ordinary earthly liv-ing makes them concerned about, Jesus was not being naive. Well aware of the problematic reverses of human life, he was aware too of the privileged reserves of the human spirit. And so he would train people in tested, mature happiness by his winning counsel: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows" (Mt 10:29-31). This stance leads us to the fourth move, namely, to encour-age and fortify people caught in suffering to rise above it and emerge in joy. Would this work in life? It can and does, because it did in Christ's life. Even though all through his public life he encountered opposition from many quarters and faced threats to his life from authorities like Herod, he carried on his work with joyous determination and courage that were the mark of his unflinching faith in God. When his disciples were sorely troubled by his uncertain future, he reassured them emphati-cally: "Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy" (Jn 16:20). He urged them to ask the Father for any-thing in his name and to count on receiving it so that their joy might be complete On 16:24). The fifth move will be to witness to the revelation of how exceptionally suffering people may anticipate their joy in their very suffering (as Jesus himself did), and not in spite of it. At the end of his life, when the worst of his fears were to overtake him, he made a celebration of his last meal, carried himself with joyous strength of an unusual kind, and imparted to his dis-heartened disciples his sure vision of their future mission of suc-cess with words of comfort: "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (Jn 15:1 I). He concluded by asking the Father that his distraught disciples might have his own joy made complete in their very selves (Jn 17:13). From his personal experience he could witness to the joy of the persecuted poor, not only in principle by declaring them Janumy-Februal~ 2000 Dominic ¯ Evangelization as Religious Mission of ,yoy blessed (Mt 5:10-12), but also in practice by bringing public recognition to people who were quietly but surely joyful, such as the poor widow who made an offering to God of all her sav-ings with sure, spontaneous, though unglamorous, joy (Mk 12:41- 44). The most moving story of this kind that I know is this: A woman took a priest to her home to" show him a secret of hers. Hidden in a corner was her bedridden eight-year-old son, with the body of a child and the head of an adult, with a darting tongue like a snake's. Seeing the sight he groaned; but she did not hear it, for she was saying, "Father, I have looked after this child for eight years now. He knows only me. I love him very much. Almost no one knows about it." In speaking thus warmly of her son, she did not hesitate to speak happily about her God as well: "God is good. God is our Father.,,s The more such secrets are known, the more joy will abound on the earth! The sixth move in evangelization is to declare, after due dis-cernment, how the good and glad program of God for humanity is being carried out even at the social level. Christ began his min-istry of joy at Nazareth, making precisely such a discerned dec-laration to his townsfolk. More than Jesus' proclamation of the good plan of God for their welfare, what pleasantly surprised them was the accompanying announcement of its effectiveness then and there in the very workings of their society (Lk 4:21). All through his later ministry, too, he was intent on making peo-ple recognize the growing social implementation of the divine plan carried on through the mediation of works of gladness done by himself (Lk 7:18-22 and 11:20) and like-minded others, whether among his explicit followers or unattached admirers (Mk 7:1-9, 9:11-12 and 38-40, and 12:34; Lk 10:i0-11 and 18-19). In our evangelization, therefore, we need to be on the watch to dis-cern and broadcast the divine reformation and revolution willy-nilly taking place in the world, thanks to our cooperative works, small or big, and those of many, many others, done--in the spirit of the Servant of Yahweh--quietly, steadfastly, and effectively (Mt 12:19-21). Even as we rejoice and lead others to rejoice in the magnalia Dei present in contemporary society, we also know and cannot deny the ungodly contradictions that afflict our web of life covertly and overtly. The best move in this situation--and this is the seventh and last move in our task of joy--is to channel into our world the spirit of the Book of Revelation, namely, a mood of Review for Religious faith and hope: faith in God revealed in the great works of joy already experienced, and hope in God preparing greater works, of which our mind has not conceived but of which there has been an earnest within our experience. One of the most fervent expres-sions of such an experience is the ancient song that nevertheless sounds new: "Though the fig tree does not blossom and no fruit is on the vines, though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food,.yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation" (Hab 3:17-18). Mary, Mission of Joy What is the Magnificat but the above ancient hymn sung in a new melody? Surprised by joy, Mary celebrates God in her new song for all his works of gladness wrought in her and her society of the lowly, down through the ages. She rejoices in her own deeds of happiness, too, which God inspired her to perform for the benefit of the lowly and indeed of all humankind. She inspires and urges all those interested in similar works to become part of the hopeful, joyful movement to which God gives increasing momentum for his glory and our bliss. Following her Son in all matters of life, she precedes us religious like a wise guide in all matters, even in our evangelical mission. Notes ~ See Review for Religious 57, no. 6 (November-December 1998): 605-620. 2 Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, I Say unto You, Vol. 2 (Pune, India: Rajneesh Foundation, 1980), p. 172. 3 Rajneesh, I Say unto You, pp. 217-218. 4 Reddy (1895-1958), a convert, renounced his professorship in a Jesuit college in Tamil Nadu and became a pilgrim beggar and vagrant preacher. See J. Cherupallikat, Witness Potential of Evangelical Poverty in India (Immensee, Switzerland: Nouvelle Revue de Science Missionnaire, 1975), pp. 117-121. s See Leonardo Boff, The Lord's Prayer (Indore, India: Satprakashan Sanchar Kendra, no date), p. 88. January-Feblvtary 2000 finding God ROBERT % COSTELLO Discovering God in Gaps Joseph Cardinal Bernardin influenced millions of peo-ple. As I read accounts of his life and watched the tele-vision coverage of his death and funeral, I was intrigued by a paradox. Cardinal Bernardin wrote, shortly before his death in November 1996, that his last years were the best and worst of times. He said he loved being Joseph to his people and seeking to build bridges between diverse church elements. He told of struggling to free himself from a "need" for success, a "need" to avoid criticism; he told of struggling to trust. He said he was whipsawed by groups asking him to carry their diverse banners. Then came the shocking conspiracy to brand him for sexual misconduct. After displaying immense courage amid the harsh publicity, he gained a growing respect and influence during the slow onset of the cancer that brought his death. Joseph Bernardin's influence peaked in his vulner-ability to the plot to defame him, his care for his false accuser. His example suggests a paradoxical experience in leadership, one which raises engaging questions. Are there implications for church leaders in the cardinal's Robert T. Costello SJ, onetime professor of psychology at Rockhurst College and former provincial superior of his order's Missouri province, currently does retreat work at the Guelph Centre of Spirituality; Box 245, Station Main; Guelph, Ontario; N1H 6J9 Canada. Review for Religious behavior? Is there even a hint for a spirituality for others beneath the dramatic circumstances he found himself in? Several experi-ences of mine have suggested an answer. The Southdown Institute is a residential treatment facility for priests and religious and offers monthly workshops for provincials, diocesan chancellors, and council members return-ing for aftercare with former residents. Asked to be a party to those sessions while on staff, I found myself filtering their expe-riences through memories of previous ~:esponsibilities of mine. This led me to sense that Bernardin's curious enhanced power had meaning for other leaders in the church. The leadership participants spoke of their stress at having to make choices about subordinates while pulled between conflicting values and options. They had to decide between what was empathic and tolerant on the one hand and firm and objective on the other. So it seemed to them. I describe this situation as "being in a gap" between an objective managerial function and an empathic pas-toral inclination. It is as though there is no one to turn to when a decision must be made. The cardinal was in a contradictory sit-uation or gap between defending his personal reputation and addressing what he learned were the spiritual needs of his accuser. I believe that this experiential dilemma, this gap, is worth exploring. What is involved in a church leader's experience of the gaps in administration? What Is a Gap? I define the gap as the tension a leader experiences in choos-ing between opposing goods such as compassion and impartial-ity. Should one postpone a difficult decision until there is more information, follow an intuition, or get on with a community's organizational needs? I consulted journals to better understand a paradox I felt was present in gaps. I also shared my quandary with three peo-ple presumably well versed in gap pressures. A general's assis-tant said that the gap issue deals with a leader's spiritual sensitivity to find God in the stressful situations. An assistant to the late Pedro Arrupe likewise suggested that gaps involve the spiritual meaning one disc6vers in the ministry of leadership. The provincial of a large community recalled being pulled by uncertainty and yet needing to act with determination. These January-Februa~7 2000 Costello ¯ Discovering God in Gaps responses added to my interest in the paradox that unintended influence emerges when a leader experiences a "centrifugal" effect from weakness and strength. Church leadership is a hybrid role of prophet and executive, of inspirational guide and money manager, a role which is bound to involve the kind of gaps we are discussing. It is different from the role of a business or professional leader (Nygren and Ukeritis, 1993). Empathy is an obvious part of the job description, but so is resolute confrontation. Workshop participants at Southdown spoke of pride in their organization's history, joy in their work, but also pain in conflicted relations with members. They said the stress was to be patient and challenging with fragile personalities while remaining focused on pressing tasks like building commu-nity consensus. One participant recalled that a lawyer's advice about a personnel issue seemed heartless but persuasive. Such circumstances required taking valuable time to address inappro-priate behaviors, being supportive of the person but still pursu-ing larger organizational issues. The research data of Nygren, Ukeritis, et al. (1993) broad-ened my notion of the gaps church leaders encounter. The authors uncovered nearly a dozen pressures which both pull and restrain religious leaders. For example, there is a strain between cultural individualism on one hand and the gospel values calling to relationships on the other. They wrote that leaders should be partners in the process of renewal, not initiators. Leaders also needed to establish mutual relationships. Their research found that generosity in some members was being eclipsed by self-pre-occupation. They noted that fewer religious espoused a prefer-ential option for the poor because of responding to personal calls for self-determination, making assignment difficult. This litera-ture, however, did not address an aspect of the leader's experi-ence I sensed in the life of Cardinal Bernardin and recalled, in a way, from my own years as a provincial. I found myself curious about his power. Eventually I had a clearer sense that there were unique tensions or gaps in the power differentials of leaders and community members. I originally had an unexamined, even patriarchal, conception of power: it produces effects. Thus the religious leader buys or sells property, approves vows. She can influence events in for-eign countries. Power makes things happen for individuals and a community and can be a unilateral influence. I also mistakenly Review for Religious suspected that leadership's authority was in the office or person. I believed that ideally Bernardin's considerable power would leave him unaffected if he exercised it adroitly. In .other words, good leadership could, should, and would produce a win-win result. I recalled, though, having nagging doubts after making some deci-sions. Those are what I was coming to recognize and identify as my gap experiences. A second conception of power grew out of curiosity about how the cardinal remained so influential aJ~er the conspiracy to besmirch his reputation collapsed. There was power and influence in how he allowed himself to be unaf-fected. I could understand people admiring his humility, but the pro-found impact his dying had on people puzzled me because I thought media frenzy would stain his integrity and reputation. I finally saw that there was power in how he allowed himself be affected. Power was being both active and passive, doing and receiving. When a Southdown workshop participant recalled a member's death from AIDS and the scandal which developed, I found his empathic reaction powerful. Gradually I saw that this second conception of power was a pas-sive reality that makes church leadership both personally demand-ing and spiritually challenging because church structure expects spiritual meaning to be acknowledged. Authority, then, seemed somehow to be a mutual influence. As the publicity swirled about him, Bernardin's stature seemed to increase with each gentle assertion, of his innocence and his belief that somehow the truth would appear. He pressed on with his plan to develop greater harmony in the Catholic Church of the United States while continuing to empathize with his accuser. He was in a wrenching gap. After he was exonerated of sexual impropriety, he threw himself into work only to be diagnosed With terminal cancer, but that is another story and a different stressful situation. Nygren, Ukeritis, et al. say that leaders viewed their source of power as residing either in themselves or in others. A leader who assumes personal authority is able to be assertive, while a Church leadership is a hybrid role of prophet and executive, of inspirational guide and money manager. January-February 2000 Costello * Discovering God in Gaps leader who considers the source of power to be in others becomes more interdependent or tentative. Note here that these sources of power are not mutually exclusive and inevitably result in the internal struggles (gaps) that are at issue here. For example, a leader who stands on his or her own authority and is objectively assertive in dealing with members may generate resistance and be labeled autocratic. A leader who sees his or her power as derived from others can become paralyzed by members who disagree and resist consensus. A conception of passive power I found most enlightening was that of Bernard Loomer (1976). He described it as relational power. His concept helped me understand the paradox of Cardinal Bernardin: giving and receiving influence. This kind of. power is not an either/or capacity, like deciding to act or not act in a certain way. With Loomer's guidance I will digress on two faces of power: Power results from being influenced and Power preserves rela-tionships. Power as being influenced is not a contradiction. One workshop participant spoke of selling a building that had great symbolic value for her community and openly sharing the pain of it, thus leading the community to "get through it." A second par-ticipant spoke of compassionately confronting the stony silence of a member who violated a fiduciary relationship. Such gap expe-riences are clearly intense--but how are they powerful? The Challenge of Gaps Gaps challenge leaders to expand in "size," that is, to make room in their minds and hearts for opposing realities, such as the limits of human adaptability juxtaposed with situational demands. Gaps stretch leaders, and the power is displayed in the manner in which they embrace what is needed but only possibly achievable. Gaps pull for courage and commitment to the uncer-tain benefit of another, and this edifies and empowers. Cardinal Bernardin exercised power by being mortified on CNN over the accusation thrown at him of sexual abuse. He gent-ly absorbed the humiliation of being asked on television if he was sexually active. He also showed the size of his heart by refusing to countersue his accuser, while at the same time working (in what must have seemed another world) to build consensus among divergent elements in the church. Size is prodigal power because Review for Religious it demonstrates that stress is absorbed for the uncertain benefit of others. The cardinal's power was shown also by his refusing to unleash a legal assault on the conspirators with his available resources and by his believing that this conspiracy could not crush him. Size deals with the interior authority of the person; I find it godlike. A second face of power is manifest in someone who actively preserves relationships. In Loomer's view here, power is the capacity to sustain the mutuality of giv-ing and receiving. Individuals with per-sonal problems often refuse .such mutuality by erecting rigid boundaries as a way of securing whatever power they have. Bernardin's relational power consisted in the months of effort he spent trying to establish a vulnerable connection with his accuser, not in any brandishing of his status, with its vast legal resources that would only have cre-ated a wider gulf. In the end, both men contributed to and were nourished in the relationship because of thee inequalities of power. This was for me a surprising real-ization: one of the greatest influences anyone can have on another is being influenced by that person. Therein lies the power available in gaps. As I spent time musing about this issue, I came finally to a new understanding of some of my leadership experience. I grasped that my deep pain over the shrinkage of religious life was sad-ness over others' "poor discernment" or "lack of courage": "If only those departing had consulted more astute advisors, they could have fallen out of love and remain and resolve their issues" ¯ . . "If only they had more grit, things could be as they were-- and we have such need of their gifts!" I was helpless in the face of diminishment, but also hopeful there could be unimagined surprises in it. And yet I conceived these gap experiences as noth-ing more than stress due to my personal limitations. Cardinal Bernardin believed that meeting his accuser just might set the man free. He actually went to the man, faced his understandable resentment, brought about reconciliation while pressing on with the archdiocese's business. That demonstrated Gaps pull for courage and commitment to the uncertain benefit of another, and this edifies and empowers. Jannary-Februa~y 2000 Costello ¯ Discovering God in Gaps his size. The cardinal seemed detached from the scandal, and it appears his anchor was in spiritual meaning he attached to this ordeal. He "knew" the truth would appear, that he was innocent and it was possible somehow to be vindicated. He recalled that Jesus pledged his life in the interest of others in the face of their mis-understandings and abandonment. This was the quintessential experience of absorbing the stress in a gap for the benefit of a dream or a commitment. It was relational power. The paradox I sensed in Cardinal Bernardin's life connected with two other men whose conversions influenced me: C.S. Lewis and Ignatius Loyola. Lewis wrote that as a child he was "stabbed" by intense feelings of joy. He seemed obsessed with recapturing this experience and spent years trying to re-create it by exploring the riches of the arts and nature. He suspected he was trying to cook up emotional thrills. After years of frustration in this quest, he concluded he was seeking the wrong quarry. He had confused the affective experience of joy with its object. The sought-after emo-tion was only a cheap reminder or a footprint of a presence. An extraordinary realization. There was no other answer because all his introspection dissatisfied him until he accepted that the value of joy was in its object, in something else, in a presence--in God. While admitting I am on uncertain ground, for me Ignatian detachment means that in leadership as well as life we must hold ourselves in a kind of balance before all things, insofar as we have a choice. In the present context, whether a gap ended with pos-itive feelings would not be the issue; rather, it would depend on which alternative led the cardinal to greater self-donation and compassion. This detachment, no matter how experienced inter-nally, calls forth a more loving response to life's circumstances, which is a presence even if experienced as stress. In my view, this interpretation describes the experience of gaps religious leaders often have when detachment produces negative feelings which demand that they increase in size. My mistake was to attribute stressful feelings to the "cost" of leadership, nothing more. I had focused on my experience of stress, not its object. I think, as well, that Ignatius considered the actual feeling in spiritual consolation to be unrelated to a venture's success or failure. This was enlightening in the face of how hard it is to associate the stress or occasional bitterness in gaps with anything like God's confirming presence. I had supposed that God is sup-posed to be present in consolation (involving joy), not in uncer- Review for Religious tainty or regret (due to my painful limitations). I recall a con-soling sense of satisfaction after a community meeting that went well--who would not feel deep joy in a win-win situation? But sit-uations of angry conflict that emphasized one's own poverty in coping with it seemed altogether different, as they did for par-ticipants at the Southdown meetings. As I was learning, though, Ignatian consolation can coexist with stress and uncertainty when there is a conviction of possible benefit for others. The conflicted stress that people in leadership positions experience seems to be located between what is possible for them and what is unimaginable. Leadership routinely deals with possibil-ities and constraints in people or situa-tions, and so gaps are inescapable. My own experience and comments of others at workshops convince me that Ignatian detachment and consolation give these gaps further meaning: gaps are a time of the Spirit's presence in the stress. Ignatian consolation is an affective experience directed toward God and the world and away from self, an experience that can be stressful--as when one hopes that one's own experience of a difficult interpersonal exchange may just possibly be for the good of the person and the situation. No person in history staked as much as Jesus on the merest possibility that fidelity to his convictions could be redemptive for people, notwithstanding experience to the contrary. The stakes were so high because one side of the gap meant Jesus could be deluded while the other side presented only a flimsy possibility that the kingdom he desired would ever eventuate. The stake seemed to involve the exhilaration of wagering it all, staying in the gap, believing and hoping in the possible. From this perspective, the continuing power of Jesus is the unbounded size he mani-fests because there is room in his heart for all. More humbling than finding oneself in such a gap is a sus-picion that some leaders get about themselves. They wonder whether they seek to walk this way of possibility or rather are sought by God to walk it. In my reflection I admitted, without comprehending why, the possibility of their being sought. And Ignatian consolation can coexist with stress and uncertainty when there is a conviction of possible benefit for others. January-February 2000 Costello ¯ Discovering God in Gaps that makes all the difference when they make their stake to walk the way of possibility to the end, because they believe this service will be redemptive., for someone. Just like Christ's stake. References Bernardin, Joseph Cardinal. The Gift of Peace. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1997. Lewis, C.S. Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1956. Loomer, Bernard. "Two Conceptions of Power." Process Studies 6, no. 1 (Spring 1976). Nygren, David J., CM, and Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ. "The Religions Life Futures Project: Executive Summary." Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 6-51. Nygren, David J., CM, Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ, et al. "Religious- Leadership Competencies." Review for Religious 52, no. 3 (May- June 1993): 390-417. Ordinary Time Hoarfrost ages the discarded Christmas trees. Fog mutes the soul, and dampness chills the heart. In ordinary time we wait, like puffed-out birds, upon a frozen limb of time and seek for solace in the hearing of the Word. Ed Block Review for Religious DENNIS J. BILLY Devotion to God the Father in Religious Spirituality Ln some parts of the Catholic world, this article may draw w readers and perhaps outright protest. Among some reli-gious today, "Father" as referring to God might well be under-stood as an ideological catchword linking a speaker or writer, regardless of his or her intentions, with a slew of suspected atti-tudes (clustered around "patriarchy") about which questioning and disapproval would likely arise. Confronting Our Experience In such situations the anger evoked by an uncritical refer-ence to God as Father can be intense and highly vocal. A reaction to such anger could itself be a mirror image of the original--but in the opposite direction. "Every action has an equal and oppo-site reaction," as the saying goes. If care is not taken, this coun-tervailing process of action/reaction can spiral out of control and leave members of the believing community "poles apart." In such instances, division and animosity replace the dialogue and mutual respect that should characterize the believing com-munity. We should be saddened by such results, but not surprised. Human beings are weak and fragile. Even with the best of inten- Dennis J. Billy CSSR delivered this paper (here somewhat revised) in spring 1999 at the Institute of Spirituality of the Angelicmn in Rome. His postal address is Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma; Italy. Janua~y-Febrt~my 2000 Billy * Devotion to God the Father in Religious Spirituality tions, they can easily allow rancor and strife to get the upper hand in their lives. The same holds true for the communities people form, even religious ones. As the world gets smaller and smaller, I would not be surprised if the local Christian commu-nity and the local religious community reflect more and more of these complex and highly charged emotional tensions. Such is the nature of a world where technological advances have made mass communication practically instantaneous and where the communication media purvey religious sentiment for a society increasingly definable as a consumer market. Anything goes, if it will sell--better still if it will sell quickly. Package it well enough and you will get a large enough following to support your ideas. Besides, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. Right? If so, then we can call God whatever we please. Why not? I would be astonished if, among the readers of this journal, there is not a wide spectrum of strong emotional responses to my topic. Indeed, some of us may experience the full range of these intense emotional reactions in our own hearts. Some of us may have no problem whatsoever about referring to God as Father. Some of us may feel a certain ambivalence about the term and not quite understand why we feel the way we do. Some of us may feel guilty for feeling that way. Some of us may be confused and uncertain and may wonder h6w a simple phrase like "Our Father" can evoke such strong and conflicting emotional reac-tions. And some of us may be dead set against using such a term, regardless of what we say at Mass and regardless of what Scripture and Tradition, the pope, the magisterium, and even Jesus have to say about it. A reason for the vast array of reactions may be the ambiva-lence (and, in some cases, outright hatred) some people harbor toward their own fathers. Social historians speak of the weak-ened role of fatherhood in Western society due to tremendous upheavals brought about by the Industrial Revolution. As Western society became industrialized during the 19th and 20th centuries, the population gradually shifted from rural, agricultural areas to the cities and their outlying areas. Fathers went off to work in fac-tories, sometimes traveled long distances to get there, and returned home tired and hungry at the end of a long day with little energy for anything else. Over the years.this resulted in a culture with largely absent and disengaged fathers, who spent most of their time away from home and who had little direct Review for Religious contact with the inner workings of family life. Their job was to provide shelter and to put bread and butter on the table. Nothing more; nothing less. The image of the distant and detached father reading his evening paper, smoking his pipe, sipping his evening pint, oblivious to the needs of those around him, especially his children, is deeply embedded in many people's minds. In this century, advances in technology alleviated the situation some-what, but have created new demands on people's time and energy. These same advances, moreover, have brought much of the world under the sway of both the positive and the negative influ-ences of Western culture? If that is not enough, some people had fatherless childhoods because of war and disease. Imagine growing up without a father. People may not show it externally, but some of them have grown up feeling devastated, feel-ing abandoned by their fathers and perhaps even by God. Today households exist where the father or at least a strong fatherly influence simply does not exist. One wonders what calling God "Father" might mean in such a home. Of course, when fathers fail to take their roles seriously, when they neglect their children or abuse them with physical and psychological violence, even sexual misconduct, there is another problem about calling God "Father." Tensions grow and family situations worsen. No wonder that some people find it difficult to address God as their Father. Why should they think God would be anything but detached or remote or even violent toward them? How would you feel if you were in their shoes? Perhaps you already are. This is just a sampling of the wide range of feelings our topic can evoke. If we wish to understand what devotion to God the Father means for religious spirituality today, we need at the out-set to recognize and confront the wide range of sad experiences of fatherhood that people have had and do have. If we do not handle these problems regarding human fatherhood, theologians may look into possible new names for God and talk about them engagingly, but the names will very likely fail to make that all- We need to recognize and confront the wide range of sad experiences of fatherhood that people have had and do have. January-February 2000 Billy * Devotion to God the Father in Religious Spiritlutlity important journey from the mind to the heart. Proposed names that seem "theologically accurate" and "politically correct" are not likely ever to fit the mystery which sustains us and the world we live in from one moment to the next. If the words we use for God in prayer are somehow false, then the images they call up and our prayers themselves are likely to go awry. Defining Our Terms What does devotion to the Father mean in religious-life spir-ituality today? We have looked at various tensions to which use of this name for God gives rise in different people. Now we will clarify some of the terms of the discussion. To begin with, I follow Thomas Aquinas's understanding of "devotion" as "a ready willingness to give oneself to the service of God"; it is an act of religion, one of the allied virtues of jus-tice, and manifests itself in people's deep desire to serve God in whatever way asked of them (see ST2a-2ae.82.1 and 2). I use the word Father not in the Roman sense of paterfamilias (that is, "the patriarchal head of a household"), but in the Aramaic sense of "Abba" (that is, "Pap'a") that Jesus used to express the loving, compassionate face of God. This term has deep roots in the Christian psyche and expresses what experts in male spirituality refer to as "the deep masculinity" of God.2 Jesus himself explains this v.ery well in the Gospel of Luke when he says, "Be compas-sionate as your Father is compassionate" (Lk 6:36). By religious I refer to the way of life recognized by the Catholic Church that seeks to follow Christ through life in community and by the pub-lic profession of the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.3 This way of life has deep roots in Christian history, belongs to the charismatic dimension of the church, and forms an integral part of its life and holiness. By spirituality, in many ways the most elu-sive of the terms I am dealing with, I mean "how individuals or groups understand and carry out the ultimate meaning of their life." It can be discussed on three levels--the experiential, the doctrinal, and the analytical--and embraces both theoretical and concrete, practical issues.4 To quote a circular letter of Joseph W. Tobin, the Redemptorist superior general, "spirituality is con-nected with basic and often unsettling questions: Who are we? Why are we? How are we to live?''s Having clarified 'my terms, I can now express the question Review for Religious posed by my topic in the following way: What are the practical consequences of lifestyle and identity for those of us in the church who seek to give ourselves in service to God, our merciful and compassionate Father, through life in community and the public profession of the evangelical counsels? This question yields no simple solution. It is very difficult and complex, one that holds no instant solution, but must be pondered and contemplated by each community of religious and by each individual religious over and over and over again. I offer some guidelines to help in this process. Naming the Mystery Before we begin to do that, however, we must note the lim-itations of human language and its inability to exhaust the mys-tery of the divine. Language conceals as much as it reveals, perhaps even more. As Pseudo-Dionysius reminds us in The Divine Names: "God is . . . known in all things and as distinct from all things. He is known through knowledge and through unknowing. Of him there is conception, reason, understanding, touch, perception, opinion, imagination, name, and many other things. On the other hand he cannot be understood, words can-not contain him, and no name can lay hold of him.''6 The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§370) affirms this when it reminds us that we are created in God's image and not vice versa: "God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective 'perfections' of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband." In other words, the names we give God express something of who God is, but also fall infinitely short. Kataphatic (or "posi-tive") theology and apophatic (or "negative") theology go hand in hand. God is "Abba, Father," as Jesus teaches us, but also "our loving Mother," as the 14th-century anchoress Julian of Norwich reminds us in her Showings, and "inmost ground," as Meister Eckhart proposes in his German works.7 God can be referred to by these and a host of other religious appellations, some of which we can readily identify with, others not so readily. Perhaps it is only the "coincidence of opposites" which best expresses the mystery of God, who is known in the midst of our unknowing and who cannot be confined by our meager attempts to express the inexpressible. Janua~. -February 2000 Billy ¯ Devotion to God the Father in Religious Spirituality Theological language is fundamentally analogical in nature. That is to say, any word we use when speaking about or naming God expresses, at one and the same time, both a proportional likeness and difference. This holds true even for the word which the Word made flesh himself used to address God. Jesus calls God "Abba, Father," not to tie God down, define him, create an image of him in our heads, or (worse yet) exhaust his mystery, but to assure us that compassion and love rather than confusion and chaos lie at the heart of existence. This is precisely what the Spirit tells us when it cries out "Abba, Father" deep within our hearts and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words (see Rm 8:15-27). Something rings true in our hearts when we call God "Abba, Father." We know that God is very much more than this two-syllable word can convey, but somehow it seems all right. We sense that God hears us, understands us, and assures us that all shall be well. A Revealed Religion Why is this so? We already have a received a glimpse of the reason above when, referring to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§370), we noted that we are created in God's image, and not vice versa. Notice the passive voice. We are created. It is not we who do the creating. God is not a function of our language and systems of thought. We do not somehow "create" God by the names we give him or the theologies we concoct to express his divine mystery. If this were true, then theology itself would just be a sophisticated form of anthropomorphizing. In fact, God takes the initiative and reveals to us the nature of the divine. The ini-tiative is not for us to take; we are receivers. God uses human instruments, of course, which themselves are weak and fallible, but he takes the initiative. We must not forget that Christianity is a revealed religion. When it comes to naming God, it recognizes that human reason and human imagination can only go so far. On our own, all we can come up with is the recognition of the weakness of human lan-guage to express the inexpressible and the necessity of using many names so as to

Issue 59.2 of the Review for Religious, 2000. ; Celibate .Chastity: A Symposium Religious Life Questions Witnessing Hispanic Catholic Report MARCH APRIL 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 2 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faithful to God's universal call to holiness by making available to them the spiritual legacies tbat flow from the charlsms of Catbollc consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis Univers!ty by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: foppema@slu.edu Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP P.O. Box 29260; "Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2000 Review for Religious Permission is herewith gianted 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, arid copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~ 0 ]LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Barbara J. Soete SSND James and Joan Felling Kathryn Richards FSP joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC MARCH APRIL 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 2 con en s 118 131 139 c Oib te chastity: symposium Bowling Alone, Living Alone: Current Social Contexts for Living the Vows Mary Johnson SNDdeN couples the social context of community living with new possibilities for the meaning of the vows, particularly celibate chastity, so as to provide a radical gospel-based witness to countercultural values. Celibate Life Offers Insights Keith Clark OFMCap gives evidence that a celibate life well lived communicates to our culture a powerful message about the nature and meaning of sexuality, the unique nature of Christian marriage, and the motivation for the church's ministry. Discerning Our Celibate Way in Our Culture David L. Fleming SJ spells out some of the implications of discernment--making decisions with a lover's instinct--for living celibate chastity, which is defined as a way of loving. 148 156 What Is Religious Life's Purpose? Justin Taylor SM and Albert Dilanni SM question whether the basic purpose of religious life had been obscured long before Vatican II and still calls for clarity now. Must Hermits Work? Kenneth C. Russell provides insight into the place and value of work in the traditions of eremitical life in the Western church and draws some conclusions for today. Review for Religious 175 Mission: Not Do We Have One But Do I Live One? Rol~ert J. Murray OS~, emphasizes the need to live the valu'es reflected in mission statements for the health of the congregation. 180 188 The Easter Faith of Catherine of Siena Roland Calvert OSFS explains the paradox of Easter faith found not in Catherine's writings but in the activities of her life. Foucauld's Evolving Response tO God's Call Cathy Wright LSJ pictures the unfolding of the vocation of Charles de Foucauld and points to what it says to us about understanding our own vocations. 193 repor U.S. Hispanic Catholics: Trends and Works 1999 Kenneth G. Davis OFMConv, Eduardo C. Fernfindez SJ, and Ver6nica M~ndez RCD present a panoramic of the year's events within the U.S. Hispanic Catholic community. 116 Prisms 209 Canonical Counsel: Location of the Novitiate 214 Book Reviews March-April 2000 116 ~e sometimes put more into preparing for a special event than we put into the actual celebration. We have been preparing during these past years to celebrate the new millennium--our efforts inspired by Pope John Paul II's Tertio Millennio Adveniente. Now that we have entered into the year 2000 we may find ourselves forgetful of the reason for our preparations. The bishops' conferences in many countries have identified various ways that priests, lay people, and religious may enter together into special celebrations that grace our liturgical year. Personally we are faced with the more day-to- day question: What are we doing to celebrate this jubilee year? First we need to recall for ourselves the obvious. What is this jubilee about? The heart of the jubilee year is our cherishing and rejoicing in the fact that the Word was made flesh, God became man, Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, was born two thousand years ago. And our world has never been the same. Each of us is called anew to our following of Jesus. How well do we know him? Despite the frequency with which we are exposed to the acronym WWJD, do we feel confident in acting out our response to the question "What would Jesus do?" The very title we proudly bear--Christian--suggests that others can expect to see in us a face of Christ, his action, his love, and his forgiveness. Perhaps, first of all, we need a renewed effort in this jubilee year to foster our friendship with Christ. As we search out the ways helpful to us for growing in our knowledge and love of Jesus (for example, spiritual reading, Bible study, prayer, Eucharist, volunteer service projects), we may find that Jesus' reference to the jubilee text in Isaiah 61 as he proclaims his own mission in Luke 4:18-19 can become our entrance into a way of celebration: Review for Religious The spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord. The context for such a mission for Jesus and so for us is "to be anointed," "to be sent." The biblical concept of jubilee involves, above all, a call from God. As we make attempts to find ways that we can celebrate, more than rushing to take on pious devotions or vol-unteer ministries, we need to listen to the call of God in our life. A litde more reflection time--listening time--is a pervading essential of a jubilee year. Jubilee and sabbath are intimately connected since jubilee is God's expansion of the sabbath rest. But rest in relation to God is not defined as inactivity; rather, sabbath centers us on taking time for our relationship with God, for enhancing that relationship. In a jubilee time we respond to God's initiative in our way of cele-brating rather than assume the initiative ourselves. Our behavior, then, would be like Jesus'--who describes himself as sent. For Jesus, the initiative is always God's. Our celebrating jubilee begins with our taking the time to be a listener, our being available to God's initiative, our making the effort to enhance our relationship with God. Just as jubilee is related to sabbath, so jubilee is also related to Sunday, the day of Jesus' resurrection. Jubilee celebrates a new begin-ning: drawing on new reserves of resources (for those who feel empty and poor), seeking new visions (for those who are blind or in the dark), enjoying new freedom (for those who suffer from feeling lim-ited and bound). The jubilee ideal for the Israelite people was spelled out in such concrete actions as returning land to original settlers, setting free the slave or servant, and letting the land lie fallow. Every action looked to a newness of life, a renewed beginning. Jesus assumed this dimension of the jubilee ideal as his mission and gave it divine meaning in his resurrection. We, the followers of Jesus and the recipients of his Spirit, continue to follow his example as we cel-ebrate jubilee: we listen to God, we follow God's lead, we imitate Jesus, we act like Christians. Maybe a jubilee year !s a time for us to confound G.K. Chesterton's witty and yet poignant judgment: "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has not been tried." Our celebration means that we determine to act like Christians, day in day out, all year long. Th~ world around us cer-tainly would be different. We would know a jubilee. David L. Fleming SJ 117 . March-April 2000 MARY JOHNSON Bowling Alone, Living Alone: Current Social Contexts for Living the Vows celibate chastity a symposium The meaning of the vows, sociologically speaking, is drawn from the human context in which they are lived. Sociologically speaking, their significance lies, not in interior inspiration and dedication, but in how they appear different from other ways of life and ways of liv-ing. Religious vows are liv~d in many social contexts. This discussion focuses on two of them, the societal and the communal. For the first, I shall turn to Robert D. Putnam's influential article "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital" (1995). For the second, I shall refer to the provocative talk given by Sister Doris Gottemoeller RSM at the Wernersville symposium in 1998 and later published in Review for Religious (March-April 1999) and to relevant data from my recent study of women's institutes in the United States. Mary Johnson SNDdeN, an associate professor of sociology at Emmanuel College in Boston, participated in the symposium titled "Celibate Chastity: God's Invitation to Love in a Sexually Confused Culture" held 22-24 October 1999 at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. This and the next two articles come from that symposium. In this written version Mary Johnson has refocused her original presentation, developing and broadening the topic in the light of the subse-quent papers and discussions. Her address is Sociology Department; Emmanuel College; 400 The Fenway; Boston, Massachusetts 02115. Review for Religious Bowling Alone Harvard Professo~ Robert Putnam, in "Bowling Alone," draws a riveting picture of the result of the loosening of communal bonds across U.S. society in the last thirty years. A commentary on his research in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Heller, 1996) notes that "scores of iournalists have picked up on the implica-tions." Policy makers and government officials, too, have listened to him. Putnam has twice been invited to the White House for brainstorming sessions on the breakdown of American communi-ties. Currently he is writing a book on the subject, doing cross-national research, and participating in workshops that seek solutions to widespread civic disengagement. Putnam notes that "American social scientists of a neo- Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of empirical evi-dence that the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in America) are indeed powerfully influ-enced by norms and networks of civic engagement." He says that these norms and networks are elements of the "social connected-ness" that constitutes the social scientific concept of "social cap-ital." He defines the concept thus: "Social capital refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit." He continues: "For some reason, life is easier in a commu-nity blessed with a substantial stock of social capital. In the first place, networks of civic engagement foster sturdy norms of gen-eralized reciprocity and encourage the emergence of social trust. Such networks facilitate coordination and communication, amplify reputations, and thus allow dilemmas of collective action to be resolved. When economic and political negotiation is embedded in dense networks of social interaction, incentives for opportunism are reduced. At the same time, networks of civic engagement embody past success at collaboration, which can serve as a cul-tural template for future collaboration. Finally, dense networks of interaction probably broaden the participants' sense of self, devel-oping the T into the 'we.'" Putnam then provides a sweeping overview of the "declined" in social capital in the United States since the 1960s. He begins with politics. Putnam points out that, from the early 1960s to 1990, voter turnout has declined by a quarter in national elec-tions. Since 1973, attendance at town meetings has declined by a third. He states that decline is evident in studies of the numbers March-April 2000 Johnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone "attending a political rally or speech, serving on a committee of some local organization, and working for a political party." He comments on the loosening of bonds in nuclear and extended families and in neighborhoods. He continues by citing evidence of decline in religious involvement, labor union mem-bership, parent-teacher association involvement, and volunteer-ing in civic, fraternal, and women's organizations like the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, the Shriners, the Jaycees, and the League of Women Voters. He states that, "after expanding steadily throughout most of [the 20th] century, many major civic organi-zations have experienced a sudden, substantial, and nearly simul-taneous decline in membership over the last decade or two." Putnam concludes this section of his article by referring to the metaphor in his title, which has become a symbol of the dis-integration of communal bonds in the society. He says: "The most whimsical yet discomfiting bit of evidence of social disengage-ment in contemporary America that I have discovered is this: More Americans are bowling today than ever before, but bowling in organized leagues has plummeted in the last decade or so. Between 1980 and 1993 the total number of bowlers in America increased by ten percent, while league bowling decreased by forty percent. The broader social, significance, however, lies in the social inter-action and even occasionally civic conversations over beer and pizza that solo bowlers forg6. Bowling teams illustrate yet another vanishing form of social capital." Putnam gives evidence of some countertrends: the rapid and dramatic rise in membership in certain groups like the Sierra Club, the National Organization for Women, and the American Association of Retired Persons. However, while the political clout of these organizations is considerable, the nature of involvement is vastly different from the organizations discussed previously. Putnam says: "For the vast majority of their members (Sierra, NOW, AARP, and so forth), the only act of membership consists of writing a check for dues or perhaps occasionally reading a newslet-ter. Their ties, in short, are to common symbols, common leaders, and perhaps common ideals, but not to one another. From the point of view of social connectedness, the Environmental Defense Fund and a bowling league are just not in the same category." Putnam identifies two other countertrends: the growth in non-profit organizations, and in support groups. But he argues that these do not fill the role that civic organizations do. He cites soci- Review for Religious ologist Robert Wuthnow's national, study of support groups: "Small groups may not be fostering community as effectively as many of their proponents would like. Some small groups merely provide occasions for individuals to focus on themselves in the presence,of others. The social contract binding members together asserts only the weakest of obligations. Come if you have time. Talk if you feel like it. Respect everyone's opinion. Never criticize. Leave qui-etly if you become dissatisfied. We can imagine that [these small groups] really substitute for families, neigh-borhoods, and broader community attach-ments that may demand lifelong commitments, when, in fact, they do not." Putnam has reflected on causes of and solutions to the breakdown of American communal life. He calls for reinventing community life, but, as an interview arti-cle in the Chronicle of Higher Education says, "the Internet will not do the trick. Nor will nostalgia for a vanishing America. 'Some people have interpreted what I have said as a nostalgic call to return to the 50s. That is not what I say.'" He continues: "It is not just social capital, period. It is social capital that cuts across the existing cleavages in American society. That is, it is not enough that we all start bowling again. There have to be bowling leagues in which people of different races are connecting with one another." He concludes his interview by asserting: "This is the single most important problem facing America. If we can solve this one, if we can get more people engaged in community life in contexts that respect American pluralism, many of our other problems--to begin with, our politics--will be different." Bowling teams illustrate yet another vanishing form of social capital. Beginning the Conversation Putnam's portrait of a society bowling alone has struck a deep chord in the national psyche of Americans. It has caused many to reflect on the fact that our democracy is dependent on a vibrant civic life held together by strong communal bonds. I would argue that Sister Doris Gottemoeller's article "Community Living: Beginning the Conversation" has had a similar effect. Her article has struck a deep chord in the religious psyche of Catholic sis-ters, causing many to ponder what community means to the way March-April 2000 12I Johnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone of life and mission of apostolic religious in this country. The com-munal bonds that Putnam studies appear weak in a variety of local institutions--family, neighborhood, civic organization, and the like. Both articles point us to a consideration of the quality of communal bonds in local communities of religious. The intent of Sister Doris's article is to "break the silence" about living in community. She believes that "community living may be the 'Achilles' heel' of contemporary apostolic religious life." She says, "Often the mere mention of the topic brings about an awkward silence, embarrassed dismissals, or defensive equivo-cations." She cites a number of reasons for the present silence about the discussion of community life and then raises six questions to begin the conversation: What are we talking about when we talk about community living? What is its theological basis? What can we say about a spirituality for community? What is the role of leadership in creating and sustaining community? What are some special challenges to living community life today? What can we do to renew our community life? I want to focus on the first question here since I believe that it is foundational to .further discussion. Without clear terminology, discussion can lose its way. Sister Doris offers this definition: "Community living is what happens when two or more people relate to one another in a significant, mutually beneficial, and ongoing way." She elaborates on what she means by each of these elements and then concludes that "we are tal~ng about good-faith efforts to live a principal value of religious life. With few excep-tions, it will include a common residence." Building the Structures I begin with Sister Doris's first question bechuse, while much of our rhetbric about ourselves refers to our life in community, I am not convinced that we have a commonly accepted definition. And our inability to arrive at such a definition has implications for ourselves and those who want to join us as sisters. A case in point: A front-page article in the Sunday New York Times (16 January 2000) discusses the efforts of the Sisters of Mercy of New York, New Jersey, and Brooklyn in using modern media tools (a Web site and an advertising campaign) to recruit a new generation of sisters. The article is illustrated with a graphic (recently sent to college campuses in poster form) that includes a catchy picture Revlew for Religious and caption. At the bottom are the words "Sisters of Mercy-- women religious who respond to God's call each day through ser-vice, prayer, and community life." This descriptive is similar to dozens of others used by con-gregations throughout the United States in recruitment efforts. My question now is: What do we mean when we promise new sis-ters community life, and what do they expect to receive when they come? Numbers of women interested in entering, and numbers of newer and not-so-new sisters as well, express a desire to live and pray and share household tasks and support for ministry with sis-ters under the same roof. That is their definition of "community." These women are neither statistically nor substantively insignifi-cant to the present and future of religious life. But it is clear that nowadays the definition of community is often being adapted to mean province life, congregational life, parish life, a circle of inti-mate friends, family members, prayer partners, support and prayer groups within congregations, coworkers, and national and inter-national groups. These broader (or narrower) definitions of com-munity are shared by other numbers of religious. This is a serious issue that has to be addressed. It is one more example of Putnam's finding that communal bonds that have united people to one another on the local level are disintegrating, even while new kinds of linkages are being established. This is not to say that people do not still espouse ideals. But, as Putnam found, they often do so in the abstract or at a distance, through periodic meet-ings, newsletters, or the Internet. But, we have to ask, is this level of engagement adequate to sustain a way of life and mission and to socialize the newer sisters, the majority of whom desire com-munal bonds within communities? This is also not to imply that the relationships with other groups are not important to and essen-tial for life and mission. But, as Putnam said about social con-nectedness, "the Environmental Defense Fund and a bowling league are just not in the same category." Similarly, a group of friends that meets quarterly, a prayer group that meets monthly, and a support group that meets weekly are just not in the same category as a community that lives under the same roof and inter-acts daily. Another question, whether the daily interaction of the community is life-giving, or death-dealing, is an important one, but a different one. Often the two questions are conflated, thus bringing conversation about community to a dead halt. ~larch-April 2000 Johnson * Bowling Alone, Living Alone The work of sharply defining and rebuilding community is essential to the mission and future of apostolic religious life in the United States and other nations where religious life struggles to free itself from the hegemonic hold of middle-class values. This effort is as radical as previous clear and unequivocal claims that the preferential option for the poor means the materially poor. Because many people were willing to work to prevent the word poor from being stretched to meaninglessness and the resultant loss of its prophetic power, we now have a new generation of young Catholics in the United States who claim, in a survey our research team recently conducted, that concern for the poor and the belief that God is present in a special way in the poor are essential dimensions of the Catholic faith (Dinges et al., p. 13). That work, of almost three decades ago, toward a clear and unequivocal def-inition of "the poor" has galvanized energy and commitment to the poor today, especially on the part of the young. In sociology there are dozens of uses for the term community. M1 members of the church, whether single or married, clergy or religious, find themselves embedded in all kinds of groups-fami-lies and parishes and prayer, work, neighborhood, ethnic, national, and international or global groups--which they sometimes describe as their "community." Those social networks will only increase and multiply in the years ahead as technology becomes even more sophisticated. The time seems to be right, especially in the midst of conversations about new forms of religious life, for a case to be made by those who believe that local community life with strong communal bonds is fundamental, not incidental, to apostolic religious life and its mission. This need becomes more acute in light of data given below, data I collected recently in my national study (funded by Lilly Endowment) of women's institutes in the United States. (The .publication of the data from the entire study is forthcoming.) Gathering data from apostolic, monastic, and evangelical orders, the survey was responded to by 70 percent of the women's institutes, institutes that represent 84 percent of the sisters in the United State~. The survey indicates that there are 18,052 com-munities (local houses). The vast majority are apostolic commu-nities. The unit of analysis here is the community, the local house. The table reads as follows: 49 percent of the religious houses in the United States have one sister residing in them, 20 percent of the houses have two sisters, and 9 percent have three sisters; 2 percent Review for Religious of the houses have more than 20 sisters residing in them. Community Size Percentage of houses Number of sisters 49 One 20 Two 9 Three 7 Four 4 Five 6 6-10 2 11-15 1 16-20 2 Over 20 Do these data surprise you? What explains them? How does your congregation compare? What has been lost and gained in this new configuration of houses? Surveying the sisters who entered religious life from 1966 to 1998--the post-Vatican II entrants, not a statistically or substan-tively insignificant generation--I asked the following questions. If you had your preference right now, with whom would you prefer to live? No one 8.8 percent An ecumenical group 0.7 percent An interfaith group 0.4 percent Married couple(s) 0.1 percent Single lay person(s) 0.9 percent Men and women religious 3.8 percent Sisters of my own institute 64.1 percent Children 0.2 percent Teens/young adults 0.1 percent Family members 0.3 percent Intercongregationally - 5.3 percent Combination of my sisters and one of the above 15.2 percent If you bad your preference right now, with how many sisters would you prefer to live? With none 11 percent With one other sister 14 percent With two other sisters 12 percent In a group of 4-7 sisters 45 percent In a group of 8-10 sisters 6 percent In a group of 11-15 sisters 2 percent In a group of 16-20 sisters 4 percent In a group of more than 20 sisters : 6 percent March-April 2000 ~obnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone Which of these data surprise you? What might explain these data? What further discussions do we need to have in light of these data? How do these issues of community relate to mission? What place does community hold in the life of apostolic congregations? Living in Community In light of Putnam's data, it seems that the creation of com-munal bonds is truly countercultural; that is, it goes against the prevailing value of social disconnectedness and weak, superficial, or nonexistent bonds among people and groups on the local level in the wider society. Countercultural living is one of the hallmarks of religious life. Can these issues be addressed in this light? One challenge to the conversation has to do with the social and communal contexts in which we live. The vows are not only lived within a wider society, marked by looser communal bonds and a religious life characterized by primarily monadic, dyadic, and triadic configurations. The vows are also lived against a hege-monic middle-class culture in which individualism, privatism, and materialism are cornerstones. Another challenge is the personal. Some sisters have had to move into various communal arrangements over the years because of ministry. But sometimes ministry concerns can serve to eclipse .any conversation about community. Some sisters have not been community builders or sustainers in the past. Can these issues be revisited again at this new moment? The challenge is compounded by the fact that many sisters holding key positions in the min-istries of leadership, formation work, vocation work, academia, pastoral work and counseling, national conference work, parish and diocesan work, congregational service, and so forth live alone. Can we be certain to include them in this conversation, even if we have sometimes avoided this issue altogether because they are our friends? Sometimes, when people do live with others, there seems to be a sense that, because of their work, the fewer persons living in the house, the better. Greater numbers of people are seen as deen-ergizing people for mission rather than energizing them. One hears gasps, even groans, when someone says that she lives with several sisters. Memories of the past rise up and seem to choke any attempt to talk about living with more than two other people, an arr.angement that might better accommodate needs of miriistry Review for Religious and hospitality, congregational responsibilities, household tasks, and the maintaining of "breathing room." Can we get to this level in the conversation? The inability to discuss some of these issues is all the more .troubling given the fact that the Catholic Church in the United States continues to grow. It now stands at 62 million people, the largest religious body in the nation, with 20 million of its members in their 20s and 30s. It is paradoxical that, as the church grows, the size of religious houses shrinks. At the same time, vocation and formation personnel continue to plead for more space for possible aspirants and newer sisters. Celibacy in Culture It is against the backdrop of these social and communal con-siderations that I present a brief overview of recent studies in human sexuality. The intended and unintended consequences of uncoupling the vows from community living (a phenomenon now several decades old) need, I' am convinced, to be analyzed regard-ing the mutual relationship each of the three vows has with com-munity. That is, how does celibacy shape community and community shape celibacy? How does poverty shape community and community shape poverty? And so forth. For the purposes of this symposium, we shall focus on celibacy. The studies in human sexuality point to new possibilities for the meaning of this vow: that, together with community, it can provide a radical gospel-based witness to countercultural values. Groups who live this vow well, sharing together the depth of a nongenitally expressed intimacy, give witness to one of the deep-est yearnings of this culture. The celibacy of a group gives proof to the whole society that its yearnings for intimacy can be ful-filled, that it is possible to love deeply and celibately and to do so together, without harsh lonliness. Celibate groups witness to the fact that the journey does not have to be made in isolation, that even this seemingly lonely vow is to be shared. Communities with strong communal bonds and deep celibate love witness also to a love that can cross the seemingly uncrossable social lines of gen-eration, race, and social class, to name just three. It is especially to the young that we must go with this news since they are the objects of so much manipulation about whom to love and how to love. Some of them say that because of this they are afraid to love. We, March-April 2000 127 - Johnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone whose public identities are so clearly tied to a unique way of liv-ing love, have a corporate responsibility to speak about what we have learned about love to a society paradoxically satiated by sex-ual excess and starved for intimacy. While no studies of human sexuality are perfect because of people's tendencies to overreport or underreport sexual practice, we can glean, from data collected in the following studies, some insights as to how to share the gift that has been given us. The first attempt at a systematic look at issues of human sex-uality was conducted by Alfred Kinsey. Considered a pioneer, Kinsey began his research in the 1930s, and his assertions stood for almost four decades. His work, however, was not without problems. He did not use a sample; he relied upon volunteers to serve as respondents, and so their responses were not representative of the population as a whole. In later years Masters and Johnson, too, used volunteers, involving their work in the same difficulty of being nongeneralizable. Nongeneralizable work can, however, provide important insights on other levels. Sociologist Lillian Rubin, in the United States in the late 1980s, interviewed a thou-sand people between the ages of thirteen and forty-eight about their sexual practices. One significant finding was that sexual activ-ity begins early among today's teens and that teen sexual practices are similar to those of adults. The National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS) of the 1990s was the first national scientific study of sexual practices. Rather than enlisting volunteers, it used probability sampling to find its respondents. A thumbnail sketch of some of the findings follows. First, there has been and increase in the level of pre-marital sex, especially among women. Over 95 percent of U.S. men and women getting married ~oday have been sexually active before marriage. One in five women have reported being forced to perform sexual acts against their will. The perpetrator was often known by the women; sometimes it was someone they loved, including their own husbands. On the other hand, only 3 percent of men reported that they had forced women to perform sexual acts. The researchers, struck by the gender gap, hypothesized' that the gap was due not only to underreporting by the men but also to their failure to recognize their behavior as coercive. The survey also found that 2.8 percent of men and 1.4 percent of women identified themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. This Review for Religious stands in contradiction to the Kinsey report of 1948, wherein 10 percent of the population was estimated to be homosexual. Groups challenged the NHSLS findings, arguing that the percentages are too small. The research team responded by saying that, although larger percentages of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are found in urban areas and in other enclaves in the United States, the survey findings reflect national, not local or regional, reality. The researchers analyzed their data according to religion and level of education. The Catholic data here indicate that the median number of sex partners since age eighteen was three. Thirteen percent of the Catholics had no sex part-ners in the previous year, 72 percent had one sex partner, 13 percent had 2 to 4 sex partners, and 3 percent had 5 or more sex partners. Which of the above findings surprise you? Which do not? How can discus-sions about sexuality improve our rela-tionship with and commitment to all of the people of God? Beyond these questions, it seems to me that further discussion on living the vows in community might be helped by the following questions: ¯ In light of the studies on human sexu-ality, how do we talk about celibacy and how do we support celibacy? ¯ What kind of norms and structures are in place in those communities which exhibit strong communal bonds? ¯ In those communities, how are the following values manifest: personal and communal prayer? celebration and mealtimes? ecological sensi-tivity? hospitality? concern for social justice and the poor? a sim-ple lifestyle? loving support? trust and joy? concern for the ministry and apostolic call of each sister~ fidelity to the call of the wider congregation and to the people of God? ¯ What are the forces, besides ministry or mission, that have pushed some people to live alone or live with their best friend? ¯ How can we resolve issues about community of the past so that we can move toward envision.ing community for the present and future? ¯ How can we unite our efforts to build strong commu-nities and to learn how to live together with the efforts of other groups, especially couples and families, who are also trying to How can discussions about sexuality improve our relationship with and commitment to all of the people of God? 129 March-April 2000 Johnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone r learn how to live together, to resolve conflicts peacefully, and to enjoy life together? ¯ How can we unite our efforts to balance ministry and community with the efforts of so many in the soci-ety who yearn for a healthier balance of work and family life? These conversations may not be easy becatise they will require crossing a major, though subtle, divide between those who see liv-ing in community as essential and those who see it as incidental. By not engaging in these conversations, however, we uninten-tionally contribute to negative effects on recruitment, retention, and mission. In the midst of wide-ranging and sometimes obfus-cating discussions on new forms of religious life, the voices of those who are committed to the radical gospel-values contained in the vowed apostolic life as it is lived in community have been eerily silent. Perhaps the time has come for many more sisters to break the taboo. References Dinges, William, Dean R. Hoge, Mary Johnson, and Juan L. Gonzalez Jr. "A Faith Loosely Held: The Institutional Allegiance of Young Catholics." Commonweal, 17 July 1998, 13-18. Gotternoeller, Doris, RSM. "Community Living: Beginning the Conversation." Review for Religious 58, no. 2 (March-April 1999): 137-149. Heller, Scott. "Harvard Professor Examines America's Fading Sense of Community." Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 March 1996, A10. Putnam, Robert D. "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital." Journal of Democracy 6, no. 1 (January 1995): 65-78. Many foreign missionaries depend upon people like you who donate subscriptions for them to Review for Religious. To start a subscription for a deserving missionary, please send $24 to: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Blvd. ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108 To pay by credit card, phone: 314-977-7363. Review for Religious KEITH CLARK Celibate Life Offers Insights poerhaps the most countercultural statement that will come ut of this conference is its title. This may be the only gath-ering that states boldly that we live in a "sexually confused cul-ture." My experience of the past twenty years suggests that an ever increasing number of people with backgrounds in an ever widen-ing array of disciplines have attempted to pronounce the last word in just about all areas of human sexuality. We sit here and suggest that our culture is sexually confused. Audacious! I have no "last word" to offer on the topic. The most recent word I have spoken to myself is this: I want to write to the Holy Father and ask him to change the discipline of mandatory celibacy as a prerequisite for presbyteral ordination in the Roman Church. My reason is this: The witness of a celibate life well lived is thor-oughly obscured in our society, in our church, by the assumption on the part of most that those who are committed to a celibate life have made the commitment reluctantly in order to achieve the status of ordination. Since ordination does not have that much status in the eyes of most people, there is little impetus to con-sider seriously either a celibate lifestyle or ordination. The thou-sands of women and men religious who are committed to a celibate life are somehow lumped with those who are assumed to be reluc-tant celibates for the sake of some other pursuit. Keith Clark OFMCap presented this paper at a symposium titled "Celibate Chastity: God's Invitation to Love in a Sexually Confused Culture," held in October 1999 at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. His address is St. Lawrence Friary; 301 Church Street; Mount Calvary, Wisconsin 53057. March-April 2000 Clark ¯ Celibate Life Offers Insights I would make my request of the Holy Father not because I think celibacy has no relevance to our culture, but rather so that the celibate life well lived will better communicate to our culture what our culture so desperately needs to understand. A celibate life well lived can communicate to our culture a powerful message about the nature and meaning of human sexu-ality, the unique nature of Christian marriage, and the motivation for the church's ministry. In order to live a celibate life well, a priest or religious must engage in prayer and ministry in a way that fosters that life. These are the points I intend to develop. The Nature and Meaning of Human Sexuality To understand the nature of human sexuality, we have to go beyond exclusive concentration on the study of genetic markers, synapses in the brain, and the other fascinations of scientific explo-ration in order to understand how human beings are moved to come together in a sexual encounter and commitment. My experience suggests that I am sexual on three levels. First, I know myself to be sexual on the biological level. I have a biolog-ical sexual apparatus which works. It is entirely instinctual. And ir works no matter how I understand or misunderstand it. My bio-logical sexual apparatus is clearly designed to bring me together with a female member of my species for the purpose of making other human beings. (See the Nova series program The Miracle of Life.) The impetus I receive from my biological level to come together with another human being is pleasure. Genital sexual activity is pleasurable. I identify this impetus as my biological sex-ual urge. It can be, and is, the subject of scientific inquiry. I know myself to be sexual on the biopsychological level. In most instances, this is experienced as being sexual in an emotional way. It is that amazing level of the human being which allows one's body to affect one's psyche, and one's psyche to affect one's body. The blush in the cheeks in response to embarrassment in one's psyche is possible because of our biopsychological makeup: In terms of my sexuality, the biopsychological level is that in me which allows some things to have sexual significance for me and which, therefore, stir my biological sexual apparatus. This is the seat of romantic interest. This level of sexuality is both instinc-tual and learned. I am born with the capacity to recognize some things as having sexual significance, and I learn some things that Review for Religious have sexual significance for me. I learn these things, not because somebody sits me down and talks to me, but because of the "minute displays of emotion" (Erik Erikson) which I pick up from my sur-roundings. What has sexual significance varies from one culture to another. (See the movie Walkabout.) The impetus I receive from my biopsychological level to come together with other human beings is emotional fascination. Romantic sexual activity is exciting. I iden-tify this impetus as my biopsychological sexual drive. It can be, and is, the subject of scientific inquiry, especially today, since this level includes one's sexual orientation. Most discussions of human sexuality stop after genital sexual urges and romantic sexual drives have been spoken about. These are the levels we humans share with the higher forms of animal life. Whatever else is said about human sexuality is frequently thought to be the in the realm of religionists and ethicists, taking the form of advice and instruction on how to ride the beast which has been described in considering the biological and biopsychological levels. But, even in the higher forms of animal life, there is another level: the level of sexual need. In the animal world, the sexual need is that the species continue. This sexual need instinctually regulates or moderates the activity of the urges and drives. The biological urges and the biopsychological drives of male dogs are activated only when the need of the species can be met, when there is in the vicinity a female dog in heat. It is filling this sexual need that gives meaning to all the sexual activity. At the level of sexual need, we human beings differ from the higher forms of animal life in two ways. First, we are spiritual beings, and our personal needs are not entirely subjugated to the needs of the species. We have also a personal sexual need, that is, our need for intimacy with other human beings. Second, in human beings the sexual need for the species and the personal sexual need for intimacy do not instinctually moderate our sexual urges and drives. Because we are persons (spiritual), we have an intellect and will. We must moderate our sexual urges and drives by insight and freedom, or they will not be moderated. Because the activity of our biological urges and our biopsy-chological drives is not instinctually moderated, human beings can engage in genital and romantic pursuits without any reference to the personal need for intimacy or the need of the species to con-tinue. Thus, people have invented contraception and abortion, which divorce sexual activity from the need of the species, and March-April 2000 Clark ¯ Celibate Life Offers Insights have invented free love and sexual promiscuity as well, which divorce sexual activity from the personal need for intimacy. The gratification of people's sexual urges and drives is accepted as ade-quate meaning for sexuality. "If it feels good, do it." Urges and drives impel people to behave in ways that will fill their sense of need. If the gratification of their sexual urges and drives alone brought sexual fulfillment, ours would be the most sexually fulfilled culture in the world. In fact, human sexual activ-ity can find its meaning only in the filling of the human sexual need for intimacy. Intimacy is the "simultaneous fusing and coun-terpointing of personalities" (Erikson). It is spirit touching spirit. It is allowed to arise in human life through the dynamics of self-awareness, self-disclosure, and listening in prayer. Among the ways those dynamics can be expressed are genital and romantic pur-suits. But, among married, single, and celibate people, intimacy can arise without genital and romantic pursuits. A celibate life well lived reveals this meaning of human sexu-ality. Celibacy is not merely abstinence from genital and romantic pursuits; that by itself will not lead to personal sexual fulfillment in intimacy. A celibate life well lived is the pursuit of intimacy, sex-ual fulfillment, in ways which do not include romantic and geni-tal pursuits. It is a way of loving people, not because I am urged or driven to do so because they have sexual significance to me, but because they are deserving of love whether they appeal to me or not. The celibate man or woman stands as a support to spouses in their pursuit of intimacy, whether at the moment the spouses are romantically driven or genitally urged or not. The celibate woman or man stands as a support to all people in their pursuit of con-nectedness with other human beings for reasons quite distinct from their attractiveness to us. The Unique Nature of Christian Marriage Although a celibate commitment is most often spoken of as a distinct contrast to married life, the two states of life are intimately related within the believing Christian community. The marriage of Christians is different from the way other people marry. Christian marriage is a sacrament because it is a vis-ible sign of what cannot be seen. Christian marriage is not merely a response to the genital and romantic feelings the spouses have for each other. The commitment of spouses to each other is a com- Review for Religious mitment to be there for each other for life, no matter what. It is a sign of how fully Christ has taken us all to himself. A celibate commitment is not a sacrament: it points to some-thing that can be seen, but might not be recognized for what it is. The celibate commitment points to what is unique in the com-mitment of Christian married couples. The committed celibate within the believing community asks all people to recognize the unique basis for Christian marriage. The Motivation of the Church's Ministry in the World A committed celibate life is a lifestyle, not a ministry. That lifestyle, however, points to that which is the basis of all church ministry. The church's ministry is caring for one another within the community and taking care of our world. It is based on the min-istry of Jesus, who said, "I have come, not to be served, but to serve." Church ministry to its members and to the rest of the world is not based on the driven components of human love, nor is it merely philanthropy called for by the needs people have. It is based on Jesus' commandment to love one another as he loved us. Again, the committed celibate life points to something that can be seen (the ministry), but might not be recognized for what it is. There is, accordingly, an argument from "fittingness" to be made for a celibate commitment in the ordained ministers who preside at our Eucharists and who order the church's ministry. A church might well want to select those who will lead and order our ministry from the ranks of those who say by their lifestyle, and not just their words and actions, that ministry is about loving people for reasons other than their attractiveness to us. Prayer and Ministry, the Sources of Strength for Celibate Living The great fear ] hear from young people is that a committed celibate life would be a lonely life, while marriage is a life filled with intimacy. I think that, in general, human lives are neither lonely nor intimate. Life has lonely moments and intimate moments. Married people stand ready to enter fully and vulnera-bly life's intimate moments, and to find God there concretely. Celibate people stand ready to enter fully and vulnerably life's lonely moments, and to find God there concretely. March-April 2000 . !36- ! Clark * Celibate Life Offers Insights Let me share with you my entering a lonely moment and find-ing God concretely. I was sitting in my office in Milwaukee, prepar-ing a continuing-education report for the provincial council. I began to daydream: I was before that council, not to give a report, but to receive a new assignment. I was being congratulated on my performance in the job I was leaving, and then the provincial asked me what job I would like to do next. I said, "I really don't care. But please, gentlemen, give me a job I can do well that will have some significance in your eyes." The daydream faded, and I sat at my desk pondering what I had heard myself say to the provinci.al council. I was not pleased with what I recognized. What I had said seemed rather mean and cheap. I wondered if the approval of others might be what moti-vated much of my behavior, or all of it! I could feel myself blush at this bit of self-awareness. I was surprised at myself, and I was having a difficult time accepting myself as I now knew myself to be. I felt very fragile. But I stayed with this line of thought and emo-tion, and seemed to reach an even greater depth, where I inwardly smiled sheepishly while disclosing to God who and how I was. At that depth I realized that God was not surprised at my motiva-tion. God had known it all along. It was news only to me! And I realized that God was not having a difficult time accepting me. God had for years accepted me as I was. There was a knock at my office door. I said, "Come in." It was Jeannie, supposedly my secretary, but really the one who runs the office. She was incredibly efficient and competent. I looked at her and, for the first time, wondered whether she sometimes felt as fragile as I did. If she did, I was much more open to accept-ing her that way. I was able to connect with her more intimately than I could have before. It was as if, with the mask of my own self-sufficiency stripped away, I could see beyond the efficiency (and self-sufficiency?) of another and get a glimpse of the perhaps fragile human being who lived there. It is not only this kind of self-awareness, self-disclosure, and listening in prayer that can bring a person to a moment of intimacy with God; so can ministry. Committed celibate persons can have as many moments of intimacy in their life as any married or single people can. There remains, however, a crack in the sidewalk that celibate people might trip on. I learned about this while visiting a couple to give them a chance to talk about a Capuchin they knew and loved who Review for Religious had suddenlY left the community with the intention to marry a young woman from town. As we were preparing to have a drink at their kitchen table, Don said, "I think you and my wife ought to go sit on the porch swing and talk for a while." So we did. Mary and I had talked for a short while about Ralph's departure when she said suddenly, "You don't belong to anybody, Keith Clark, and you never should! Ralph used to belong to all of us, but now he belongs to Jennifer." I thought often about Mary's observation, and I realized that the human desire to belong uniquely to another human being is a desire which will not be fulfilled in my life. About me no one will ever say "my husband" or "my father." And even if they say "my priest" or "my Capuchin," it does not ring true. I will never belong uniquely to any human being. And this is a void where I might fall. I need to fill ~hat void by developing my sense of belong-ing uniquely to God. I find I do this most readily in ministry. I learned a lesson from the full-sized red Hawthorne bicycle that my father gave me right after World War II ended. The bicycle was too large for me. My legs were too short for my feet to reach the pedals. My father put wooden blocks on both sides of the pedals, which allowed me to reach them. Even at the young age of six or seven, I knew that to have a new bicycle was very exceptional. The "war effort" had taken most of the steel available in the nation, and production of peacetime products like bicycles was just getting underway. I knew, too, that I was uniquely the object of my father's love. He did not buy other people a bicycle; other fathers in the neigh-borhood were not buying bicycles for their children. This gift from my father was unique. It took a few lessons from my father to get me up and pedal-ing. He would run alongside me, holding on to the back of the bicycle seat until I had gotten up enough speed to keep the bicy-cle from falling over. Eventually I mastered it. The bicycle stood up well to my use and occasional abuse of it. It lasted well into my newspaper-carrier days, when we added a large basket over the front wheel. I have thought of that red bike often. It taught me a lesson about gifts and how they are to be used and enjoyed. If I had let A committed celibate life is a lifestyle, not a ministry. 137 March-April 2000 Clark ¯ Celibate Life Offers Imigbts I used to think that God gave me gifts so I could do things for other people. that bicycle stand on the front porch to be admired but not used, I do not think I would have made my father very happy. If I had waited until I had a paper route before I used it, I think my father would have been disappointed. Even telling him over and over how much I loved the bicycle and how grateful I was would, I am sure, not have been enough to please him. He gave me the bicy-cle to use and to enjoy. It was a long time before I understood that the gifts I receive from God are much like the bicycle I received from my father. I used to think that God gave me gifts so I could do things for other people. I missed the fact that my gifts are unique and that they are a sign of God's unique love for me. For a long time I was afraid to enjoy using them. Now I allow myself to enjoy using my gifts. I can listen to people and can understand a lot of what they tell me. Sometimes I can even say the needed word, the right word, in response to them. It is a gift from God. Sometimes a seminary student coming to me for spiritual direction feels much better after we have talked. When he leaves my office, I realize that I was able to hear and understand him because of the skills and talents God has given me through my life's experiences. I know that no one else could have done for that student exactly what I did. Some people could have done more than I did; oth-ers could have done something different but equally helpful. But no one could have done just what I did. I sit back and enjoy what I have just done. Then I tell God, "Thank you," knowing I am loved uniquely. Culture and Counterculture These things could be more easily understood and more inte-grally and effectively practiced if we lived in a world of real mean-ing. Until such time as our culture moves into that real world, we continue to live our lives of celibate commitment as a "value radi-ation center" (Van Kaam) so that the values of the real world do not become completely obscured by the understandings and practices of the less-than-real world in which we and others unavoidably continue to live. Review for Religious DAVID L. FLEMING Discerning Our Celibate Way in Our Culture In this third presentation of the 1999 Wernersville symposium, want to gather together the themes of the two previous pre-sentations and then point out the work ahead of us. The topic I have been given has three clear parts, from the words contempo-rary culture, celibates, and discern. Our two previous presentations have clarified our understanding of the first two terms, culture and celibates. Let me highlight several points. Mary Johnson SNDdeN has given us a snapshot picture of our culture and its attitude toward chastity. She began by pointing out difficulties in making an assessment. We, along with other peo-ple, may be overly impressed by flurries of sound-bite judgments proffered by the media or by generalizations stated by pulpit ora-tors. "All college-age students do . " "In our country everyone. ¯." Trying to go beyond impressions towards what we call factual information, we find some security in statistics and in popular polls. But, even with a carefully constructed statistical study, there remains the difficulty of overreporting or underreporting, espe-cially if the issue is a delicate one, such as sexuality and sexual behavior. For example, when reporting sexual mores, it seems that men tend to exaggerate their sexual knowledge or activity because of a macho stance, and that women tend to be reticent about sex-ual activity because of fear, shame, or a sense of propriety. Johnson stressed that there have been three significant statis-tical studies Of sexuality and sexual behavior in the United States: David L. Fleming SJ is editor of this journal. March-dlrri12000 . Fleming ¯ Discerning Our Celibate Way the Kinsey studies in the 1950s, a much smaller but somewhat more sophisticated study at the beginning of the 1990s, and the apparently best-balanced report from the mid 1990s. From these reports we learn something about behavior patterns in our times. When certain reported behaviors surprise or shock our own sense of morality and that of our church, we must be careful that our first response is not to deny the evidence. Once we take note of that caution, what might we observe about the value and living of celibate chastity as reported in our contemporary culture? In the current U.S. culture, we have widespread evidence that sexual activity is no longer considered to be restricted to marriage. Because of the easy avail~ibility of contraceptive pills and condoms, sexual activity is no longer tied to the possibility of pregnancy; rather, it is considered just one more among desirable and plea-surable human activities. A more frightening result of this atti-tude equating sexual activity with recreational pleasure is the easy and frequent acceptance of abortion. We are not surprised that in the reporting of behaviors we note a true gender gap. Men readily report that the woman is a consensual partner, whereas women indicate that they feel pres-sured or coerced by the male. Statistics, then, provide evidence of a gender gap, especially in reading the other sex's behavior signals. In our culture there is a great deal of confusion around the terms intimacy and sexuality. Often the two are identified. But sex-uality can be acted out with little sense of intimacy. Intimacy, on the other hand, does not need to be expressed sexually. Young peo-ple, especially, are looking for intimacy and use sexuality as its mistaken route. Studies give evidence of this behavior pattern. What does celibacy or celibate chastity mean to people in our U.S. culture? It is evident that the celibate vocation is not esteemed or looked upon as a kind of ideal. Rather, in our times, it more readily signifies, especially for large numbers of young adults, sexual dysfunction or pedophiliac tendencies or stunted personality growth. We must be aware, then, that our contem-porary culture has little regard for chastity or celibacy. Its sign value has to be significantly rethought and expressed anew in order to be seen and understood for what it is and what we who live it want it to be. In his turn, Keith Clark OFMCap presented a contemporary picture of the meaning and living of chastity and celibacy. Chastity is the pursuit of consistent behaviors--for marriage, one set of Review for Religious behaviors, and for those professing celibate chastity, another set of behaviors. We need to look at the sexual makeup of the animal species, acknowledge the commonalities we have as human beings, and then carefully pay attention to how we humans go beyond the reproductive drive and mating seasons common to the animal species. We realize our human need for insight into sexual behav-ior and for our exercise of freedom in regard to it. Once again we note that there is the human need for intimacy and that this is not identical with genital activity. Clark stated clearly his notion of celibacy. "A celibate life well lived is the pursuit of intimacy, sexual fulfillment, in ways which do not include romantic and genital pur-suits." Celibacy as a Christian vocation means that we pursue a way of loving people, not because we are so urged or driven, but because people are deserv-ing of love. They are children of God. Both presentations stressed the importance of "norms" for appropriate behaviors in living celibate chastity in a community or group lifestyle. Cultures as large as an ethnic group and as small as a particular religious congregation have developed their own parameters for acceptable behaviors in connection with the affectio~is. These cultures get expressed in norms that guide the consistent behavior of group members. Members of a group have a responsibility to observe the norms expected of participants. We who live celibate lives as members of a priestly order or as members of a religious congregation need to have norms that are agreed as guides for the behavior expected of the whole group. After looking at our contemporary culture with the help of Johnson and getting, with Clark's guidance, a sense of a con-temporary expression of lived celibate chastity, we focus now on the word discern, which is meant to be the connective between the two terms. How do we discern the living of celibate chastity in our culture? What is it to discern? I believe that celibacy, properly under-stood, has a necessary connection with the ability to discern. Celibacy or celibate chastity understood in a Christian manner is a way of loving, a way of relating to others. It is not enough to Members of a group have a responsibility to observe the norms expected of participants. March~April 2000 Fleming ¯ Discerning Our Celibate Way say that celibacy means not being married or that to be chaste means just not engaging in or enjoying sexual activity. It is not enough to equate celibacy with a certain ritual purity. To limit our chastity ideal to these kinds of description fixes us in a pagan or pre-Christian understanding. Sad to say, many older explanations about the vow of chastity, and some contemporary ones too, could well have been written by a good pagan. Celibacy cannot be ade-quately defined in terms of what it is not or what it lacks. Celibacy is understood and lived in terms of what it is and does. Celibate chastity describes a way of loving, loving the way that Jesus loved. Because celibacy is a way of loving, there is a true sense that we are always growing in our life of loving celibately. We cannot lose our chastity; we never "had" it so that we could lose it. We are always growing into being a chaste lover, a lover like Christ. We grow in our loving chastely, or we find ourself becoming less of a chaste lover. We make choices of behaviors that enhance our life-direction (which is meant to be a growing more and more to love as Jesus loves), or we find ourself slipping (all too humanly, through selfishness or focus on self) into more and more limited ways of loving. We do not need to be a loving person to make a decision. Individualism rampant in U.S. culture is the seedbed of a lot of decision making. Even in religious life we sometimes hear glowing reports about the new growth in our understanding of the vow of obedience based on human decision making. We say that we have moved from a kind of infantile dependence to a relationship where authority's only role is to support the individual's decision. Yet, if we understood how obedience and chastity are intertwined, and that discernment is not possible where love is not involved, then we might not be so self-satisfied with our own share in the indi-vidualistic decision making often observable in religious life. Evaluated from a religious point of view, personal decision making is not deserving of praise if love of God has had no play in it. Discernment and obedience can be understood and practiced only by one who loves. Perhaps questions about authority/obedience are more about the love quality of religious life than about respon-sible decision making. When people make decisions about sexual activity, they can decide to use this person for their pleasure. They can decide that treating someone in this sex-object way is what pleases them. What they want to do and what feels good decides their choices in this Review for Religious typical American individualistic stance. People live as though they are the center of their world, and this stance acts as the foundation of their choices. In order to discern, however, we need to be a loving person, one who lives in an expansive (always open to other people's inter-ests) world. People who are caught up in an individualistic way of thinking and acting are incapable of making a discernment. Why? Because discernment is a sensitive listening to God speaking to us through interior movements, that is, feelings and inspirations. Discernment is a lover's instinct. Probably most of us have had the expe-rience of this kind of interior commu-nication between ourself and a close friend. No words are spoken, but a lot gets communicated. When persons are dear to us, we know what pleases them and what annoys them. We listen, not to any externally spoken words, but to the person, and we can respond instinctively--if we are people who love. ls this kind of sensitivity, so familiar to us in our human loves, possible between God and ourself?. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it has always been recog-nized that discernment is a gifting of God. St. Paul identifies dis-cernment as a special gift to members of the Christian community through Christ's sending of the Spirit. A number of holy men and women have shared their insights into the gift of discernment, how to pray for it, how to grow as a discerning person, and how to make a decision-making process a true discernment. St. Ignatius Loyola especially is renowned for the practical application of dis-cernment procedures for an understanding of What spirit is mov-ing us and for a method of coming to a decision through such a discernment of spirits. Discernment is about making practical life-dealing decisions not just with prayerful prudence, but with our will attuned to the will of God our Father. We are trying to love the way Jesus loved. Jesus prayed a lot; he prayed in order to deepen his relationship with God and so to express his love. The dialogue of prayer is a dialogue of love. Prayer is not discernment, but without prayer there is no discernment. Why? Because discernment is a grace given to a lover. VCe see it clearly in Jesus. Discernment marks Jesus' choices. In the crisis moment in Gethsemane, Jesus in agony Discernment remains always a gift, a growing in a lover's sensitivity. 143- Marcia-April 2000 Fleming ¯ Discerning Our Celibate Way pours out his prayer and in love can say, "Not my will, but yours be done." One who loves has a sense of, a feel for, what pleases the one who is loved. To be a discerning person means that we must be a free person: free of self-will, free of prejudice, free of being locked into doing what is expected (to be accepted, to save face, and so on). We see this freedom in Jesus. Discernment remains always a gift, a growing in a lover's sensitivity, just as Jesus grew in his sen-sitivity to his Father's will up to the end: "Into your hands, I com-mend my spirit." In other words, we never just "have" discernment, as it were, as our possession. We need always to acknowledge dis-cernment as a dynamic grace or gift. As Jesus' special gifting of the Spirit to us, his followers, discernment is always to be rever-enced, esteemed, and lived in our choices. Discernment affects our living of celibate chastity on three levels: (1) the body or the physical, being at home with our sexual makeup; (2) the soul or the psychological, being at home with our affections; and (3) the spirit or the spiritual, being at home with God. Let me develop each of these levels. 1. As people who are trying to love as Jesus loves, we need to love our own incarnation, that is, we must love our own bodili-ness. Acceptance of our sexuality helps us to be like Jesus. For Jesus was sexual and celibate and a man who loved. Jesus is so much at home with his body that he keeps it with him forever. And that is his promise of resurrection for us. To be at home with our body, then, is a Christian attitude to grow in and to deepen. We make the choice to love the body that God gave us. In our culture we know how much we try to run from or deny the failings connected with bodiliness, for example, the whole process of aging. With a cul-ture that wallows in sexuality, especially its genital aspects, we may think that our countercultural stance should be to run from or deny our own sexuality in order to bd the good celibate. But our Christian viewpoint sees sexuality and the way it shapes our relat-ing and our loving, all our life long, as a gift of God to us. Living in gratitude for God's gift, we find that being at home with our own body is the only way for us to love as Jesus loves. 2. We celibates must also be at home with our affectivity. There is no such thing as loving in the abstract; we love the flesh-and- blood people that come into our lives. To love in general is not to love at all. Yet, when we try to love the people that God brings into our life, we find difficulties with the way they dress, the way they talk, even the way they sexually attract us or not. I have always Review for Religious admired the healthy quality of the bawdiness found in Chaucer or in Shakespeare as representative of the peoples of their times. We--especially people vowed to chastity--need to laugh at our affective responses sometimes so embarrassing to us and so little under our control. We may even be surprised at a sexual response we feel in prayer or even at communion time. This is the moment to recall that we are God's creation, enfleshed, with all its humor, distress, and bedazzlement. We thank him for being the ones in whom he delights. We need to give over anew the whole of our life to God and so not let our discerning focus get distracted on self. Always we as celibates--a unit of body, soul, and spirit--need to own and not to deny our affections. We must be in touch with how affective or not we are naturally, from family upbringing, community customs, and ethnic culture. Whatever the limits of what we have inherited, we--growing by the grace of our celibate calling as sensitive lovers--gradually learn how to make various appropriate adaptations. Does Jesus ever seem frozen in the face of others' affective love, whether expressed by Mary Magdalen or by the beloved disciple? Think of John lean-ing on Jesus' chest at the Last Supper or of Mary Magdalen's fierce bearhug in the resurrection garden scene. Growing always in a lover's sensitivity is especially to be valued by a vowed celibate who desires to relate affectively to all. Married couples teach each other how to make love all their lives long. We as celibates must keep our eyes on Jesus in order to keep growing in our way of loving. Our prayer should lead us deeply into the Gospels so that Jesus keeps teaching us how to love. Our being affective people, or not, affects our ministry. In fact, there is little exaggeration in saying that ministry without. affectivity is useless in terms of evangelization. We may be able to do "good things," but for what.purpose if we do not touch peo-ple with love from a God who is Love? 3. We Catholics are fortunate because we understand that God loves us in affective ways. Our Scriptures, our sacraments, our prayers speak out God's way of loving us in the most tender of human expressions. Even more, God loves us in intimate ways. This good news we bear in our very persons as loving celibates: We as celibates must keep our eyes on Jesus in order to keep growing in our way of loving. March-April 2000 Fleming * Discerning Our Celibate Way God wants to be intimate with us. Our spiritual life is a life of love, intimate love with God. Two examples from Scripture bring this fact home to us. I am indebted to the late Father Carroll Stuhmueller CP for his long-time insistence on the meaning of the Hebrew word rahamin. In the Old Testament, especially in the prophetic writings, God is often described in English translation as merciful, tender-hearted, or compassionate. These words attempt to signify the meaning of rabamin. The Hebrew word seems best understood in this way: the feeling that a mother has for the child in, and of, her womb. God wants us to know that the relationship he has to each of us is like the feeling a mother has for the child of her womb. What is this feeling? Is it pity or mercy? No, it is one of pride and 10ve for the child of the womb. That is how God feels towards us. God loves us and takes pride in us. We cannot deny the intimacy of this Hebrew word. That kind of intimacy God claims towards us. We celibates are meant to find a home in this love. In a more theological way I would like to reflect upon the word covenant. Perhaps we are familiar with the covenants of Middle Eastern people of whom the Israelites were a part. A covenant is an agreement between two parties (usually unequal), and the expectation involves certain ways of acting toward each. Covenant is a central theme of the relationship between God and his chosen people. The biblical covenant that God established was marked according to the Semitic cultural tradition by the ritual of killing an animal and sprinkling its blood upon the altar (rep-resenting God) and upon the Israelite p.eople. The blood was a symbol of life, not death; the sprinkling of blood on the altar and on the people signified the familial union. The action said: We share the same blood. When Jesus on the night before he died wanted to establish a new covenant, he retained the same symbol: blood. But it is his own blood that Jesus gives, his flesh for our food and his blood for our drink. This blood is life-giving and makes us who feed on his Body and his Blood belong to the same bloodline as God. Jesus could not make it any clearer that we truly are brothers and sisters to one another; we share the same blood, Jesus' blood, the blood of the Son of God. We call upon Jesus truly as our brother, and together with him we call God Abba-Father. The reality of this new covenant is an intimacy of unity, Jesus God bringing us into the very life of the Trinity. As celibates, day after day in our Review for Religious Eucharist we come forward with hands stretched our to receive and to be taken in by the most intimate love of God, a God embracing us into the divine life of love. What distinguishes us who are called to a life of celibate chastity? We are called to a special way of loving. When we celi-bates are truly at home with our bodies (with our sexuality), with our affections (with our soul), and with our spirit (God's Spirit, now ours), we are free to be the discerning people who, in a sex-ually confused culture, live God's invitation to celibate chastity peacefully, happily, and apostolically. The Silence That Is Not Silence at All Unobtrusive as dawn, the lake balances perfectly between East and West. An early hiker rounds the corner, headset clamped on. Juncoes tsk tsk and give way. Starlings catcall. Merganser, all white hood, skims a straight arrow line, alights with a velvet swoosh pursues prey through clear water soundless. Lichen stained alders circle the shore, haloed with smudges of alizarin catkins. Aments upon aments. A Lent retreatant, I come for the annual fast from stimulation, rededicate to silence or at least to the diminishment of stimulants. Make way for tumult. Here are the Big Ego geese. Indignant honking, they want to be noticed. Chest beating, a squall of identity. Hannah J. Main-van der Karnp March-April 2000 147 --- JUSTIN TAYLOR AND ALBERT DIIANNI What Is Religious Life's Purpose? For thirty-five years since Vatican Council II, we have constantly ?asked questions about identity: What does it mean to be a religious, a monk, a Dominican, a Jesuit, a Marist? It might then seem superfluous to ask about the purpose of religious life. But it is our conviction that pre-cisely this question must receive a more adequate answer before we can come to proper conclusions about how to structure our religious life and truly renew its spirit. The main goal of religious life is to place God at the center of our lives. That is the meaning of religious consecration, and it is best symbolized in the vow of chastity, in which we make a gift of our very hearts to God. Religious consecration is all about the service and worship of God, about affective and effective love of God for God's sake. Religious life is a way of being with ¯ God that takes the form of a gift and an act of worship. It evokes the image of St. Francis lying prostrate on the ground throughout the night calling out repeatedly, "My God and my all,." In other words, religious life needs to Justin Taylor SM, a Marist priest from New Zealand who resides at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, does teaching and writing on biblical topics and on spirituality. Albert DiIanni SM wrote for us in 1993 and 1996; his address is Marist Vocation Office; 27 Isabella Street; Boston, Massachusetts 02116. Review for Religious be religious, and this means that it must be theocentric. Religion can be about many things, but first and foremost, as Hegel said, "religion is about God." This may seem to go without saying. But we are saying it and stressing it because we all tend to substitute something else for the love of God. Nothing else will do, not even love of neighbor. The question we ask is: Have we not, long before Vatican II and after it as well, tended to substitute--for a focus on the glory and love of God--either a personal ascetical spirituality or a social morality? We grant, of course, that both morality and asceticism find their place in religion, but we maintain, too, that religion cannot be totally or even primarily reduced to them. Could it be that this tendency to substitute something for religion--whether it be self-improvement or the improvement of other individuals, society, and the world--is what underlies the malaise we currently perceive in religious life? We stress that this problem does not arise out of Vatican II. It already existed before Vatican II and may have caused what the council had to say about religious life to be misunderstood. It is a problem that lies deeper than the distinction between traditional-ists and so-called "change-oriented" religious. Both of these groups, as we shall see, may have given way to the very same error. In her recent book The Fire in These Ashes, Joan Chittister insists that the sole purpose of religious life is "only to seek God" (p. 45). She writes: "We have too often been seduced., by other explanations for religious life, all of them valuable and all of them true to a certain degree. We have sought to be 'relevant.' We have set out to be 'incarnational.' . We have given ourselves untiringly to the 'option for the poor.' We have devoted our-selves to 'the transformation of social structures.' We have evan-gelized and renewed and revised and reformed until we dropped from exhaustion. And all of those commitments are good and necessary and worthy of attention. But, through it all, one thing and one thing only can sustain religious life, can nourish reli-gious life, can justify religious life: The religious must be the person who first and foremost, always and forever, in whatever circumstance, seeks God and God alone, seeks God and God alone in all of this confusion, in all of this uncertainty and, what-ever the situation, seeks God--and God alone." She concludes: "Otherwise, religious life is just one more social institution to be succeeded by social institutions after it, rather than centers March-April 2000 149 Taylor and Dilanni ¯ Reli~ous Life's Purpose of contemplation where, we can hope, the mind of God can touch the mind of humanity" (p. 47). "A center of contemplation where the mind of God can touch the mind of humanity"--is this not a beautiful definition of reli-gious life? For Joan Chittister, contemplation of God is the pri-mary center and focus of religious life. But she is not thinking of a selfish, isolated sort of contemplation cut off from society or the world. Rather, for her, contemplation of God has an effect upon the mind of humanity, changes it and urges it to become engaged in the task of approximating the kingdom of God on earth in works of peace and justice, especially in favor of the poor and the marginalized. This call to contemplation, which is now being stressed by many authors, indicates that the crisis of religious life is deeper than people think. It is rooted in a crisis of faith. By this we mean that there has been a change not only in the depth and intensity of our faith, but also in its actual content. And this is hardly new. It has been present in the church for a long time, as attested by Henri Bremond in his Histoire litteraire du sentiment religieux en France, a magisterial eleven-volume study of mysticism in France in the 17th century. Bremond did not write with a view to commenting on religious life in the 20th century, but his volumes are full of relevant insights. Bremond (an ex-Jesuit turned diocesan) keeps coming back to one particular issue: Why, throughout the period of which he writes, was the Jesuit mainstream in France especially, antimystical? Why, with the notable exception of Louis Lallemant and his school, did the Jesuits begin to focus their spirituality more and more away from God and more and more toward the human? In the course of his writing, Bremond suggests some more or less peripheral reasons, but in the end he expresses a suspicion that the Jesuits, even in the 17th century, were intuitively sensing a crisis of faith. They were sniffing the presence of an incipient atheism in their contemporaries and perhaps in their own hearts. They were beginning to fear, at least subconsciously, that the pure love of God as the chief reason for a devout life was not going to motivate people of their time and place much longer. This, suggests Bremond, is the reason why they felt the need to recommend prayer not so much as adoration and thanksgiving before God, but especially as a means of growth in virtue, a means to inoral and ascetical self-improvement, a way to ensure one's personal eternal salvation. Review for Religious It is clear that this crisis of faith is not restricted to the Society of Jesus in the time of which Bremond writes. The same crisis has continued in a perhaps even stronger fashion in the 20th century. Both before and after Vatican II, religious have tended to recom-mend religious life to the world--and perhaps to themselves--in terms of what it could "do for" themselves or for others. Religious life was considered legitimate and desirable because it was useful, however that usefulness might be conceived, whether in terms of a surer way for the individual to attain tleaven or in terms of a service to society. Both of these stances, however, place religion and religious life on a less-than- full theocentric plane. Viewed in this way, the crisis of faith did not begin in the post-Vatican II era. It was in full swing well before the 1960s, but at that time social and ecclesial structures and a gen-eral feeling of success (at something) kept people going. Once those supports were taken away or seri-ously weakened, its real proportions were revealed. It has been said that, before Vatican II, religious used to "skip the world" and focus too heavily on our individual other-worldly salvation. This is a legitimate criticism if properly understood. To the extent that there was overemphasis on our individ-ual otherworldly salvation, religious life was already ¯ anthropocentric or egocentric, and not theocentric. For a program of self-improvement, even in view of obtaining eternal life, is not specifically Christian, but broadly Stoic. The concentration on obtaining eternal life even became obsessive for a number of people, and priests in confessionals encountered peo-ple so absorbed in themselves and their salvation that they became paralyzed by scrupulosity. For this and for other reasons, an under-standable dissatisfaction set in with regard to a form of devout life whose focal point was one's own perfection. Unfortunately, however, the remedy that was often prescribed compounded the ailment. In line with the self-improvement ten-dencies, the constitutions of many religious congregations before Vatican II propounded a twofold goal for religious life: saving one's own soul and saving the souls of others. After Vatican II, the notion of salvation was expanded beyond an eschatological salvation to include also, and at times almost exclusively, the liberation of peo-ples or the social betterment of humankind. Neither of these This call to contemplation indicates that the crisis of religious life is deeper than people think. I51-- March-April 2000 Taylor and Dilanni ¯ Religious Life's Purpose focuses, however, whether on personal improvement and salva-tion or on social liberation, is properly religious in the sense of having to with the worship and love of God. Neither of them makes God the pivotal center of our lives. If this is true, where should we seek the remedy? If there has been a shift in our faith in this century and before, what then should be the content of our faith? We believe that the religious hunger is ultimately the hunger for transcendence or, more con-cretely, the hunger for God. It is a hunger which, in fact, is often felt most keenly by the poor. The world points to something beyond the world: its Author. Our first response to the world must be gratitude toward the author of that world--paying homage to God. Religious are called to be involved totally with God, to be bridges to others to enable them, not to negate this world, but to transcend it and reach God. The world is extremely important-- the Word became incarnate for the sake of the world--but in itself it is still not enough for us, us of the restless heart. In whatever manner we decide to refashion religious life, we must not lose this central insight, which is at the heart of the religious quest. The "kingdom of God" promoted by the Jesus of the synoptic Gospels certainly demands an effort on our part to improve the world, but it also involves a transcending of the world, and this transcen-dence will consist, as always, in union with God. In fact, without such a reference to the Transcendent, it is questionable whether an urgency to improve the world has sufficient meaning. Again, with Joan Chittister, "The religious must be the person who., seeks God, and God alone" and--we could add, with Vita consecrata (§3, §20)--helps other members of the church in their search for God. It is in this latter task of spurring others on to transcendence that some form of identifying religious garb has its importance. St. Thomas Aquinas asks why religious congregations are called "religious." Our reflections thus far have perhaps prepared us to understand and receive his answer: "Religion is the virtue by which we perform the service and worship of God. Hence, reli-gious are so called because they dedicate themselves totally to the service of God, as if offering God a whole-burnt sacrifice" (Summa theologiae, 2a-2ae, q. 186, a. 1). Here Thomas speaks of a "virtue of religion," a kind of habit. This habit of mind, heart, and action has to be part and parcel of every genuine approach to God, for it is basically about awe in the presence of the "tremendous and fas-cinating mystery." "This tremendous lover" is what Francis Review for Religious Thompson called Christ, and the adjective is striking. It refers to a lover who fills us not with fear but with awe. Our response to God is one of wonder, adoration, and gratitude in the face of a Love that bends down to us, a love that is gratuitous and that we did not merit. What makes religious life distinct from other forms of Christian life (granted that there is no complete cut-off, but many a gradation) is that it is a way of life which is organized and centered on the.service and worship and love of God and which would make no sense on any other terms. From a worldly point of view, it might even be called a useless life; it is worthless except to the eyes of faith. We believe, with Vita consecrata, that chastity is at the heart of the matter. Chastity is the baseline of religious consecration, not primarily a way of being freed for ministry, although it is also that. Through it we consecrate to God our hearts and our sexual-ity, our capacity to love and be loved, and our capacity for repro-ducing ourselves and so assuring a sort of afterlife. It is therefore the point at which the service and the love of God meet in the center of the consecrated person. Religion, as a virtue, is not the same as charity, so that serving and worshiping God are not specifically the same as loving God. But the two are very close, and both are needed. Without love, religion quickly becomes fanaticism; without awe before God, love can be too facile and presumptuous. In the golden age of French spirituality in the first half of the 17th century, the great masters differ a little on where they place the emphasis, St. Francis de Sales placing it on love and Pierre de B~rulle on religion. In any case, they agree that religious life is essentially theocentric. St. Thomas's "whole-burnt sacrifice" strikes the note of throwing all of oneself into a life given to God in a fire of generosity. Abandoning calculation and self-service, a person stakes all on the single-hearted quest of God, and God alone. That is a goal in the pursuit of which a life is well lived and the world well lost. The above remarks raise at least two questions about love of God which require some discussion. We are speaking of a "pure love of God." But is it possible to love God selflessly, for God alone, and not for ourselves? Not in the sense that I could leave myself totally out of any act of the will: whatever I will, I will also as my own good. But it is possible in the sense that there can be a degree of selfless love in an act of the will, and that this selfless love can grow in future acts. In praying I make all sorts of different March~April 2000 Taylor and Dilanni ¯ Religtous'ous L~Life's Purpose "acts," including petition for myself and others. But what makes prayer (any prayer) true prayer, and love of God true love, is that overriding everything else is the love of God for God's sake, the willing of God's good, and the ultimate submission of my will to God's. And that is "pure love." Note that this is not something rare and extraordinary. Selfless love is part of every authentic human love. It is part of the Lord's Prayer, where we say: "Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done." In any genuine human love, I will love the beloved without thinking of my own good and even, at times, to my apparent detriment. M1 lovers would deny the name of "love" to a mere desire to get their own satisfaction. In every true love there is selfless devotion toward the beloved, that is, "pure love," some-where. And selfless devotion, it seems, has always been the touch-stone of a religious life properly lived. The second question concerns the relation between the two commandments of love of God and love of neighbor. Above we wrote that not even love of the neighbor can be substituted for love of God. Love of the neighbor does not replace love of God; it does not even, strictly speaking, express love of God. God is to be loved for God's sake. On the other hand, love of the neighbor is the acid test of the genuineness of our love of God. St. John's for-mulation could not be bettered: "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen" (1 Jn 4:20 NRSV). To remove all excuse for illusion on this topic, the Letter of James (2:15-16 NRSV) affirms th~it a mere sentiment of goodwill is not enough: "If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply them their bodily needs, what is the good of that?" If love of the neighbor is not a substitute for love of God, the reverse is also true. Loving God does not give us an excuse for not loving our brothers and sisters, really and concretely. Christians are called to live for the glory of God and not pri-marily for their own good, not even for their own salvation here or in eternity. The emphasis has to be on the primacy of the love of God. The truth is, however, that the more genuinely we love God, the deeper and more effective will be our love of neighbor, especially the poor and the unloved. The great lovers of God--that is to say, the saints--have been those who have done. most in the Review for Religious way of love and service of their brothers and sisters. There is no risk that following the call to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind will distract us from serving others or from working for justice in the world. Rather, when we go to God, we find One who loves justice and who is on the side of the poor and the weak. This God demands that we too pursue justice and come to the aid of the needy. In loving God we go outside of ourselves in a radical way. We encounter the transcendent Being who loves the created world and invites us to become active within it. There is no competition between the two commandments of love, but rather reciprocity. If love of the neigh-bor is the acid test of love of God, love of God overflows into love of neigh-bor and makes it truly love. For jus-tice without love may quickly become tyranny, while mere "humanitarian-ism" may become bureaucratic, offi-cious, and quite unloving. On the other hand, love of God makes love of neighbor tenderhearted, generous, and selfless. For, in our living communion with God, we discover that God loves us all and that for this reason we must love others and strive to bring peace and justice into the world. What is.the upshot of all this? What does it mean in practical terms? If all this is true, it may mean that the ongoing renewal of religious life needs to be reviewed. It may mean that we must go back to the drawing board and ask ourselves whether we have made changes on the basis of an inadequate notion of the purpose of religious life. It may mean that, while many good things have occurred in terms of a structural renewal of our lives, the spiri-tual renewal is yet to begin--one that may cause us to take a sec-ond look at those structures. Our structures of prayer, our living of the vows, and our community life must be fashioned so that, primarily, they foster our love for God. To achieve this we must grapple with this question: .Are we perhaps in need of a shift in our faith, one that moves away from the many forms of anthro-pocentrism of the last few centuries, and centers religious life more directly on the pure love of God? Chastity is the point at which the service and the love of God meet in the center of the consecrated person. March-April 2000 KENNETH C. RUSSELL Must Hermits Work? Maust hermits work to earn their living? Must they leave side their regime of silence and prayer to earn money, even though this is a Catch-22 situation, with solitude calling them away from society and work drawing them back into it? By taking a job, manufacturing a product, or providing a service, they trou-ble themselves with any number of people so as to have enough income to get away from people and indulge their own hermit's desire to be alone and untroubled. Are they not then better off depending on some form of fixed income, on the largess of the religious congregations to which they may belong, or on the charity of the faithful? It would seem so. But is this kind of dependence legitimate? What does the his-tory of the eremitical life in the Western church say about this? How do the principal texts on the solitary life deal with the eco-nomic, psychological, and spiritual aspects of work? What features remain constant in the tradition? What shifts take place? In this brief overview, which makes no claim to be complete, we begin with the teachings of the pioneers in the Egyptian desert as these are recorded in the alphabetical collection of Sayings of the Desert Fathers and in John Cassian's Institutions and Conferences. We then turn our attention to a few representative medieval texts, primarily from the 12th century, a period marked by a widespread revival of the eremitical life. Kenneth C. Russell last wrote for us in November-December 1998. His address remains 40 Landry Street, Apt. 1505; Vanier, Ontario; t~6~ K1L 8K4 Canada. Review for Religious The Sayings of the Desert Fathers Although the classical picture of the hermits in the Egyptian desert as hardscrabble peasants used to a tough life has been chal-lenged of late, it seems clear that, whatever the truth about their social status and educational background, they earned their keep by the work of their hands. The Sayings tell us that the solitaries plaited ropes (Sayings 184, 39), made baskets (105, 1) and hired themselves out as laborers to bring in the harvest (82, 47; 191, 2).' At least one monk strung necklaces of small dried peas to pay for his food. We are told that Abba Serinus spent his time harvest-ing, sewing, and weaving (191, 2). The monks worked because they had to. They did not share the conviction of the excessively spiritual groups of the time that considered work to be below the dignity of those called to per-petual prayer. Several stories seem to satirize the "angelic" atti-tude of these Messalians, as they were called. One concerns Abba John the Dwarf, a prominent desert figure, who in his youth announced to his brother his intention of living a carefree life of ceaseless prayer like the angels who do no work. After a week he was back knocking on his brother's door, hungry and begging to be let in. When this brother, in no hurry to admit him, got around to answering the door, he told young John: "You are a man and you must once again work in order to eat" (73, 2). The same point is driven home in the story of a monk who, while visiting a small eremitical community, sees the brothers working hard and cautions their leader, Abba Silvanus, not to seek "the food which perishes" (John 6:27). Silvanus allows him to spend the day reading, but does not summon him to dinner. When the hungry monk asks why he was not called, the elder answers: "Because you are a spiritual man and do not need that kind of food. We, being carnal, want to eat, and that is why we work" (187, 5). In these words of practical economy, it is obvious that work not only feeds the monk but keeps him grounded in the real-ity of the world and human nature. The Egyptian hermits lived apart from society, but they were not disconnected from the larger world. A brother was advised by Abba Poemen to do some manual labor "so as to be able to give alms" (148, 69). This readiness "to work for charity's sake" (87, 4) also set the Egyptian monks apart from the Messalians or Euchites, who regarded themselves as the most fitting recipients of any handouts. March-April 2000, Russell * Must Hermits In one story some Euchite monks answer Abba Lucius's query about what kind of work they do by announcing, rather smugly it seems, that they do not touch manuhl labor, but obey Paul's instruc-tion to pray without ceasing. Lucius asks how perpetual their prayer can really be if they must interrupt it to eat or sleep. For his part he demonstrates that work and prayer are not incompatible and shows how his charity toward the poor fills the gaps in his own prayer schedule. "When I have spent the whole day working and praying, making thirteen pieces of money more or less, I put two pieces of money outside the door and I pay for my food with the rest of the money. He who takes the two pieces of money prays for me when I am eating and when I am sleeping" (102, 1).2 But work that enables a monk to support himself and make a contribution to the well-being of others can also prove a distraction. What is supposed to support the spiritual life can become an end in itself (64, 10). It can assume an importance it does not deserve (44, 1 I). This is surely why Abba Silvanus threatens to leave his little community when his disciples and some other brothers move the fence to enlarge the garden (188, 8). This story also implies that at some point work becomes a guarantee of security, which challenges the hermit's dependence on divine providence. Abba Serinus, who worked at a number of tasks, avoided this trap by insisting that "in all these employments, if the hand of God had not sustained me, I should not have been fed" (191, 2). In the same vein, Silvanus is confident that as long as he does his part God will provide (188, 9). Given the tendency of work to become a goal in itself, it is not surprising that when a monk asks Abba Biare what he must do to be saved, the elder advises him to reduce his appetite, dwell in his cell, and reduce his quota of manual work (37, 1). Any kind of work can upset a hermit's life if it assumes too great a place in it. But certain kinds of work were regarded as essentially distracting. Agriculture per se was considered an exte-riorizing activity that draws a monk's attention away from God. Even the gardening that is mentioned in the Sayings was suspect. It was, at best, on the borderline of the acceptable. When Abba Silvanus had to water the garden his disciple usually cared for, he hid his face lest the sight of the trees should distract him (187, 4). Underlying what we have seen so far concerning the eremit-ical understanding of work is the conviction that a monk should pay his own way and contribute to some extent to the welfare of oth-ers. But neither of these obligations demands that all monks must Review for Relig4ous work. Some monks, surely, had the means to sustain their life with-out daily labor. A number of these could probably count on the support of their relatives and friends. Would this modest support not give them more time to pray and meditate? Is there not a mod-icum of good sense even in the extremist position of the Messalians? Why is work itself so important? We must note, first of all, that living on any form of income other than daily labor is explicitly rejected in the Sayings. A monk who is disturbed by the haggling involved in selling his wares asks one of the senior monks whether he may give up work if he finds another means to survive. The elder replies: "Even if you do have what you need by other means, do not give up your manual work" (168, 1). The monk is instructed, in fact, to work as hard as he can. The "word" given here is exemplified in the story of Abba Achilles, who edifies his visitors when they discover that he has been working and meditating all night. "From yesterday evening till now, I have woven twenty mea-sures, although I do not need it; but it is for fear God should be angry and accuse me, saying, 'Why did you not work when you could have done so?' That is why I give myself to this labor and do as much as I can" (25, 5). The Sayings generally do not emphasize the noneconomic value of manual labor. They do, however, present work as a basic element of a hermit's life. When Abba Poemen holds up one of the elders as an example, he observes that "in Abba Pambo we see three bodily activities: abstinence from food until the evening every day, silence, and much manual work" (158, 150). When Poemen lays out the basics of the eremitical life for an inquirer, he begins by saying that "living in your cell clearly means manual work" (160, 168). We know then that, according to the Sayings, work is an asceti-cal activity linked with meditation which should not be set aside even if other means of support are available. It seems clear, how-ever, that manual labor was so tightly tied to economic survival in the experience of most Egyptian solitaries that they felt no need to reflect in depth on the role it played in their lives. It was simply a fundamental but unobtrusive activity of their uncomplicated regime. To get a deeper insight into the role that work plays in Any kind of work can upset a hermit's life if it assumes too great a place in it. 159 March-April 2000 R~ssell * Must Her~nits Work? the eremitical life, we must turn to the elaborations on life in the desert which John Cassian offers us in his Institutions and Conferences. --- 160 Cassian's Institutions and Conferences The presence of Messalians (Syriac for "those who pray" but do not work) is more strongly felt in John Cassian's writings than in the Sayings. The need for daily work seems, therefore, to be less the plain, indisputable fact of life it is in the Sayings and more a deliberate option. Cassian takes Paul the Apostle as the exemplar of work. If Paul, who had the right to live off his mission, worked, how can monks refrain from doing so? Paul worked, Cassian notes, not for the sake of introducing some healthy variety into his life, but to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow even though he might have lived off his savings or from offerings received from others (Institutions 10.8; p. 270).3 Since Cassian uses Paul's injunction to the Thessalonians to work with their hands and to be at peace (1 Th 4:11), it is clear that he sees manual labor as an antidote to distraction (10.7; p. 269). Work concentrates the mind and shuts out external noise. It lifts the individual above the turmoil of the emotions. This is so important to John Cassian that he connects a story illustrating this point to St. Anthony himself. Anthony, we are told, was challenge'd by a brother who argued that his own life was superior to the discipline of the desert. He lived near his rel-atives, benefited from their support, and so was able to give all his time to prayer and reading. Anthony countered his claim to be free of care by showing that he was, in fact, emotionally tied to the economic ups and downs of his supporters. Anthony goes on to say that "this most lukewarm condition [is] depriving you of the fruit of your own hands and the just reward of your labor" (Conferences 24.11.3; p. 833).4 Once again Paul's example is put forward as the ideal. It is his example, Anthony maintains, which compels monks to work. Indeed, were it not for Paul's example, Anthony argues, he and his fellow monks would take the easy route and live off the alms of their relatives. Anthony goes on to chide the healthy monk for living off alms that should by right go to the weak. He then makes an astounding statement which radically opposes the notion that, while others must work, monks are exempt from labor because Review for Religious they pray. He insists, on the contrary, that everyone else in the world relies on the compassion of others, "with the sole exception of the race of monks which, in accordance with the Apostle' s precept, lives by the daily toil of its hands" (Conf24.12.3; p. 834). Anthony reminds us that, according to tradition, the monk gives alms, he does not receive them. In Anthony's opinion, authentic solitaries do not live off their relatives or near them. On the contrary, they flee society and live outside civilization's jurisdiction in the wastelands beyond the fer-tile Nile valley. This withdrawal not only shelters them from the hubbub of village life, but makes farming--the kind of work with which most Egyptian monks were probably familiar--impractical. Cassian regards farming as an unsuitable activity for a monk for several reasons. First, it draws the mind away from the focus on God which should be the monk's principal concern. Second, the fatigue brought on by hard work in the fields drains away the energy a monk needs for his spiritual pursuits (Conf 24.12.4; p. 835).s The third reason, however, is the most important. Not only is farm labor hard, it is also periodic; as a con-sequence, a monk who does this work is at loose ends for long periods of time. Cassian makes this last point evident in the story of some farming monks who grew restless whenever they visited the hermit colony of Skete. They literally could not sit still. Cassian says that they had not learned how to quiet their inner being because they worked outdoors and their thoughts were scattered everywhere by their bodily activity (Conf24.4; p. 828). For John Cassian, therefore; work is primarily associated with the spiritual goal of the monk. The hermit works because work provides the best conditions for prayer. The monk does certain kinds of work because certain tasks can be done day and night, day in and day out, without undue fatigue and without requiring a great deal of attention. The uncomplicated procedures associated with rope making and the like help him to pray. They keep the monk alert and centered so that he is able to resist both sleep and the listlessness and distractedness typical of acedia (Inst 2.12; p. 210). The example of Abba Paul, who had no economic reason to do handwork, shows just how essential Cassian thought manual labor actually was. Abba Paul's basic needs were met by the garden he Authentic solitaries do not live off their relatives or near them. March-April 2000 R~ssell ¯ M~t Hermits Work? tended and the palm trees near by. It seems, in fact, that his idyl-lic little oasis was so far out in the desert that the hermit had no way of getting his wares to market. Nevertheless, he collected palm branches and set himself a daily quota of weaving. At the end of the year he gathered the baskets he had made into a great pile and burned them. Then he started all over again. Abba Paul did not work to feed himself or to provide for the poor. So what was the point of his manual labor? Cassian says that his example proves that a monk can neither stay put nor achieve perfection without manual labor. Abba Paul worked solely to purify his heart, to keep his thoughts on course, to persevere in his cell, and thus to overcome acedia (Inst 10.24; pp. 274-275). In other words, he worked because it steadied and grounded him. The handwork with which he occupied himself night and day while praying centered him in a way that the gardening he did to support his life could not. Work serves prayer as long as it remains a subordinate ele-ment in the monastic regime. But, once a monk begins to think of himself as a "hard worker," he is in danger of feeding his human ambition by measuring his own worth in terms of the profit he makes or the tasks he performs. The monk, in effect, imports the world's notion of success into the desert. Once work itself becomes the goal, it usurps the priority that belongs properly to prayer. This is vividly illustrated in Cassian's tale of an elder who comes upon one of these superachievers wearing himself out try-ing to break up a stubborn boulder. The exhausted hermit thinks he is doing "good work," but the senior monk sees that a demon is urging him on (Confg.6.1-3; pp. 333-334). The point is clear: work that does not serve prayer can turn even the sorry resources of the desert into vehicles of human ambition. Jerome's Letter to Rusticus Before we leave the earliest teaching on the place of work in the eremitical life, we should take note of the list of possible tasks St. Jerome lays out in his letter to Rusticus,a young man on the brink of a monastic vocation.6 Although he counsels Rusticus not to live with his mother, and does mention at one point that by working he will be able to pay for his food, practical necessity is not the principal reason Jerome gives for working. It is primarily a matter of keeping busy and thereby holding the devil at bay. Review for Religious Some of the jobs which Jerome recommends are the familiar crafts of the Egyptian desert: weaving baskets and tending a small garden plot. To these Jerome adds the cultivation and grafting of fruit trees, beekeeping, the weaving of fishing nets, and, signifi-cantly, bookcopying. The copying of manuscripts was, to a great extent, a physical task like the other jobs mentioned. The parchment had to be pre-pared, inks mixed, pens cut, the pages lined, the text written out, and, finally, the manuscript bound. But there was an intellectual dimension to this activity. Jerome mentions that copying texts feeds the mind. He then goes on to remember his own brief stay in the desert when he fought off temptation by working hard to learn Hebrew. We have here, I think, the seeds of a conception of "work" quite different from that of the tradition of the Egyptian desert. We have moved out of the world of small peasant farmers into the cul- ¯ tivated world of the Roman gentleman. Although, while in the desert, Jerome may have earned his keep by some simple hand-work, it is clear that his real work was studying and writing. The same may be said, to some extent, of Cassian. From this time on we see a certain tension between the idea of work as a physical, money-earning activity and work as an intellectual activity for the betterment of the individual. Should someone who can do the higher work lay it aside to do a less spiritual and less humane task for the sake of earning money? Must a hermit work? Are the eremitical life and work in the sweat and blood, money-earning sense of the word compatible? The old question subtly reemerges between the lines, as it were, when Jerome, a man of scholarly inclination, lists the kinds of work suitable for a solitary. Grimlaic's Rule for Solitaries The 9th-10th-century Regula Solitariorum, by Grimlaic, rep-resents a literary dividing line between the Egyptian tradition's insistence that hermits must work to earn their living and the belief that solitaries have the right to turn to others for support.7 After noting the spiritual value of work as a means to. avoid idleness, Grimlaic summons up the example of St. Paul and the Fathers to insist that solitaries must work to support themselves and to help those in need. Indeed, he says that the greater part of the day should March-April 2000 Russell * Must Hermits Work? A hermit's food, drink, and clothing are paid for either by his personal labor or by the offerings of the faithful. be given to "holy work." He has in mind some task which can be performed mechanically while reading or praying.(Regula 39; 629). Grimlaic retells Cassian's story ofAbba Paul, who lived too far out in the desert to make the manufacture of baskets and ropes practical, but who nevertheless set himself a quota of manual work every day. He also borrows from the same source the story of the superspiritual nonworldng monk who was brought down to earth by Abba Silvanus's failure to call him to dinner (39; 630). He further emphasizes the importance of manual labor by laying out the Benedictine schedule of work and accept-ing the principle that, if poverty demands it, more time should be given to labor (40; 631).8 Obviously, there had always been elderly or infirm hermits who were unable to imitate the example of St. Paul "and the holy fathers" which Grimlaic so strongly emphasizes. Nonetheless, it seems to me significant that Grimlaic should undermine his argument by noting that Augustine maintains that the occasions on which Paul himself depended on alms demon-strate that those who are unable to do manual labor may receive their sustenance from others (39; 630). Grimlaic states this principle and then backs away from its implications. He insists that solitaries should work with their own hands even if they have some other means of support (39; 630). The idea that it might be legitimate for solitaries to rely on oth-ers for their keep recurs, however, immediately after Grimlaic defends the importance of work in passages borrowed ~rom Cassian and Benedict. It is no longer an exception to an almost inviolate rule. He simply states that a hermit's food, drink, and clothing are paid for either by his personal labor or by the offerings of the faith-ful (41; 631). He notes that he has demonstrated that it is legiti-mate for solitaries to live off alms. The argument isbased on more than Christian charity toward the needy. Hermits are compared to the priests and levites of the Old Testament, who received tithes so that they might be free to minister to the Lord without the distraction of earthly preoccu-pations (41; 631-632). The Christian clergy, like the ministers of Review for Religious the Old Testament, have nothing of their own, but merely admin-istrate and distribute what they receive from the people. The assimilation of solitaries to the clergy, which was becom-ing more a reality as monasteries were clericalized, is complete in Grimlaic's quotation from a rule for canons in which monks and hermits are said to rightly receive material support from the church because they have followed the evangelical counsel to renounce wealth (41; 632). Without this support they would have to shift their focus from God to the business of securing the necessities of life. But what of the traditional obligation of hermits to help the poor? The Regula Solitariorum deals with this issue by comparing hermits to the apostles in the Jerusalem church. The apostles them-selves owned nothing, but acted as channels through which each of the faithful received what he or she needed. Solitaries are to have the same detachment toward material things and to see to it that the poor share in the offerings which come their way (41; 632). What has happened to the concept of work in this transition from a reference to the fact that the fathers earned their living by the work of their hands to the declaration that hermits have the right to live off alms? The Regula Solitariorum is not saying that hermits need not work, but rather that they need not earn their living by the work they do. The profitability of work is not the sine qua non of the eremitical life. When the Egyptian abbas talked about work, they were refer-ring to an activity by which they avoided idleness and earned money. In the works which follow the Regula Solitariorum, the financial benefits of work will fade into the background. There will be a strong tendency to value work solely as a means to escape the boredom idleness brings on. A Camaldolese Rule for Hermits The shift in what is meant by "work" is evident in a 12th- 13th-century rule for hermits which plays a part in the history of the Camaldolese.9 It is interesting that, when the customary warn-ing against idleness is given and the hermit is told to combat this by "doing some work," the works suggested are actually spiritual and penitential practices (34; 297). When the rule does refer to manualia exercitia, the emphasis is on when manual labor may not be done (35; 298). March-April 2000 155 Russell ¯ Must Hermits Work? The kinds of work mentioned--gathering wood, gardening, collecting straw--are to be done in groups of three or more (36; 298). What the rule seems to have in mind when it talks of work (the noise of which must not disturb the quiet of the hermitage) is the maintenance necessary to keep the hermit colony functioning. There seems to be no notion of profitability whatsoever. Indeed, the emphasis on the recitation of the Psalter indicates the influence of Cluny (37; 298). Liturgical prayer has become the monk's real work. A hermit is simply too busy and too often weak-ened by fasting to work. During Lent, for example, some work (aliquid; manualia quaedam) is scheduled for only two afternoons a week (35; 298). Guigo I's Carthusian Customary The "customary" (or custom book) of what Would later be called the Grande Chartreuse, written by Guigo I, shows that bookcopying was to the Carthusians what weaving and braiding had been to the Egyptian solitaries, that is, the perfect activity for the hermit's cell. Guigo I notes, therefore, that anyone who is capable is taught to do this work (222)'.~° The production of manuscripts seemed particularly apt to these priest-hermits because it was a way for them to preach the word silently (224). The profit motive is not mentioned, but surely the produc-tion of a commodity that was in demand supplemented the support the inner circle of monks received from the outer ring of conversi, who did the manual labor that today we call blue-collar work. Guigo's complaints about the cost of running the place suggest that the community was on a tight budget (210). However, if there was anything left over after expenses had been met, it was Jaot given to the poor directly but sent to the neighboring village for distribution. In this way the Carthusians made it unprofitable for the poor to trek to their door (210). .I.t/k/ Peter the Venerable's Letter to Gislebertus Not all hermits and recluses shared the Carthusians' deter-mination to keep people at a distance. Some of them surrendered to the inclination to escape the monotony of their life by turning outward. Their effort to lighten the burden of their solitary rou-tine by a bit of pastoral counseling may seem prudent to us, but in Review for Religious fact it made the return to solitude all the harder. It had another damaging consequence: it brought them more money than they needed. The extra, of course, was said to be for the poor, but watching the coins pile up could easily lead to avarice or turn the hermit into a local benefactor. It is not surprising, there.fore, that Peter the Venerable, the great abbot of Cluny, advises Gislebertus, a monk of his who has recently become a recluse, to make sure that there is no extra cash in his cell. He insists that Gislebertus not become a distribution center of offerings to the poor. If someone in authority tells him that he must perform this function, the abbot uses his authority to veto the plan. It makes no sense to Peter that someone who has been freed from the worry of meeting his own needs should be entangled in concerns about the needs of others (35).~ Since we are told that his monastery provided Gislebertus with food, clothing, and his hermitage, it is clear that he did not have to earn his living (35). When Peter, therefore, proposes some sort of manual labor, he is suggesting a means of refreshing the'mind and exercising the body. He is recommending manual labor as a relief from the hard work of reading, prayer, and meditation (38). ¯ For Peter, as for Guigo I, the best work for a hei'mit is book-copying. He too is enthusiastic about its pastoral benefits (39). But, if a hermit cannot do this work because his eyes are bad or because it gives him a headache, or if he simply wants to have something more than just bookcopying to do, Peter recommends that he make coinbs, needle cases, small wine flasks, and the like. He even mentions that, if a swamp is nearby, the recluse may imi-tate the ancient monks and make baskets (39). At this point, it seems to me, the text veers toward the romantic. Work has become a hobby, purely a means of avoiding idleness. The task which Cassian said the Egyptian

Issue 58.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1999. ; f'o r reli i , C~stian Heritages and Contempora~ Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER1999 ¯ VOLUME58 ~°~NUMBER5 Review for Religious is a forum for shared r(flection on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. Tbe articles in tbe journal are meant to be informative, practical, historical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or ~ometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published hi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: foppema@slu.edu Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ° 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP P.O. Box 29260; Washington, D.C. 20017 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back c~)ver for information on subscription rates. ©1999 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm James and Joan Felling Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER'1999 ¯ VOLUME58 ¯ NUMBER5 contents 454 perspectives The Self in Postmodern Thought: A Carmelite Response Vilma Seelaus OCD places the biblical God-related understanding of the. self, on which the Carmelite tradition rests, in conversation with the postmodern self. 470 The "World" from Anthony of Egypt to Vatican II Frederick E. Crowe SJ examines some major transitions in the Christian attitude toward the world, especially as a new context for the meaning of consecrated life. 490 brothers "Come Closer. I Am Your Brother": Being and Doing Brotherhood Joel Giallanza CSC reflects on the very identity of the religious vocation of "brother" as providing both brothers themselves and the church with a rich and prophetic spirituality. Religious Brothers: One Vocation Director's Perspective Paul Bednarczyk CSC shares his reflections on why fewer people are choosing to be brothers and on some possible countermeasures. Review for Religious 5OO journeying On Promise Making, Leave-Taking, and Becoming Avis Clendenen brings together personal experience and psychological and theological insight in addressing the reality of making and breaking commitments. 515 Charism and Membership: Surpassing the Institutional Limits of Religious Life Deborah M. Cerullo SSND proposes that emphasis on becoming grounded in the charism through a common novitiate experience would create a better synthesis of diverse ways of being members. 524 associates Identity, Purpose, Organization: Ongoing Associate Programs Rose McDermott SSJ presents a brief historical overview of associates and associations joined to religious institutes, reviews church legislation, and then raises issues about sound future development. 537 Similarity and Uniqueness in the Association Experience: Theological Reflection Roberta Archibald SSJ, Joanne Bauer SBS, Mary Mester RSM, and Jean Ustasiewski OSF share their experience of using theological reflection in a regional gathering of associates and sisters. departments 452 Prisms 546 Canonical Counsel: Impediments to Admission 552 Book Reviews September-October 1999 prisms Thy kingdom come The words kingdom and reign sound off-putting to most Americans. We have little tra-dition of kings and queens. What we have of it stems from a relatively brief past of early colonizers looking back to European roots. But when we Christians pray the Lord's prayer, we find ourselves begging God--the one we address by Jesus' word Father--that "your king-dom will come." By Jesus' teaching us a way to pray as he prays, we seem to be using language that pictures God as ruler or king and God's area of influence as a kingdom. What do we mean when we pray "Thy kingdom come"? Perhaps we can gain some cl,arity by identifying first what we do not mean. Kingdom is not to be identi-fied with any political entity. Even the age-old notion of Christendom was not tl~e same as this kingdom, and so the breakup of Christendom was not a dissolution of the kingdom. Kingdom is not a certain physical locale. The Roman Catholic Church as an institutional structure is not identified with the kingdom. The church has an important role to play in the kingdom, but it is not the kingdom itself. The church continues the mission of Jesus in proclaiming the kingdom. The church is at the service of the kingdom; it is meant to be a sign, a sacrament of its presence. The kingdom is not something that we human beings fashion or build. We may sing some songs about Review for Religious our "building the kingdom of God," but there is no reality to be done corresponding to our words. According to the gospel imper-ative, we seek first the kingdom of God. We want what God wants. We desire to be totally available to God, ready to serve, eager to do God's will. Doing the will of God involves discipleship--hear-ing the call of Jesus and responding with the total gift of self. Doing the will of God makes the kingdom present, because we are busy about what God is busy about, and so we are where God is. Above all, as our petition teaches us, we pray for the coming of the kingdom since it is God's doing, it is God's work. Jesus himself never gives a definition of kingdom, and we may be surprised that no one seems to question him. In the synoptic Gospels, he never claims the kingdom as his; it always is identified with the one he calls Abba. Only through parables do we find Jesus giving some description of the kingdom. Our Christian Eucharist anticipates the frequent parable allusions to the eating and drink-ing at the Lord's table in the kingdom. For in every Eucharist we place ourselves with Jesus in his total availability to God as he prays "not my will, but yours be done." So what are we to say about the kingdom? How are we to make this petition our own every time we pray the Our Father? The kingdom is the inbreaking presence of God to our human world and our responsive relating to God's being with us. God continues to pour out divine life--what we name as grace--and, when human cooperation is present, then the kingdom is right at hand. Just as the disciples experienced the transfiguration of Jesus, so too the kingdom is often experienced by our touching into this transfiguration kind of moment of a deeper-down reality shining out through our ordinary world. As we enter into this jubilee year, not through the alarms of some millenarians, but rather through the gospel introduction of Jesus, we hear anew Jesus' call to conversion and repentance, his admonition of obedience and watchfulness, and his appeal to be ready and waiting. We are like members of a wedding party--joy-ful, expectant. But it is no bride or groom whom we serve and cel-ebrate. It is our triune God--shining out as the redemptive presence of the Father in Jesus through the power of their Spirit of love. What do we want for ourselves and for our world? "Thy Kingdom come." David L. Fleming sJ September-October 1999 perspectives VILMA SEELAUS The Self in Postmodern Thought: A Carmelite Response This article was conceived at the end of the Carmelite Seminar of 1997 at St. Mary's College in South Bend. I had an opportunity to browse in the Notre Dame book-store, and two titles in different sections waved for my attention. The first was The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World, in which Jungian author James Hillman takes archetypal psychology in a new direction. He claims that, with the soul of the world sick as evidenced by violence and corruption, individuals become sick at heart and suffer heart attacks. To restore the heart's courage and its imaginative power, therefore, the soul of the world needs the same attention that we have been giving to the soul of individual persons. Situating the individual self within the heart of the world challenges the rugged individualism of the modern self.1 The other book that caught my attention was Anthony Thiselton's Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self, in which he offers a hermeneutic of selfhood. Thiselton compares and assesses both modern and post-modern interpretations of the self in relation to Christian Vilma Seelaus OCD made this presentation in June 1998 at the Carmelite Seminar at St. Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana. It is being published also on audio- and videocas-sette by ICS Publications and the Carmelite Institute. Her address is Carmelite Monastery; Barrington, Rhode Island 02806. Review for Religious theology. Postmodern interpretations, he acknowledges, perceive the self as trapped within a network of role performances imposed on it by the power interests of others, but he argues for a deeper understanding of the self and its destiny. Postmodernism de-cen-ters the self; it denies any permanent, integrated reality to the self. It claims that identity is socially constructed and that people in different kinds of societies have quite different identity-forming experiences. Thiselton accepts the force of this, but argues for a deeper understanding of the self in relation to the biblical vision of reality and Christian theology.2 Reading Hillman and Thiselton enticed me into further study of postmodern thought in relation to the self. Before long, the complexity of the topic had my head spinning) Furthermore, post-modern debates about the very nature of reality challenged beliefs that shape my life as a Carmelite. And yet, the more perplexed I became, the more firmly did an inner conviction stand its ground: that our Carmelite mystical tradition has perennial values and insights for our postmodern world and perhaps for many worlds yet to come. In these reflections, therefore, I place the biblical God-related understanding of the self, on which the Carmelite tradition rests, in conversation with the postmodern self. I do this in two parts. Part One brings together important insights from both the mod-ern and the postmodern movements, showing a shift in under-standing the self. Part Two looks into the writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross for what they offer by way of chal-lenge, expansion, or depth in regard to the self and in regard to our own spiritual journey.as we enter the new millennium. Part One Walter Truett Anderson's insightful and witty book titled: Reality Isn't What It Used to Be helped me to realize that the self in particular is not what it used to be. What did the self use to be that it no longer is? What are the shifts in self-understanding, which, for better or for worse, postmodernism names for us? How might we as Christians respond appropriately to the challenge of post-modernism? First, what do we mean by postmodern? Postmoderns claim to have superseded, to have gone beyond, previous ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving which developed in the so-called modern September-October 1999 Seelaus ¯ The Self in Postmodern Thought period. It deconstructs them, to use the "in" term. At the same time, postmodernism is far from a developed, coherent social theory. Scholars dispute whether or not it is a form of radical modernism or something distinctive after modernism, or some of each. According to Philip Endean in his foreword to an issue of The Way dedicated to postmodernism and spirituality: As the structure of the word implies, the postmodern cannot be understood for what it is in itself, but only in terms of what has preceded it: the postmodern is a gamut of reac-tions to the modern, swinging between two moods: a mood of disillusionment, as previously unquestioned assumptions and standards are found wanting, and a mood of exhilara-tion, as new and better alternatives are explored, develop&d, and advocated. Postmodern thinking draws on a wide range of sources: from cybernetics to feminism, from literary the-ory to the new physics, from cultural history to psychoanal-ysis and linguistics. Perhaps for this reason its expression can be, notoriously, opaque.4 Although the philosopher Kant back in the 18th century.paved the way, the 1960s are considered the true beginning of the post-modern era. At that time everything came into question, and all belief systems, with their traditional values, came under attack. People in the '60s began to question what they called the myth of objective consciousness: that, when you looked at things, what you saw and described was what was actually there. (At the scene of an accident, eyewitnesses often give conflicting accounts of what happened.) Today constructivists hold that the "real world" is an ever changing social creation. In the 1960s, thoughts about the self were also changing. As Anderson points out: In the '60s, people assumed that, if you developed enough contempt for your old socially adapted self, a new True Self, unsullied by any conformity, would magically appear, that a True Culture and a True Politics likewise stood in the wings--and that when they appeared they would not have to coexist with old selves, old cultures, old politics. Things didn't work that way!6 Though the '60s were the time of eruption, postmodernism con-tinues and radicalizes trends that actually began during the Enlightenment, at the dawn of what philosophers call the "mod-ern period." Descartes (1596-1650), the classical modern philoso-pher of clear and distinct ideas, attempted to provide clear and Revieva for Religious certain criteria against which our knowledge can be tested for truth. He was also intensely preoccupied with the subject who knows these ideas: the knowing person. For today's radical deconstructionists, like Derrida, such Cartesian objectivity is anathema. Derrida holds all reality to be socially constructed. Reality is simply the interpretation of the perceiving subject. Derrida insists that we cannot grasp reality because it slips by before we can catch hold of it. Everything, then, is interpreta-tion. Nevertheless, Derrida and the other decon-structionists are in a way Descartes's descendants. Descartes understands the self as an active agent, whereas for Derrida the self shifts from active agent to passive situatedness. Instead of a core something (called selJ) determining how it will respond to different situations, the situation cre-ates the self. Different situations call forth a dif-ferent self to be expressed.7 On the whole, postmoderns recognize the importance, for its time, of the modern move-ment. It brought new values to the fore. We ben-efit from the knowledge that scientific objectivity makes possible. From it come the many techno-logical wonders that are integral to our everyday life. In the moral and political spheres, modernity made room for personal autonomy and liberty and for the development of a liberal society wherein diversity is possible. Religion, too, has been enriched by modernity. Most Jewish and Christian believers, for example, no longer subscribe to a literal understanding of the Bible's story of creation in six days.8 But the improvements of modernity have a dark side: the exploitation of nature and its resources, the emergence of indi-vidualism and the consequent collapse of the sense of community, the divorce of technology from moral values, and denials of the worth of ethnic, tribal, and religious traditions. While the modern period gave us universal abstract systems and scientific "metanar-ratives," accounts of the origins and development of the universe, these often denied the existence of God or denied that God could ¯ be discovered by the conscious self. As a result, in today's world many lives are governed by efficiency, profit, success, and the will Modernity made room for personal autonomy and liberty and for the development of a liberal society wherein diversity is possible. September-October 1999 Seelaus ¯ The Self in Postmodern Thought to power without regard for ultimate human values. Talk of love, truthfulness, belief, loyalty, and so forth has little meaning. Further, advanced technology, the offspring of the modern period, has introduced a world of ceaseless change. New models quickly replace the old. Things are made not to endure, but to be consumed and replaced. Think of how quickly appliances need replacement or upgrading. Indeed, today we struggle with both the benefits and the dark side of the modern period. As science enabled the modern self more and more to carve out and control its own destiny, the self tended to be assured and opti-mistic. But today, as postmodern thinkers become increasingly aware of the self's arrogant, power-hungry dark side, the self appears to be, in fact, de-centered--no longer an active agent, but instead taking its identity from the variable roles imposed upon it by society and by its own inner drives and conflicts, conflicts which the communications media keep in constant motion. The media, especially the advertising world, tell it who it should be, how it should look, what it should own, and where it needs to travel in order to feel good about itself. Postmoderns see our opinions formed for us by the collective perceptions of the media. Under such conditions, notions of a true self give way to the self as wear-ing different masks to suit the occasion, with little sense of a solid identity underneath. We tend to become who we think others want us to be. In theory, the will of the individual is still supreme, but often it has no strong center, no belief system to serve as anchor. When everything is up for grabs, the self lacks the support of collective meaning. There is too much to choose from; this can leave indi-viduals feeling alone in a sea of options. Many people today feel estranged from others and even from themselves. When people see no value to their lives other than the imperatives of efficiency, success, or serving the power interests of others, when their "real-ity" depends on what the TV screen says is real, no wonder there are high r~ites of suicide and physician-assisted death. Veronica Brady, in an article in The Way, describes it well: "Caught in this ceaseless flow of images, the self almost ceases to exist, breaking into fragments, identifying only with the flow. Right and wrong become a matter of personal taste, depending not so much on what is done but who does it. The center does not hold because there is no center.''9 A character in Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses says: "Information got abolished sometime in the Review for Religious twentieth century, can't say just when, stands to reason, that's part of the information that got., abolished. Since then we've been living in a fairy-story . Everything happens by magic. [We] haven't a. notion what's going on. So how do we know if it's right or wrong? We don't even know what it is.'''° Rushdie's world of illusion hangs within the "actual" world of extremes of rich and poor, with millions dying of starvation as nations invest billions of dollars in developing new and deadlier weapons that are then sold to warring ethnic and tribal groups intent on destroying each other. In this context the theories of deconstructionists like Derrida and Lyotard begin to make sense. The absurdity of human confidence in its power to rule the world is becoming more and more apparent as the products of the human mind threaten to destroy us. At the same time, on the positive side, the modern period highlighted one of the deepest urges of the human heart: to be someone. The drift of cultural change is in the direction of human rights, of wanting everyone to be free to create personal identity and experience, even though, for many in our world, resources are not available. No wonder people become dishonest--seeking to have and be and do what the TV ads say they should have and be and do. The struggle to be someone is now a global struggle. Some years ago I had occasion to live in Israel for three months. The incongruities of the struggle became vivid for me when I saw, above Bedouin tents in the desert, TV antennas con-necting them with the modern/postmodern world. As Walter Truett Anderson puts it: "Every morning billions of pairs of eyes open, and billions of societies of mind set forth on the adventures of selfhood. For many the adventure only rarely rises above the level of a struggle to keep the body alive, but even the most mis-erable among us also hear the aspirations of the self---the 'me' craving reassurance that it exists and is good and the modern me that pursues happiness and believes that, whatever happiness it finds, will be what it has taken or created and not what has been handed down by fate.''~ To add a further dimension, the global struggle to be someone is seen with fresh and deep insight by postmodern psychologists who have been influenced by Buddhism. Psychologists Robert Rosenbaum and John Dyckman hold with Buddhism that self/oth-ers are empty. This does not mean that they are void; it means they have no existence other than in relationships that are con- Septentber-October 1999 Seelaus ¯ The Self in Postmodern Thought World and self mutually influence and create one another. stantly arising in the immediate experience of the moment. To say that the self is empty means that the self is not a thing and there-fore has no unchanging core characteristics or essence. It is a way of indicating that self is always completely connected to its imme-diate experience, that in the immediacy of the moment, uncon-strained by past residue or future expectations, self is always free. As the Buddhist Diamond Sutra notes, the past is gone, the future is not here, and the present cannot be grasped. This is perfect freedom.12 As the authors point out, freedom here is not to be confused with a pseudofreedom that seeks to abandon all constraints. Instead, to understand emptiness as being connected to immedi-ate experience can lead to greater generosity and compassion toward the self and others. Past experience no longer has the last word. The empty self, actualized in immediate expe-rience, binds together apparent opposites: the dynamic interchange of oneness and separate-ness. These are not mutually exclusive. The empty self is the connected self which is actu-alized in context and in relationships. Observation reveals self-identity to be fluid and constantly changing according to context and relationships. As the Rosenbaum-Dyckman article puts it, "At work we may be decisive and authoritative; when out to dinner with our spouse, we may be hesitant and deferent about what to order for dinner. Yet we believe ourselves to be the same person.°13 Postmodern psychologists repeatedly make the point that our person is not encapsulated by our skin, but exists in relation. The self is always self in relation, in action, and as such is always con-textual. They hold that emotions are always a reliving in the pre-sent rather than a recall from the dead past. If we do not need to be attached to an unchanging self, and can see change as the only constant, it becomes somewhat easier to image change in prob-lem behaviors24 Although the self may be fluid and constantly changing, it must nevertheless have a boundary, but, according to Rosenbaum and Dyckman, a boundary with infinite length enclosing a finite, definable area, different from the rigid boundaries of lines on a map. Human boundaries are not abstract, conceptual schemas, but are always embodied in constant interaction with a world from Review for Religious which they are not separate. World and self mutually influence and create one another. Such mutual influencing has the potential to stretch present definable boundaries and give glimpses into the infinite. Here the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican comes to mind. If our attitude is one of self-righteousness that places us over against the rest of the world, we will be unable to hear the challenges that postmodern psychologists offer us for continued growth in our postmodern world. Our boundaries become sealed in finitude, and the infinite capacity that is ours becomes rigid, like the lines of a map. Psychologists in increasing numbers address the postmodern shift in regard to the self, and they offer valuable insights for living healthily in today's changing world. At the same time, postmodern philosophers and psychologists do not have the last word, and so now we turn to the mystics for their insights into the self. Part Two Since human boundaries are not abstract, but are embodied and are in constant interaction with the world from which they are not separate, precisely here does the biblically based Carmelite tradition offer timeless help. Back in 16th-century Spain, Teresa of Avila wrote a book to help her daughters of the reformed Carmel relate to one another and to the world, from which they were not separate even in their cloister. In her Way of Perfection, she gives her daughters some advice that flows with meaning into our post-modern age: "I shall enlarge on only three things., for it is very important that we understand how much the practice of these three things helps us to possess inwardly and outwardly the peace our Lord recommended so highly to us. The first of these is love for one another; the second is detachment from all created things; the third is true humility, which, even though I speak of it last, is the main practice and embraces all the others.''~s Many centuries separate us from Teresa and the particularity of her issues, but the interrelated dynamic of love, detachment, and humility are integral to spiritual growth in today's confusing world. Postmodernity challenges much of what we cling to by way of values and beliefs and, in particular, our self-understanding. To understand the self as fluid and constantly changing invites a deeper penetration into the Christian, Carmelite Understanding of Septentber-October 1999 Seelaus ¯ The Self in Postmodern Thought detachment. It would have us be attached to nothing, not even the most innocent of things, for in time of need they fail us com-pletely. John of the Cross insists: "To come to the knowledge you have not, you must go by a way in which you know not. To come to the possession you' have not, you must go by a way in which you possess not. To come to be what you are not, you must go by a way in which you are not . This places us in our center of humility.''16 Detachment and humility go hand in hand. They cre-ate an openness to new ideas, a willingness to let go of the past an, d let the context of the present create us anew. The contextual pre-sent is the place of encounter with God. The past, while it may continue to influence present behavior, is in fact nonexistent, and the future evolves out of each passing moment. Detachment opens up roads less traveled; but, if we feel attached to our current road, we may all too readily say, "This is me; this is my self." We have heard people say, "I'm a one on the enneagram or an INFP on the Myers-Briggs, so you have to take me as I am." With such a self-fixated attitude, we will less likely hear God's invitation into the infinite realms of potential self-realization. If we conceive of the self as determined by the pathways already taken, a composite of past experiences, it will be hard to let go when unknown paths beckon us onward. As Rosenbaum and Dyckman put it, "The self, as an accumulation of experience, is a prison; the self as empty, as shimmering potentiality, is a prism that, depending on its positioning, gives forth many different colors."17 In his Spiritual Canticle, John of the Cross reminds us that the woods and thicket in which we find ourselves today have been planted by the hand of the Beloved.18 God's self revelation con-tinues right within the human story. The density and darkness of postmodernity--which holds that there is a multiplicity of per-spectives in the search for truth, which denies a stable foundation of self and of knowledge--can generate extremes of uncertainty. But the de-centered self of postmodernity has its own gift to offer. It invites us, beyond the limits of what can be known and con-trolled, into a self that is mystery, into God as ultimate Mystery. The temptation is either to stay blinded in self-righteous cling-ing to the limitations of human knowledge, or to despair before the uncertainties of life. Detachment itself can be the void of despair, unless it is grounded in faith and in the experience of God. The Dutch theologian Frans Jozef van Beeck, in his contem-porary. Catholic systematic-theology series titled God Encountered, Review for Religious reminds us that "the human subject., is naturally and radically 'de-centered': the mature person's true center does not repose in the person. Authentic persons live on the strength of unfulfillable desire . Grace graciously enables human persons, along with their world, to that most natural, yet most divine of all things: freely to move toward God in total faith and abandon."'gIn the midst of alternative versions of reality, and many different ways of being in the world, with the postmodern tolerance for a plethora of possibilities, choosing to believe in something is vital. We can be respectful of others with differing beliefs and still stand firm in the faith that is ours, a faith that centers the self in God. According to the philosopher Kierkegaard, faith is the pas-sionate embrace of objective uncertainty.2° Faith bypasses the postmodern self that interprets, even cre-ates, its own reality. It bypasses human reason to plunge us into mystical depths where being and nonbeing are held in cre-ative tension by God's abiding presence to human life. At this level Rahner rightly speaks of the experience of God and the experience of self as one.2' In his insis-tence upon the possibility open to all of an immediate experience of God, Rahner writes: "I am convinced that such an immediacy between God and the human person., is of greater significance today than ever before. All the societal supports of religion are collapsing and dying out in this secularized and pluralistic society. If, nonetheless, there is to be real Christian spirituality, .it cannot be kept alive and healthy by external helps, not even those which the church offers., but only through an ulti-mate, immediate encounter ofthe individual with God.''22 The Harvard psychologist Charles Verge names this place of encounter "the divine self.''23 Here the self and God mirror each other.24 The longing of the human heart to be someone issues from God, in whose image we are made and whose love holds us in being. "Beloved of God" defines the self. The Spiritual Canticle of John of the Cross is a text that writes the self of each one of us. In the Canticle, God's passionate love for the soul, enfleshed in Christ, The longing of the human heart to be someone issues from God, in whose image we are made and whose love holds us in being. Septentber-October 1999 Seelaus ¯ The Self in Postmodern Thought stirs a passionate response and gives meaning and direction to life right within the extremes of uncertainty that surround us. To be transformed into the image of Christ, to become like Christ, con-stitutes the heart of the divine promise. Faith enables us to embrace, with passion, the ultimate objec-tive uncertainty that the mystery of God revealed in Christ is. Christ lifts the self out of its predefined situatedness with its self-interest, into love for God and love for others. God's love trans-forms the will to power, to possession, to lust, into will to love. The detachment that faith calls forth issues in genuine love even for those who differ from us. Postmodernism stretches our capacity to love. Life today beckons toward a global embrace of love; love for those who may look different from us, love for those who may think differently from us, and love for those whose values may be different, even opposed to ours. Today, in the face of our differences, love holds the special challenge of intense, respectful listening, which can only happen if the heart is humble. A humble heart is a heart detached from pre-conceived ideas and personal prejudice. According to Teresa, humil-ity is truth, and our truth is that we are all, without exception, finite, fragile creatures capable of sin and that as such we always stand on the threshold of ongoing conversion. At the same time, integral to truth is that each one of us is always infinitely loved and possessed by God. Insofar as we fall short, God invites us to continued conversion and, even more, to divine transformation. Our challenge is to live Christ's gospel of love. Such love dissolves the disharmony of suspicion and distrust, it detaches us from self-interest, and it opens us to others in humility and genuine con-cern. As Rahner sagely asks, "Why should there be any need for deception, which serves to protect the self, if the self is loved, wel-comed, accepted, and reconciled-as-one with the Other?''2s Receiving the self from God in Christ, giving the self to others in love, and serving the other's interests as one's own are mirrorings of God, the divine self-giving Trinity, in whose image we are. In trinitarian theology, love constitutes the ground of selfhood. The gospel account of Jesus at table, encircled by the outcasts of his time, symbolizes the self today cast out from itself and in need of re-centering in Christ. From the horizon of Christ, we see the incompleteness of all that is human in relation to our total commitment to Christ, but in Christ we also see ourselves con-nected with the heart of all that is. Revie~v for Religious The archetypal psychology of James Hillman invites us to this from a psychological perspective. He would have us see ourselves and others as intimately connected with what he calls the soul of the world. Today conversion extends to claiming our part in what Hillman rightly names the sickness of the soul of the world. He claims that the world, because of its breakdown, is entering a new moment of consciousness by having its attention drawn to itself by means of its symptoms. It is becoming aware of itself as a psychic reality. We now encounter pathology in the psyche of politics and medicine, of language and design, of the food we eat. Sickness, says Hillman, is now "out there" as well as "in here.''26 To situate our individual self within the heart of the world not only challenges the rugged individualism of the modern self; it also invites a deeper awareness of our connectedness with others and with planet Earth, whose beauty and balance are today oppressed by our violent consumer world. The world itself is now a patient in need of hea~ling. Postmodernism offers a broader understanding of the redeeming mission of Christ. The entire cos-mos becomes the locus of redemption. Like us, our church and civilization and even planet are all in need of Christ's redeeming, healing, transforming love. Postmodernism is globalism; as such it is the half-discovered truth of the one unity that transcends all our differences. The language of postmodernism would be alien to Teresa, and yet, as she increasingly experienced herself as centered in God, her self became increasingly fluid. She seems astonished as the boundaries of the self continue to expand. There are many exam-pies, but in her Autobiography, her Vida (chap. 15, para. 7), Teresa, experiencing herself infused with the light of God, comments: "And I, though being what I am, seem to be another person." In 23.1, recalling how God freed her from herself, she writes that "here begins another new life." In 27.1, having placed herself com-pletely in the hands of God, she says, "l saw that I was a com-pletely different person." In 27.9 she says, "One of these graces is enough to change a soul completely.''27 In the context of these remarks, Teresa specifically mentions that she is growing in either love, detachment, or humility. At the height of her mystical life, Teresa has a profound expe-rience that, on the level of the divine self, reflects the empty, de-centered, but relational, contextual self of postmodernity. In 40.5 of her Vida, she writes: Septentber-October 1999 Seelaus ¯ The Self in Postmodern Thought Once, while I was reciting with all the sisters the hours of the divine office, my soul suddenly became recollected; and it seemed to me to be like a brightly polished mirror, without any part on the back or sides or top or bottom that wasn't totally clear. In its center Christ our Lord was shown to me, in the way I usually see him. It seemed to me I saw him clearly in every part of my soul, as though in a mirror¯ And this mirror also--I don't know how to explain it--was com-pletely engraved upon the Lord Himself by means of a very loving communication I wouldn't know how to describe. ¯ I was given understanding of what it is for a soul to be in mortal sin. It amounts to clouding this mirror with mist and leaving it black; and thus this Lord cannot be revealed or seen, even though he is always present giving us being. In God, Teresa is connected with the world's sin, even as she affirms the ever present graciousness of God always giving us being within the darkness of sin. God is present in Teresa, not with power and might, but in love and with an invitation to self-transcendence that is as pertinent and penetrating for us today as it was for Teresa. In 3 7.11 of her l/ida, Teresa sounds as though she is living in our present age. After lamenting the foibles of her honor-bound society, with its elaborate system of etiquette, she says, "I don't know how it's all going to end up; even though I'm not y.et fifty, I've already seen so many changes I don't even know how to live anymore. What will they do who are now being born and will live for many years?" What will we do, we who have been born in this postmodern era, this era in which we live for many years, often into our nineties? Like Teresa, we do not know where it is all going to end up. Many would say that dark night engulfs our entire world and the times in which we live. The Carmelite tradition, however, assures us that God is in the night. John of the Cross eloquently describes the meaning of the soul's journey into the night of God. In this night of faith, we discover that love is the eye of God and we in turn are to see and interpret all things through the eyes of God. From this perspective we see that we are all one in God's love and that we bear one another's burdens. By the quality of our lives, Christ would have us be bearers of hope for all who suffer the travails of poverty, violence, injustice, and oppression. Right within the many forms of death that surround us is the seed of resurrec-tion impatient for new life. As we work with our differences in families, in our civic and Review for Religious church communities, we can dare to hope that our graced strug-gle will energize efforts toward understanding, toward finding common ground within the extremes of diversity that ctiaracterize our postmodern world. What we see in Teresa's writings is a devel-opment in her understanding of herself and of Christ, who com-panions her journey. Today,. as we find the self anew, we also find new ways of seeing Christ and the Christian mysteries right within our postmodern world, without getting caught in nostalgia for the past. Again, like Teresa, we do not know where it will all end up. What we do know is that the future is present, like a seed, in today's disconcerting moment. Our challenge is to live now, to live fully (but with humility, detachment, and love) what we say we believe. The sufferings of our time are not meaningless, as sec-ular postmodernity might see them. They are integral to the groan-ing of creation in labor until it brings forth redemption, the final triumph of God's love. At its deepest level the self is caught up in the incomprehensible mystery of Love we call God. Notes I James Hillman, The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World (Woodstock, Connecticut: Spring Publications, 1995). 2 Anthony C. Thiselton, Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self'. On Meaning, Manipulation, and Promise (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998). 3 It also leaves me with a little anxiety that the many authors that I read be given due credit. As I prepare this paper for publication, I real-ize that much of what I read merged in my thinking as I internalized the material. 4 See The Way 36, no. 3 (July 1996): 175. s According to Anderson, Kant's work in the 18th century began with a problem that was as divisive in its time as the objectivist-con-structivist one is in ours--in this case a conflict between the British empiricists such as Locke and Hume, who saw thought as merely an instrument for understanding or using "real world experience," and the Continental philosophers such as Descartes and Leibniz, who saw the mind as the supreme organizer and discoverer of all reality. This was not a postmodern debate. All parties assumed that people could appre-hend unchanging and universal truth. Kant's attempt to resolve the con-flict was his own contribution to the search for "foundational" knowledge or reality--beyond historical and cultural relativism--but it pointed toward a view of the mind as a creator of reality. Kant describes the mind as an active organ that orders and forms the raw data of experience, 1-467-- September-October 1999 Seela~s ¯ The Self in Postmodern Thought imposing upon them its own structure; we do not experience things in themselves but rather representations of them. See Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn't What It Used to Be (San Francisco: Harper, 1990), pp. 59-60. 6 Anderson, Reality, p. 48. 7 See Robert Rosenbaum and John Dyckman, "Integrating Self and System: An Empty Intersection?" Family Process 34 (March 1995): 26- 27, and Kenneth J. Gergen, "The Social Construction of Self- Knowledge," in Daniel Kolak and Raymond Martin, Self and Identity: Contemporary Philosophical Issues (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991), pp. 372-403. 8 See Max Charlesworth, "Postmodernism and Theology," The Way 36, no. 3 (July 1996): 188-202, for an interesting summary of the devel-opment of modern to postmodern thought. 9 Veronica Brady, "Postmodernism and the Spiritual Life," in The Way 36, no. 3 (July 1996): 181. 10 Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (London: Viking, 1988), p. 313, quoted in Brady, "Postmodernism." 11 Walter Truett Anderson, Reality, p. 132. 12 Rosenbaum and Dyckman, "Integrating," pp. 28-33. 13 Rosenbaum and Dyckman, "Integrating," p. 26. 14 According to Rosenbaum and Dyckman, "Integrating," pp. 35-37, acknowledging memory as constructive, as a present contextual experi-ence, rather than as retrieval of the past, helps to avoid difficulties such as the controversies over recovered memories of trauma and abuse, which are a sensitive contemporary issue. ~s Teresa of Avila, Way of Perfection (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1980), chap. 4, para. 4, p. 54. 16 The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1991), p. 150. 17 Rosenbaum and Dyckman, "Integrating," p. 37. is See his Spiritual Canticle, stanza 4, in Collected Works, p. 494. 19 Frans Jozef van Beeck, God Encountered: A Contemporary Catholic Systematic Theology, Vol. 2/1 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993), p. 238. 20 Soren Kierkegaard, "Truth Is Subjectivity," in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 169ff. "Truth is precisely the con° tradiction between the infinite passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith, I must constantly be intent upon hold-ing fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith . " Review for Religious 2~ See Karl Rahner, "Experience of Self and Experience of God," in Theological Investigations, vol. 13 (New York: Crossroad, 1983), pp. 122- 132. 22 See "The Immediate Experience of God in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola," in Karl Rahner in Dialogue, ed. Paul Imhof and Hubert Biallowons, trans. Harvey D. Egan (New York: Crossroad, 1986), p. 176. 20 See Charles Verge, "Foundations for a Spiritually Based Psychotherapy," in Religion and Family, ed. L. Burton (Hayworth Press, 1992), pp. 41-59. 24 See also her Autobiography in Collected Works of Teresa of Avila, Vol. 1, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1976), chap. 40, paras. 5 ~nd 10. Teresa here recounts two visions in which God and the soul mirror each other. See also Spiritual Canticle, stanza 12, in Collected Works of John of the Cross, pp. 515-519. 2s Quoted in Thiselton, Interpreting God, p. 160. z6 Hillman, Thought of the Heart, pp. 96-99. 27 With only a quick glance, I found chap. 20, paras. 23, 25, and 26- 28; chap. 21, paras. 8-9; and chap. 25, paras. 18-19--all referring to Teresa experiencing herself as a different person. The Salvation Cup I raise my fragile, broken cup. Accept it empty. Nothing I own can f!ll it. This is the cup of my truth, my faith in the promise, my salvation cup. Fill it with the wine of the Spirit, the river that makes fertile my barren ground, the ocean of never ending mystery. This is my cup. With it I offer my fragileness, my sinfulness and my broken promises. Heal me, Spirit of God, with theelixir of salvation. Virginia Skrdlant SHCJ September-October 1999 FREDERICK E. CROWE The "World" from Anthony of Egypt to Vatican II An old proverb, once thought to be scriptural, warns us that where there is no understanding the people perish. Scriptural or not, the proverb itself is sound enough, and I would apply it to the institution of religious life. On all sides the question is heard: Is religious life dying? I refuse to believe that the God who gave us Anthony of Egypt, Benedict, Francis, Dominic, Ignatius, and so many others down to Mother Teresa is a God who intends religious life to perish. But I do believe in the need for under-standing, so that through our input God's operative grace may become cooperative. The Pattern of Human Thinking This essay is, then, an essay in understanding, but much more modest in scope than the preceding paragraph would suggest. It does not attempt td study religious life in its essence, its proper-ties, its various manifestations. It goes back rather to a prelimi-nary question and takes one small point for study: the Christian attitude toward what we call the "world." It is my hope that, if we gain some understanding on this background question, we will have a context for an eventual rethinking of religious life itself. Frederick E. Crowe SJ wrote "The Ignatian Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality" for our July-August 1994 issue. His address remains Lonergan Research Institute; 10 St. Mary Street, Suite 500; Toronto, Ontario; M4Y 1P9 Canada. Review for Religious My approach is historical rather than analytic. It examines the major transitions in the Christian attitude toward the world. It finds a dialectic running through history, a dialectic of to and fro that is not a mere alternation, but a progressively unfolding pat-tern in which each alternation is a step forward. It concludes with the way the church is finding new meaning for its role in the world, and proposes this as a new context in which religious too might find today the meaning of their consecrated life. The advantage of approaching history as a dialectic in the sense described is twofold. First, it may lift us out of our "crisis" mood, in which we think of our present situation as a spiritual fever, as a low point from which the patient may either die or recover and resume life as it was before the crisis. In a dialectical understanding, that is not the case. The low point is an opening on a new high. Second, a dialectic follows an intelligible pattern, with each step part of a natural, though not necessarily logical, sequence. This means that, if we can plot the sequence up to the present, we may be able to establish the direction of movement and discern the path we should take into the developing and unknown future. That "natural sequence" is the pattern of human thinking in time, the way the human mind naturally works as it progresses toward fuller and fuller understanding. In itself the pattern is sim-ple enough. Faced with a problem area of any complexity, the human mind will first find some specific factor of explanation, will tend to make that the whole explanation, but will eventually see that it is insufficient as a total view. It will then discover a generic factor and will in turn make that the full explanation, only to dis-cover that this too is insufficient as a total view. Eventually, in the dialectical oscillation of specific and generic, the mind will arrive at a higher viewpoint and hold the specific and the generic in the unity of a full understanding. The Pattern Illustrated That is terribly abstract. So, before applying it to the history of Christian thinking on the world, let me offer two concrete illus-trations that show the pattern as realized in actual history. First, the natural priority of the specific is easily illustrated in human lan-guage. "So in Homer there were words for such specific activities as glancing, peering, staring, but no generic word for seeing.''1 This is "both the strength and the weakness of'early language";~ it Septentber-October 1999 Crowe ¯ The "WorM"from Anthony of Egypt to Vatican ll The term vocation was appropriated to the religious life (as it commonly still is). has the power of the concrete, but is unable to reason in abstract or generic terms. And so in learning to write English we are told to search for the specific, for the concrete descriptive word, but in the strict reasoning of, say, a legal question we may have to resort to technical and abstract language. What is true of human language is true also of human think-ing, and so my second illustration is taken from the theology of our need for divine grace. Here there was first the discovery of a specific explana-tion, namely, the fall of our first parents. This was largely the focus of St. Augustine's thinking, which centered on the difference between their state before the fall and ours after it. This idea ran its course for about seven centuries, cul-minating in the position of Peter Lombard, namely, that there are in the grace-history of our human race "four states of human liberty: the earthly paradise, fallen man, man redeemed, and heaven.''3 Our need for divine grace is understood in relation to those states. Meanwhile, however, the insufficiency of this specific step was gradually becoming apparent. There was difficulty in defining lib-erty; the doctrine of merit tended to hang in mid air; even grace itself lacked a clear definition, for what is there that is not a free gift of God and therefore grace?4 The dialectic of ideas was prepar-ing theologians for the next step, the discovery of the generic the-orem of two orders with quite distinct status in the universe of being, the supernatural order and the natural: "not only was there the familiar series of grace, faith, charity, and merit, but also nature, reason, and the natural love of God.''5 This was largely the work of Philip the Chancellor in Paris in the early 1200s. It was an epoch-making discovery, and it put the question of our need for divine grace on an entirely new basis, releasing a whole series of developments. But so intoxicating was Philip's idea that theologians made a mistake exactly parallel to the one their predecessors made in the use of Augustine: the view that this was a complete and adequate explanation. Thomas Aquinas himself, in his early writings, shows hints of this one-sidedness, not giving sufficient attention to the moral impotence that is the result of Adam's fall. Nevertheless, it was Thomas who finally Review for Religious brought, the two factors, the specific and the generic, into unity. Peter Lombard's four states remain in the Thomist synthesis, but as applying to a specific question within the genus of the total divine plan.6 The Pattern Verified in the Specific Idea of "World" I have illustrated the way the human mind naturally works in time as it advances in understanding: first, a specific idea; then, exaggeration of this idea; next, a generic idea; exaggeration of this in its turn; eventually a synthesis. I believe the pattern is discernible also in the history of Christian thinking on the idea of the world. There too I find a specific and a generic factor, with the specific the first to be discovered and exploited beyond its potentiality, and the generic the next to be discovered and in its turn exploited beyond due measure. Again let us turn from the abstract to the concrete. Concretely the first step may be located in, or at least represented by, Anthony of Egypt. Toward the end of the 3rd century, "Anthony gave away his possessions, and devoted himself to a life of asceticism, and c. 285 retired completely into the desert . Towards the end of his life, the numbers of those who turned to the solitary life of the desert increased as the result of the secularization of the church.''7 It is possible to see this development in too simplistic a fash-ion, but at least one characteristic feature is clear: flight from the world. So it produced works with titles like De contemptu mundi (On contempt of the world). It filled Europe with hermitages, con-vents, and monasteries. For twelve centuries the idea ran its course with enormous impact on Christian v.alues, Christian living, Christian institutions.8 But it suffered the handicap of being a specific idea attempt-ing to provide a total view. For one example, the term vocation was appropriated to the religious life (as it commonly still is). In this respect the laity of the church and even the diocesan clergy were deemed to belong to a lower class: they did not have a "voca-tion." A reaction was inevitable, but it was centuries taking shape. Many diverse influences were at work promoting it. Its history is a complex interweaving of those influences. There were subver-sive along with legitimate movements. But what was positive and valid in the reaction, and quite natural and basic in the unfolding Septentber-October 1999 Crowe ¯ The "WorM"from Anthony of Egypt to Vatican II dialectic, was the emergence of the generic factor in the concept of the world. The Pattern Verified in the Generic Idea of "World" The quite basic event, then, in the. emergence of the generic concept of the world was the discovery by Philip the Chancellor of the two orders: natural and supernatural. I used this earlier to illustrate the pattern of human thinking as it is found in theology (not only was there the familiar series of grace, faith, charity, and merit, but also nature, reason, an'd the natural love of God). I use it now as a basic explanatory factor for the new stage of our dialec-tic. That is no accident. It is an idea so fundamental that it is bound to appear in the history of any theological idea. It underpins all that I have to say in this section and the following. Every discovery makes its way against opposition from an estab-lishment. The recognition of the natural order had to be followed by a recognition of its rightful autonomy, and that could not fail to be a traumatic experience for the church. The history of this strug-gle need not detain us here. In essence the point is that the human race was not only created divine; it was also created human, with a need for hunting, fishing, farming, for song and dance, for math-ematics, science, philosophy, whatever lies within its potency for development. Without grace we are able, Thomas Aquinas would say, using his favorite example, to cultivate our fields and build our houses. But the full extent of that principle means that without grace we can marry and be given in marriage, form guilds among artisans, establish universities, function as nations, join in a world union of peoples, explore the boundaries of space. Further, the natural has its own laws. Natures operate uni-formly: we do not gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles (Mr 7:17). And those natural laws can be isolated in thought and allowed to develop and flourish according to their own potential. For to be human is to learn: to learn that there are human tech-niques for producing good crops, human means for controlling nature, human means of self-government, human means for gain-ing wisdom and educating upcoming generations, and so on through the list. If, then, we take a broad view of the forest, not stopping to study individual trees, we can discern here the generic factor in Review for Religious the concept of the world, the needed complement to the specific factor provided by Anthony. This generic factor is the recogni-tion of the world as good in its own right. God did not create an evil universe, but made all things that they might have being and life (Ws 1:13-14; 1 Tm 4:4). That means that we can no longer be satisfied with the negative connotation of "flight from the world." There is a positive side to Anthony's strategy: its focus on the transcen-dent. The negative side is not repudiated, but it has to be seen in relation to that focus and has to be complemented by a generic view of the goodness of all creation. But the pattern of the dialectic suggests that this step too will be exaggerated, and that is exactly what happened. In the intoxication of this new idea, there was a widespread repudia-tion of the age-old flight from the world. Convents and monasteries were emptied; instead of contemptus mundi, there was a glorification of the secular.9 And so secularism arose: what was legitimate in the discovery of the natural, what was legitimate in the declaration of its auton-omy was magnified to an ism. What was a genetic idea that should have been brought into union with the specific paraded as the full explanation of the universe. A movement for the liberation of the secular became a secularism. The secular and the sacred have to do with human thought and feeling and the human use of creation. Uniting the Specific and the Generic: New Categories Christian thinking on th~ world has gone through the two phases inherent in the dialectic of human learning: the discovery and undue exploitation of a specific factor, followed by a reaction, and the discovery and undue exploitation of a generic factor, fol-lowed in its turn by a reaction. The current need is for the inte-gration of the two factors, and the categories that offer hope of that are the sacred and the secular. This pair of terms has crept into our discussion as related to, but not identical with, the supernatural and the natural. They need more careful definition. The natural and the supernatural provide the framework of creation; they are what philosophers would call Septentber-October 1999 Crowe ¯ The "WorM"from Anthony of Egypt to Vatican 11 the ontological constituents of the universe. But the secular and the sacred have to do with human thought and feeling and the human use of creation; they pertain to the cultural sphere rather than the ontological. The natural cannot be made supernatural: as Isaiah reports the word of the Lord, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways" (Is 55:8, NEB). God is the wholly other. Grace perfects nature but does not destroy it. The natural, then, maintains its identity within the unity of God's creative plan. Catholic schools do not use a different mathematics to add and subtract, to divide and multiply. But while the natural remains what it was created to be, it can be invested with the aura of the supernatural, and in this sense the natural can be sacralized, become sacred. Bernard Lonergan provides a context in which to locate this cultural transformation: "The whole world of sense is to be. a token, a mystery, of God"; and again: "the world of sense is. a mystery that signifies God as we know him and symbolizes the fur-ther depths that lie beyond our comprehension.''~° This means that the secular, not only as a world but also in its various aspects, can in human thought and feeling be given the character of the sacred. So in primitive peoples there was a religious ritual for plant-ing and harvesting, for coming to puberty and marrying, for rev-erent remembering of the dead, and so on. All these activities are given a sacred aspect, though their natural basis allows for their secular use. But they are only potentially secular; they are not at first recognized to have that aspect. For the human race is funda-mentally religious, in the sense of being created with a religious consciousness, and has remained religious despite all the protests of unbelievers. One may say: In the beginning was the sacred. That is, what later became distinguished as the two zones of the sacred and the secular was at first all one zone, and it was sacred. Now, just as in the ontological sphere the natural component of the universe had to be recognized for what it was, the natural, so too in the sphere of the cultural the legitimately secular aspect had to escape from the domination of the sacred and assume its independent role in the plan of creation. In the course of this development, there was inevitably a conflict with the representa-tives of the sacred; inevitably too the secular won its rightful inde-pendence. "For this sacralized construct of man and his universe was impugned and impugned successfully by Copernicus, Galileo, Review for Relig4ous and Newton, by Darwin and Freud, and by the swarm of philoso-phies" at least since Descartes.~l So the struggle between natural and supernatural was repeated here, with the same exaggerations. The extremists were not con-tent to liberate the secular; they were driven also to desecrate the sacred. Concretely we might think of the relation between a sec-ular day of rest and the Lord's Day. There has been a strong ten-dency in this matter for the sacral to dictate to the secular, imposing a religious observance so strict as to frustrate the secu-lar purpose of a day of rest. But on the other side there is the des-ecration of the Lord's Day represented in past history by the extremists in the French Revolution and, some would say, by the present Sunday shopping. Uniting the Specific and the Generic: New Strategy Perhaps it is possible now to sketch the lines we might follow to achieve the desired integration of our specific and generic fac-tors. Our question is: How is the church to achieve the unity of Anthony and Aristotle, of Jerusalem and Athens, of the transcen-dent and the this-worldly, and now in particular of the sacred and the secular? Our suggestion is that what had been at first unwit-tingly sacralized was then wittingly secularized. Bur what was wit-tingly secularized can be wittingly resacralized for Christian purposes as the need arises. The pagans of Rome sacralized their meat by offering it to their gods, but the Christians could, in effect, desacralize these meats with a good conscience and, if they wished, resacralize them to their own purpose: "he who eats meat has the Lord in mind when he eats" (Rm 14:6). Again, a game of golf may be just what workers need on their day of secular rest, and present discipline in the church allows them to keep holy the Sabbath and still go golfing. But the new sacralization will be different. There will be a new understanding and a new humility. The sacred will not dictate to the secular in the latter's own sphere. It will be a sacralization through the intention of believers, using the natural end of a nat-ural entity to their religious purpose. They who eat meat have the Lord in mind when they eat; they who golf give thanks alike in the weekly Eucharist and in their outdoor exercise. A final point brings us back to larger issues: sacralization will not be merely extrinsic to the natural world. On this question Septentber-October 1999 Crowe ¯ The "WorM"from Anthony of Egypt to Vatican II Marie Dominique Chenu Op has some helpful remarks. He sees a purer presence of the church in the world creating a new kind of Christians in the world: missionaries of the gospel, and not the protectors of a civilization that they themselves have organized. The real vocation of lay people will be to show that Christianity does not despise the world, but lifts it up, consecrates it, and ful-fills it. And this new presence will unite intrinsically with the world, will make it a true partner, for the believers will read the signs of the times and through them discern the elements in the world and human history that are, as it were, naturally open to the sacred, offering the possibility of a new praeparatio evangelica. They now look for a spirituality that will integrate their life in a world that has become the main field where they must seek their sanctifica-tion. 12 Religious Life in the Ongoing Dialectic The focus of my attention has been the new path for the church in the world today, along the lines of the Vatican Council II document Gaudium et spes. We must be clear on the church in the new age before venturing to discuss religious life in the new age, for religious are Christian before they are religious; that is the order of the council in its document on the church, Lumen gen-tium.~ 3 But of course that means that the dialectic we have dis-cerned in history will apply also to the features of Christian living that religious have in common with all Christians. In that context we may anticipate the direction that applying the dialectic to religious life should take. We will understand how the religious state began as a "flight" from the "world," and we will realize that, as our conception and knowledge of that world has changed enormously, so also must our notion of flight from it. We have come a long way from St. Anthony of Egypt. I trust, never-theless, that we have not left him behind. With all reverence we may conceive an analogy with a hymn of Thomas Aquinas that the church uses in Holy Week: "The word of God, proceeding forth / Yet leaving not his Father's side." Our task is not to aban-don Anthony, but "proceeding forth" to retain his insight and transpose it into a realization of Vatican II's "church in the mod-ern world" and of religious life as it is to be lived in the coming millennium. Our task is to achieve in our own way the unity of the specific and ~he generic concepts of the world. Review for Religious Religious, then, will retain their vows, and the vows will have the meaning they had for Aquinas, a revocatio ab affectu temporalium, a withdrawal from affection for this world.14 They will have the meaning also that Anthony's flight from the world had for him in his time of secularization. And that meaning will remain even in the most sacred of times. A focus on the transcendent and the escha-tological state will necessarily involve the reevaluation of the world that the saints have always shown: not a contempt for the good of creation, but a love for the better to which the good is open. Correspondingly, there will be far more attention to the positive aspects of the vows. This movement has already begun, but it should undergo an extensive development. Similarly for the pos-itive counterpart of the "flight": contemplation of the divine. The cloistered will redouble attention to their contemplative role, and the active will redouble attention to their role as contemplatives in action. As we follow the dialectic in its future course, we would do well to consider our starting point. The first word in the gospel message is "repent" (Mt 4:17; and see the same in Mk 1:15, but with a preface, "The time has come . . ."). Our examination of conscience in this respect might ask in what degree, if any, we transferred to ourselves as perfection what belongs rather to the realm of the sacred. Medieval theologians argued at length about holiness and the more perfect state. Should the operative word be, not "holy" in the sense of personal virtue, but rather "sacred" in the sense of "consecrated to God"? Notes 1 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994 reprint), p. 87. 2 Lonergan, Method, p. 87. 3 Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1971), p. I0. 4 Grace and Freedom, pp. 14-15. s Grace and Freedom, pp. 15-16. 6 Bernard Lonergan, "Gratia Operans: A Study of Speculative Development in the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas," doctoral disser-tation, Gregorian University, Rome, 1940, pp. 36-37. The preface and introduction, from which the dialectical pattern is taken, were published in Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 3, no. 2 (October 1985): 9-46. The whole dissertation will he published in volume 1 of the Collected September-October 1999 Crowe ¯ The "World"from Anthony of Egypt to Vatican 11 Works of Bernard Lonergan, soon to appear from University of Toronto Press. This section of my article simply paraphrases Lonergan's position as set forth in that dissertation. 7 The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. EL. Cross (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), article, "Antony, St., of Egypt." s See, for an example, G.J. Engelhardt, "The De contemptu mundi of Bernardus Morevalensis," Mediaeval Studies 22 (1960): 108-135; 26 (1964): 109-142; 29 (1967): 243-272. On the same topic Robert Bultot published widely in books and periodicals of the 1960s under the title La doctrine du m~pris du monde. 9 The turnaround had an interesting development in the Lutheran idea. Lutheranism "does not consider the call of the pastor any more sacred than the call of each Christian to witness to the lordship of Christ in his life and work. The universal priesthood of believers., makes the vocation of every man a holy calling"; see "Lutheranism" in A Handbook of Christian Theology (Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Company, 1958). Here too there is a valuable insight, namely, the vocation of every Christian, but it is not integrated into the dialectical development on the "world." 10 Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), pp. 689, 692. '~ Bernard Lonergan, "Sacralization and Secularization," unpublished MS of a 1974 lecture (originally given 1973), p. 23. My whole article relies heavily on this lecture. ~2 Spirituality in the Secular City (Concilium 19), pp. 114-115. I have paraphrased, with frequent verbatim quotations, two pages of "Desacralization and the Spiritual Life" by Claude J. Geffr~ op. ~3 See chap. 6, §§43-47, on religious, in Lumen gentium, the coun-cil's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. 14 On "revocatio ab affectu temporalium," see Thomas Aquinas, De perfectione vitae spiritual#, chap. 6. Review for Religious JOEL GIALLANZA "Come Closer. I Am Your Brother": Being and Doing Brotherhood In Genesis, chapter 45, Joseph, one of Jacob's sons, has the delicate task of revealing his identity to his brothers. Having sold him into slavery several years before, they do not recognize him now in this powerful Egyptian official, second only to Pharaoh. In his self-revelation Joseph tells his brothers, "Come closer to me. I am your brother" (Gn 45:4). To be convincing, Joseph has to do more than tell his brothers who he is; he must demonstrate this through his attitudes and actions toward them. If he was truly to be their brother, then he had to do what brothers do. Only then was he gen-uinely recognizable to them. This story has a valuable reminder for religious brothers today. The name by which we identify our-selves in life and in the church reflects a rich and prophetic spirituality. "Brother" is not only a title, it is what we are. Even more, it is what we are called and committed to do among ourselves, among the people, and for the church. Also, it is ever a reality we must become: it cannot be fully and finally accompJished at the time of our religious profession. In my experience of the church and sodety today, several forces outside lay religious life often contribute Joel Giallanza csc wrote for us as recently as our May-June issue. His formation work continues at Charles Andersen Residence; 320 Brahan Boulevard; San Antonio, Texas 78215. Septe~nber-October 1999 brothers Giallanza ¯ "Come Closer. I Am Your Brotber" We need one another to be who we say we are and to do what we say we do by our very vocation. to making brothers unrecognizable, unknown, or unappreciated. One of them is that the church's administration emphasizes-- implicitly and explicitly--the clerical state as normative for min-istry and governance within the church, while brotherhood tends to become invisible or at least peripheral. Another is that in a vari-ety of cultures the term brother is used to designate seminarians and other candidates for presbyteral ordination. From this perspective brotherhood tends to be inter-preted as a transitional stage. These outside forces, how-ever, are not alone in influencing the public perception of brothers. Two internal forces come to mind. Sometimes we define our-selves or allow ourselves to be defined in negative terms, that is, by what we are not: unordained or nonclerical men religious. To go through life with "un" or "non" as the beginning of our self-iden-tity is not a good basis for explaining our vocation. It is even a less good basis for promoting vocations. And sometimes we do not reflect upon sufflciendy and articulate clearly our own identity, including the challenges we face simply because we dare to call ourselves brothers. Being Brother Immediately striking about the term brother is its relational character. It expresses both a specific relationship and a way of being in relationship. For us it assumes that we are willing to enter into relationships with others. It assumes we choose to be involved, not isolated. Though Vita consecrata does not speak extensively about the vocation of brothers in the church, it recognizes four relationships that are to characterize our way of life. These religious are called to be brothers of Christ, deeply united with him, "the firstborn among many brothers" (Rm 8:29); brothers to one another in mutual love and working together in the church in the same service of what is good; brothers to everyone in their witness to Christ's love for all, especially the lowliest, the neediest; brothers for a greater brotherhood in the church (Vita consecrata, §60). Review for Religious I would like to comment on these four relationships and on their prophetic implications. Brothers of the Lord Whatever else we may do, whatever our ministry, the rela-tionship that defines and shapes religious life is our relationship with the Lord. This must be the first and deepest of all our rela-tionships. Jesus says to the disciples, "You are my friends, if you do what I command you . I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father" On 15:14-15). Our relationship with the Lord, our friendship with God, is rooted in knowing and doing what we have learned from the Lord. To be brothers of the Lord is to know the ways of God and to do what the Lord asks of us. To be brothers of the Lord, we must be people of discernment and people of fidelity. We must probe God's will ever deeper and then faithfully put into action all that we discover. We must be skilled in seeing God in all and in seeing all in God. We thereby proclaim and live the intimate closeness of God to this world, even when global events or personal experi-ences provide no evidence or apparently contrary evidence of such intimacy. Brothers with One Another Everything we say about ourselves and about our life together will not be authentic if we do not live in such a way that our com-mon life is marked by love, mutual care and concern, courtesy, hospitality, and a genuine interdependence. Jesus tells us that we will be recognized as his followers if we love one another (see Jn 13:3 5). Note that Jesus does not say what we would be recognized as, if we did not love one another. Could we become completely invisible, thereby rendering impossible any kind of recognition? To be brothers with one another in a religious community is much more than merely getting along; it must go beyond friendly tolerance. There are two important elements here. First, to be brothers with one anothdr is to recognize and accept that we do not live this way of life alone. We need one another to be who we say we are and to do what we say we do by our very vocation. There must be a mutuality and an interdependence among us by which we September-October 1999 Giallanza ¯ "Come Closer. I Am Your Brother" strengthen and support one another. Second, to be brothers with one another is apostolic. The quality of our life together commu-nicates something about God's presence and activity in our world. In some areas of the world, we may be the only witnesses people see, the only evidenc~ they have that God is alive and active in their lives and in their culture and society. Brothers to the People Our very title brothers excludes distinctions among us. Nationality, culture, ethnic heritage, education, ministry, natural and acquired skills--all these are gifts that are to unite us, not dif-ferences to be made into walls of division among us. So too our presence among the people must communicate without compro-mise that we make no distinctions, that we welcome and are hos-pitable to all people. To be brothers to the people also influences the way we approach ministry, whatever our ministry. Our apostolic activity among the people must be a model and a means of unity for them. We must be skilled in guiding people to work together, to appre-ciate one another's gifts, and to share those gifts with one another for the good of all. Regardless of the specific nature of our min-istry, this task of facilitating union among the people is a primary aspect of our mission and message as brothers in the church and society today. Brothers for the Church There are many unnecessary distinctions in our church today. Among the most dominant are those between women and men, between lay and ordained persons. Our presence and activity in the church must strive to communicate a perspective free of the kinds of distinctions that can and sometimes do deteriorate into divisions. To be brothers for the church is to live and proclaim, in St. Paul's terms, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male 6r female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Ga 3:28). We know it was a risk for St. Paul to preach such a message two thousand years ago. In truth, it is still a risk to preach this today precisely because people can and do establish their identity in distinctions. Any message that seeks to Review for Religious remove distinctions tends to disrupt that identity, thereby stimu-lating responses that range from simple admonition to sharp antag-onism. I believe it is part of the mission of brothers in the church today to preach and to live such a message regardless of the con-sequences. Doing What Brothers Do What I have said so far pertains to being brothers, pertains to our basic identity as lay religious in the church and society. To be brothers of the Lord, with one another, to the people, and for the church will have a definite influence on our doing what brothers do. Doing what brothers do is the prophetic dimension of our life as lay religious. In terms of these four basic relationships, what do we do as brothers? Through our relationship to the Lord, we demonstrate the possibility of living the example of Jesus in today's world. Jesus' example of selflessness, of compassion, of service to others is not popular today. We observe the sustained promotion and tenacity of an individualism which condones and constructs self-contained and closed styles of life that do not readily respond to the influence or needs of others. The danger is that Jesus' example could be placed on the shelf of items that are no longer realistic or useful for our world: items that are fine for museums of ancient artifacts, but not really relevant for everyday life in contemporary culture. To do what brothers do is a clear expression of the importance, necessity, and urgency of Jesus' example for today. Through our relationship with one another, we demonstrate the possibility of love and reconciliation. In a world where self-ishness and self-containment become the ways of relating to one another, love and reconciliation become ever more rare. Personal histories, past mistakes, and present weaknesses become conve-nient excuses for not reaching beyond ourselves to love, to for-give, to be reconciled with others. And yet it is only through our humanity--with our histories and mistakes and weaknesses--that we can love one another. To do what brothers do means commit-ting ourselves to love and forgive and reconcile, and to take up whatever means are necessary to live that commitment every day. Through our relationship to the people, we demonstrate the possibility of living in peace and unity. The rich diversity repre-sented in social, political, religious, cultural, and ethnic differ- September-October 1999 Giallanza ¯ "Come Closer. I Am Your Brother" ences is too often used as a basis for creating divisions among peo-ple. And as the barriers supporting those divisions become stronger, mutual destruction appears more effective and efficient than coop-erative dialogue. Conflict, violence, war then become the usual ways of dealing with differences in life. To do what brothers do means making every effort to show that the differences among people are graces and blessings to be celebrated, not burdens and bothers to be shunned. Through our brotherly relationship with the church, we demonstrate the possibility of living and ministering in equality. This equality is not uniformity; there can and must be distinctions among the many necessary ministries within the church. The important and imperative idea here is to help maintain the link between those many ministries and the common good of the Body of Christ. To create and then vindicate situations in which peo-ple are excluded or treated slightingly is not acceptable. Ignoring such situations is also not acceptable. To do what brothers do means pointing out injustices and inconsistencies--in our society, but most especially in our church. We will not be popular for iden-tifying such realities, but to neglect doing so would contradict what we profess to be and to do. The Haunting Question Male lay religious are often confronted with the simple but haunting question "What is a brother?" Brothers themselves, as well as other church ministers, struggle with formulating a satis-factory response. I do not believe that any response, however elo-quent and theologically sound, will ever be satisfactory. Indeed, it cannot be. If being a brother and doing what brothers do is at heart a matter of relationship, then our identity as brothers will be found in our actions, in our witness and our way of relating to the Lord, to one another, to others, and to the church. Thus, the only worthy answer to "What is a brother?" is simply "Watch us! Watch what we do, how we behave. Observe our love, care, concern, com-passion. Watch us. Then you will see and know what being a brother is." Are we willing to make that response? Will the integrity, consistency, and quality of our lives withstand such close scrutiny? The precedent for this response has been established already. When asked by John the Baptist's disciples, "Are you the one who Review for Religious is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus responds, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the leper~ are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them" (Mt 11:3- 5). Jesus' response invites a simple and direct method: observe, then report what you see. Could it be that we work to enhance the eloquence of our language and the soundness of our theology in responding to "What is a brother?" because we hesitate to say "Watch us"? Obviously, to invite close observation is to imply an integrity and a quality of life that are beyond question or com-promise. Writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul is boldly explicit in continuing Jesus' precedent: "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (1 Co 11:1). In fact, no less than seven times does Paul make this recommendation in his correspon-dence with the early Christian commu-nities (see 1 Co 4:16 and 11:1; Ph 3:17 and 4:19; 1 Th 1:6; 2 Th 3:7 and 9). We might wince at the bluntness--almost arrogance--of his recommendation. Nevertheless, the only way to avoid rel-egating Jesus' example to the realm of theoretical ideals is by a practical demonstration of it. Only a living example can accomplish that demonstration effectively. Brothers must live in such a way that we can make this Pauline recommendation with confidence and integrity. If we believe that our God is incarnational, then the example of our own lives must be the first of all our responses to the simple question "What is a brother?" Again, we must ask ourselves about our willingness and ability to make that response. Any other response, whether from an individual religious or froma general chapter, will fall short of the convincing and transforming power inherent in a living example. Being brothers and doing what brothers do involve decisions regarding a belief and a behavior. The belief is that the example of our brotherhood, as a reflection of Jesus' own, is necessary for society and for the church today--and tomorrow. The behavior is our effort to follow Jesus with integri.ty, simplicity, and fidelity. Through our brotherly .relationship with the church, we demonstrate the possibility Of living and ministering in equality. September-October 1999 Giallanza * "Come Closer. I Am Your Brother" This belief and behavior must stem from deliberate decisions, for they will not and cannot come into being by themselves. If they do not find explicit expression in our daily lives and activities, then they do not exist at all. If we cannot invite the world to "Watch us" when we are asked about the identity and meaning of our life as brothers, then we have only words. Such words die in thin air without living exam-ples to certify their truth. Action verifies articulations; witness confirms words. When action and witness are separated from artic-ulations and words, credibility is compromised. To speak and to act, together, must constitute our effort to define who and what we are as religious brothers and, being brothers, what we do. All else is shifting sand. All else contributes to the continued invisibility of religious brothers within the church and society. Being and Doing To be brothers and to do what brothers do are inseparable. We must strive for consistency in our life so that what we per-ceive and profess ourselves to be and what we do become a single reality. Otherwise we compromise the quality of any prophetic presence and activity we would have in the world. To be and to do as brothers of the Lord, we must be men of integrity, firmly rooted in the Lord. To be and to do as brothers with one another, we must be men of communion, who willingly choose the interdependence necessary for a healthy and whole life. To be and to do as brothers to others, we must be men of mis-sion, who love others through compassion and service. To be and to do as brothers for the church, we must be men willing to pro-vide challenge, whose commitment to the church enables us to question its inconsistencies even as we continue to love it. In the Book of Genesis, the challenge confronting Joseph is both to reveal his identity and to witness to the truth of that rev-elation. He begins with a simple invitation, "Come closer to me." He invites closer scrutiny and careful listening, confident that he will be recognized and accepted for who and what he claims to be. We religious brothers, by the very nature of our vocation, must extend the same invitation in all our relationships. The witness of our integrity, our sense of communion and mission, and the chal-lenge we present will confirm or contradict the truth of what we claim to be and profess to do. Vita consecrata says that brothers participate in the "mission of proclaiming the gospel and bearing witness to it with charity in everyday life" (§60). Such proclamation and such witness are responsibilities we bear and services we provide. They are the heart of our invitation to "Watch us"--to "Come closer" and see ¯. "I am your brother." Questions for Personal and Communal Reflection These brief reflections need fi~rther refinement from the particular cultures and contexts in which brothers live and minister around the world today. In fact, the most sound theologies of religious brotherhood today will conte from within those cultures and contexts. Generic theologies of religious life, by attempting to speak to everyone, run the risk of speaking to no one. As we continue to reflect on and discuss various dimensions of our religious life, we must remain ever attentive to the specific culture and context in which we live and minis-ter. The following questions are offered as a starting point for individuals and for communities. For us as brothers of the Lord, what aspects of Jesus' example and teaching are particularly striking and significant, given the heritage of our religious congregation and the particular culture in which we live and minister? As brothers with one another, what do we desire people to see in us through our life together? What do we believe our wimess communicates to people? What evidence do we have to support that belief?. As brothers to the people, what means do we use to foster peace and unity among them? How do our ministries serve towards dialogue and reconciliation? As brothers for the church, what efforts do we or could we make in our local area to emphasize the equality of persons within the church? With what specific challenges does our heritage as a congregation con-front the church? In which aspects of our life are we confident in saying "Come closer"? In which aspects of our life fire we hesitant about saying "Watch us" in response to people's questions about our vocation? What are the principal gifts we bring as brothers to this cultural set-ring? What are the principal social and ecclesial challenges confronting us today as brothers in this cultural setting? What is the most attractive quality about our religious life in this cultural setting? What is least attractive? What means would be effective in the particular culture where we live and minister for educating the people and the church about the voca-tion of brothers? In addition to the witness of our life, what are effective strategies for promoting vocations to religious brotherhood today? Septentber-October 1999 PAUL BEDNARCZYK Religious Brothers: One Vocation Director's Perspective Religious congregations of brothers can no longer ignore the question of new membership. The "vocation crisis" is staring us in the face. We can debate more effective governmen-tal structures, we can plan new mission orientations, and we can write more documents about solidarity with the poor, but, unless new members join our communities, what will it all mean fifty years from now? The membership crunch seems to be hitting home more now than ever. In many dioceses and religious congregations, the vocation question has been moved to the forefront. At their annual national meeting three years ago, the United States bishops agreed on a comprehensive strategy for vocations to the priesthood and reli-gious life. In June 1998 the U.S. bishops' committee on vocations sponsored a national symposium that had an overwhelming atten-dance. In addition, both the men's and women's religious leader-ship conferences--the Conferences of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM), the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), and the Conference of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR)--are exploring how leadership corporately can be more active in promoting the priesthood and religious life. For the past thirty-some years, we have quietly and sometimes unconsciously watched more brothers leave our corigregations than Paul Bednarczyk CSC, of his congregation's eastern province, first published this article in Horizon, a journal for vocation directors. His address is Congregation of Holy Cross; 85 Overlook Circle; New Rochelle, New York 10804. Review for Religious enter them. We prayed for vocations, and many communities even maintained their commitment to a full-time vocation director, but few prospects have joined our prenovitiate programs. Although over the years there was a general concern about the lack of new members, still--because numbers of brothers remained in the "work force"--we felt somewhat comfortable regarding our num-bers. These days are now gone. Our congregations are aging, men are retiring, and fewer members remain in full-time ministry. Our younger members continue to be few. We must confront the new-membership question. Much has been written about societal factors that create a cli-mate unfavorable to religious vocations. Family and neighborhood structures are no longer what they once were. We are witnessing changing definitions of family: single-parent homes, blended fam-ilies, children being raised by gay or lesbian couples. In addition, physical, sexual, drug, and alcohol abuse have greatly impacted the trust and stability that families need. Individualism and mate-rialism have consumed our American culture. Authority is looked upon cynically and institutions are considered suspect. Combine that with young people's inability or reluctance to make commit-ments, and religious vocations become an uphill battle. The changing face of the American Catholic and the tension between Catholic teaching and American values also have an impact on the numbers of religious vocations. The rising multi-culturalism of U.S. Catholics challenges us. Many Hispanic peo-ple continue to abandon the Catholic faith of their ancestors for fundamental and evangelical groups. Polls claim that many Catholics believe that the church's teaching on contraception, homosexuality, and premarital sex is outdated. Although young adults in general do not see the difference between clerical and religious celibacy, they will say that celibacy is the primary rea-son why they would not be a priest or a religious. Likewise, given our democratic values, American Catholics must reconcile them-selves with a church that does not function democratically. I believe it important to mention these factors at the outset because, although they are beyond our control, they have an effect on our religious-vocation promotion. In this paper I intend to share my own reflections on why fewer people are choosing to be brothers. Although I belong to the Congregation of Holy Cross, I have shared some of these ideas with brothers in other religious congregations. We are not alone in our struggle. After five years Septentber-October 1999 Bednarczyk ¯ Religious Brothers as vocation director, I offer thoughts I have gleaned from numer-ous vocation talks I have heard and given, from many meetings and discussions withadolescents and young adults, from direct-ing men and women on both personal and group discernment retreats, and from my association with other vocation directors both regionally and nationally. 492 A Question of Visibility We religious brothers are invisible. To put it more precisely, people generally have no clear idea about who or what we are. I say this neither cavalierly nor despairingly, but as simple truth. Part of this is the reality that we are fewer in number. In the United States, according to thd 1998 official Catholic Directory, the number of religious brothers dropped in 1997-98 by 178, resulting in a national total of 6115. Of course, many of these are retired or infirm and therefore no longer engaged in part- or full-time min-istry- and so are even more invisible. Brothers in teaching congregations cannot assume that the freshmen entering our high schools in September know what a religious brother is. Even though some come to us from Catholic grade schools, many have not met a religious brother or sister and know little or nothing about religious life. If they do have a min-imal understanding oic our life, most likely their perceptions have been influenced by what they see in the media, which is often dis-torted, stereotyped, and scandal ridden. Their parents, too, a generation that had greater exposure to religious in classrooms and parishes, have limited understandings of religious life. They may have romanticized notions of who we once were or, on the other hand, may endlessly repeat stories of brothers and sisters maintaining uncompromising discipline and inflicting harsh corporal punishments. In addition, people are con-fused by the polarization of the various religious lifestyles. How do lay people find a balance among various extreme "liberal" and "conservative" positions taken by religious men and women? How do they understand community when the religious they know live in private apartments or are in scattered communities of twos and threes? Although there are justifications for various places on the spectrum, the average persons in the pews just do not understand. I think it safe to say that they are confused, just as we are at times. The question of visibility is more complex than the reality of Review for Relig~o~!s fewer members. It is, I believe, also related to a greater issue in the church. Without a doubt, within the past twenty years our church has become increasingly clerical. At a time when there are fewer and fewer priests, lay religious life is not always promoted in the church as enthusiastically or emphatically as it could be. In litur-gies all of us have heard public prayers for vocations to the priest-hood and privately wondered why we were not also praying for vocations to the religious life. I do not think these omissions are intentional. When I have respectfully asked presiders to include in their future prayers of petition a mention of an increase in candi-dates for religious life as well, I was usually met with sincere apolo-gies and a response such as "To tell you the truth, I didn't even think of it." Such admitted forgetfulness is disarming, but the response remains a telling one. Another reality is that many bishops and priests are "gun shy" of religious men and women. Since many of their dealings with us have been confrontational and neg-ative, it seems they may be choosing to either ignore or avoid us in order to avoid future hostile situa-tions. Likewise, we religious have suffered from our own antago-nisms with the clergy and the hierarchy, and we too may choose to either ignore or avoid them. My point is not to say that we are right and they are wrong, but rather that stereotypes and false generalizations held by either party only lead to further break-downs in communication and in understanding one another's voca-tions in the church. If we assume an "us and them" mentality, we add to the divisiveness that already exists here and there in our church, and it is the church, the people of God, that ultimately suffers from such internal strife. To pin the blame of our invisibility solely on the church would be both unjust and inaccurate. We brothers must own the fact that some of us have chosen to be invisible. In the neighborhoods of some of our communities, I would conjecture that most of the neighbors are unaware that there is a religious community of men living on their block. Instead of participating in the life of our local parish community, some of us have chosen instead to par-ticipate anonymously in a nearby parish that may provide a better liturgy or choir. At a time when many teaching congregations have made concerted and successful efforts at connecting the mission of We religious brothers are invisible. September-October 1999 Bednarczyk ¯ Religious Brotbers their schools with the mission and charism of their community, some brothers choose not to participate in school activities, often to the dismay and wonder of lay colleagues, parents, and alumni. Although reasons for these examples may be acceptable to us, we must realize that such choices promote further invisibility and anonymity, something which we brothers can no longer afford. Without a public presence, our hope for future vocations is dim. The old clich~ has much truth: "Out of sight, out of mind." Not being part of the clerical hierarchy has given us a unique freedom that is comfortable. I heard one brother say about the hierarchy: "It's good that they forget about us--this way they leave us alone!" We come to a religious community not to dis-tance ourselves from the existing tensions or authority in the institutional church, nor to find a supportive haven for our anger against church authority, nor, for that matter, to promote our own church agenda. As consecrated religious we are men of the church and in the church. Our vocation by its very nature calls us to deepen our baptismal commitment and our relationship with the people of God. The faithful see us and look to us for who and what we are: men who through our vows have consecrated ourselves totally to God and to service within the church. They expect us to be integral to the church: when they do not see this, they are surprised and confused. If we are going to welcome men into our communities, I believe that we must all realistically deal with our feelings and beliefs about the church of today--not the church of yesterday or tomorrow, but the church of today in all of its glory and weakness. Generational Differences The majority of us have lived through the social, political, and ecclesial turbulence of the 1960s. We experienced the devastation of political assassinations, the power of the people in working for justice, and the sense of betrayal and shame that resulted from Watergate. We mourned the violence and casualties of the Vietnam War and of the racial wars that were erupting in our city streets. We underwent our own personal and spiritual transformations after the drastic changes set in motion by the Second Vatican Council. Suddenly our equilibrium was shaken. We experienced a shift in values from uniformity to diversity, from authoritarianism to collegiality, from commonality to individuality. Review for Religious We dealt with these dramatic events and changes in a variety of ways. Some simply left religious life. It seems to have been a good decision for some, once they discovered they .may have become brothers for the wrong reasons. On the other hand, oth-ers left and we still wonder why. Regarding these departures we still grieve. And, into the bargain, some of us have stayed. What are our reasons for remaining? After these radical shifts in church, society, and culture, has our dependence upon God and one another deepened, or have we learned instead to place more trust in our own self and in our material security? Have our vows increased our joy and appreciation for life, or have they regretfully only made our life burdensome? Do we face the uncertainty of the future with excitement and hope, or with cynicism and despair? If we are to witness to an attractive lifestyle option, we must answer these questions honestly and reexamine our own commitment to religious life. Unlike many of us who were brought up with the order and constancy of a triumphal church, our young people today have experienced conflicting messages from a church in transition, and they seek, simply, truth. In the face of New Age spirituality and watered-down Christianity, there are those who, in their desire to know more of what it means to be Catholic, resort to tangible, traditionally Catholic symbols. I find it fascinating that Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is making a comeback on college campuses. In the midst of the noise and rush of their aca-demic lives, students appreciate the hour of silence in the pres-ence of Mystery. Similarly, young adults are rediscovering the virtue of Mary, and have found the rosary to be an attractive form of prayer that is identifiably Catholic. Some ofos may be quick to categorize these young people as conservative or wacky, but these are students who volunteer weekly at local soup kitchens and par-ticipate in "alternative" spring breaks with Habitat for Humanity. They are also class officers, athletes, and students on the dean's list. As I have discovered, our younger people defy the neat and tight boxes in which we tend to categorize them. Have our VOWS increased our joy and appreciation for life, or have they regretfully only made our life burdensome? Septentber-October 1999 Bednarczyk ¯ Relig4ous Brothers To live with the ideals, hopes, and dreams of the young is inconvenient and at times even uncomfortable. In my meetings with men who are exploring a vocation, I have found that it is not because of ministry, education, or social-justice convictions that they are drawn to religious life. Our church has evolved to where, if this were their primary desire, they could eas-ily do this in a Catholic institution as laypersons. They are com-ing to us first and foremost for the religious life itself. To live in the secular world as a committed Christian espousing Catholic values is difficult for them. They admit their need for a community of like-minded individuals who could strengthen their love for God and their Catholic convic-tions. They are not looking for just a nice group of people who do good work. They are looking for men who know and can lead them to God and who can give them a sense of hope in a world that has become increasingly pessimistic and destructive. They want to pray together, share their faith, and bring the Good News to people through their ministry. They acknowledge the Eucharist as central to our faith, and they have devotion to it. Since they often come from an unchurched, nontraditional back-ground, they seek structure and definition. From our community perspective, that is quite an order to fill! Some of you who are reading this are probably wincing and saying, "I thought we got away from that years ago!" To put it simply, I believe we find ourselves in the middle of a generation gap. Thirty years ago some brothers retained their habits, sat in their pews, and looked with distaste upon those who wore jeans and colored shirts and prayed on throw pillows. They thought that, for sure, religious life was quickly going down the tubes. The younger brothers, however, challenged the older brothers to renew their zeal for religious life by adapting to a different lifestyle, one that was based more on shared expressions of faith and on more interpersonal, communal living. Likewise, the younger members were taught by the elders to appreciate the tradition of our life and consequently were enriched by their fidelity to their vows in the face of change. Since some of us have lost a younger generation in our con-gregations, we have forgotten what it is like to be challenged by the young. The lively community dynamic that occurs with the mix- Review for Religious ture of generations--the elderly, the middle-aged, the young--does not happen in many of our local communities. As a result, many of us have grown comfortable with one another and in our life together. For the majority of us, the mutual challenges and exchanges that we all remember from our earlier years and that occur naturally between the young and old do not happen anymore. At forty-one years old, I am still considered one of the "young" brothers in my community. I realize that much of my religious life has been lived with men older than myself. Although I am thank-ful for the benefit of their example and wisdom, as I enter my own midlife I realize that I have been deprived of living with the con-tagious energy and enthusiasm of much younger religious. I know that I need at times to be challenged to think in new ways and to experience life differently. Most of us are middle-aged or older. If we are to have a newer generation following us, we must--even if it becomes increasingly more difficult as we age--be open to the renewal of our basic val-ues: prayer, community, and lifestyle. Ironically, those who are considering religious life look for deeper community experiences while some veterans of thirty or forty years say they are tired of the routine and demands in community. How do we bridge this gap? To live with the ideals, hopes, and dreams of the young is incon-venient and at times even uncomfortable, but I know of no other way. Although youthful idealism may need some tempering, we must admit that at least it is refreshing. We have now become the "older" brothers of yesterday, and, like the older ones of thirty years ago, we too are invited to new ways of thinking and being as we look to the next generation in religious life. I do not believe that age has to be a deterring factor. When I hosted discernment retreats for prospective candidates at our retire-ment facility, I would invite three of our elderly brothers to tell their vocation stories. The combined witness of almost two hundred years of faithful religious life is better than any vocation brochure I could ever design! Their authentic fulfillment in Holy Cross and their continuing joy and vitality were always evidence to these interested men that this life can be lived and can be lived well. Our young people look to their elders for inspiration. They hunger for the wisdom that comes from living a prayerful and reflective life with God. If, however, they see stagnation, apathy, and cynicism, they are left disillusioned and wanting. For many of us, our lives as religious have been deeply enriching and grace filled, and yet some September-October 1999 Bednarczyk * ReligiousBrotbers of us are reluctant to share these experiences with each other. We underestimate at times the power of our stories. In many religious congregations it has been the tradition to respond to "the signs of the times" and to the contemporary needs of the church. I maintain that we need to continue this spirit of openness not only to our mission and ministries, but also to our religious lives as well. The Answer Is in the Present I do not claim to have the answers for the future. To be truth-ful, my worry is not for the future, nor is it for the past. It is the present that is my concern. We can only theorize about the future, as we can only reminisce about the past. Such intellectual exer-cises tend to distance us from the responsibility of making neces-sary choices about our lives and our community in the present. In general, given the societal changes and challenges discussed above, some recerit shifts in our culture seem to coalesce with our lives as religious brothers. For example, our society displays a renewed interest in spirituality. Celebrities from Oprah to Madonna have made daily meditation chic again! With the pro-liferation of self-help and support groups for every issue imagin-able, people long for connection and belonging. They desire "to share their story" and to be validated by a group. Corporations are supportive of community service, and some school systems have included service components in their curricula. As a result, volunteerism is at an all-time high. Ironically, many authors are making lots of money with their best-selling books on how to sim-plify one's lifestyle. It would seem that religious brotherhood would somehow fit into this picture. Our life is a wonderful secret that needs to be shared more now than ever before. As religious brothers we bring, I believe, a special gift to the church. Our faith teaches us about a God whose love is uncondi-tional and whose mercy is unlimited. If faithfully and genuinely lived, our vows attest that fulfillment is to be found more in the transcendent than in the transitory. Where division and broken relationships characterize many families and marriages, our com-mitment to community life, despite its inherent struggles, myste-riously witnesses to welcome, order, acceptance, and equality. I have read many books and articles detailing futures for reli-gious life in temporary vowed commitments, lay associate mem- Review for Religious bership, satellite communities, blended communities, and so forth. All of that makes for interesting reading and good discussion, but I return to the question: What about now? How do we live now the vows we professed, however many years ago? Do we do so with the passion, zeal, and love of our early years? I do not believe that the answer to the challenges of our pre-sent situation is as simple as the reconstruction of past external structures. Our lives are much more complex today than they were thirty years ago. No one can deny that our traditional structures served us well, considering the church and spirituality of the time, but it would be naive to expect the former ways to meet our con-temporary needs. We can romanticize about the past, but we know that it is impossible to turn the clock back. I am, however, not convinced--at least in my own congrega-tion- that we are at present compelled to create new models and forms of vowed religious life. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. We need to insure that the wheel we already have is on the right track. Besides, since Vatican II, a number of experimental lay and religious communities have already been formed, imple-menting exciting new models of lifestyle and commitment. How they will fare in the future, only time will tell. I am convinced that as brothers we need to reclaim who and what we are. We are men of the church vowed to a life of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. We commit ourselves to a life of prayer and mission with each other in community. Given today's society and culture, these core values are what make us countercultural. Our vows are meant to be lived joyfully, with hope. This life was meant to be lived in relationship with God and with one another. Our challenging times invite us to probe and to enter more deeply into the essence of our vows and the mysterious grace that comes with this life. I believe in the gift of religious life, and particularly in the gift of religious brotherhood. I want a future for us because I believe the church would b6 lacking without us. Knowing how much I have been enriched by my own vocation to Holy Cross, I desire to share this gift with a new generation of religious. I am sure that the majority of members in our communities desires the same, but to do this requires conversion and a courageous open-ness to the Spirit that speaks to us today--and not yesterday and not tomorrow. [--z~00 September-October 1999 AVIS CLENDENEN II On Promise Making, Leave-Taking, and Becoming journeying It has been sixteen years since I requested and received a dispensation from my religious vows. The following reflection explores--from ethical, psychological, and theological perspectives-- the experience of malting and breaking promises and leaving the vowed religious life. Principally I will be drawing upon the ethical con-siderafions of Sister Margaret Farley RSM, the psycho-logical insights of Dr. Carl Rogers, and the theological depth of Father Karl Rahner SJ. These pages reveal a slice of an experience shared by many--that is, the mak-ing of a religious commitment, living in a vowed reli-gious community for years, developing bonds of trust and friendship, experiencing a crisis of fidelity, discov-ering the personal inability/choice to sustain the orig-inal commitment, and ultimately breaking the commitment and leaving religious life. A suspicion I had as I thought about examining the psychology and theology behind the making and break-ing of promises was that Rogers and Rahner had more than their first names in common. I sensed they shared a fundamental understanding of the human person, the Avis Clendenen PhD, associate professor of religious stud-ies and director of the Pastoral Ministry Institute, teaches pastoral theology and ministry at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, where she can be reached: 3700 West |03rd Street; Chicago, Illinois 60655. Revie~v for Religimts human dilemma, and the graced and flawed human quest of becom-ing whole and free. The following reflection reveals some signif-icant connections between Rogerian psychology and Rahnerian theology and offers a way of viewing the painful process of leave-taking and becoming. The painful and hopeful contours of this all-too-familiar experience can be traversed again in openness to the possibility of deeper revelations about the choices we make that sustain our word of love. Sixteen years from my departure after a thirteen-year commitment gives me perspective and a desire to return and examine the process of making promises, breaking promises, and becoming. In the fall of 1969 at nineteen years of age I entered the Sisters of Mercy. My letter of request to enter was all of two paragraphs composed by a nineteen-year-old touched and transformed, as late teens can be, by the turbulent events of the 1960s: My reason for choosing religious life as my way of life is because this in the only life that makes sense to me, as an individual. I want to express my life as a commitment of love to God and His Church. I am not quite sure why there is an attraction to the Mercy order in particular, but I believe my potential for giving and receiving, of freedom and ful-fillment, lie within this community. By the time I would profess my final vows in 1978, all refer-ences to God in the masculine pronoun were to be stricken from my vocabulary. By 1978 1 would be a graduate of the Jesuit School of Theology, having been the first woman admitted to its master-of- divinity program. Throughout the 1970s I struggled with the weight of a patriarchal church, including the graces and conflicts surrounding the inclusion of women in all ministries of the church. I would, over the expanse of years, come to greater clarity as to my "attraction" to the Sisters of Mercy as women of valor and vision, with a deepening sense of gratitude for the reciprocity of our rela-tionship. The issues of freedom and fulfillment became bemus-ing, and the turbulent times never did seem to abate. At thirty-three years of age, thirteen years after my entrance and less than four years after my final profession, I received a dis-pensation from my vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. The following are excerpts from the letter I wrote to the provincial administrator, initiating the formal leave-taking process: To try and summarize all the spiritual and psychological investigations I have done would be an injustice to all that has September-October 1999 Clendenen ¯ On Promise Making, Leave-Taking, and Becoming gone into this decision. To say too little would be an injus-tice to the quality of relationship I have shared as a Sister of Mercy throughout these years. I feel great pain as I accept responsibility for breaking my promises. But it was the pain of remaining in religious community that finally made the decision. I have asked myself again and again about the truth and integrity of the final commitment professed in 1978. That moment expressed the insight and honesty that was available to me; and while only four years ago, it's been a lifetime. In the months I have lived alone, I have read all the journals from my thirteen years as a Sister of Mercy. I saw the patterns of my struggles repeated year upon year. I read and remembered delightful times in community. My loneli-ness lines many pages. Notes from numerous retreats reminded me of my love for God. And, oh, the growing rage at the institutional church as it demeaned me and our efforts for women's voice and body to be celebrated all places, including the altar. I do not believe that in asking for a dispensation from my religious vows I am walking away from the vision of Catherine McAuley, the works of mercy, the body of Christ, or the commitment with feminists to liberate ourselves from the patriarchy. I am stepping away from a vowed relationship among you. I promised to persevere for life. I believe I per-severed until there .was no more life for me. I am so very sorry. I do not look for understanding, I~ut I will always expect compassion for that is why we bear our name. For the compassion that has been shown me and I have shared with you, for the years of service given expres-sion to as a Sister of Mercy, for the treasured moments and persons, I will always be grateful. I remain a believer and a daughter of Catherine McAuley. I hold now with courage and trepidation her legacy, my Bible, and I turn a corner. And trust. To Give One's Word Yale University Professor of Christian Ethics and Sister of Mercy Margaret Farley's tough thinking on the meaning of fidelity and its claim of obligation form an important frame of reference in analyzing whether one has the moral sanction to end a com-mitment. Sister Margaret Farley wrote her book on commitment in the late 1980s, when the permanency of commitments in American marriages teetered at a fifty-percent divorce rate and when "defection" from the priesthood and religious life in the Review for Religious American Catholic Church continued to deplete the ranks of ordained and vowed Catholic ecclesial leaders. For many years I successfully avoided Margaret Farley's 1986 book Personal Commitments: Beginning. Keeping. Changing. Research for this article inevitably led me back to her work and the challenges to think hard about why we give our word in mak-ing commitments, why we are obliged to keep them, and under what circumstances we may be morally released from them. Farley suggests that the rise of the human-potential movement served to shift the goals of many from the challenges of permanent commit-ment, fidelity, and responsibility, toward the increasing warrant of the call for per-sonal growth and self-actualization. It was as if these two venues for being and becoming were mutually exclusive. Those who had previously interpreted their life in terms of a religious vocation began to claim the. need to transfer voca-tion from one locus to another. "It was not always easy to tell whether these were expressions of faithfulness or of irresponsibility and betrayal."' What does it mean to say you make a promise with a sense of its truth and integrity and then years later suggest that your insights and sense of integrity have changed so signifi-cantly as to justify a breaking of the bonds and a release from obli-gation? Is emotional pain and lack of personal fulfillment sufficient cause to be dispensed fr6m the vows professed in an act of freedom, a free action always given into the hands of an uncertain future? As Farley eloquently explains, commitment has to do with the free action of free persons who give their word as part of them-selves. Commitment m~ans to give my word because that word belongs to me and I freely choose to entrust it to another's keep-ing. In a sense, commitment means to share with one or more per-sons claims on my being there in a promised way with and for them. While my word is "given away," paradoxically I still pos-sess it because it is myself. In commitment we freely take on an obligation to do as we have promised. The motivation for the kind of commitment we are discussing here is always love. "By assuming certain frameworks for love, we Is emotional pain and lack of personal fulfillment sufficient cause to be dispensed from the vows professed in an act of freedom, September-October 1999 Clendenen ¯ On Promise Making, Leave-Taking, and Becoming commit ourselves to whatever we understand essentially to con-stitute this framework."2 The profession of religious vows to be lived in the mic

Issue 55.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1996. ; lived experience of all who find that the churcfl's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are :meant to be informative, practical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. 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: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP St. Bernadetie Convent ° 76 University Blvd. East ° Silver Spring, MI) 20901 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ I)uluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1996 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy an}, ~naterial (articles, poe,ns, 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 Copyrigh~ Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious 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 MARCH/APRIL 1996 * VOLUME55 ¯ NUMBER2 contents 118 symposium - part I Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal: Will Good Intentions Suffice? Miriam Ukeritis CSJ provides some examples of actions taken by various religious congregations in their renewal and makes some evaluative reflections. 133 143 seeking God The Urban Hermit: Monastic Life in the City Theresa Mancuso describes the life of an urban hermit as integrating the contemplative life of the poustinia with the marketplace where a living is earned. Enclosed in the Mystery of Jesus Marie Beha OSC explores various aspects of enclosure as part of the Christian mystery into which we all are invited. Review for Religious 159 171 growing old Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging Daniel J. Harrington SJ offers reflections on a few biblical texts which contribute to constructing a theology and spirituality for us as we grow old as people of Christian faith. On Selling the Chalices: Vincent de Paul on Aging Robert P. Maloney CM shares the insights and feelings of Vincent de Paul in response to the process of aging. 185 report U.S. Hispanic Catholics: Trends and Works 1995 Kenneth G. Davis OFMConv and Eduardo C. Fern~indez SJ present a panoramic of the year's events within the U.S. Hispanic Catholic community. departments 116 Prisms 204 Canonical Counsel: Authority in Ingtitutes of Consecrated Life 209 Book Reviews March-April 1996 prisms Boundaries are a part of life. We think of how boundaries identify our countries and our states, our soccer fields and our tennis courts. Behavior to be proper and humor to be appreciated observe boundaries. There are time boundaries for speeches to be effective and financial limits for buying and selling. Sometimes we see boundaries through a negative fil-ter. We talk about how we do not want to feel bound in any way since that would close off possible opportunities for ourselves. Boundaries., we say, are restrictions on our human potential and freedom. Yet as a counterpoint we also experience that when cancer breaks down boundaries and has metastasized, life becomes diminished and threat-ened. So too, when people do not acknowledge certain boundaries to their own stamina, they can have a break-down or become sick. Although sometimes appearing to us to be restrictive, boundaries, then, can be appreciated in a life system for the part they play in maintaining good health and vibrant life. Witness the negative results when we humans do not observe boundaries in our polluting of streams and oceans, in our poisoning the atmosphere through chemical emissions, and in our destroying world weather patterns through the deforesting in the Amazon basin. Sometimes people, including women and men reli-gious, view religious life through the filter of boundaries which restrict. Whether it be the observance of the tra-ditional evangelical counsels of chastity, pove(ty, and obe-dience, the acceptance of a life in common, or the practice of enclosure, religious life has always had boundaries. But Review for Religious through an ecological perspective-- that ,is, religious life identi-fied as a life system--we can come to a fresh appreciation of the vital quality of the boundaries we find in it. T6day when membership inclusion for many religious con-gregations seems to eliminate all boundaries, we could ask our-selves whether in a life-system model this movement is going towards health. When there are no boundaries to the kinds of ministries taken on by members of a congregation and no bound-aries to what constitutes a life together, we might wonder whether a deadly cancer may likely enough be coursing through a life sys-tem. Since w~ are so conscious today of environmental and eco-logical concerns with a scientific realism never before possible, we need to apply a similar kind of care to religious life identified as an ecological system. Then our acceptance of certain boundaries will be situated within the .context of health and vitality. Our authors in this issue talk in one: way or another about boundaries. Evangelical counsels, community life, and the enclo-sure associated with contemplative life are all boundaries--bound-aries connected with a furtherance of life. Aging, tog, is a boundary~difficult to face for active, service-oriented people--but aging is seen by faith as another stage in our growing in Christ. Yet doubts, even so, assail us: How can the restrictions of aging, a kind of final boundary of human life, be seen as a growing? The church observance of the Lenten and Easter seasons invites us always to contemplate the growth potential of all the boundaries of human life portrayed in Jesus' paschal mystery. Jesus makes even death no longer a limitation but a boundary that issues into life. We see that Jesus does not take away the boundary of death, but rather allows it--in daily actions and in our final human act--to become the key to our entering into his own paschal mystery, culminating in new and surprising life. Our desire to identify with this paschal mystery as a way of daily living leads us to view all boundaries through the perspective of the risen Jesus. Boundaries, it seems, bring home to us how much we find life as Easter people. David L. Fleming SJ Marcb-April 1996 MIRIAM D. UKERITIS Religious Life'.s Ongoing Renewal: Will Good Intentions Suffice? symposium part Since the publication of the FORUS study, several con-gregations have taken the time to assess their efforts at renewal and plan seriously for their futures.1 This article reviews some of these efforts and identifies areas that con-tinue to require attention. Background Thirty years ago the Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of the Religious Life (Perfectae caritatis, 1965) urged a process of renewal that would include returning constantly both to the sources of all Christian life and to the original spirit of one's institute and 'also adapting to the changed conditions of our time (PC §2). The council fathers said that the manner of living, praying, and work-ing should everywhere--especially in mission territories-- be suitably adapted to the modern physical and psychological circumstances of the members and also, as required by the nature of each institute, to the necessi-ties of the apostolate and to cultural, social, and economic Miriam Ukeritis csJ collaborated with David Nygren CM in producing the study "The Future of Religious Orders in the United States" (FORUS). The current article is one of four preo ¯ sentations made at an October 1995 symposium, "Religious Life 30 Years Later: Is This What Vatican II Intended?" held at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. Correspondence with Miriam Ukeritis should be addressed: De Paul University;' Center for Applied Social Research; 2219 North Kenmore Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60614. Review.[br Religious demands (§3). Considering the various interpretations of this mandate and the various implementations and results, there can be little wonder that this symposium commemorating Perfectae caritatis is subtitled, "Is This What Vatican II Intended?-2 This question of the council's intent was not a new one. Echoes of such wonderment were heard almost as soon as the period of experimentation began. Many books and articles have appeared, reflecting on the themes of renewing, reweaving, refounding, reclaiming, restructuring, reshaping, rekindling, reen-ergizing, and recreating religious life. Simultaneously, many signs of decline and diminishment have marked the landscape of reli-gious orders in the United States. As early as 1988, in an effort to address this issue, Lilly Endowment funded a three-year study to investigate these phenomena. The researchers, themselves mem-bers of religious orders and trained in the field of psychology, made public their findings in The Future of Religious Orders in the United States (FORUS) report. Almost immediately after its release in mid September 1992, headlines in the secular press proclaimed that "Catholic orders need dramatic change to survive" (New York Times 9/20/92), "Catholic orders shunning poor" (Chicago Tribune 9/16/92), "Roman Catholic orders in decline" (Washington Post 9/26/92), "Study sees Catholic orders losing their way" (Boston Globe 9/16/92), and "Religious orders dying out; hospitals, schools may suffer" (Sunday Denver Post 9/27/92). These reports roused both the interest and the ire of many. Some thought the study an accurate reflection of the state of religious life twenty-five years after Vatican Council II, while others saw it as an unnecessarily negative assessment of religious life's efforts at renewal. In light of the controversy surrounding the establish-ment of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious only a few months before the publication of the FORUS findings, this sensitivity, particularly among apostolic women religious, is quite understandable. Too, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had recently completed Threads for the Loom, its study of membership, some of whose results seemed to be contradicted by the FORUS findings.3 As serious scholars of religion and members-at-large of reli-gious orders pursued a more thorough reading of the results, and as others' reactions and interpretations began to appear in Catholic periodicals and internal newsletters, consensus emerged concerning the significance of the FORUS study.4 One of the most helpful ele- March-April 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal ments of the report was the summary chart, of factors shaping the future of religious life (Figure 1). This chart listed results of the study in a manner that provided agendas for many congregations, chapters, formation conferences, and planning endeavors. For that reason and because of its summary nature, this paper will refer to it in reflecting on how congregations have tried to integrate the research findings into their ongoing efforts at renewal. The diagram takes the form of a force field, a construct com-mon to social scientists. The center oval represents the current state while that on the far right depicts the desired future state. In this project it was defined as "Fidelity .to Purpose and Responsiveness to Absolute Human Need." "Restraining Forces" (left column of arrows) identifies factors which, if not inhibited, will keep a group or system in its current state or cause further decline. "Driving Forces" (right column of arrows) describes fac-tors which, if fostered/will support the movemeht of the group or system to its desired future. In this study the driving forces are portrayed as influenced by conversion, a process necessary'to respond consistently and faithfully to the Spirit of God. Co-opta-tion by the dehumanizing aspects of society permeates the restrain-ing forces. Moving toward the desired future is accomplished by attending to the driving forces and withdrawing energy from those that restrain. Unfortunately, groups tend to do the opposite, endeavoring to root out of what is undesirable and neglecting to put energy into what will take them in the desired direction. Figure 1: Shaping the Future of Religious Life in the U.S. Shaping the Future of Religious Life in the US ~ Driving Forces CONVERSION i-TExcellent Lea~ U ¯ [~ iAuthority ~ N ~ ~Corporate Idenlity T T T ~IThe GOSp~ ~ Review for Religious Overview Since the publication of the FORUS findings, the researchers have frequently been asked: Is there a future for religious life? Invariably they have responded, "Yes, definitely--if you want one and are willing to work for it!" Members of religious orders have devoted much time and effort to reading, attending conferences, and discussing the meaning of renewal. Too often their attention has been directed toward outside experts. Borrowing from the author of Deuteronomy, many act as if the answer were up in the sky or across the sea and others had to be sent to retrieve and interpret it (see Dt 30:12- 14). While consultation and input may be beneficial, the congregation must realize that ultimately the scriptural response applies here; the answer sought is "very near., already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out." It is here, in the imagining and implementing, that the difficulty occurs: As in many other change efforts--be it mastering a language or shedding pounds--good intentions are not enough. Effort is required. Neither Neither the FORUS study nor the presentation of any one of the scholars of religious life provides a quick and simple how-to response to renewal questions. the FORUS study nor the presentation of any one of the scholars of religious life provides a quick and simple how-to response to renewal questions. The finding and carrying out of the answer to the question of how to shape a congregation's future is as unique as the congregation and entails hard work.5 To get results, an action plan must be coupled with concerted and sustained implementation. The plan must take into account the current state of the congregation, the hopds and dreams of its members, the reality of its resources, the constraints and supports which the ~xternal environment brings to bear, and the needs of God's people. Openness to the work of the Spirit, through con-stant prayer, dialogue, and a continuous reading of the signs of the times, is critical. Evaluation and correctiori, during the process and at the conclusion,~will help keep all involved honest about their efforts and effective in the accomplishment of the group's mission. It is unfortunate that some perceive an honest assessment of a congregation's efforts toward renewal as an indictment of the March-April 1996 Uke~tis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal work of previous leadership teams, chapters, or members-at-large. This is hardly so. With. the humble realization that the efforts of these often heroic women and men have brought a group to its current ability to be faithful to its purpose and to minister to God's people, it is only in a spirit of fidelity to the work begun by founders and foundresses, carried on through the decades by countless religious, and most recently updated by those who led initial efforts at renewal that any such critique is offered or may merit being initiated. As many have found, it is out of such love that a response of greater effort is often born. Review of Factors Among the ways that religious orders have used the findings of the FORUS study in their efforts at renewal, the most fre-quently cited areas have been "Individualism/Vocation" (in com-bination with "Role Clarity"), "Average/Excellent Leadership," and "Corporate Identity." The remainder of this reflection will consider these three areas one by one. After a brief discussion of the area, examples will be given of actions taken by some groups or congregations, and then some remaining questions will be examined. Individualism/Vocation Members of religious orders have not been alone in noting the negative consequences of exaggerated individualism. In the United States several commentaries have appeared lamenting what seemed to be an overemphasis on self and a loss of a sense of commu-nity. The work of Robert Bellah is probably the most familiar.6 Granted that a healthy sense of one's own personhood is a critical factor in one's development, it is no news that an overem-phasis on individual concerns can lead to a narcissistic self-absorp-tion. Admittedly, many of the practices and customs that marked religious life up to the time of the council could stifle the fragile sense of self that some brought their early training. Furthermore, for those who entered novitiates in late adolescence, when a per-son's developmental task is identity formation, the foreclosure of that process as they assumed the image of religious in their par-ticular institute left many aspects of these tasks incomplete and made the successful transition into mature adulthood difficult. Hence, the psychological climate in many groups tended to pro- Review for Religious duce individualism, with sentiments reflected in songs of the 1960s and 1970s such as "I Did It My Way" and "I Gotta Be Me." With the numbers of golden and diamond jubilarians far sur-passing the number of silver jubilarians in recent years, questions like "Why religious life?" and "What does it mean to be a reli-gious?" are increasingly relevant to a generation whose develop-mental task is now generativity. Hence, it is hardly surprising that the notion of "call"--particularly, "to or for what?"--is a frequent topic of conversation. (Patricia Wittberg SC reflects, in her writ-ing, on some of the elements involved in responding to a call or commitment, notably, sacrifice, common rituals and traditions, and a sense of boundaries.)7 These conversations may be fright-ening to some insofar as they seem to hark back to former prac-tices that long .ago lost their meaning. In times of transition, as the FORUS report noted, it can be particularly enticing to revert to old ways of being and doing. The challenge for religious today is to put creative energies into finding new ways:--and, in this case, identifying what the distinctive elements of the call to religious life are and how they are to be lived. One of these areas of energy is to be found in the realistic examination many congregations are conducting in the matter of associate programs. Involving laypersons in the congregation's spiritual or ministerial activities has a long history for many groups. Others have adopted it more recently as a means of wel-coming those who share in the charism of the group. Thanks to the work of RosemaryJeffries and others, there is increasing clar-ity as to how individuals who are members of associate commu-nities do and do not relate with vowed members of the congregation,s Appropriate boundaries, the meaning of mem-bership, and modes of belonging are increasingly common topics at formal convenings of religious and around the kitchen table. Such discussions serve to enhance an understanding of vocation in today's world. As a separate but related concern, the FORUS study cited role clarity as a significant issue for members of religious orders, par-ticularly women. There is abundant evidence that religious are struggling to address this. The energy displayed in this country as the Lineamenta document circulated before the 1994 Synod on Religious Life was striking. Intended or not, this event provided an excellent public forum for conversations concerning the role of religious. There can be no doubt tha't religious in the United ~qarcb-Aptql 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongo.ing Renewal States are directing their attention to self-definition rather than looking to outside bodies to provide the answer to the question "What does it mean to be a religious in the church today?" In general, it is encouraging to hear religious focused increas-ingly on the accomplishment of the mission of Jesus as expressed through their charism. While the funding of retirement contin-ues to be a concern in the face of dwindling material resources, the new energies that congregations have been devoting to ministries that address critical needs, to realistic ways of supporting new members, and to clarifying the meaning of membership are all signs of movement in the direction of a vital future.9 In reflecting on issues related to vocation, the meaning of membership in a community remains to be examined. Old ways of belonging (common ministry, common schedule, many restric-tions on external involvements) no longer seem functional, but what are the new ways to determine what being a member of a community means? The 1994 Synod .on Religious Life acknowl-edged that community does not necessarily involve the members' living together. Today, however, it is often easier to state what community is not than to describe what it is. Resistance encoun-tered in attempts to describe what it is may relate~to the reality that any definition will place demands or limits on those who choose to belong. The pull of individualism continues to be strong. There must be continuing efforts to grapple seriously with what vocation means to individuals and what its lived expres-sion should include. Undoubtedly, the lived expression of com-munity will take different forms in different groups. Average/Excellent Leadership Members of religious orders are not alone in expressing great interest in leadership and the development of leaders. Officers of major funding groups and administrators of sponsored institu-tions have, in conversations, voiced serious concern about the ability of religious to provide the leadership required to direct the efforts of religious organizations in an increasingly complex world. The absence of plans to address this concern, even after its identification, is even more alarming. Finally, the fact that the pool of religious from which to select and train leaders is dwin-dling adds to the urgency of this consideration. The search for opportunities for leadership training, based on a set of competencies demonstrated to be critical for religious Review for Rel(glous leadership, continues, Unfortunately but typically, this se~irch starts only after individuals or teams have already been selected for their position. Few congregations are at the point of developing a systematic means of providing their members with leadership training. This is complicated further by the fact that the cost of such programs may be or appear to be beyond the financial means of some congregations. One group reported dif-ficulty in finding a total of $1000 for three days of training for a five-member team. Yet, in the world of professional development, this sum is not an atypical cost for one individual to partic-ipate in a weekend program. Efforts to address seriously the leadership issues within congregations have taken many forms. One group devised a three-year series of four-day leadership-skills workshops. All mem-bers under a certain age were expected to par-ticipate in one cycle. The content of these sessions was basic, ranging from how to run a meeting to how to read a balance sheet. It included segments dealing with human-resource issues such as recruiting, hiring, supervising, and firing staff and managing volunteers as well. This not only provided busy people the opportunity to become acquainted with basics of leadership, but also assisted the congregation in identifying its members' var-ied gifts. It had the side effect of enabling participants to interact with one another in ways they might not otherwise experience and served as a means of encouraging some members who might be hesitant or reluctant to see themselves in positions of leader-ship to pursue additional education. Clearly, this congregation is providing for its own future leadership needs, for at some future time some members of this group will surely find themselves in positions of community leadership. The leadership group of another congregation instituted a mid-term evaluation of their ministry as leaders. Having developed at the beginning of their term a ministry plan for their four years in office, they conducted the evaluation at the end of their second year. Results of this effort provided information concerning where and how they might refocus their efforts, alter their strategy, or enhance communication on critical issues. It also gave them a sense of affirmation regarding work well done. Few congregations are at the point of developing a systematic means of providing their members with leadership training. March-April 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal Corporate identity provides an answer to the question "What is this group known for ?" The constant challenge, along with the gentle shift that is occurring with congregational leadership, manifests itself in the willingness of members to allow leaders to exercise their leader-ship skills. Given that many members are steeped, perhaps uncon-sciously, in a culture of individualism, it can be difficult to attend to the call of a leader or leadership group and to channel one's energy in a direction set by others, especially when it is not one that the member would choose. The good news is that capable leaders have learned much about the when and how of man-aging consensus. Paralysis resulting from rigid adherence to consensus processes is less fre-quent. Some of this is true because outstanding leaders have learned to listen to their members. They read the pulse of the community, under-stand what is said between the lines, and attend to the climate of the group. By doing this they are able to gauge thetiming of a program or intervention, frame it in a manner that enables members to receive it, and reframe it when resistance seems likely to thwart the outcome. The leader-ship of a large congregation encountered such resistance after announcing for the coming year a reflection process on the group's previously identified focus. The chapter's response was loud and clear: resistance, based on the complaint that the congregation's members had not been consulted before the announcement. Rather than insist on its prerogative to lead by setting the agenda for implementing congregational goals, the team responded by acknowledging the concern. In the face of time constraints and at the cost of additional effort willingly contributed by the team members, they amended the plan to include a consultation with the members. In the final analysis, the project ran almost exactly as initially presented--with the addition of the consultation step that ensured the success of the effort. The community experi-enced a year-long dialogue that resulted in deeper self-under-standing and greater commitment to the group's focus. It is not only within congregations that outstanding leaders exercise their ministry. Groups of leaders have joined together to influence not only the church and religious life but also soci-ety at large. One regional group has chosen to confront media use of negative stereotypes in portraying religious. They are deter- Review for Religious mined to educate local media personnel about the positive reali-ties of religious life. Calls by leadership for prayer and fasting are increasingly common and are taken seriously by members. A leadership team formally called its members to prayer and fasting on a set day each week as a means of discerning and seeking openness to the call of the Spirit regarding the future of their congregation. In terms of the questions remaining, the growing number and the growing complexity of contemporary needs appear to out-strip religious orders' ability to develop the leadership skills and organize themselves enough to address these needs. For some individuals, relinquishing both the satisfactions and the pains of direct apostolates in order to develop and use leadership skills to achieve systemic and organizational change may be the form of a new asceticism, For others, learning how to be effective board members of congregational and external institutions may be the way to exercise leadership. The critical issues outlined in the introduction to this section remain. They are summarized best in the question concerning the willingness and the ability of reli-gious congregations to provide leadership not only for themselves but also for the institutions they sponsor and the ministries in which they are involved. Corporate ldentity Of all the driving forces identified in the FORUS study, cor-porate identity was perhaps the most misunderstood. It does not imply a congregation's insistence on one type of ministry or one site at which all would live and work. Corporate identity is, rather, a common focus for the life of the ~roup. In a sense, corporate identity provides an answer to the question "What is this group known for?" Corporate. identity is not identical with charism, but flows" from charism. It is the manner in which a religious con-gregation, being faithful to its founding purpose, attempts to focus its many resources to respond to today's most pressing human needs. As avenues of ministry expanded after the council, it became increasingly common for members to be involved in any of the works in which a professional might be engaged. These ministe-rial moves--often in the form of entrepreneurial enterprises-- reflected the zeal of the members as they sought new ways to minister in today's world while simultaneously using both their March-April 1996 Ukeritis * Religious Life's Ongoing Rene~val innate gifts and the skills they had developed. At other times the forces of individualism moved members to pursue areas of inter-est regardless of the connection of their work with the congre-gation's mission. In both cases, this resulted in the dispersion of religious women and men. Religious came to be identified more and more as individual ministers, frequendy heroic in their efforts, frequently invisible as religious. The mutual relationship between the congregation and the individual member, particularly as related to the mission and ministry, was lost. Media reports that document the work of a religious priest, sister, or brother fre-quently fail to mention the member's congregation by name. Changes in the general population as regards violence, increased poverty, and widespread drug abuse--along with greater cultural diversity in the United States--have forced religious to rethink the locus and mode of their ministerial involvements. Increased complexity resulting from globalization and new tech-nologies has heightened the challenge. The overwhelming demand for new understandings and additional language skills, coupled with the shift in the ability of religious to respond .enthusiasti-cally with bodily presence to many of these situations, demands serious examination of how resources are used and immense cre-ativity in crafting responses. Many able leaders of congregations recognized their mem-bers' need for a focal point of congregational energies. Such a requirement is basic to the dynamics of any functioning group: all the more so for a group of individuals who have professed a life commitment in a religious congregation. In most cases these loci began as small endeavors. In some instances initial efforts seemed to fail, as in the case of one group's attempt to establish a shelter for adolescent girls. Examination of the situation and a willingness to admit shortcomings, learn from apparent .defeat, and directly address problem areas were critical in the. revitalization of that effort and its success today. A group with a long history of staffing private academies opted to replicate a successful project that another congregation had begun in the area. It took the form of a learning center for at-risk middle-school students in the inner city of a metropolitan area. The congregation took care to establish a focused sponsoring group as it missioned some members to initiate the work. This sponsoring group not only provided both the civic and religious communities with a sense of stability regarding the project, but Review for Religious also was a positive factor in securing funding and contributions from outside sources. For example, alumni/ae of other schools sponsored by the congregation (particularly schools that had been closed) found a type of kinship with the ministry. They were enthusiastic in their support of this new educational venture, which included a school, a pre- and after-school study center, summer camp experience, and a locus for parent education. In it they saw themselves forming a link with the next generation of those served by the very congregation that had given them an excellent education. As in the example described in the earlier FORUS report, sev-eral congregations--each one using a process that worked best for it--have selected an issue such as domestic violence, home-lessness, or ecological awareness as a focus for their corporate efforts. In such situations the members' activities range from let-ter writing to involving students or parishioners in direct-service projects. On a congregational scale, artists have pooled their tal-ents to create productions intended both to raise funds to sup-port the work and to raise consciousness about the issue. Members have encouraged their sponsored institutions to participate in walks to support the cause, again both to raise money and to make the public more aware of the issue. Congregations have pooled resources to provide salaries for state or regional advocacy. Once again, both direct action and efforts, at systemic change are crit-ical. As Amata Miller IHM noted in the video presentation that accompanied Threads for the Loom, one o~ the contributions that religious congregations can make is in their commitment to a geographic area. Few individuals are able to commit the twenty or more years required to make significant changes' in a neighbor-hood, but a religious congregation can make that commitment-- and ensure that change. For any group interested in addressing the question of cor-porate identity, several pitfalls remain. The. process requires, com-mitment from a core group. Obtaining a sense of the members--often in the face of great apathy--is key, for this pro-cess is aimed at group ownership of the. project. Congregations that have .experienced success in their efforts have' been willing to think small initially, to celebrate, the seemingly insignificant vic-tories, and to encourage their members to connect the focus with current ministerial efforts. In this process it will be a rare group that does not have members trying to define some issue so that it March-April 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal will encompass everything: ecology and AIDS and educational reform. No one would deny the significance of any of these issues. No one group, in this day, can focus simultaneously and effec-tively on all three. Corporate America provided us recently with this lesson when Anheuser-Busch and AT&T recognized publicly the need to define themselves more clearly in order to provide better service. In 1995 Busch announced its plans to divest itself of both the Eagle snack-foods division and its entertainment parks, and AT&T made public its plans to split into three companies, each focusing on a different service or product area. Admittedly, religious orders are not major for-profit corpo-rations. They do, however, stand to learn something from the world around them. Ultimately, of course, they must make sure that any such efforts of theirs are connected with the mission of Jesus, as expressed by the congregation and its charism. Without this spiritual connection, any such efforts would be a sort of fla-vor- of-the-month dilettantism. Conclusion As the reader may have noted, it is difficult to hold separate the three factors selected for review. Issues of individual mem-bership, and call (individualism/vocation), group identity (corpo-rate identity), and ways of enabling the group to accomplish its task (average/excellent leadership) do not exist in isolation from one another. Given the limits of human abilities, focus on one or another at a given time may be not only appropriate but necessary. Considering one area as the place to find "the answer," however, while ignoring the other areas of concern may lead. away from a successful resolution of a problem or to the ineffective imple-mentation of an intervention. As noted above, the hold of indi-vidualism may tend to block the best efforts of successful leaders. Ineffective leaders may not be able to make good use of a newly focused corporate identity. Clear corporate identity may enable individuals to determine the appropriateness of their member-ship in a given community. Unlike the Israelites who ultimately arrived at the Promised Land, it is not probable--and is very likely undesirable--that reli-gious life will attain the stability it seems to have experienced as late as the early 1960s.I° It is imperative, however, that members of religious orders address realistically the issues related to their Review for Religious viability and vitality)1 More than the ordinary members, religious who have been entrusted with greater responsibility for the charism of their congregation must strive to ensure that the gift given them for all of God's people is passed on. Admittedly, for some, this may entail suppression of an institute or evolution to some new form. Modeling death with dignity, in a Christian atmo-sphere of letting go, may prove to be a great lesson for a society inclined increasingly to resist surrender to the paschal-mystery cycle of life-death-resurrection. However, to fail to address the questions honesdy and work earnestly toward answers and imple-mentation might be a great infidelity to the ever present grace of God. To face all of this, We will need courage. We will need energy. We will need vision. We will need to be at ease with ourselves and our decisions. Above all, like the psalmist, we will need to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, our God, until God lets us rest. And then we will know, as we have always known, that the effort was worth the gift of our lives, the best of our years, the length of our days.'z The title of this article reflecting on continuing efforts in the renewal of religious life 'contains the question "Will Good Intentions Suffice?" Hopefully, an answer key is not necessary to determine this author's response. Notes ~ See David Nygren CM and Miriam Ukeritis CSJ, The Future of Religious Orders in the United States: Tran~Cormation and Commitment (New York: Praeger, 1993). 2 The Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, with the cosponsorship of Review for Religious, hosted the 26-29 October 1995 symposium "Religious Life 30 Years Later: Is This What Vatican II Intended?" 3 Anne Munley IHM, Threads for the Loom: LCWR Planning and Ministry Studies (Silver Spring, Maryland: Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1992). 4 For an executive summary of this project, see Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 6-55, or Origins 22, no. 15 (24 September 1992). See also n. 1 above. Marcb-Aptql 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal s While levels of energy and constraints of calendar are realities, a mantra-like refrain of "We're too tired!" or "We don't have time!" among members of religious orders would signal a host of issues more critical than age or schedules. 6 Bellah's works on this subject, each with several other authors, include Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) and The Good Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). 7 Patricia Wittberg SC, Creating a Future for Religious Life: A Sociological Perspective (New York: Paulist Press, 1991). 8 "Results of the Survey on Associate Membership," Horizon 16, no. 2 (Winter 1991). 9 In the early 1980s, one external observer of the religious-forma-tion process likened the care given the few members who entered religious orders to the attention lavished on chicks of a nearly extinct species of birds. Resources were lavished on a few in the hope that they would sur-vive to adulthood. At times formation personnel felt as thpugh they were held hostage by both the candidates and the vowed members until they produced conditions that would get the candidates to make a life com-mitment. ,0 See Patricia Wittberg SC, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), for an his-torical perspective on this notion. ,1 In November 1994, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious convened a think tank on the viability of religious institutes. As reported in that month's LCWR Update, the group searched experience for lessons. After looking at examples of the merger or reconfiguration of religious institutes, the suppression of institutes to create a new congregation, and the decision of a congregation to die with grace, the group concluded that the key element in each case was leadership. In every instance the out-come was shaped by the kind of leadership that had been exercised. 12 Clare Dunn CSJ and Judy Lovchik CSJ. Playmates Winter and springtime playing leapfrog together in March, April, May, Dorothy Forman OSF Review for Religious THERESA MANCUSO The Urban Hermit: Monastic Life in the City Does urban monasticism work? What is an urban hermit? How and why live a solitary monastic lifestyle in the midst of the city? Who are these people? New forms and expressions of monastic life have occurred historically throughout the centuries in both Eastern and Western Christian tradition. They continue to evolve today in the new landscape of the modem world where the hermit's life--the monk in solitude--is not lim-ited to a rural setting, but has found its plake in the city. Monks and nuns in the twentieth and twenty-first cen-turies will be eremitical and cenobitical; they will live in communities and alone, in the country and in the. city. Monastic life has but one rule: the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The goal and purpose of the monas-tic way is union with God, the unification of the person, human salvation, enlightenment, and wisdomuin a word, happiness. Accordingly, monastic life in every time and place is a committed and consecrated endeavor to live faithfully by the precepts of Christ. The monastic voca-tion arises when and where it will in direct response to the call of grace. The urban hermit finds himself or her-self immersed in the spiritual treasures of monastic tra-dition, an integral expression here and now of that same tradition. Theresa Mancuso published "Reflection on the Solitary Life'-' in our September-October 1994 issue. She lives at 310 Beverly Road #4F; Brooklyn, New York 11218. seeking God March-April 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit Bede Griffiths, the charismatic, daring Benedictine who took his monastic vocation to India and back, wrote in The Marriage of East and l/Vest that: ¯. whatever the fate of this present world, the real need is to find a way of life which is able to survive all such disas-ters. In the Roman Empire it was monastic life which saved the world . . . monks who fled to the deserts of Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia founded a way of life based on prayer and work in conditions of the utmost poverty and simplicity and alone survived the collapse of the Roman Empire . . . [their] teaching and example led to the foun-dation of monasteries all over Eur6pe, in which the basis of a new civilization could be found. Today. there has been a revival of monastic life all over the world., centers of ferment which [may] gradually trans-form society and make possible a new civilization. The world of Bede Griffiths appears, perhaps, far removed from the noisy metropolis of New York, Chicago, Washington, Paris, Ba'rcelona, or Hong Kong. Nevertheless, the same ageless truths of which Bede spoke are the Gospel imperatives that call monastic life into being--new forms and old, today like yesterday. That which impelled Bede Griffiths to live his own monastic life a world away in the Hindu ashram is the same impetus that has given rise to solitary monastic ventures in the heart of the city. There is no geography, no time or place, in which monasticism cannot thrive and contemplative life grow. Prayer, work, poverty, and simplicity are the bedrock of a monastic heart. Alone as solitary or hermit or in the midst of community, the monk's path (monk meaning male and female) is to be immersed in God, preoccupied with the Gospel of Christ, living its life, breathing its breath, soaked in the perennial abso-lutes about which there is no ~luestion, no geography, no barrier of age, time, place, culture, or condition. In days of old, the desert was a city, according to D.J. Chitty in his classic work about early monasticism, The Desert a City. Today, perhaps, we can say it another way: the city a desert. What is this desert, then, so fundamental to the monk's life? Desert is wasteland, wilderness, barren solitude, profound silence. Desert is seclusion where the monk searches in prayer and penance, self-emptying (kenosis), th(deliberate renunciation of selfish desires, striving for inner emptiness, awaiting the hour of God's time (kairos), the manifestation of divine grace. Review for Religious The urban hermit is a kind of monk among many. Like monks everywhere, the urban hermit is consecrated to God by vows, sacred promises public or private, temporary or perpetual, worded traditionally--poverty, chastity, obedience, stability--or stated in creative new expressions. The meaning is the same. The monk is one, consecrated, offered, surrendered in complete dedication to God, steadfast in love, permeated with an all-encompassing charity that defines the heart of the monk as lover of God, com-passionate toward all God's creatures. Love sustains the lifestyle of the monastic vocation. Monasticism is a life of union and unity, communion and com-munity, silence and solitude, depth and diver-sity. Love is the call; love, the vocation; love, the path, the way, the meaning, and the reward. God, not a human inventor, makes monks. And this God does when and where he pleases. With the entire focus of the heart fixed on God, the monastic way may weave a strange thread indeed, not perhaps the dream one had in first embarking on the monastic journey. As life unfolds, so does the call of God. Consecration, dedication, immer-sion in Christ--these are what remains. All the rest is incidental. Accordingly, as the grace of God unfolds in pers.onal human history, the fine tuning of a monastic vocation eventually comes to fit the individual. In other words, who and what we are from the hand of God and our mother's womb finally dictates who and what we must become. The mystery of sanctification is some-times conditioned by transition, but it is always and everywhere in God's hands. To be consecrated means to live in the presence of God, to be centered in him, devoted to him, belonging to him, regardless of the conditions of life which are--after all--only the environment, not the essence of the monastic vocation. It is not surprising, then, or at least it should not be, that we have come to find monks and nuns living alone in the city, years and miles from where their monastic journey began. This, too, is caught up in the mystery of salvation. The beautiful Rule of Life created nearly twenty years ago by Father Pierre-Marie Delfieux for the Jerusalem Community-- monks of the city--says: ". You can live in God's heart at the heart of the city because it is his dwelling place. Be monk and nun in the very heart of the city of God" (No. 128). This is true What is this desert so fundamental to the monk's life? Marcb-dp~ql 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit of individuals as well as communities. Lacking financial endow-ment that might create the illusion of security, safety, and afford complete separation from the world, the urban hermit must go out every single day into the hustle and busde of the city just to make a living. And this is exactly as it should be. To be "monk and nun in the very heart of the city of God" is to work in the midst of humanity, to suffer the problems and dif-ficulties of the job, the discipline of tasks that await one at the workplace. It is not a distraction to work in the real world. It is, rather, a call to the most generous and absolute imperative: to center one's heart by turning inward at the same time as one must turn outward in labor. There is no duality in this process; it is an act of unification, part and parcel of monastic experience. Laborare et orate. The work of balancing internal contemplative life with exter-nal work in the center of the city requires a kind of persever-ance. In the beginning, it may seem impossible to remain contemplative in the busy atmosphere of city life. But, no, it is not impossible. The heart cries out to God, "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner," and learns, bit by bit, to pray easily in the midst of all the noisy activity and wild frenzy of the city. Over time, the monk in the world realizes the deep-est center to be one's own impenetrable fortress of joy, faith, Spirit, and Life. Later in his Rule, Father Pierre-Marie says: "What the early monks set out to seek yesterday in the desert, you will find today in the city. All monastic life is a fight and urban monasticism calls for fighters. Followers of Christ, the Beatitudes summon you to a life of real struggle in the heart of the city" (No. 129). There is no protection but God's for the urban hermit who lives and dwells in the real world, as stark and naked a reality as ever there was in the heart of the desert. Like the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the urban hermit knows the isolation and threat of the wilderness, the roar of beasts and the temptation of the heart. To find peace in the city is to walk with God in the deepest center of one's being. " The Monastic Typicon ofNeTv Skete (1980) says this about work: "Throughout history, our fathers and brethren in monastic life have taught that work is not only required to sustain oneself, but that it is equally important as a means of self-discipline and as an adiunct to prayer and worship and individual total growth. Review for Religious Work, therefore,ds part and parcel of our life, first of all, because it;is essential to monastic life in general" (Nos. 71 and 72). The urban hermit, bound by the same need to work that char-acterizes all persons, is fortunate if livelihood can be obtained working at home within the poustinia, but this is not always the case. In fact, it is rarely possible. The monk in the world must learn to accommodate to working conditions in the professions or elsewhere, whether the work~is manual or intellectual. Work joins the monk to all people of all time and place. "With the sweat of your brow shall you earn your bread" (Gn 3:19). Over time, work itself becomes sweet to the monk, for it is but another expres-sion of the inner song of the heart: "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." It has been said that it is not the habit that makes the monk. Nor is it the work. What is essential in mdnastic spirituality is that work and every other dimension of life be characterized by the interior spirit of recollection, purity of intention, and single-mindedness. Work is a sanctifying process, it is not a distraction. By reaching down deeper and deeper into the pool of faith in order to carry out one's work properly, the work and the worker will be immersed and bathed in the light of divine presence. Thus the monk in the marketplace is at home in God's world. In Contemplation in a World of Action, Thomas Merton wrote decades ago, perhaps the prelude for today's monk in the world: "Do we really choose between the world and Christ as between two conflicting realities absolutely opposed? Or do we choose Christ by choosing the world as it really is in Him, that is to say, created and redeemed by him? Do we really renounce ourselves and the world in order to find Christ, or do we renounce our alienated and false selves in order to choose our own deepest truth in choosing both the world and Christ at the same time?" The urban hermit, immersed now in solitude, now in actual labor outside the hermitage, seeks to integrate the contemplative life of the poustinia with the, marketplace where a living is earned. Renunciation of the false self and transcendence over the spirit of the world through the practice of interior recollection and con-templative prayer purify the heart and transform the effort to do one's best into the peaceful harmony that defines right livelihood. The monk is called by God to live alone in him--monos-- monacbos--one--single--alone. In community or in the hermitage wherever it may be, the monk strives to be of single .'focus. In the March-Apt41 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit marketplace the monk is living witness to the holiness of work, the goodness of the world, and the salvation of the earth by the mercy of God. As humility should characterize the soul of a monk, so, too, simplicity, charity, gentleness, tenderness, compassion will exemplify the detachment of heart that frees the religious hermit and enables the monk to live in the world without becoming worldly. The urban hermit strives to renounce that which is worldly (self-centered, egotistical, arrogant, profit-seeking, and decep-tive), to cast out and obliterate those attitudes of mind that block communion with God and harmony with one's fellow creatures on this fragile planet. The pure heart of God's solitary learns to return to the world as often as necessary, not as an adventurer seeking new pleasures or material power, but as one crucified in Christ, transfigured ,by Christ, restored to innocence and holi-ness of life. The soul of the monk, one would hope, gradually becomes transparent, clean, empty, full and brimming over with the joy that comes only from God. The Monastic Typicon of New Skete states that: "Prayer and worship are the major concerns of monastic life. Through the liturgical celebrations [monks] participate in the mysteries of the life and death of Christ, thus moving toward the universal reali-ties of resurrection and transfiguration" (No. 60). The urban her-mit, in communion with monks and nuns of every time and place, lives in the. paschal mystery of the Lord by entering into liturgi-cal celebrations, whether the Liturgy of the Hours or the Eucharist. The "divine office" marks the hours of the day, spiraling the soul in and out of psalmody, uplifting, descending, flying to God, returning to earth. The urban hermit, at work in the marketplace of the world, simply does not have the luxury of stopping to chant the Third Hour, the Sixth Hour, or the Ninth Hour of the day. Nevertheless, interior prayer should never cease, but accompany all our actions, those of labor and social intercourse, as well as the times and places when we are free to enter most deeply into the prayer of the church. Urban hermits try to celebrate as many hours of the "divine office" as are possible in the demands of every day, for life in the world requires the monk to be present to its concerns without losing the focus of vocation. Prime. Lauds. Matins. Vespers. Compline. At least pa~'t of the regular Hours m'ust be celebrated Review for Religio1~s alone or in the parish church if possible. Sometimes the urban hermit may join a religious community for the observance of litur-gical prayer. The wisdom of the desert is today the wisdom of the city-- that is, the city of God. It would be foolishness to overburden one-self by attempting to work a required 35 6r 40 hour week outside the hermitage and expect to be able to complete all the Liturgy of the Hours. Certainly, God does not require the impossible. The rule of faith is simple: Do what is possible. Do what you can. But do everything you can as best you can, with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole being. Concentrate the very fiber of your existence on that which is given to God without neglect-ing that which is given to people. What is the difference anyway between the basket-weaving monk in the wilderness of Egypt who goes down to sell wares at the marketplace from time to time and the computer-opera-tor monk in the center of Manhattan who commutes to Brooklyn or Queens by subway after work? It is the spirit, the heart of the monk---interior substance--that matters. That which defines the monastic vocation is singleness of focus. Prayer that is intimate and ongoing moment by moment, hour by hour, cements our union with God and prompts the conversion of our hearts over and over again, making holy not only our poor, fragile lives, but everything we touch and everyone we love. The monk is leaven in the marketplace and remains so by cherishing and using advantageously the secret silenc~e and deep seclusion of the hermitage, even when many hours must be spent outside. The Liturgy of the Hours is first and finally the greatest cel-ebration of the heart and the center of monastic life. It is the joy of Christians and the soul of monasticism. To chant the "divine office" is to enter again and again into the ageless mystery of Christ. Season by season, liturgical texts teach the heart, renew the spirit, and join humanity to God in the person of Christ, the only lover of humanity. Simplicity, charity, gentleness, tenderness, compassion will exemplify the detachment of heart that frees the religious hermit and enables the monk to live in the world without becoming worldly. MarclJ-Aptql 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit The monk at large may celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours in a monastery church with a community of brother or sister monks or in the parish church anywhere in the city or countryside of his or her abode. It does not matter. At the heart of the liturgy is found the whole meaning of the monastic vocation: to die and rise with Christ in fulfillment of the Father's will for the redemp-tion of the world. The Eucharist is the food of monastic life, its sustenance and joy. To find a monk who does not deeply love the liturgy is to find a sorry sort of monk. Therefore, time and energy must be made available to participate properly in the celebration, of the Eucharist. This is the heart and center of the monastic life. As practiced by Pachomius and the monks of Eastern Christendom, the Eucharist was celebrated weekly, not daily, though it remains the privilege and practice in the Latin rite to celebrate Eucharist daily. The liturgical chants that surround the Eucharist provide spiritual nourishment and food for contemplation. The urban hermit goes forth from the church after participation in the liturgy, and carries back to the city and back to the hidden place of his or her own poustinia the wealth of Scripture that echoes in the prayers of the Eucharist. Be it a tiny .apartment in a busy housing complex or a huge industrial or professional workplace, the chants and meaning of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist remain with the urban hermit all day, eveory day, feed-ing heart and mind with those things which endure, the living breath of contemplative life. Finally, the urban hermit learns to safeguard religious seclu-sion and solitude which provide the depth of silence and cen-teredness that is indispensable to the monastic way. The integrity of monastic life and the monk's personal steadfastness in this voca-tion arise from that wellspring of silence and solitude that ripened by seclusion. Nevertheless, the monk in the city must never become a self-preoccupied hermit whose reclusive tendencies spring from self-deception as if the world were a contagion to be avoided at all cost. A balance of solitude is derived from a healthy view of reality. The opposite is unsound. To live in the midst of the world as an urban hermit is not to sacrifice or minimize the essential quality of seclusion and solitude necessary for ctntemplative prayer. Urban hermits are usually not reclusive. To go inward for the sake of contemplation is a dis- Review for Refigious cipline of the heart, not an act of walls and fences. Monks in the world must come and go; while cherishing and protecting the inner sanctuary of monastic seclusion that is an essential element of the hermit's life. They accomplish this by setting and main-taining proper boundaries. Hospitality and social needs are part of reality--essential for psychological and spiritual balance, no more, no less. They, too, like everything else, must be harmonized with reality in the vocation of the city monk. All the more must the urban hermit learn to bal-ance seclusion and secular involvement, for, being alone, he or she needs to understand what constitutes a necessary monastic enclo-sure in the world and what constitutes run-ning away. Extremes can best be avoided by studying the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord went apart to pray; he rested in the desert and returned to the city. So, too, the monk in the marketplace needs separation from the world. If monks today are to be the salt of society, "the monastery" must be accessible to all, so that they (those in the world who come into contact with monastic life) "may savor its life, its worship, and its message" (Monastic Typicon of New Skete, No. 28). The monk who goes forth from the silent sanctuary of a quiet hidden hermitage in the midst of the city to work and walk among the people of the world does so from necessity and generosity to let the world taste and savor the consecrated life, what it is and what it means, inviting the world to share in the worship and message of the monastic vocation. We must not hide from life, but embrace it, immersing every aspect of it into the mystery of Christ as we ourselves plunge our entire existence into the paschal real-ity, first at baptism, then throughout the day~ of our vocation. It is thus that all is transfigured b,y the grace of God and the entire cosmos shares in the transfiguration of Christ. For the urban hermit, this harmonious integration of all things is at the center of the monastic vocation. But tha~ is exacdy as it has always been for monastic life today and throughout its history--the still point in the turning world, where God and humanity meet and the spark of wisdom is given to illuminate the earth. To find a monk who does not deeply love the liturgy is to find a sorry sort of monk. Marcb-Aptql 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit I like to think Bede Griffiths or Thomas Merton, or indeed any of the great monks and nuns who are our spiritual forebears, might share a day or week in the life of an urban monk and find themselves altogether quite comfortable. They would recognize the rhythm of prayer, silence, solitude, work, hospitality, study, lec-tio divina, and liturgy. Those great followers of St. Anthony, father of Egyptian monasticism, or those who walk with St. Benedict, who codified monastic life--and all the others in between--should recognize in the urban hermit, monk in the world, the same hunger for God that led them in their own spiritual journeys. They would know the path, for it is one: forsaking all, embracing all, a voyage of the heart through dark and desolate places, remote and wild, desert and city, places where the monastic vocation thrives and God meets humanity in a singular embrace of love. References Chitty, D.J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961. Griffiths, Bede. The Marriage of East and West. Springfield, Illinois: Templegate Publishers, 1982. Merton, Thomas. Contemplation in a World of Action. New York: Doubleday, 1971. At Hand but Unattended I spend my foolish life in search of marvels, of wonders to delight and startle me. The ordinary could not hold my interest, my soul each da. y demanded mystery.~ I envied those who lived when. Christ was preaching, who saw him work his wonders with a word. What drama to have seen a blind man sighted, the lepers cleansed, the deaf when first they heard. But, oh, how stupid I with all my longing, my searching for a miracle to see. I let my days go by, not ever grasping my miracle was God creating me. James F. Finley Review for Religious MARIE BEHA Enclosed in the Mystery of Jesus My " stery is a reality which we must explore from within, .a. ¯ .~. enter into, and live with. In contrast, a problem is some-thing we must externalize, be objective about, and solve. We pre-fer the latter, delighting in the challenge, the sense of mastery and control which it gives us. So we relish a "mystery" story just because it presents us with a whole set of "problems" to be solved. And we resist the mysteries in our lives even though we are fas-cinated by the breadth and depth of the big questions like "Where do we come from?" and "What is life?" Religious who freely choose to live enclosed lives present problems for many, even for many Catholics, just because they are so mysterious. Why would persons choose to confine them-selves within a drastically limited geographic space, associating, for the most part, with the same few people for the rest of their lives? It sounds as dismal as life-in-prison. But this is to make the mis-take of seeing enclosure in a problematic context. It is to bang our fists demanding an answer that satisfies us. It als0 misses the invitation to explore a mystery. Unfortunately, not much has been written on enclosure, and much of what has been done approaches it from its more prob-lematic side, presenting its canonical aspects, pointing out its rea-sonableness, or seeking to justify its continuance. Valid, certainly, since enclosure, like other incarnational realities, has external shape and form. Far more importantly, it also has a heart of mys-tery that invites exploration. Two contemporary efforts present the basic meaning of enclo-sure, inviting the reader to explore the reality to appreciate its Marie Beha OSC may be addressed at 1916 N. Pleasantburg Drive; Greenville, South Carolina 29609. March-April 1996 Beha * Enclosed in the Mystery of Jerus mystery. The first of these interpretations has been articulated by Sister Chiara Lainati in an article in Forma Sororum (vol. 4/5 [1983]: 200-203) where she describes it as a "particular way in the church of living out the paschal mystery . . . the emptying out of Christ on the cross" (p. 201). The second is that of Father Herbert Schneider:, who in his Commentary on the General Constitutions (private!y publ!shed, 1992, pp. 14-15), p[esents enclo-sure as "the place of decision to remain with the Lord" related to the statement of the Lord, "Remain in my love" (Jn 15:4). Each of our interpreters has the credentials to present this mystery of enclosure. Sister Chiara Lainati is a Poor Clare nun, a member of the protomonastery in Assisi, where she has served as abbess while continuing to do writing and research on topics related to the Poor Clare way of life. Presently she is the abbess of the small group of Clares pioneering a new contemplative foun-dation in the Vatican. Father Herbert Schneider has been provin-cial of the Franciscan province of Cologne and spiritual assistant of the Federation of German-speaking Poor Clares. At present he is in Rome as the delegate general to all communities who claim affiliation with the Franciscan Order, including the Poor Clares, In this office he has visited monasteries all over the world, presenting workshops as well as attending chapters of Poor Clare federations. Although papal enclosure directly involves only a few Christians, the reality which it symbolizes is a staple of Christian living. Each of us in our own style of life needs to incorporate such values as stability, participating in the paschal mystery, and remaining in Christ. To do this we have to accept many kinds of limits, including geographic ones. Enclosed in the Paschal Mystery Sister Chiara Lainati's "Enclosure: Characteristic Way for Clare to Express the Paschal Mystery" begins by rejecting the more traditional interpretations of enclosure as a "means" of pro-tecting chastity or of promoting the life of contemplation. In cri-tiquing the latter she points out that today there are other more suitable means, such as courses on prayer or the word of God. In her view, enclosure, like the other vows, is a way of entering more deeply into the self-emptying of Jesus. Just as poverty is described traditionally as a renunciation of material possessions, chastity as; Review for Religio us renunciation of sexual intimacy, marriage, and family, and obedi-ence as renunciation of one'~ self-will and determination, enclo-sure "limits a person in space, impoverishes her in her possibilities of action and of spatial liberty." This points out the "underside" of all the vows; they all include a saying "no" to some important human values, but only for the sake of a saying "yes" to some-thing else. "In this perspective enclosure has value in itself, as an opening of oneself to grace, just as Christ, alone on the mountain, was open to the contemplation of the Father" (p. 14). Sister Chiara treats of the origins of Clare's profession of enclosure. She believes that it originated during her brief stay at Sant' Angelo di Panzo, after she had left the Benedictine Monastery of San Paolo and before Francis took her to San Damiano, which was to become her true home. According to Sister Chiara, the group at Sant' Angelo was a community of recluses and penitents from whom Clare took "the completely new and revolutionary idea of a bond of deeper union in that kenosis of Christ which is his solitude of death on the cross" (p. ,1'5). Parenthetically Sister Chiara mentions that enclosure was not forced upon IZlare but was' her own free choice; there were other options even in her own .day. Witness the Beguine movement in which groups of pious women lived in common and practiced the corporal works of mercy. Clare could have chosen a similar form of active ministry, but she seems to have felt called to a lifestyle that included the discipline of enclosure. The question, then, is not whether Clare was enclosed, but the why and the bow of her choice. Both, according to Sister Chiara, evolved as expressions of the mystery of the kenosis of Jesus. Over and over again, Clare emphasizes the importance of "keeping one's eyes fixed on Jesus" (Heb 3:1). Specifically she urges Agnes of Prague to look in the mirror that is Jesus and to see reflected there the Infant Christ and the Crucified One: Look at the border of this mirror, that is; the poverty of him who was placed in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then at the surface of the mirror, consider the holy humility, the blessed poverty, the untold labors and bur-dens that he endured for the redemption of the whole human race. Then in the depth of this same mirror, con-template the ineffable charity that led him to suffer on the " wood of the cross and to die there the most shameful kind of death. March-April 1996 Beba * Enclosed in the Mystery of Jesus Let us respond with one voice, with one spirit, to him crying and grieving who said: Remembering this over and over leaves my soul downcast within me (IV LAg. 19:22- 26). Looking at Jesus Crucified was not idle speculation for Clare, nor just an exercise in contemplative piety. For her, seeing involved not only believing but also living out of that belief. It meant imitation, a putting on the Lord Jesus that brought about a profound interior change. It was participation in the mystery of Jesus. As Clare looked at Jesus, what she saw was not only his bod-ily suffering but at a deeper level the. self-emptying that was sur-render to the Father's will. It was the same self-emptying that marked the incarnation ("He emptied himself, taking the form' of a servant" Ph 2:7), continued all through his active ministry ("My food is to do the will of the one who sent me" Jn 4:34), and culminated in that last triumphant cry, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:46). What does it mean to empty oneself?. At first glance this seems a contradiction. To let go of externals, persons, or things, is theoretically possible, though dif-ficult, but to empty self of self?. How can that be? It sounds, at best, like looking for a way to lift oneself by oneself. Where could one stand, take hold of oneself, to initiate the process? Mystery again. First of all is the mystery of what we mean by self. And if that were not enough, there is the still greater mystery of the process itself. Self, as well as self-emptying, like all mysteries, can only be discovered from inside ourselves. Each of us already has some experience of what we mean by se/fwhen we say, "I am not my best self .today," or affirm, "Yes, that is true of me. That is the way I am." In each instance we have some core experience to which we turn, the bedrock of our personal identity. We recognize ourselves even when we cannot give anything like an adequate description of who we are. This is so because the self that I am is a very sim-ple concept, one that cannot easily be broken down. There is no simple recipe that will blend the right ingredients into a whole we can identify as myself Adding up qualities never sums identity. We can only work toward self-knowledge within the revelatory context of our everyday-lives. This process of self-discovery is initiated with the beginnings of consciousness and continues till death. It is dynamic, a lesson Review for Religious never completely learned but essentially ongoing. Initially the focus is on relating self to an external world, distinguishing myself from other realities. So the baby discovers: I am separate from the surrounding bed, different from mother. How separate? How different? The former distinction will be discovered quite easily; the latter may never be completely accomplished! But this is only negative knowledge: I am not .Ahead lies the whole range of positive identification: "I am .". Others hold up a mirror of how they see us and we begin to discover ourselves in that reflection. I am. baby. I am. good baby., sometimes! Fortunate the individual whose first feedback from others is real-istic and basically positive. Inevitably some of it will be neither. Others may identify us with their problems, ignore us, threaten us, deny us, abuse us. Initially we are almost completely dependent on these impressions received from others; that is why these are so formative. Most of the rest of our lives, we will experience some flashback of these first experiences of who we are. As time goes on, we begin to accumulate a growing memory bank of others' perceptions and of our own self-reflection; together these become the core of our identity We learn how we relate and are related to others, what we can and cannot do, and why we choose or refuse as we do. We come to describe ourselves in such obvious ways as age, sex, size, and shape but much more significandy as smart or stupid, as lovable or unlovable, as good enough or not good enough. Over time these labels take on the reality of personal identity; true or false, they are who we think we are and so tend to become self-fulfilling prophecy. Still, this self-concept that forms me is not written in stone; rather it is as fluid as the flow of time and changing life circum-stances. I can and do become a different person, changing in ways that are more or less profound. Acquaintances who say "I hardly recognize you" may be noting only superficial characteristics. Others who know us better remind us, in the face of surprising changes in the externals of our lives, "I always thought you might. ," under-lining the continuity that is our basic identity. So where does self-emptying come into the picture? What could it mean? On one level it can mean that openness to change which allows us to grow and develop. Unless we are willing to let go of some of our past and present identity, our self-concept remains the same. Detachment is needed if we are to move away from previous self-definition. So change, even freely chosen and Marcb-~lplql 1996 Beba ¯ Enclosed in tbe Mystery of yesus The more significant the change the greater the threat, but conversion never comes without a price tag. desired change, can be painful. It poses risks; our self will never be the same, and We have grown accustomed to its face. The more significant the change the greater the threat, but conversion never comes without a price tag. Yet this is not the fullest meaning of self-emptying. Change is self-improvement or self-destruction, depending on its direc-tion, but self is still very much in the picture. We want it to be; this is how our functional self will grow. Even when we make a destructive choice, we do so under the delusion that this is somehow to our imme-diate advantage, mistakenly opting for imme-diate gratification rather than wait for the slower-appearing benefits of disciplined effort. As our functional self becomes more clearly delineated, we find ourselves growing in per-sonal security. Faithful response to the chal-lenge of ongoing conversion prepares us for another level of letting go; we begin to be capa-ble of self-forgetfulness. The focus shifts from me at the center of the world to a broader view that is increasingly other-centered. The inse-cure .adolescent (of whatever age) grows into the generous adult capable of entering the world of the other with fewer repeated nervous glances back to "how am I doing?" Who of us has not admired individuals mature enough to hold in creative tension the concerns of self with those of oth-ers. Secure in their self-identity, they are not so preoccupied with their own needs that they cannot even see those of others. Nor are they so involved in meeting the neediness of others that the self is at risk of'being destroyed in the process. The latter is only a dis-gnised form of self-gratification that threatens dual destruction. The maturity that makes self-forgetfulness possible opens the self to the world of others, allowing for a truly personal rela-tionship, a dialogue of love. The bonding of parent and child, of a long-married couple, of friends, all exemplify letting go of self for the sake of being with, being for, another. In these experi-ences we begin to discover the paradox that in losing ourselves we find ourselves. We become more ourselves because of the other, and we are grateful. These loving relationships that are first lessons in self-for-getfulness can begin at any age level; they continue for life and are Review for Religious always maturing. But they are not self-emptying. In self-forget-fulness there is still a self, with the focus shifting back and forth between self,and others. We are ourselves and we identify our-selves in loving the others, as loving the other. Self-emptying goes deeper still. Preliminary to it is our will-ingness to allow it to happen. "Let this attitude be in you which was also in Christ Jesus" (Ph 2:5). The self needs to accept self-emp-tying, such is the exquisite courtesy of God who always waits on the consent of our freedom. Still, the initiative is God's inviting us, gradually readying us, then asking us if we are ready. Our hearts must answer, not just our heads. The question: Where is your trea-sure; what do you really want? If our wholehearted response is: God, first of all, more than all, most of all, then the center of self changes. We are no longer just ourselves; our life "is hidden now with Christ, in God" (Col 3:3). This is where "we live and move and have our being" (Ac 17:28), and "I live now, not I . " (Ga 2:20). What was formerly said as pious slogan, then desired more or less seriously, now begins to be realized in our "mortal flesh." This is first experienced with the same sense of awkwardness that accompanies other beginnings. More than just strange, the loss of self is painful. Where is the I? What is happening? Even to ask these questions is to focus back on self. We might expect such a return to normal self-reflectiveness to feel familiar; it may not, and this will be even more disturbing. Who am I and who am I becoming? These questions may be natural enough, but they are no longer important or even relevant. We have to let them go, never mind the risk. This shift from I to the Other of God is as gradual as all other growth. For' a period of time, more or less prolonged, the self is sometimes operative and sometimes gone. We lose ourselves and then recover ourselves. Sometimes our activity will seem self-directed, self-reflective; at other times our focus will move to a self-forgetfulness that allows for a going beyond self. In all of this, though, we are free to say "yes" or "no." We cannot make it happen; that is beyond us. What is ours to do is to accept the divine action or refuse it. The latter occurs when we become afraid, clinging nervously to self; when we yield to the pseudosecurity of self-directed activity; when we try looking back over our shoulder to see ourselves. All of these are perfectly nat-ural, not supernatural; nor do they represent the level on which we are being invited to live. March-April 1996 Beha * Enclosed in the Mystery of yesus The simple truth is that we are no longer our own. We belong to another. "We are God's people, the sheep of God's flock" (Ps 100:3). It sounds fine in general! However, in all the particular-ity of our own experience it presents the most intriguing of mys-teries. Only through generous participation will we be able to share the new life being offered to us. While it is certainly true that we are experiencing a loss of self, it is even truer that we have never been more ourselves. This is who we really are: a creature, created in God's image, redeemed, sanctified and enabled to live divinely./~ are in Christ Jesus. Our truest self exists, lives, only in God, our beginning and our end. This is the self we are called to be "now and forever and forever." How does enclosure further this process of self-emptying? Sister Chiara Lainati states this without developing specifics. I believe the answer lies in the way that enclosure loosens the hold of the functional self and at the same time makes more possible a kind of primary centering on the other that is God. At- least that is its potential; like all of the other vows, enclosure provides an opportunity but does not automatically accomplish what it offers. Let us begin with the loosening of the grip of the functional self. Enclosure clearly limits personal geography so that we become very familiar with our surroundings; we are freer, then, to let go of our self-regarding, cautionary self without endangering life or limb. Contrast this with the degree of anxious concern that marks our traveling into strange space. In the same way, customary rela-tionships with familiar persons relax the ego's grip. We are freed from such self-regarding questions as: Who are we in this new relationship? How are we affected by it? Those are always self-regarding questions. At home and relaxed, we can be ourselves, forget ourselves, and be readied to go beyond ourselves. Similarly, within enclosure, simple, familiar work frees from those compet-itive, complex work situations that underline self-achievement, self-accomplishment, and the building up of the functional self. Put in a more positive way, by limiting one's field of vision, enclosure intensifies the seeing. Like a spotlight, it centers atten-tion on Another. This is illustrated by the inscription over many medieval monastery gates, "God alone," that was both a warning and a promise. Nothing else would be found within; self-seeking would find itself either badly malnourished, trying to satisfy itself on meager rations or starving to death; that was the warning. The promise: Beyond the self God was waiting. Review for Religious But only if the asceticism of an enclosed life was accepted graciously and lived faithfully. Included in the discipline: fidelity to the limits of physical geography, to intracommunity relation-ships and noncompetitive work. But none ,of these can be inter-preted in too materialistic a way. It is the heart that matters, the spirit that must be set free. Limited physical geography can imprison, circumscribed relationships can shrink one's world, and simple work can leave the mind dangerously idle. All such prac-tices can also become self-congratulatory, just as fasting can feed the ego. Each individual must discover for herself and then incorpo-rate into life the particular practices that will allow her to go deeper into the paschal mystery of Jesus. For example: Curiosity may need to be controlled though its object is legitimate; reading, even of a spiritual character, may need restriction lest the func-tional self become too active; even some self-satisfying forms of vocal or mental prayer may need to be abandoned. Examples could be multiplied; what they would have in common is the self-emptying that allows for a more complete immersion into the mystery of God. To the degree that this occurs, enclosure comes to partake in the paradox of the beatitudes. Emptiness will be filled with the fullness of God; being confined will bring greater freedom. Going apart will result in being still more a part; limited apostolic oppor-tunity will hasten the coming of the kingdom through a deepen-ing of the baptismal grace of being "buried with Christ" to "rise to new life with Christ" (Col 2:12). Relating enclosure to the paschal mystery of Jesus as Sister Chiara does permits new emphasis on its sacramental character. It has outward signs, but these point toward a deeper interior reality. But the new life within that is the exciting possibility of enclosure is not guaranteed. Nor is enclosure in the canonical sense of the term the only means. The same process of self-emp-tying for the sake of deeper immersion in the mystery of God can be accomplished in many different life circumstances. For example, fidelity to the limits of a geography circumscribed by poverty or illness, of family relationships stressed by contempo-rary nonvalues, of routine work that offers little room for self-congratulation-- all these can become occasions for self-emptying or for self-seeking. The choice is ours. Freely choosing to live ¯ within the limits of enclosure of whatever kind can be fruitful. March-April 1996 Beha ¯ Enclosed in the Mystery of yesus Though the limits and limitations of any kind of enclosure are real and should not be diluted, its basic purpose is positive: fuller participation in the mystery of God and growing freedom. When chosen as part of an ongoing vocational commitment, it becomes a way of waiting on God, of bringing forth new life in the church and the world, of growing in the freedom that is the power of Christ's redemptive death. Remaining in Jesus Father Herbert Schneider centers his presentation of enclo-sure around the gospel words "Remain in my love" (Jn 15:4). As he explains in his Commentary on the Poor Clare Constitutions, "Enclosure is the place of decision to remain with the Lord. The innermost enclosure is the space of the heart. In relationship to that, the enclosure of the building is a sign and a help" (p. ~14). Because enclosure is primarily a matter of the heart, Schneider suggests that a variety of interpretations may be given to its exter-nal form without changing its essential meaning. What is true is that enclosure has a value of itself and belongs to the basic ~ele-ments of contemplative life (p. 14). ~ Each life has a where, expressed on the geographic level when we say "My address is. ," or "I live in." and rephrased more significantly as ',IYm at home here" or "I no longer know where I am." In the latter two examples ~we begin to explore the way in which external space relates to the world of the psyche and, ulti-mately, to that of the spirit. In everyday parlance, we frequently use spatial metaphors to refer to internal realities: "personal space" and "individual direction." "Don't crowd me" can be meant lit-erally or it can be a graphic way of asking for more time, more space for personal considei, ation. Similarly, when we ask someone to show us the way, we may be hoping for directions on a map or direction fo~: life. As Schneider points out, enclosure is a spatial metaphor for the contemplative desire to remain with God. It is an incarna-tional reality, having both an external form and an interior real-ity. Either one without the other would be less than human, iust as an inanimate body is.only.a corpse and a disembodied soul seems conceivable only as a ghost (or an .angel). Viewed exter-nally, enclosure spells imprisonment, but for a contemplative spirit it provides necessary boundaries. Review for Religio~,s To live contemplatively requires space; that is the basic truth Schneider emphasizes. The external boundaries of enclosure pro-vide sacred space where the heart can find a home. This experi-ence of at-homeness is a familiar one, hopefully, to most of us. Although it may be difficult, even impossible to explain, we know there are places, circumstances, relationships in which we can relax, be ourselves, be at peace. We cher-ish these places, seek to find them, even try to create them. So where is a contemplative at home? Essentially, there is only one place, one circumstance, one relationship: in God. "Our hearts are restless till they rest in thee." Augustine knew from personal experience that we are at home nowhere else. Remain in me, dwell in me, abide in me--the same central truth is nuanced in a changing variety of translations. All use the imperative. We are told in the most direct of terms what we are to do: make our home in God. Though we might like to reduce this to a harmless figure of speech, the gospel command is insistent in its reality. In John's Gospel the details are spelled out with evangelical insistence: "Remain in my love" On 15:9) and "Remain in me, as I remain in you" On 15:4), Where can we find a lasting home? Only by living in love, .remaining there, abiding there. We like the idea, but we protest its impossibility. The world in which we live is not a very loving place:' Unfortunately, that misses the point completely. At issue is not the world around us as much as the world inside us. It is we, .at the very center of our being, who are to abide in love; it is our choice, our decision. No one, nothing outside, can evict us from this home. I may not wish to remain there; I may prefer to roam, seek-ing diversion anywhere I can find it. I am restlessly on the move, changing geography or just changing the subjecwI may look for diversion in the media or seek distraction in idle chatter. I may even allow my mind to slip down into dark valleys of personal gloom or climb the bright uneasy slopes of critical judgment. Any Although it may be difficult, even impossible to expla!n, we know there are places, circumstances, relationships in which we can relax, be ourselves, be at pe.ace. March-April 1996 Beba * Enclosed in the Mystery of yesus escape seems better than no escape. All such forms of selfishness seem to promise oases, but prove to be only deserted places. We need to remain where we are in the reality that is ours: present space, immediate situation, personal relationship, even when this is not comfortable, even when we might prefer to be some place., any place., else. Here is the geography of our real-ity, the enclosed space, that allows us to live in truth and in love. Only when we attempt to remain in this loving truth of pre-sent reality do we discover how much unreality pollutes our human situation. Where we try to live is too often only a castle in the air, a mirage. No wonder we cannot find much of a living there. We cannot dwell where we are not. So we must move on. If the direc-tion of our seeking moves us toward home, then we call our change conversion. The moving now becomes a pilgrimaging, a seeking for our true home. Pilgrims we will always be in this life since the only place where we can have a lasting abode is in our eternal dwelling place. But already in this life we do have a home in God, the God who dwells in the center of our hearts. This is where we must remain in the here and now, loving God, ourselves, others. Then we expe-rience ourselves at home. It is the remaining that often becomes problematic. Monastic enclosure is meant to offer a way of doing so. Time and space for God are its first promise. By setting boundaries on who comes and goes, it reserves a generous amount of time and space that Can be filled with the things of God. Again, what is offered is the opporttmity; what is necessary is faithfulness, not just to making use of the time that is available, but also to the specifics of our own personal vocation. What prayer is God inviting me to here, now? ~- At variant times we may find ourselves called to renewed litur-gical dedication or to a silent waiting on the Lord. Ours may be a prayer of pain or one of more generous service. There will be seasons when we will easily dedicate ourselves to thankfulness and other times when it will be all we can do to muster a decent amount of joy. What remains the same: Be faithful in prayer and you will find the Lord. And find yourselfl This can be even more problematic. People expect to find God (perhaps a "dream" God) within the enclo-sure; they may not be as acceptive or expective of the self they will discover as well. Limited space inevitably brings one face to Review for Religiot~s face with self. Lacking a place to hide, we must face ourselves and learn to love the self that we really are, not the self that we often pretend to be. It is the reality of ourselves just as we are presently that God loves, so we do not have an option about self-acceptance. Remaining true to ourselves opens the door to real love of neighbor. Again, we need to embrace others, not as we would like to remake them, but as they are in Christ Jesus. When we mistake our self-centered labeling of others as lovable/unlovable for the judgment of God, we are left in the darkness of untruth. We do not dare stay there. The only place we can remain is in the all-inclusive tenderness of God's love. Life within an enclosed space is meant to make possible such a love, providing opportunities for in-depth relationships that are tested in the crucible of close living, that endure over a lifetime and bear fruit for eternity. The hope of life enclosed, as Schrieider points out, is that it "leads to nearness and to the ability for relationships" (p. 14). This capacity for relationships extends beyond the monastery. Again it is a matter of the heart. In the bond that is God's life-giv-ing love, all are potentially one. This essential unity is lived out in a faith that makes enclosure as wide as divine mercy and as tender as infinite compassion. Again, no pious dream, but vital enough, to inspire a life of everyday sacrifice and self-giving for the building up of the Body of Christ (Ep 2:20)! This is enclosure's spaciousness, its redemptive power. Slowly, gradually, what was once.intellectual assent to faith's truths becomes experience. We are so united "in Jesus" that each person embracing truth and growing in freedom affects the life of all. We never act alone, because we never are alone; our soli-tude is peopled with all the people of God. When these experi-ences become personal, the contemplative no longer feels constrained by enclosure's limits, but, rather, finds fulfillment in remaining there~ at home in the heart of God. The gospel speaks of such remainirig as living in love and also as living in Jesus. There is a sense in which the two descriptions are redundant; to remain in love is to remain in Jesus. What the latter expression adds is helpful personalization along with the unbelievable promise of a certain reciprocity. We live, are, in Jesus and Jesus lives, is, in us On 14: 20). What does it mean to live in Jesus? For one thing, it requires us to remain in the word of God, allowing it to penetrate our March-Aplql 1996 Beha * Enclosed in the Mystery of yesus very being, shaping all our beliefs, our actions. It means living according to the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as every Christian professes to do. In practice, this may begin with a sim-ple willingness to takeup the Scriptures each day, remaining with them until the word of God sounds deep in our hearts, At each fresh reading of the gospel message, we ask: What is God's good news for me, today? What am I being called to say, to do, to refrain from saying, from doing? Over the course of time this abiding in the word of God begins to shape me, to shape us into gospel people. We become good news in our immediate environment, voices of encourage-ment, sources of strength even as we continue to grow in healthy awareness of our own weakness, for "when we are weak, then we are strong" (2 Co 12:10). As gospel people, we evangelize just in the living of our everyday lives. This remaining in the word of God that is an abiding in Jesus asks that more and more we live as Jesus lived. We think as Jesus thinks, "Let this mind be in you" (Ph 2:4), turning away from the preoccupation with self as well as the defensive criticism of oth-ers that often fill our thinking. Empowered by the Spirit of Jesus we speak as Jesus spoke, "with authority" (Mk 1:22), no longer threatened by fear or plagued by self-doubt. In Jesus, our lives teach, our touch heals. In Jesus we reach out to the poor, the sick, the troubled, the outcasts. The point of our remaining is not to recreate the past of Jesus' life in any literal sort of way. We are not first-century Palestinian Jews. For each of us, to live in Jesus requires fidelity to the cir-cumstances of'our lives. I need to ask: What is the mind of Jesus on my questions, the problematic situations of my days? What does Jesus say to the pleasure and pain that texture my days, the dailyness of my work, my leisure? In the silent spaciousness of the enclosure, these questions become, not pious, exercises, but literal necessities. I need to discover some specifics of an answer. Essential to such remaining in Jesus is the conviction that Jesus already remains in me. "Abide, dwell, live, in me, as I in you." How does Jesus live in me? In the constancy of faithful commitment, a covenant relationship begun in baptism and endur-ing through .all the circumstances of my life, unless repudiated by a definitive rejection on my part. Jesus lives my every activity; none are excluded as too ordinary, too human, too trivial. That is the truth revealed in the incarnation; it is the possibility of my Review for Religious baptism, but a reality that waits on the yes of my desire. Jesus enioys my joys, suffers in my pains, grows weary at the end of my days. His abiding presence remains a loving constant; only the unreali~ of sinfulness reduces my responsiveness. Unbelievably, we can and often do choose our own way rather than the way of Jesus. We temporize: not here, not yet. We assume control, seek-ing to fulfill ourselves. Fortunate the individuals who are open enough to realize such resistance and turn back. They find Jesus waiting, always there. Within enclosure the realization of our withdrawal, of the unsatisfying nature of our selfish pursuits, can come more quickly.There are fewer places to turn, more helps in returning and remaining faithful to Jesus living in us. Gradually, as Jesus lives more fully in us, we come to pray as he did: "Your kingdom come; your will be done" (Mt 6:10). This is where Jesus lived, where he remained: in the will of the Father. From the beginning of "I come to do your will" (Ps 40:8) to the end of "Not as I will but as you will" (Mk 32:36), Jesus had only one center, one place of peace, the will of the Father. If Jesus is to live ever more fully in us, we must stay in the same place. It must be at our every beginning so that it may be the end of all our endings. Sometimes it will be easy to accept God's will; at other times, costly. Ultimately, it will cost everything as we hand over our lives, with the same surrender of "into your hands" (Lk 23:46). This at the hour of death, but alsb in all the immediacy of today's letting go, for to live in Jesus is to die in daily surrender. Then eternity will be iust a continuation of that "remaining in Jesus" which has been the enclosed dwelling place of all our living. At each fresh reading of the gospel message we ask: What is God's good news for me, today? Conclusion Entering into enclosure is a matter of faith and hope. It is a lived expression of the belief that God is worth a whole life's seek-ing. Those who embrace the limits of enclosure find themselves freed for the paschal mystery of risen life through a going down into the valley of death-to-self and daily surrender. If they remain faithful, remaining in Jesus as Jesus remains in them, they will be March-April 1996 Beba ¯ Enclosed in the Mystery of Jesus transformed. No longe~: living for themselves, their lives "will be hidden now, with Christ, in God" (Col 3:3). This is what it means to live within the enclosure. This is to abide in the glory of that promise, "When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory" (Col 3:4). Who Am I? I am the woman tentatively touching the hem of Jesus' garment for healing, and having to tell what it is that ails me, and who and what have failed to heal me until now, all of Which was so much rubbish! I am the woman anxiously sweeping my floor in searchof the lost coin, the last coin I had to.live on. How happy I will be when I see it shining in the dust at my fee!! I am the Woman going into the temple putting that last coin of mine into the treasury. Then I will go home wondering whether it was wise of me to have relinquished the only treasure that I had! Bernadette McC~rrick RSM Review for Religiou.~ DANIEL J. HARRINGTON Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging This year I celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of my ordination to the Catholic priesthood in the New England province of the Society of Jesus. This year no one will be ordained a priest in our province. This year ten men will celebrate fifty years as priests, and fifteen men will observe their fiftieth anniversary as Jesuits. Priests and religious in the U.S.A. and Europe are aging, and so, too, religious life. As we grow older together, we surely need the intel-lectual and spiritual resources of our biblical tradition to help us along the way. Many people assume that aging and the elderly are major topics in the Bible. Perhaps they make this assump-tion because the early chapters of Genesis feature char-acters like Methuselah who live to great ages. Perhaps the reason is that the Bible, as an ancient and wise book, must have something important to say on these matters. But from a quantitative perspective aging and the elderly are not central concerns of the Bible. There is no lengthy biblical treatise.on aging and the elderly. Nor is there any uniform perspective in the rela-tively few texts that do deal with these topics. The more explicit treatments appear in the Old Testament. Old Testament Perspectives The people of the Old Testament lived in a traditional Daniel J. Harrington SJ is editor of New Testament Abstracts. His address is Weston Jesuit School of Theology; 3 Phillips Place; Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. March-April 1996 Harrin~ton * Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging, The elderly were expected to be exemplars of wisdom and fear of the Lord. society in which the elderly were held in respect. Most biblical people did not reach the kind of old age that has become common at least in the U.S.A. and parts of Europe since 1950. And so in searching the Scriptures for wisdom on aging and the elderly we need to face from the start the differences between the Old Testament world and our own. We live in a society with little respect for tradition and social .status based on age, and with a great demandfor material productivity and accom-plishment. Moreover, our expanding life spans may be creating problems and possibilities that the bib-lical writers never imagined. Nevertheless, the Bible can contribute to developing a theology of aging today despite these obvious differences. Whatever one makes out of the life spans attributed to the patriarchs in Genesis 5 (930 years for Adam, 912 for Seth, 905 for Enosh, and so on), ordinary Israelites in the period covered in the his-torical books lived much shorter lives. It is safe to say that the lower classes lived between thirty years and fifty years (if they reached adulthood), that aris-tocrats lived between forty and sixty years, and that all regarded a life between seventy and eighty years as an elusive ideal. It was assumed that the elderly showed signs of aging (gray hair, beards for men), and began to experience physical infirmities. The com-mandment to honor one's parents in the Decalogue (Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16) was understood as applying primarily to adults and as urging them to care for their aging parents. It was regarded as a social norm and a divine command to respect older people: "You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old; and you shall fear your God: 'I am the Lord'" (Lv 19:32). The elderly themselves were expected to be exemplars of wis-dom and fear of the Lord. Male and female elders had the task and privilege of handing on the social and religious tradit~ions. The critical treatments of elders in .lob and Qoheleth only serve to emphasize that in this traditional society the elderly were sup-posed to have an important place. As the testament-of-Jacob scene (see Gn 49) shows, the ideal was to die surrounded by many off-spring and to hand on property and land to one's children. The positive picture of old age in the Old Testament tradition is best stated in a block of random sayings in Sirach 25:3-6. Ben ' Sira, a wisdom teacher of Jerusalem around 200 B.C., concluded Review for Religious his lists of pleasant and hateful things (25:1-2) by expressing a loathing for "an old fool who commits adultery." By a thematic connection he then outlines some positive teachings about aging and the elderly: 3. If you gathered nothing in your youth, how can you find anything in our old age? 4. How attractive is sound judg-ment in the gray-haired, and for the aged to possess good counsel! 5. How attractive is wisdom in the aged, and under-standing and counsel in the venerable! 6. Rich experience is the crown of the aged, and their boast is the fear of the Lord. The three sayings (25:3, 4-5, 6) are only loosely connected by subject matter. The first saying (25:3) makes the point that the quality of one's old age--wise or foolish--grows out of the quality of one's youth. A foolish young person will probably grow into a foolish old person. The mere fact of old age does not work a drastic personal transformation. The second saying (25:4-5) lists the ideal characteristics of the elderly as sound judgment, good counsel, wisdom, and under-standing. These characteristics are basically synonyms; they all refer to the wisdom that is attractive in all people, especially in the elderly. The third saying (2 5:6) acknowledges the life experience of the elderly as a "crown" and holds out as the most important quality of the elderly the "fear of the Lord." Fear of the Lord is one of the chief themes in the biblical wisdom books and in Sirach in particular. It proceeds from an accurate assessment of who God is and who we are before God. It is not the fear that proceeds from anxiety and issues in avoidance or flight. Rather, it refers to the respect and awe that God deserves. That attitude of respect is the beginning of wisdom (see Si 1:14). From it, according to Ben Sira and the other sages, will flow whatever wisdom is necessary for finding one's way through the tests and trials of life. Wisdom and fear of the Lord are two sides of the same coin and express the positive ideal of aging in the Bible. The negative aspects of old age are best described in another wisdom book, Qoheleth (or Ecclesiastes). Here the focus is the decrepitude and death that are part of old age. In the final chap-ter (12) of his book, Qoheleth has clothed a depressing message in a series of exquisitely drawn images. The message is that old age means loss of pleasure, physical infirmity, fear, and death. Qoheleth's picture of the afterlife is shadowy at best: "The dead March-April 1996 Harrington ¯ Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost" (9:5). So for him the death that accompanies old age is all the more final. 1. Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; 2. before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain; 3. in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; 4. when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; 5. when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; 6. before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at.the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cis-tern, 7. and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity. The one addressed is urged to face the negative realities of old age ("days of trouble") when even the prospect of the years to come gives no pleasure and life seems to be dark and stormy (12:1-2). In a beautiful but disquieting set of images Qoheleth compares the process of aging to the decay of a house fallen into disrepair (12:3-4): loss of eyesight and hearing, loss of teeth with which to chew, and inability to sleep soundly. Then with other images he calls attention to the fear, the loss of desire, and the obsession with death that can be part of old age (12:5). Death is described with images of breaking the silver cord, the golden bowl, the pitcher, and the wheel (12:6). In death the body becomes dust and returns to the earth, while the breath "returns to God who gave it" (12:7), not to immortality or resurrection but at best to the shadowy existence described in 9:5. Death, like all of life (see 1:1- 11), is empty, mere "wind," without lasting substance (12:8). Old age as Qoheleth paints it with his marvelous images is painful and depressing. Young people should enjoy life while they can. The ideal of old age is fullness of wisdom and fear of the Lord (Si 25:3-6). The reality of old age may well involve bodily infir-mity, loss of physical and emotional powers, and fear; death is Review Jbr Religious inevitable (Qoh 12:1-8). In the Jewish tradition it is the duty of adult children to care for their aging parents. That obligation is clearly stated in the Decalogue: "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" (Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16). Starting from the commandment in the Decalogue, Ben Sira in Sirach 3:1-16 presents an instruction on the duties of adult children to their aging parents. After addressing his pupils as a father addresses a son (3:1), he gives some reasons why children should care for their parents: 1. Listen to me your father, O children; act accordingly, that you may be kept in safety. 2. For the Lord honors a father above his children, and he confirms a mother's right over her children. 3. Those who honor their father atone for sins, 4. and those who respect their mother are like those who lay up treasure. 5. Those who honor their father will have joy in their own children, and when they pray they will be heard. 6. Those who respect their father will have a long life, and those who honor their mother obey the Lord; 7. they will serve their parents as their masters. Caring for one's elderly parents conforms to the divine order of creation (3:2), atones for sins and merits spiritual treasures (3:3-4), gives good example to one's own children (3:5a), ensures that one's prayers will be heard (3:5b) and that one will live a long life (3:6a), and honors God (3:6b). Ben Sira (and all the biblical writers) lived in a society in which honor and shame were important values. How one appeared to others and in relation to them was very significant, far more so than in our modern individualistic cultures. Failure to honor one's parents brings a curse from them and disgrace in the eyes of others: 8. Honor your father by word and deed, that his blessing may come upon you. 9. For a father's blessing strengthens the houses of the children, but a mother's curse uproots their foundations. 10. Do not glorify yourself by dishon-oring your father, for your father's dishonor is no glory to you. 11. The glory of one's father is one's own glory, and it is a disgrace for children not to respect their mother. The final part (3:12-16) of Ben Sira's instruction gives par-ticular attention to the situation of caring for a parent who loses mental abilities ("even if his mind fails"). It recommends patience and fidelity and promises a reward from God: March-April 1996 Harrington ¯ Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging 12. My child, help your father in his old age, and do not grieve him as long as he lives; 13. even if his mind fails, be patient with him; because you have all your faculties do not despise him. 14. For kindness to a fathe~ will not be for-gotten, and will be credited to you against your sins; 15. in the day of your distress it will be remembered in your favor; like frost in fair weather, your sins will melt away. 16. Whoever forsakes a father is like a blasphemer, and whoever angers a mother is cursed by the Lord. Ben Sira's insistence on care for one's parents as leading to forgiveness of sins (3.'3, 14) is especially interesting in light of his own shadowy concepts of afterlife and his enthusiastic support for the Temple's system of sin-offerings and sacrifices. He appar-ently regarded faithful and patient service of one's parents as a privileged way of atoning for one's sins in this life. The three wisdom texts that we have looked at say much of what there is to say about old age and the elderly in the Old Testament. Indeed, they summarize most of the wisdom about these topics outside the Bible and into the present. Their con-tent would have been taken for granted by people in New Testament times. New Testament Perspectives The New Testament does not explicitly offer new and radically different teachings on aging and the elderly. What it does offer is an outline of spirituality that can help aging people and others to confront the reality of old age in faith and confidence. The Old Testament story of salvation began with God's call to Abraham in Genesis 12 and the promise to make of his descen-dants % great nation." We are told that Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran (12:4). God's promise was then fulfilled through the birth of Isaac when "Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age" (18:11). Thus the history of God's people begins in an unlikely and improbable way--from a child born to a very old couple (21:5). According to Luke, the story of salvation through Jesus Christ began with the elderly couple Zechariah and Elizabeth and with the birth of John the Baptist to them. Likewise, the birth of Jesus is properly evaluated and proclaimed by Simeon and Anna in the Jerusalem Temple. These two figures represent the best features of Old Testament piety. Simeon is described as "righteous and Review for Religiotls devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel" (Lk 2:25). He is granted the privilege of seeing and proclaiming the newborn Messiah before his death: "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace." (Lk 2:29). Anna also, at the age of eighty-four, culminates a long life of piety by praising God and speaking "about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (2:38). These two elderly representatives of God's people see in the child Jesus what the religious and political lead-ers of Israel failed to see in Jesus the adult. It is intriguing that elderly people--Abraham and Sarah-- begin the history of salvation according to Genesis, and that elderly people-~Zechariah and Elizabeth, and Simeon and Anna-- recognize clearly the new and definitive chapter in this history that began with the birth of Jesus. These elderly people exem-plify the wisdom and fear of the Lord that are the biblical ideals of old age. They speak the language of the Scriptures (especially Second Isaiah) to proclaim eschatological fullness in Jesus the Messiah. Their openness to God and trust in God allow God to use them as unlikely instruments in the history of salvation. The ways of God are very surprising. While Simeon and Anna provide positive models for elderly people who are serious about the surprising ways of God, we can-not disregard the negative aspects of old age so well described by Qoheleth. Although the New Testament does not deal explicitly with this topic, there are New Testament texts that speak elo-quently to us as we face the physical infirmities and fears that accompany old age. Like Ben Sira and Qoheleth, Jesus was a wisdom teacher. One of the earliest and most eloquent teachings we have from Jesus is his instruction about dealing with anxiety in Luke 12:22-31 (see Mt 6:25-34): 22. He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. 23. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24. Consider the ravens: they nei-ther sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25. And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 26. If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? 27. Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 28. But if God so clothes the Marcb-~lpril 1996 Ha~ngton ¯ Biblical Cont~butions to a Theology of Aging grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you-- you of little faith! 29. And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. 30. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31. Insteakl strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given ~o you as well. Though not directly addressed to elderly people, this instruc-tion concerns issues and questions that disturb elderly people especially: How long will I live? What will I eat? What about my health? What will I.wear? Jesus deals with these issues on two fronts. On the one hand, he exposes the futility of anxiety: It does not achieve anything positive (see 12:25-26). Simply telling peo-ple not to worry is not enough to combat anxiety. Jesus places before us some positive considerations about God's care for us and about God's kingdom as the goal of our lives. He first insists that life is more than food or clothing (12:23), and then urges us to consider how God feeds the birds (12:24) and clothes the lilies in splendor (12:27-28). If God so cares for birds and flowers, how much more does God care for us human beings. Jesus reminds us that God already knows what we need (12:30). The primary goal should be striving for God's kingdom, and everything else will fall into place. (12:31). There is great wisdom in this instruction, and it is particularly pertinent to elderly people. But sometimes anxiety turns into reality. Few of us leave this world without experiencing physical or emotional suffering. Here the apostle Paul has some eloquent things to say. Paul took over early Christian formulas of faith that describe Jesus' suffering and death as "for us" or "for our sins" (see Rm 3:25-26; 1 Co 11:24; 15:3). He himself used similar formulas as a matter of course (see Rm 5:6; 14:15; 2 Co 5:14,'21; Ga 1:4; 3:13). These expressions affirm that Jesus as God's servant (see Is 52:13-53:12) suffered and died on our behalf, and so made available to all--Jews and Gentiles alike--right relationship with God and the possibility of eternal salvation. We are saved through Christ's suffering. According to Paul, Christian life involves participation in Jesus' suffering and death as well as his resurrection: "We have been buried with him by baptism into death" (Rm 6:4). This shar-ing continues after baptism: "For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ" (2 Co 1:5). Elsewhere Paul says that we always carry "in Review for Religious the body the death of Jesus" (2 Co 4:10). Paul's ideal for himself and for every Christian is to be "conformed" to Christ; that is, to take on the very "shape" (morphe) of Christ: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his suf-ferings by becoming like him in his death" (Ph 3:10). For mil-lions of suffering Christians, identification with Christ and participation in his sufferings have provided meaning and comfort in the midst of suffer-ing, and still do. In the Deuteropauline letter to the Colossians the theme of sharing Christ's suf-ferings takes an unusual turn: "In my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col 1:24). This cannot mean that there is something deficient in the rec-onciliation brought about by Jesus' death and resurrection. The whole New Testament and Colossians 1:19-20 in particular stress the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrificial death. What then does Paul's suffering fill up? The key expression is "Christ's afflictions," or, more accurately, the "tribu-lations (or, woes) of the Messiah." According to contemporary Jewish texts (I Enoch 47:1-4; 2 Baruch 30:2) God has set a limit to the tribulations associated with the Messiah's coming. The state-ment in Colossians 1:24 applies Paul's sufferings to that fixed amount of suffering that must occur before God's kingdom arrives in its fullness. Thus Paul's suffering shortens the time before the fullness of God's kingdom (see Mk 13:20) and contributes to the faster vindication of God's church. This text, which has been a great inspiration to suffering (elderly or not) people, needs to be understood in its proper theological and historical context. Other Pauline texts provide important advice for elderly per-sons (and others) who suffer. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul, in answer-ing the critics of his ministry as an apostle, boasts about his weaknesses rather than about his strengths and accomplishments. He does so on the basis of what the Lord said to him: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Co 12:9). In a world that associates power with strength, Paul reminds us that the true power of God is manifested most bril-liantly in the weak---as was the case with Abraham and Sarah, and with Simeon and Anna. Few of us leave this world without experiencing physical or emotional suffering. March-April 1996 Harrington ¯ Biblical Contributio~.~n~.to~ Tb__eo,~lo.~f~A.~n,.g' Eternal life for Christians, according to Paul, begins with baptism, since eternal life comes from participating in Jesus' death and resurrection (see Rm 6:1-11). Therefore death and sin no longer exercise absolute dominion over us. We are already living our eternal life. It does not begin at the moment of our death. The line between physical life and physical death is no longer de

Issue 54.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1995. ; Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Mis'souri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 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. ©1995Review 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 com~nercial 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 Joann Wolski Conn PhD Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1995 ¯ VOLUME54 ¯ NVUMBER4 contents 486 499 5O8 mission Twenty Inner-City Years Joanna Bramble, CSJ explores feelings, questions, and insights from her effort to revitalize an inner-city neighborhood and empower its people. Corporate Sponsorship: The 1990s and the Fruits of Our Labor Margaret MaW Knittel RSM raises some questions which suggest a fluidity of vision and a loosening of ties in regard to corporate sponsorship and the fruits of our labor. Retirement's Wisdom Years Catherine M. Harmer MMS proposes that retirement for religious may be a time of deepening wisdom and individuation and a time for a greater spirituality to emerge. 519 531 guidance The Enneagram Tad Dunne examines understandings of the enneagram and suggests ways of moving to a larger world of meaning and values. Imaging Spiritual Direction Mary Vginifred CHS discusses guidelines for spiritual direction and presents three images illustrative of the relationship between director and directee. 535 56O heritage The Brazier That Is My God: Teresa on True Prayer's Dispositions, Gifts, and Signs Mary C. Sullivan RSM highlights the prayer of personal conversion wi{h its many gifts as captured by Teresa of Avila in her rich metaphor of "dwelling places." Playing with Edged Tools Donald Macdonald SMNI allows the thought of John Henry Newman to enter us into a richer appreciation of vowed public profession as a part of radical gospel living. 482 Review for Religious spirituality 566 How Am I Doing? Signs of a Healthy Spirituality Melannie Svoboda SND suggests some indicators for checking on how healthy our spirituality is. 573 Appreciating God through Creation Roderick Payne OFM illuminates the heritage of St. Francis to draw attention to some aspects of prayer through creation. 585 589 594 6OO religious life Individualism and Rel!gious Life John Gallagher CSB reflects on three options dealing with the compatibility of contemporary individualism in relation to religious life. Psychological Screening for Religious Life Kevin E. McKenna reviews the help given by the Code of Canon Law for religious congregations attempting to form a consistent policy regarding psychological reports at the time of admission and the maintenance of personnel records. Reformulating the Religious Vows William Reiser SJ reviews the meaning of vows in religious life and suggests that an option for the poor might be a promise for our times. Let's Talk Again about Poverty Richard J. DeMaria CFC probes the meaning of poverty for religious-life practice today. ¯departments 484 Prisms 615 Canonical Counsel: Cloister for Nuns: From the Early Centuries to the 1917 Code 622 Book Reviews ~tuly-August 1995 483 prisms Pope John Paul's two recent docu-ments offer vision and direction: the apostolic letter Orientale lumen (The Light of the East) and the encyclical Ut unum sint (On Commitment to Ecumenism). More than helps to enter into the third millennium, they issue a call to conversion. In Orientale lumen the pope emphasizes that our Eastern Catholic and our Orthodox brothers and sisters are earnest bearers of a venerable and ancient tradition integral to the church's heritage. He calls for all members of the church's Latin tradition to become fully acquainted with this treasure. He desires us all to be fired by a pas-sionate longing that the church's catholicity become man-ifest to church members themselves and to the world, a catholicity comprising the several traditions together rather than in opposition to one another. John Paul uses monasticism as a special vantage point from which we can identify values important today for expressing the contribution of the Christian East to the journey of Christ's church towards the kingdom. In the East, monasticism, which did not experience the differ-ent kinds of apostolic life as in the West, is seen not merely as a separate category of Christians, but rather as a refer-ence point for all the baptized, according to the gifts offered to each by the Lord. John Paul singles out the common traits uniting the monastic experience of the East and the West and forming a bridge of fellowship, "where unity as it is lived shines even more brightly than may appear in the dialogue between the churches." lie empha-sizes the splendid witness of nuns in the Christian East: "This witness has offered an example of giving full value in the church to what is specifically feminine, even break- 484 Review for Religious ing through the mentality of the time. During recent persecu-tions, especially in Eastern European countries, when many male monasteries were forcibly closed, female monasticism kept the torch of the monastic life burning. The nun's charism, with its own specific characteristics, is a visible sign of that motherhood of God to which Sacred Scripture often refers" (9). Among the values reflected in monasticism for the life of the church, the pope highlights 1) a balance in Christian life lived as a personal response to an individual call and as an ecclesial and community event; 2) a liturgy revealing the proper harmony of the baptized-in-Christ and the eucharistic meaning of all creation; 3) a maturing journey in terms of knowing self and being free and able to love as Jesus loves; 4) a tradition of spiritual guidance from brothers and sisters to whom the Spirit has granted this gift; 5) a community showing us a life of communion and service beginning in the family and extending to the wider community; 6) a unity of theology and spirituality deriving from the triune God--the principle and foundation of the Christian understand-ing that the human person is meant for and made for relation-ship; and 7) an all-pervading mystery, enveloped in awe, with which the face of our God presents us. In still wider ways the encyclical Ut unum sint continues the call to deepen the unity we seek with one another and with God. Insisting that the unity of all Christians is God's will and is at the heart of the mission Christ entrusted to his followers, John Paul begs forgiveness for times when Catholics and the papacy itself have contributed to the divisions among Christians and calls for discussion about ways in which the pope can exercise power and authority in a reunited church. He notes that a heritage of saints belonging to all communities provides hope for the dialogue of conversion. "When we speak of a common heritage, we must acknowledge as part of it not only the institutions, rites, means of salvation and the traditions which all the communities have pre-served and by which they have been shaped, but first and foremost this reality of holiness" (84). The urgency of building for the future out of the strengths of Christian heritages marks both of these papal writings. We, like the pope, need to set our sights on this unifying and evangelizing mission of all Christians, thereby living up to religious life's own spiritual heritages. David L. Fleming sJ a~uly-August 1995 485 rnissJon JOANNA BRAMBLE Twenty Inner-City Years After almost twenty years of working towards the revital-ization of West Oakland, a depressed inner-city neigh-borhood, I took a year's sabbatical of travel and spiritual enrichment. In the middle of that year, I decided not to return as director of Jubilee West, the Community Development Corporation I had helped to create. I real-ized that I had unresolved feelings about my years in West Oakland, feelings and questions that I needed to work through before I could move on to the next steps in my work for justice. The reflections below document my liv-ing with those questions. What are my usual feelings about Jubilee West? I feel proud of what it has accomplished, but often I feel deep sadness for the people whose lives have changed very lit-tle, especially the ones I knew well and tried the hardest to help. I feel deep sadness at the unemployment, the drugs, the depressed people, and the piles of garbage that are evident with only a brief drive through the neighbor-hood. I often have an overwhelming sense of failure and powerlessness: so much of my life, love, work, anxiety, joy, hope . . . and so many people still with such con-stricted lives! I feel sadness and grief that the neighbor-hood where I worked for so long was worse after twenty Joanna Bramble CSJ is a consultant to nonprofit organizations in management and program analysis and a member of the provincial council of the Los Angeles province of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Her address is 529 Jean Street; Oakland, California 94610. 486 Review for Religious years than it was before. It is not that our work did not change anything or made it worse; it just could never do enough. But the main cause of continuing disintegration in that neigh-borhood is not my and others' lack of effort or creative ideas. It is high unemployment and the increasing sale and use of drugs, along with other systemic oppression. How do I keep aware of the interrelatedness of many situations and people and things and somehow see my place as both important and unimportant? What was the situation I came to in 1973? And what did I want to achieve? The 1970 census and the Oakland 701 Study gave the following statistics about the West of Cypress area: ¯ 80 percent black and 18 percent Mexican American ¯ median family income: $3,941 ¯ unemployment rate 26.3 percent for men, 35.7 percent for women ¯ 50 percent of families on welfare; mean welfare income $2,110 ¯ 90 percent of the houses had been expected to be unusable by 1969 (most of these houses are still standing in 1995) ¯ median number of school years completed: 8.4 ¯ 24 percent of people over twenty-five years of age were high school graduates Residents listed their major problems as limited incomes and a high rate of unemployment, extremely poor housing, and poor-quality education. All of these problems still exist and are complex and interrelated. I chose to come to this depressed environment from eleven years of teaching English in white, suburban Catholic high schools. I had interest, concern, compassion, energy, enthusiasm, high hopes . . . and two months of training in community orga-nizing. I remember walking through the neighborhood and mentally singing the words to "Anatevka" from Fiddler on the Roof, newly popular then. The song speaks of the nothingness of the town: "people who pass through Anatevka do not even know they have been here., someone should have set a match to this place years ago." That is what West Oakland looked like to me. But the song goes on to describe Anatevka as home: "where else could Sabbath be so sweet., where I know everyone I meet." That too was West Oakland. It did not take me long to get to know friendly people, many of whom had lived there for years. I walked the streets and .~ly-August 199~ 487 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years sat in people's kitchens to discuss neighborhood problems. Soon some longtime residents and I started the West Oakland Improvement Association. What did I want to achieve? Mainly, I did not want a repeat of Anatevka; I did not want people displaced to make room for gentrification or other forms of development. In 1974 I wrote that my major goal was to help increase the peo-ple's awareness of their power to direct their own lives. Over the next twenty years, I became more deeply aware of the immense problems in people's lives and in the physical neigh-borhood. What I wanted to do both stayed the same and evolved, as did the strategies we used. Always there was the goal of empow-erment. As a community organizer I wanted us to win on issues that people had chosen as urgent concerns. More importantly, I wanted to build an organization that could continue to empower people and revitalize the neighborhood. We won on many issues. Our victories brought pride and increased self-confidence to a number of neighborhood people. But building an organization never really happened. People seemed too concerned with per-sonal survival to stay involved very long. It became more and more difficult to talk with people about community problems when they were concerned with getting enough food for their kids, paying the rent, and dealing with drug problems. These survival issues prompted me and my good friend Sister Pat Sears to start St. Patrick's Center at the Campbell Village Housing Project, where we saw to basic necessities, providing food, clothes, counseling, and a youth program. But decent afford-able housing remained the most urgent problem. Concern about people who were being displaced or were living in substandard housing, inspiration from Jubilee Housing in Washington, D.C., lots of participation from neighborhood people and suburban friends, and awillingness to step into the unknown with faith and hope led me and Pat to start Jubilee West as a nonprofit Community Development Corporation in 1980. We immediately began to buy and fix houses for poverty-level people even though we knew nothing about real estate or construction and had almost no money. Jubilee West also continued and expanded the com-munity services and youth programs begun at St. Patrick's Center. What successes can Jubilee West celebrate over the last fifteen years? Eighty units of scattered-site housing, most of it perma-nently affordable to poverty-level families: five million dollars in property assets removed from speculation and able to be con- 488 Review for Religious trolled by the community far into the future; hundreds of children helped with tutoring and enrichment; many others helped with mentoring and private scholarships to attend college; hundreds of adults placed in jobs, coming to literacy and ESL classes, or receiv- .ing emergency food, clothing, and needed counseling; and an his-toric building rehabilitated to accommodate various community events and to house the offices for other services. When I left, Jubilee West had a committed board of directors, a staff of varying degrees of competence, and a good funding base, although financial crises were and continue to be frequent. So why do I frequently feel like a failure? Mainly because I very much wanted to do something "for the people in the houses" more than just fixing houses and lowering rents and because I feel that most people's lives are not changed very much from what they were before. As I grew to know West Oakland people, I came to be most concerned about what I experienced as the "typical" resident. She is a woman about thirty years old, never mar-ried, with three or four children from different fathers. She has about a tenth-grade education, has never held a paying job, has very poor nutrition, and probably has an alcohol or drug problem. If she is not in JW housing or other subsidized housing, she may pay as much as 60 or 70 percent of her AFDC income in rent, leaving her less than $200 per month for all other expenses. She has no car, and so her experiences and those of her children are mostly limited to the West Oakland neighborhood. She appears depressed and apathetic or else quite hostile. So what did I wantJW to do for this woman? I wanted us to empower her to enrich her own life. What did I mean by this? How would I hope to be able to describe her after a .few years? I have thought a lot about my hopes for her, and I recently became aware that they are similar to my unrealistic goals for myself: As I grew to know West Oakland people, I came to be most concerned about what I experienced as the "typical" resident. She is a woman about thirty years old, never married, with three or four children from different fathers. .~uly-/lugust 199~ 489 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years I want her to have succeeded in or be in the process of get-ting off drugs, getting more education, finding a job and then a better job, stabilizing her family, getting enough income to move out of subsidized housing, deepening her spiritual values, becoming more psychologically whole, building community with her neighbors, keeping her house clean, taking care of her kids, and working for change in the neighborhood through participating in JW and other organizations. I want her to stay in the neighborhood or come back after she succeeds in order to help the commu-nity work for justice. As I write this, it seems so unrealistic that I want to add face-tiously that she should also be thin and beautiful, but not care too much about her looks. Obviously, one reason I feel like a fail-ure is that I had very unrealizable expectations. Only a few peo-ple could achieve the hbove, and only with superhuman effort or lots of good luck. I wanted my "typical" person to be aware of her power to change and control her own life. That sounds like a good goal. But perhaps my biggest mistake was that I did not give enough conscious acknowledgment to the reality of systemic oppression. When she tries to change in other than very small ways, she runs up against huge obstacles that make it exceedingly difficult if not impossible for her to "control her own life." Only a few really "win" in her situation; but, because those few do win, she feels that she too should be able to win. She blames herself and society also blames her, telling her in many ways that it is her fault. In some ways I contribute to this when I talk about "self-help" without at the same time talking about systemic oppres-sion. Her self-blame does not give her more energy to "fight the system" and to make small and then larger changes in her life; instead it leads to depression, apathy, or hostility. Similarly my self-blame, my feeling myself a failure for not being able to empower her, does not give me more energy to fight the system; in me also it leads to depression, apathy, and sometimes hostility. Issues of injustice in economics, politics, and education are profoundly interrelated. A minimum wage that inserts working people into the poverty level without enough money to pay the rent, a business economy dependent on a certain percent of unem-ployment, thousands of job layoffs so that even many people with good educations are unlikely to keep their jobs that pay a living wage, unjust distribution of wealth including "hidden" subsidies 490 Review for Religious for the rich (whereby more money is "spent" on tax write-offs for interest on home-ownership loans than on all the housing programs for the poor), drug traffic that brings huge profits to a few wealthy people, a welfare system that discourages work, the worst schools usually in the poorest areas, housing thought of as an investment for profit rather than a home to live in, pervasive discrimination against minorities, especially African-American males--these are only a few examples of the interconnected sys-tems that cause my "typical" person's situation. I have known all this for a long time. Did I fail to keep it in my awareness because I felt I could do little about it and I like solvable problems? In any case, I concentrated on self-help pro-grams-- how soon I found that often they do not succeed either! Each person in any self-help program must "choose life" for her-self, of course, and begin to act on her own behalf while at the same time society, "the system," must stop oppressing her. Both are interrelated. But as I reflected on my Jubilee West experience, I still heard the same familiar inner voices of my own self-blame. If only I had been smarter, worked harder, tried something more creative, then I could have made a bigger dent in solving these problems. At this point I was fortunate to come across the book Surplus Powerlessness by Michael Lerner. Lerner first talks about real pow-erlessness, the reality of an unequal distribution of power in this society: If a small number of us try to change things, we will run up against a brick wall. In fact, even if millions of people were to engage in activity to change things, in the short run we would find our society very difficult to change. The brick wall is not just a subjective illusion. The basic fact is this: American society is a class-dom-inated society. A small number of people have vast eco-nomic power while the overwhelming.majority has almost no power in the economic realm. Economic power gives that small group a huge amount of political power. While the rest of us have some political power, it takes vast expen-ditures of energy and time to win small victories. But to say that the elites of wealth and power have over-whelming power is not to say that they have absolute power. Things could be quite different if many people were to engage in the struggle for change. It would be a real strug-gle- and there would be many difficult defeats.~ After talking about realpowerlessness, Lerner describes surplus ~uly-Augus~ 199Y 4.91 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years powerlessness as "the set of feelings and beliefs that make people think of themselves as even more powerless than the actual power sit-uation requires, and then leads them to act in ways that actually con-firm them in their powerlessness." He is describing me when he shows how many activists continually manage to redefine the con-ditions of success in such a way that they always feel "one down" for not having accomplished enough; they redefine their victo-ries as failures and do not credit their own real accomplishments. I certainly do that often. Lerner reminds us that when society claims it is set up in a fundamentally fair way, in which people can make it if they really try, powerlessness is seen as a product of the individual's personal failures. Thus self-blame becomes the central element in surplus powerlessness. It grows stronger every time we blame ourselves for having failed in some important way and have no compassion for ourselves in view of all the ways that reality pushes us to be less than we want to be. Taking responsibility for one's own life works only for the part of the population and for the societal issues where objective conditions allow for real change. People need help to distinguish between factors out of their control about which they could be legitimately angry and factors that would change if they changed how they thought about themselves and how they lived their own lives. Surplus powerlessness, self-blame, deflects attention from the real problems and hence from any real solutions. The anger that might be reasonably directed against a social order which gener-ates personal unhappiness is instead directed inwards and becomes depression or a dangerous buildup of repressed violence. But Lerner's next point is also part of my" experience. Once people are no longer disempowered by self-blaming, they are in a better position to change their environment. Surplus power-lessness can be lessened by supportive group interaction and by developing compassion, showing people that the problems they face do not come from personal inadequacies, but are faced by others as well, and that people need one another's help in facing these problems. My reflection on Lerner's concept of surplus powerlessness shows me that I have been blaming the victims, both my typical West Oakland person and myself. I have definitely internalized the American way that tells me that, if I have a problem, I should take care of it, work to change it, and not blame someone else. 492 Review for Religious But, to avoid the extreme of blaming others for my problems, I frequently go to the extreme of not giving much acknowledg-ment to the real powerlessness in my life, to the real systems that are oppressing me as well as my typical West Oakland person. At this point in my reflection, I read Joanna Macy's books Despair and Personal Power and World as Lover, World as Self about the need to feel pain, experience it, work through it: my pain and the pain of others. I see that as a big clue for me. I went back to my sabbatical journal written in Washington, D.C., in 1992. One of the questions in Mary Cosby's class on "call" was "What is your deepest pain?" I wrote, "I'm not aware of very much personal pain. Actually my greatest pain seems to be feel-ing the pain of others: so many homeless people on the street, so many hurting children, so much violence in the world., and feel-ing powerless to do very much about any of this." A few days later at a creative-movement session I felt overcome by sorrow and tears. I kept feeling, saying, crying to myself: "I didn't know how to make it better for people. I am so sad about that ¯ ¯ . sad because people were not helped, not so much that I couldn't help but that they weren't helped., thinking of Sylvia, Spring, Connie, Deedee, Charetta, Pat, A1, Brenda . . . tears because I couldn't do it, but more because life did not change for them . " I remember feeling that I must be avoiding some deeper personal pain if the major pain I was aware of was pain for the world, for other people. Now I see that a major need for me is to feel my pain, which greatly includes pain for the world. Joanna Macy says in Despair and Personal Power: "We have trouble cred-iting the notion that concerns for the general welfare might be acute enough to cause distress., but pain for our world touches each of us, and this pain is rooted in caring., our apparent pub-lic apathy is but a fear of experiencing and expressing this pain, and once it is acknowledged and shared it opens the way to our power." 2 I have definitely internalized the American way that tells me that, if I have a problem, I should take care of it, work to change it, and not blame someone else. July-August 199Y 493 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years During that semester in 1992, I picked up an old journal from 1988, specifically looking for how I dealt at that time with my pain over the distressing situations I experienced daily at Jubilee West. A pattern seemed to be: I would run into a small or large problem that was usually a symptom of a larger systemic problem; feel frustrated and ptwerless; think I should be able to solve it; blame myself because I could not; go to bed depressed, wake up with somehow more energy ready to try again, to think up some new way to address the problem . . . but rarely allow myself to really feel my own pain and sadness. Although many people were involved in Jubilee West, I always felt myself ultimately respon-sible. I also frequently neglected my deep need to gift myself with beauty and nourishment for my soul. I have always felt a great desire for silence, solitude, beauty, prayer--for finding ways to experience the sacred in all of life. But I often let compulsive efforts to solve problems rob me of the centeredness necessary for living and acting from a contemplative way of being. As a step in the process of"living the questions" and of writ-ing this article, I walked around the West Oakland neighborhood visiting some of my longtime friends. I had not been able to do this since leaving Jubilee West three years ago; when we moved away last fall, I just disappeared without telling many people that I was going. So this walk was a pilgrimage for remembering and finding cause to grieve and cause to rejoice. What do I learn for myself from all of this reading and reflec-tion and from my recent pilgrimage of walking in West Oakland? What does my inner wisdom tell me? What follows are some exploratory answers as I live the questions: 1. Feel your pain, take time for it. your personal pain and that of the West Oakland people that you care about, and the world that 'faces the possibility of total destruction. Allowing myself to feel pain is hard to do; I am more used to giving thirty seconds to pain and then moving on to possible solu-tions. But, on my walk through West Oakland, I was more able to be with the pain of what I experienced: my own fear when I went into Campbell Village by myself because of what I know of the violence, drugs, and crime that are always there; the usual mounds of garbage everywhere, especially in front of my friend Sally's apartment; Sally's son in jail for using and selling drugs--I remem-ber him as a cute, loving eight-year-old; the fifteen or twenty men on the corner of 14th and Peralta as they always are--drink- 494 Review for Reh~ious ing and buying drugs; Trisha's house boarded up because she was evicted for drug activity, when she had been one of Jubilee West's most promising tenants. 2. Feelyourjoy also and others' joy as well: celebrate small suc-cesses, continue the lifelong task of dealing with your inner judge that says, "but it isn't enough." My walk through West Oakland gave me many opportunities for experiencing joy. It felt good to remember all the times I have been in people's houses having coffee and conversation. My friend Joanne greeted me with a big hug, and we laughed over old times together. Two of her children are doing very well, she is enjoying her job taking care of hand-icapped people, she still feels empow-ered by the victories we achieved together many years ago, and her sense of humor is still spectacular. Annie also greeted me with open arms; she is an elderly woman who owns her own home and several oth-ers in the neighborhood, though all of them are in various stages of disrepair. As I sat in her tiny kitchen, she asked me who she could get to help her change her will, and I remembered how hard it was, many years ago, to convince her to make a will at all. My last stop was Charles Garcia, who because of our orga-nizing efforts scraped up $1,700 twenty years ago to buy the falling-apart house he was living in--a small amount, even in 1974, but monumental to him. Although he was not home, his pride of ownership was evident everywhere: lots of beautiful roses in the front yard, a stained-glass window over the door; his daugh-ter spoke of wanting to. move her own growing family back to that neighborhood. I was pleased to see that there was only one burned-out house on Chester Street, when there had been many a few years ago, and I felt pride as always at Jubilee West's twenty-two new-con-struction apartments on Goss Street, definitely the ~best-looking housing anywhere in the neighborhood. My experience of joy on my walk through the West of Cypress neighborhood brought home to me the truth of Joanna Macy's Celebrate small successes, continue the life-long task of dealing with your inner judge that says, "but it isn't enough." jUuly-August 199Y 495 Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years words: "When we open our awareness to the web of life, we con-nect not only with the sufferings of others, but to the same mea-sure, with their gifts and powers . . . if we can grieve with the griefs of others, so, by the same token, by the same openness, can we find strength in their strengths, bolstering our own individual supplies of courage, commitment, and endurance."3 3. Acknowledge real powerlessness and systemic oppression. Deepen awareness of this as a reality check, as the main reason for not continuing self-blame, as a step to determining at which point to try to intervene. Catch yourself when you are blaming the vic-tim, whether that victim is yourself or someone else. 4. Acknowledge surplus powerlessness in yourself and in others, and try to find ways to deal with it, mainly by group sharing and by compassion for yourself and others. 5. Give up the myth that there is one key to changing the world. I have had the fantasy hope that there is one key to changing oppres-sive systems and that, if I could just find it, I would know what to do. Now I am more aware that transformation is happening on many levels at once and that it is not necessarily more important to work on one rather than another; I have lots of options for where I can best use my gifts to work for change. 6. Give up the myth that I am totally responsible (even when and if it is my job to be in charge), that I necessarily have the power to create the changes I want. Sometimes I have that power, often I do not. Any transformation will take many people working in many ways. A friend told me recently that she has become passionately committed to nudging the world toward justice and ecological san-ity. The idea of nudging shows a good grasp of reality and the pos-sible, and many people are doing this all over the world. 7. Give as much time as possible to the beauty, silence, and soli-tude that I so long for and know is essential to the life of my soul. My greatest desire is to act from a deeply contemplative stance. I do not always live that way, but I become more and more con-vinced that it is the only way to be who I am, to be at peace with myself and the world. Many questions remain as I come to the end of these reflec-tions, but hopefully every deepened insight leads to new possi-bilities and changes in my way of being, feeling, and acting. My questions will take more than my lifetime to answer. I am reminded of a vivid memory from a few years ago. I was in the midst of a crisis at Jubilee West, and I went to walk around the 496 Review for Religious lake to try to think of what to do. As I walked, I would come up with an idea about a next step, bu~ a voice in me kept asking, "What if you can't solve the problem?" I would be with that ques-tion for a few minutes and then start again to plan strategies. But the voice was persistent: "What if you can't solve the problem?" I have been brought up to believe that, ifI have a problem or see a problem, I should try to solve it. In fact, I very frequently have been able to find solutions to problems, to achieve what-ever I put my mind to achieve. Similarly, in World as Love~; World as Self, Joanna Macy quotes Lyndon B. Johnson as saying during the Vietnam War: "Don't come to me with a problem unless you have a solution." She tells of some colleagues in France who, ridi-culing our American culture for demanding instant solutions to problems, said we should "let the difficulties reveal themselves first before rushing for a ready-made solution, or else you will not understand them.''4 And so, as I walked around the lake struggling with the com-plexities of my crisis, the persistent voice asking "What if you can't solve the problem?" was actually a blessing. It pushed me to experience that often I cannot solve the problem. What is needed then is not more strategies, but waiting in openness: openness to the unfathomable presence, power, energy, connectedness in the universe, in me, in other people, and in all situations--which I call God. What is needed is sitting with open hands and open heart in deep silence and solitude, or dancing with abandonment to powerful music, or walking on the beach feeling the immensity of the ocean, or remembering my redwood tree. What is needed is anything that brings home to me the sacredness of all beings. I am remembering also the poem by Wendell Berry that I first saw on the kitchen wall at Genesis Farm, the environmental study center where I spent six weeks in the spring of 1992. It moved me deeply then and still does, giving me a powerful image of commitment to the possible in the darkest of times: "In the dark of the moon, / In flying snow,/. / The world in danger. / I walk the rocky hillsides / Sowing clover." I wonder what forms my clover will take? In looking through my 1991-92 .journal, I rediscovered another powerful image, a dream I had on 1 February 1992 and had forgotten. The image of wholeness in my dream links with Joanna Macy's wisdom about the interconnected whole in Despair and Personal Power: "What is it that allows us to feel pain for our Bramble ¯ Twenty Inner-City Years world? And what do we discover as we move through it? What awaits us there on the other side of despair? To all these ques-tions there is one answer. It is interconnectedness with life and all other beings. It is the living web out of which our individual, sep-arate existences have risen, and in which we are interwoven."s Deep implications of this dream are gradually surfacing as I continue to reflect on it more than three years later: I am in a house with many people., much chaos., there is a cupboard with a lot of jigsaw puzzles., suddenly they all fall out and come crashing down . . . so there are hun-dreds of puzzle pieces all over the floor., all from differ-ent puzzles . . . instead of feeling hopeless, like I would never be able to sort out the pieces and put each puzzle together again . . . in the dream I feel hopeful . . . like what was individual puzzles is now one big whole . . . and the challenge is to make a new picture in a new way. Soon after I wrote the pages above, my friend Sister Pat, cofounder of Jubilee West, died unexpectedly while we were vaca-tioning in Vermont. We had worked, argued, dreamed, planned, and enjoyed life together in West Oakland for nineteen years of a longer close friendship. Pat was "home" to me; now I feel like a homeless person. In my grief I have felt that God is burning himself into my soul, in intense pain and intense beauty. Was it in another lifetime that I wrote, "I'm not aware of very much per-sonal pain"? I am amazed that "Feel your pain" was one of my "exploratory answers." It has helped me take time for the sadness of my loss. I am hopeful that my pain will give me strength and wisdom to respond to the world's pain in new ways. My under-standing of my own "answers" is deeper than when I wrote them. Hopefully, I am more ready to keep working to create a new pic-ture, a new wholeness. Notes ~ Michael Lerner, Surplus Powerlessness (Oakland: Institute for Labor and Mental Health, 1986). These and other quotations from Lerner are a combination of a variety of pages in this book. 2 Joanna Macy, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age (Baltimore: New Society Publishers, 1983). These quotations are a com-bination of a variety of pages in chapters 1 and 2. 3 Macy, Despair, p. 32. 4 Joanna Macy, World as Love~; World as Self(Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1991), p. 18. s Macy, Despair, p. 24. 498 Review for Religious MARGARET MARY KNITTEL Corporate Sponsorship: The 1990s and the Fruits of Our Labor I alternate between thinking of the planet as home--dear and familiar stone hearth and garden--and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners. --Annie Dillard, "Sojourner" Mey mother had lived in this home, built by her father, ver since she was eighteen, and now sixty years later she was selling the stained-glass windows, the hardwood floors, everything. All went well but for that last moment holding all the pain. We walked away bearing the image of strangers in that beloved doorway, frame of four generations. Doorways of insti-tutions, too, owned and operated by generations of women reli-gious, hold countless emotionally freighted moments, and near the close of the 20th century the terms "corporate sponsorship" and "fruits of our labor" have become and remain inextricably bound. In one ethical frame come three questions that are relevant to these two realities, corporate sponsorship and fruits of our labor. The three questions suggest a fluidity of vision, a loo'sening of ties. The questions are: Who are we? Who are we becoming? Who are we called to be? Who Are We? Over successive generations the corporately sponsored institutional ministry increasingly became for Catholic women religious in the United States their "hearth and garden," Margaret Mary Knittel RSM served as director of personnel services at Saint Xavier University in Chicago from 1981 to 1987. Presently, as a consultant for nonprofit organizations, she writes to us from I 1 Simpson, H; Geneva, Illinois 60134. ~uly-Aug~st 1995 499 Knittel ¯ Corporate Sponsorship the consummate fruits of their labor, our labor. Hospitals, nurs-ing homes, orphanages, .high schools, and colleges together form a litany of dedicated achievement, of the brick-by-brick accom-plishments of many dedicated women. Annie Dillard's feelings about this planet as hearth and garden and land of exile help identify three groups or generations of women religious who for a hundred years have owned and operated those institutions.1 These generations we shall call the exiles, the arrived, and the The first generation, the exiles, traveled from countries like Ireland, Germany, and Italy to North American mission lands. The second generation, the arrived (or arriv&s), lived in an at-homeness within their institutions in the burgeoning years. Now, in these closing years of the 20th century, we have a third gen-eration, the sojourners, seeking a new way to live their profes-sional commitments and their personal lives as vowed women religious upon finding themselves living in smaller and smaller groupings on a planet presenting challenges and opportunities their pioneering sisters in exile--their grandsisters--would not recognize. For the exiles--pioneers, all of them--the missions of the late 19th and early 20th century meant lives of physical sacrifice and economic deprivation well beyond the virtue or vow of poverty. Those women pieced together budgets, scraping their ingenuity for survival. Having come intent upon working hard, they strove to build hearths and gardens and kept striving and struggling, remaining and reminding themselves to be exiles at heart, women in a foreign land. Echoing the economy at large, the institutional ministries they had founded and maintained boomed after the lean years of the Great Depression. The second generation, the arrived, brought forward personal and corporate energies to build up edu-cational, social-service, and healthcare institutions surpassing the dreams of the earlier immigrant generation, the exiles. With increased settling in, this hearth of the religious women's profes-sional lives, this sponsored work, began for some to take on near-salvific powers. This hospital, this academy, began to hold terrestrial hopes and dreams, promised a salvation, and hinted of a this-side immortality. Plaudits, awards, and status were afforded to this generation of women who had arrived, who in some cases had left a humble family circle for what was increasingly becom- 500 Review for Religious ing an educated, secure middle-class community. They, we, by one definition indeed had arrived. For the arrived, their hospital or academy chapel began to localize the garden of the spirit. Here each morning and evening, all, regardless of professional status, gathered together at prayer. Here the contemplative "side" sought nourishment as the apostolic "side" waited just outside the chapel door. Hearth of work and garden of spirit, these became fix-tures within the corporate institu-tions cared for by the members of this second generation. Who Are We Becoming? In the movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" the central figure, an exceedingly obese mother of four, says to her teenage son in a moment of reconciliation, "I never wanted to be like this." She had eaten her way to virtual immobility after her husband walked away from her and their children. Do we women religious, as this 20th cen-tury of ours draws to a close, gaze at our corporate body and say to ot~rselves, "We never wanted to be like this"? The founders of mis-sions here in the United States began on an inspiration to do good The second generation, the arrived, brought forward personal and corporate energies to build up educational, social-service, and healthcare institutions surpassing the dreams of the earlier immigrant generation, the exiles. in the sight of the God, and now, one or two hundred years later, their legatee corporate body has perhaps come to he something overly substantial: substantial hearth and garden, substantial fruits of our labor. These places, these institutions, became the symbolic body of our corporate identity within the church and the symbolic immortality within our destinies. Boards, philanthropic individ-uals, committees, friendships have been cultivated in the name of a hospital, an orphanage, or a school, and individual women's identities have been formed by and dedicated to bricks and steam pipes and windows. And then, as a distant window opened in the early 1960s and Vatican Council II convened, the corporate body ~ly-August 1995 501 Knittel * Corporate Sponsorship began to be looked at and came into question: "Is this who we are becoming?" For some women and men, in and out of religious life, the signs of the times appealed to in the council documents began to replace the signs of success. The prophet Jeremiah's call to voca- Women religious know that an additional thirty years, like those since the council, will not be afforded them. A sizable amount of post-Vatican time has quickly become history, and religious can recite lists of classrooms already vacated, hospital beds unused, and doors closed. tion describes a people God observes burning incense to strange gods and "adoring their own hand-iwork" (Jr 1:16). The prophetic began to ease itself forward. The work of our hands, the fruits of our labor, came into question. Now, in these late days of the 20th century, the hearth lies gray with embers and the garden shows signs of late-summer exhaustion. Women religious know that an additional thirty years, like those since the council, will not be afforded them. A sizable amount of post-Vatican time has quickly become history, and religious can recite lists of classrooms already vacated, hospital beds unused, and doors closed. Worse, we know in our aging the lists of needs more acute, more violent, than our grandsisters might have dared imagine. With abuses crowding our culture into corners that seem to offer no choice, we acknowl-edge there has to be more to this journey. Who Are We Called to Be? Our third generation, the would-be sojourners, wonder at this late-20th-century hour: "Is this our time of exile? Shall we be graced to select to become sojourners. Selecting to be sojourners, to move from being securely settled to securely unsettled, recalls the, sweep of the Hebrew Scriptures showing us a people finding centers other than God. The king-dom, the temple, the land--here was the answer. No, not here, there. No, not there, here. Efforts to restore the earthly kingdom kept centering on realities other than God. But Yahweh contin-ued to insist. 502 Review for Religious Selecting to be sojourners calls us to know how to go into exile, how to travel. Traveling, what shall we pack? Timing, how to schedule transportation, stopovers? And we cannot forget those allowances of minutes and hours, those sponges of time, to absorb this unfamiliar territory, this plan, these new connections. We will not know the language, but will need to interact and relate with others in order to continue on the journey and will have to search our imaginations for ways to communicate constructively. Life will move more slowly even as we continually need to cope with myriad details. Knowing exile, we will know ourselves anew. A clock continues to tick, and while many individual women religious hear it, the instinct to muffle its sound remains. "Enough!" we hear. Our alternative thoughts drift to sojourning, but graying embers say "Enough." We lived through the changes of the 1960s and '70s immediately after the council. No more traveling, turning, leaving, remembering, forgetting, previsioning, refashioning, or paradigm shifting for us! Just leave me alone. Enough. Give me the basics for survival and let me live out my life, here. Give me my job, my position, my power. Give me space. But a clock continues to tick. Learning to Mourn Henri Nouwen has said, "Yes, we must mourn our losses. We cannot talk or act them away, but we can shed tears over them and allow ourselves to grieve deeply. To grieve is to allow our losses to tear apart feelings of security and safety and lead us to the painful truth of our brokenness. Our grief makes us experience the abyss of our own life in which nothing is settled, clear, or obvious, but everything constantly shifting and changing.''2 At issue here is whether or not women religious have the energy to mourn. There have been deaths--countless funerals, remembered rejec-tions, and downright hostilities and hatreds. Yes, death seems to have been an integral part of this life once so much idealized--the youth and the joy! But, through all of these deaths, have we short-circuited a certain human pathos, admixing theologies and spiri-tualities, being at times more stoic than Christian? Several weeks after the death of my mother, an acquaintance asked, "How are you doing?" An incident, fresh that day, helped me to describe a way of being that I would later learn is common to us and may be where the corporate person of religious life .~ly-Auguyt 1995 503 Knittel * Corporate Sponsorship finds itself today. I told him of my standing in the middle of a room that morning, about to clean, but not knowing what to do next. My emotional energy was somehow separated from me as a person. As women religious, do we stand in the middle of a room and not know how to clean it, with our individual and corpgrate emo-tional energy elsewhere? Solneone has said, "Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right.''3 Is there a sense that somehow our corporate energy has separated itself from the corporate body so that with our corpo-rate leadership we continue doing things right rather than doing the right thing? Walter Brueggemann has observed that "reli-gious practitioners are often easy and unwitting conspirators with such denial. We become the good-humor men and women, for who among us does not want to rush in and smooth things out, to reassure, to cover grief?.''4 Rush in, smooth out, reassure--sounds familiar. What and where are the deep-down places in which we will individually and corporately rejoin our emotional energies, find ourselves? While sometimes we feel sublimely practiced in the various forms of grief, having experienced death in many forms, have we mourned? Have we cared enough about ourselves individually and corporately to let in the slow, mysterious loneliness, the ever changing healing of life after a death, a shocking, numbing death, has occurred? This work of mourning looks not only to the past but also to the future, fully realizing that new steps must be taken. The ability to bear wholesome and healing grief is every bit as much a fruit of our labor as the most imposing achievement of our corporate endeavors. Who are we called to be in this late 20th century, and is God directly and immediately in charge? Given our status and our connections, have we--women religious who have arrived--cor-porately capitulated to others' being in charge, someone else's agenda. "The task of the prophetic imagination is to cut through the numbness, to penetrate the self-deception, so that the God of endings is confessed as Lord.''s We come through the numbing to learn from a God in charge that the fruit of our labor may be "only" to know Jesus the Christ once again as way, as truth, as life. In this late 20th century, the fruits of our having arrived carry the exotically sweet flavor of success taken for granted and of 504 Review for Religious controlling power. In some instances we think it necessary to cling to these fruits with an even tighter grip. What sadder use of our time than participating in meetings with unseen forces with a view to reconstituting yesteryear rather than working with hope for tomorrow! Is there true conversation within our communi-ties, or merely some talk while waiting for followers to follow? Whether we would speak with Brueggemann's "prophetic imagination" or Philip Keane's "moral imagination," can we imag-ine imagining? Keane has said, "Communities as well as persons need t6 develop moral character and exercise moral imagination as they seek to address the great issues of our times.''6 When a loved one dies, a significant part of our grieving may involve imagining the future without them. We have known and loved them, but deep down we grieve for ourselves in an unknown future--a birthday or a Christmas--without their presence. We deeply miss this lost past. The exile has begun, with or without us. We need to acknowl-edge it, learning more and imagining more about what it means to mourn. We will be sojourners, like our grandsisters before us, leaving the comforts of home, however we currently define and hold on to them. "A number of factors can hinder persons from being genuinely reflective and playful in their moral thinking," says Keane; "power or force is one such factor.''7 Shall we become more reflective, more playful, and imagine leaving our present "homes" of wrongfully constructed political power, of oppressive behaviors? What prevents us from asking: Who are we? Who are we becoming? and Who are we called to be? The answer from some, if not all, may lie in these processes of the prophetic, these questions. Land of Exile: Corporate Sojournership "Fairly often," says Keane, "I run into persons whose image of God is that God is out to get us. Such persons want to be told what to do, and they are afraid of using their moral imaginations. Their religious or prayer lives will often be quite limited because their fear keeps them from really being open to the power of the Gospel stories.''8 As women religious we seek the courage to imag-ine and do corporately what many individual women and men have already wrestled with in their lives. We need, corporately, to turn in the keys, have a good cry, and move on. 3~uly-Al¢g'ust 199Y 505 Knittel * Corporate Sponsorship Turning in the keys does not necessarily mean a wholesale closing of eacli and every institution. Some would like that, but it could indeed prove shortsighted and definitely unimaginative, even though some say the community's need for money is a good reason for selling this hospital or that academy and others say, "If we sell, we would be doing something holy." Abandoning an inner-city hospital without recourse to imaginative possibilities of how this long-cared-for space--the land's square feet and the buildings' cubic feet--could now serve the poor better might well become a new urban tragedy. We will need to go after anew, with all the civic clout that our years of being respectable arrivges can muster, the neighborhood's endemic and systemic problems. The friends of our institutions of the past may not choose to be the companions of our sojourning in the years ahead. But, together with those who would stay with us, we n~ed to find out who we are called to be. In any new land such as the future, there will be questions, then some answers, and then new questions. Our bequest, the fruits of our labor--whether embodied in our present corporate buildings and our present apostolic endeavors or not--must always be directed towards common goods that our corporate resources and corporate energies can hope to accomplish. People reflecting on the conversion to which all of us are called expect that the hearth and garden that halve come down to tis from a former time, these substantial signs of our having arrived, will increasingly suggest to us new common and corpo-rate lives of sojourning exile. These and similar questions will keep occurring to us: How will we use the power and influence we have? What could the prayer of our community be like? How will we imagine and live appropriate ways of coming together and being together--or of being together and going out together? What can we do most effectively for the coming of the kingdom? Shall we be women of vision, corporately attending to the good? Shall we corporately prepare in earnest to live in exile, to be sojourners, persons consciously and deliberately ready for the journey that begins and ends in God? Notes l Annie Dillard, "Sojourner," in Teaching a Stone to Talk (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988), p. 150. 506 Review for Religious 2 Henri J.M. Nouwen, With Hearts Burning (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1994), p. 27. 3 Warren Bennis, Why Leaders Can't Lead (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989), p. 18. 4 Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic hnagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 49. s Brueggemann, p. 49. 6 Philip S. Keane, Christian Ethics and Imagination (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), p. 104. 7 Keane, p. 107. 8 Keane, p. 107. Tourist Your T-shirt's stamped in letters large across your chest: KATMANDU. Your bike is labeled with a hundred road resorts. Your car is dotted round with all your touring triumphs . So, why not take another route today? A low-cost tour to that other inner world inside. Stay quiet by that vast unbounded inner ocean in your mind. Dive, swim and surf. Fly free. Ride high the inner waves of thought and feeling endlessly exhilarated, or delve into the dark and secret untrod cavern of your soul. Discover now the mystery of creation; confront the abyss unending of your own nothing-self becoming. And meet in that remote mysterious empty temple, far inside, your God. Cothrai Gogan CSSP .y~uly-August 199Y 507 CATHERINE M. HARMER Retirement's Wisdom Years One of the recurring discussions at assemblies and chap-ters of religious revolves around the rising median age, the need to care for our elderly, and more subtly the growing costs of such caring. The issue is an important one in that most United States congregations have median ages over sixty. An examination of congregational budgets shows that increasingly large amounts of money are dedicated to the care of the elderly. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops has been sponsor-ing a special collection for aging religious that people contribute to with great generosity, but it covers only a small part of the actual costs. A visit to the motherhouse of almost any group of sisters will show that a large part of what was housing for novices in the past is now dedicated to the aging members. Some motherhouses have very fine infirmaries for the sick elderly. There is no question that religious leaders are making great efforts to provide the best they can for their members through all stages of life. I would like, however, to examine two aspects of that effort. The first has to do with the nursing-home care that many of the sick elderly need. The second has to do with the concept of retirement for religious and the way it has been handled over the last twenty years or so. The Sick Elderly The first topic is the simpler one and will get less treatment in this article. In the care of our sick elderly, the emphasis has Catherine M. Harmer MMS wrote "Election: A Call to Service" for our September-October 1994 issue. Her address is Medical Mission Sisters; 300 W. Wellens Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19120. 508 Review for Religious been changed from the simple caring for them "at home" that was possible when the median age was much lower and the num-ber of elderly religious was either smaller or relatively smaller. When that was the case, at the motherhouse a small staff assisted by novices and postulants could care for them in much the same way that a family could take care of any sick or elderly member of it. Gradually, as the numbers increased and the sick elderly lived longer, a more professional model, that of the nursing home, became more common. As this was happen-ing, the percentage of vigorously active members was decreasing. At present, in most of the retirement facilities I have visited over the years, the staff is largely lay with very few religious among them. In some very large congrega-tions, with several hundred sick elderly members, the facilities com-pare well with any licensed nursing home, often providing much better care and definitely offering more loving care than in the average nurs-ing home for the laity. In smaller congregations the attempt to pro-vide quality nursing care results in Some small congregations in a given area are studying the feasibility of establishing an intercon gregational nursing home. A few religious leaders are looking at ways to provide for their members in general nursing homes in their area. small facilities that are as expensive to maintain as considerably larger ones would be. In some cases a nursing staff (composed mainly of nurse aides) that could care for thirty patients is taking care of ten or fifteen, sometimes fewer. As congregations face the heavy financial drain, there is a movement toward collaboration among the congregations in a geographic area. This is a positive development that could lead to good care for the religious and lower financial costs. Some groups that have larger facilities are opening them to other congrega-tions. Some small congregations in a given area are studying the feasibility of establishing an intercongregational nursing home. A few religious leaders are looking at ways to provide for their mem-bers in general nursing homes in their area. All of these steps are difficult. Often the members of a con-gregation are very unwilling to have their elderly cared for away .~dy-August 199Y 509 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years from their own motherhouse. At times the elderly themselves feel that they are being mistreated by being separated from their tra-ditional homes. Only a few consider it a good thing to be in a nursing home of mixed patients, men and women, religious and lay, in spite of the pastoral potential of such a model. The efforts of leaders and the combined efforts of congrega-tions to deal with both the physical realities and the psychologi-cal and religious values are important ones. Key for the leaders will be understanding, patience, and collaborative stances. For the members, those who are elderly and those who are not, it is important to develop an acceptance of the reality they face and a willingness to keep their last days congruent with what has gone before. I suggest that this requires ongoing education for every-one and a spirituality that looks at one's last days as continuous with the dedication of earlier days. Religious Retirement In our efforts to prepare one another for "retirement," we may have bought into a model that was emerging after World War II and continues to develop in terms of what aging and retir-ing are all about. This brings me to the second topic, the one which will constitute the major portion of this article. It is all the more important because it bears upon the first as well. It has to do with how we are viewing retirement. I believe that we have accepted a way of looking at retirement which is increasingly being challenged in the population at large and that we need to study it in the light of what our entire religious life is about. Several aspects of this model of retirement raise new questions. The current model in the United States assumes that people will retire at sixty-five if not earlier. When Social Security became a reality in the 1930s, life expectancy was lower, many people did hard physical labor and had relatively poor nutritional histories, and their hope was simply that at retirement they could stop working without worry about becoming dependent on their chil-dren or "ending up in the poorhouse." Today life expectancy is much higher, and the reality is that many people stay active, healthy, and alert for twenty years and longer after they retire. A second aspect, then, is that retirement is a time of not work-ing and, instead, spending one's time and energy at play of one sort or another. (Married women often have less of the play since 510 Review for Religious they are still expected to do the work of keeping up the home.) A problem here is that many retired people soon become bored with the play aspect. Some move toward part-time jobs or vol-unteer work, while others become captives of the television or the endless bingo games of our less creative senior centers. A third aspect of the current model that deserves examina-tion is the tendency to move away from the place where most of life was spent. This sometimes has to do with seeking a warmer climate or more economical housing. The result is that, as peo-ple age, they are out of regular con-tact with their family and must develop new friends. Even the elderly who manage well on their own in their original home are often under pressure from relatives and friends to find a smaller place-- which often takes them away from the community in which they have close ties and away from some sig-nificant activities that they could otherwise keep up. People are living longer while remaining physically and mentally vigorous, and yet the model of retirement continues to treat them as if they cannot do anything but play. What is being lost is the opportunity for them to contribute to family, to friends, to com-munity, in a different way than during their working years, but a way that is significant and needed. What is being lost to society at large is the accumulated wisdom of the elderly, a loss our soci-ety cannot afford. It would be a shame for religious congregations to follow the national model for retirement too closely. While few if any con-gregations have fixed ages of retirement from major involvement in ministries, there has been a subtle movement over the last few decades to start "thinking about retirement" while the religious are in their fifties. Without necessarily meaning to do so, this has too frequently led to a mentality that places retiring somewhere in the sixties, even if there is no real reason to do so. I have vis-ited motherhouses where some of the sisters appear to have retired Although the idea that play is the major activity of the retired has not taken hold so completely in religious congregations, what has developed is a sense that this is my time to do with as I wish. J-uly-dugust 199Y 511 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years far too soon and are desperate for some way to be involved in ministry. Mthough the idea that play is the major activity of the retired has not taken hold so completely in religious congregations, what has developed is a sense that this is my time to do with as I wish. Especially in motherhouses, which tend to be out in the country or relatively isolated, this leads to a combination of small tasks around the motherhouse, activities that mimic the senior citizens' centers, and some increased emphasis on the spiritual life without much attention to how that might be different at this stage of life. Often when I talk with the retired themselves I find a deep longing for two things: to find some meaningful part-time min-istry and to explore what spiritual life means at this latter stage of life. When retirement takes place at a motherhouse, you find the same isolation from community that the lay elderly experience who move to Florida. While most religious have lived and worked in a number of places, there was always the parish, the school or hospital, sometimes the neighborhood, as a framework for involve-ment and support. This is now gone, and the beautiful grounds of the motherhouse, the special facilities, and sometimes the large numbers (for those, notably, who were used to smaller groups) are no substitute for what has been lost. Religious do not, on the whole, do a lot of complaining, but the sense of loss is often heard in the undertones of a conversation. We hear ". everything is so nice here., everyone is so kind . . . but."--and the long-ing is very real. I am increasingly convinced that elderly religious should, whenever possible, have the same choices as the younger members. This stage of life is important, and it needs to be rec-ognized as such. In the remainder of this article, I want to address two impor-tant things about aging and retirement for religious: (1) the sec-ond half of life as a time of deepening wisdom and individuation, a time for a greater spirituality to emerge, and (2) the role of elderly religious in continuing the mission of Jesus. For many ideas here, it will be evident that I am indebted to Carl Jung, but also to a fascinating book by Jane R. Pr~tat on the croning years (1994). As I read her book, I found myself dwelling on several ideas: that our society wastes the wisdom of the elderly at a time when we need it most; that aging is not just something that hap-pens, but a part of the whole picture of life; and that much of 512 Review for Religious what is wrong in contemporary ways of looking at and dealing with aging in general are found also in regard to aging among religious, especially in how we treat the reality we call "retire-ment." The Second Half of Life Some years ago a large number of articles, workshops, and counseling programs focused on a particular transition seen as noteworthy, the "mid-life crisis." This concept seems, from a Jungian point of view, relevant to the developmental model's tran-sition from the first to the second half of life. This division into two halves does not have a chronological point, just ~s mid-life cannot be tied to a specific number of years of life. The first half of life is devoted to infancy, childhood, and young adulthood inso-far as these parts of life have to do with coming to know the world around ourselves, coming to an understanding of who we are as separate from our parents, learning, developing a working career, and moving to success within that career. At the midpoint, we might wake up in the morning and ask: Is this all there is to life? How we answer that question may indicate if the second half of life is about to begin. If the answer is "Yes, this is it!" we could spend the rest of our life simply as a continuation of the first half until death. If the answer is "No, there is something more!" we could enter into the second half of life. In the second half of life, the tasks shift to integration of the parts that have been separated during the first half, the move-ment toward individuation, coming to know ourselves in a dif-ferent way, and the decision to move toward wisdom. The "wise old man" and "wise old woman" archetypes begin to emerge dur-ing the early part of this second half of life. I believe that many people make the shift to the second half of life without ever hear-ing about Jung or his developmental theories. They recognize that something is changing in themselves, and they move with those changes. Some of the "play" elements of retirement--the programs for senior citizens that involve bingo, excursions, and hobbies--could be considered a return to an early part of the first half of lifel Now that we have done our work, earned our pension, we can again become the children whose task is play. For people with a limited field of interests, this may mean watching television for ffuly-August 1995 513 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years As we age; there is often a longing for a deeper understanding, a greater closeness to God. It is a normal part of the second half of life. long hours of the day and night. This is to remain in the first half of life, possibly until death, without ever taking the step into the second half. For other people, the leisure activities are part of their under-standing of where they are in terms of age, but other aspects also begin to emerge. Spending time with their children and grand-children can be a way of being the elder who is communicating the lore and the wisdom of life. This is a second-half activity and one much needed in today's culture, in which single-parent families and families with both parents working are becoming the norm. Contact with the older generation, with grandparents, . uncles, and aunts, which for long years was the norm, now is the excep-tion in many families. Wisdom also has to do with com-ing to a deeper knowledge of God, a greater and deeper integration of the spiritual life. For many people, life has been so busy, so full of duties, that the spiritual life was relegated to a set of rituals honored on a daily, weekly, or yearly basis. As we age, there is often a longing for a deeper understanding, a greater closeness to God. It is a normal part of the second half of life. In some cases it is connected with daily Mass for people who during their working years were quite con-tent with the Sunday Mass; it may mean a return to some of the religious practices of childhood; sometimes it is :a search for deeper intimacy with God. This longing belongs to the wisdom quest of this second stage. Religious, hopefully, have not stinted on their attention to the spiritual and to God's presence all through the active first half of their life. Yet the sense that the latter half of life has some-thing special to offer is found among them as well. One cannot deny, though, that some religious at this stage seem to put i:he haain emphasis on play. Their way of playing may be different, but it is still play and may involve television, novel reading, trips to the casino with the senior citizens' group, and considerable family visiting. 514 Review for Religious As a country we have to explore how to make the wisdom of the elders available to our children and to our busy adults. In the extended family of the past, this happened very simply. At one time in my childhood, I went every Friday after school to my grandparents' home so that on Saturday morning I could help .my grandmother with some of the cleaning she found difficult to do. What I remember most is conversations after supper on Friday with my grandfather, who told me the stories of his youth when he was an organizer of the unions in the steel mills of Pittsburgh. I also remember listening to music on the radio, and all three of us reading our separate books or magazines. Elderly religious off in motherhouses and retirement centers lose their easy contact with yoilnger religious, lose casual opportunities to share their wisdom with them, just as grandparents nowadays are often in other states where spending time with their grandchildren is no longer 'possible. In some motherhouses there are now prayer centers and renewal centers that give workshops and courses for sisters and lay people who are interested. At one point I had a constant flow of their catalogues coming across my desk. Fine as many of these centers are, I rarely saw anything that addressed the need for exploring the spirituality of the latter half of life, of the retirement years. Yet in those same houses I often met older sisters who longed for scripture study, for prayer assistance, for some way of understanding and developing the spirit life for this special part of their earthly sojourn. Some Strategies for the Second Half of Life It seems to me, then, that there are two things leadership would do well to do~ (1)to make it possible for elderly religious (granted their varying degrees of diminished energy) to continue to be involved in meaningful ministries that connect with the congregation's charism and mission and (2) to make conscious efforts to help the elderly religious move through the integrative work of the second half of their life in a way that is just as appro-priate as the novitiate training was for the first half. ., I live in a parish at present where more than half of the sis-ters in the local convent are well into the second half of their life and thus are no longer able to be involved full-time in the min-istries of their congregation. The congregation is a teaching one, jg~uly-August 1995 515 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years staffing many parish and,diocesan schools. A few of the sisters teach in the parish school, others commute to diocesan high schools, and the older sisters are engaged in time,limited but very vital ministries, These include teaching and tutoring in the adult literacy center, tutoring children from the grade school, and vis-iting elderly shut-ins 'in the neighborhood. None of these are full-time involvements. In some cases the sisters go to the school, in others the students come to them in the convent. Whenever I meet with these women, I am struck by the joy and peace that are obvious in them. Not everyone can be placed in a parish convent. Some of our elderly need to be in places like motherhouses where their greater physical needs can be provided for. It is sometimes possible to bring ministries to these motherhouses and at the same time pro-vide a wonderful service to others. I have been to motherhouses where there was day care for children in some parts of the build-ing and day care for ~he elderly in other parts. Two wonderful things happened there daily. The children and the elderly spent some time together every day, and both benefited by the experi-ence. The staff of both facilities had "assistants" from among the retired sisters who, like the women in my parish, could not work full-time, but could be counted on for blocks of time on .a regu-lar basis to help with both groups of day-care clients. o To keep our religious involved as long as possible has another imp.ortant benefit. Most o£ the research on the aging process shows that, if people stay physically and mentally active, they stay healthy longer and age more slowly. We have wonderful examples of very elderly people maintaining their mental and physical capacities long past the expected time and making contributions to art, 'literature,. and the commonweal. Even more important, this is a time when .religious can begin to share the wisdom that has come to them with age, experience, and deep reflection on the meaning of life. This is a wisdom that is very much needed in our culture, a wisdom that too often the children and young peo-ple do.not find around them. Religious can become, in~ a very real way, the grandparent figures ifi their parishes, neighborhoods, and institutions. This is the wisdom of experience joined with reflec-tion upon that experience. 0 The second thing needing attention from leadership is the effort to help religious .use their latter years creatively in order to move toward the union with God that has been such a part of our 516 Review for Religious thinking throughout life. Many of the forms of prayer and spiri-tuality that are helpful to members of active religious congrega-tions during their early and middle years are apostolically oriented. Appropriately, the religious appreciate seeing a close connection between their ministry and their spirituality. The inner life and the outer life are integrated, ideally, in a rich and vibrant way. Changes take place as religious move through the early years of the second half of life. Spending less time and energy in direct apostolic efforts, they have more time for more leisurely ways of praying. They are ready for the next stage of devel-opment of their inner life. Their focus at this stage is somewhat different from that of their early and middle years. It has within it many of the same elements, but also some new ones. In this stage the elderly may desire to recall or renew some of the things they learned in earlier years, but did not have time to savor and assim-ilate. Frequently they speak of their desire for scripture classes, for prayer workshops. These can be useful, but they need to be focused clearly and carefully on the latter years. Now the emphasis is not on quantities of information, but rather on depth, on quiet composure and integration within each individual's inner reality. The wisdom years are the time when the. "wise old woman" and "wise old man" archetypes come to the fore. While the wis-dom can be for oneself, it is even more for others. At this stage there is not likely to be any necessity to go out and preach or teach, but there should be a simple and peaceful realization that the wisdom being garnered is also for others. This is why it is important during these years: for religious to have two areas of concern: one for the continuing development of the wisdom that has been growing in them over the years, and the other for shar-ing that wisdom, very simply and directly, with others. As religious move along through this final stage of life, it is essential that they have the assistance they need to foster the growth of their inner life, to be more open to wisdom, and that they have opportunity to share it with others. Thus, the ending of Most of the research on the aging process shows that, if people stay physically and mentally active, they stay healthy longer and age more slowly. ~uly-August 199Y 517 Harmer ¯ Retirement's Wisdom Years life can be as full and as rich spiritually as any of the earlier stages, and it can be lived out in a truly mission-centered way. This will enrich the lives of the elderly religious themselves, but also of those who are yearning for that wisdom and do not yet know where to find it. It will bring a fullness to the lives of the "retired" and of those around them. It will be a far happier period than one given to play, television, and various excursions. Religious have frequently been the pacesetters in ministry. Perhaps it is time for the "retired" religious to begin to model to other retirees a richer, fuller, and more outwardly directed wisdom retirement. References Johnston, Charles M. Necessary Wisdom: Meeting the Challenge of a New Cultural Maturity. Seattle: ICD Press, 1991. Pr~tat, Jane R. Coming to Age: The Croning Years and Late-Life Transformations. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1994. Exposition Bless you, caress you~ enfold and possess you. Blessed by you, caressed by you, enfolded within you. Possessed. Chris Mannion FMS 518 Review for Religious TAD DUNNE The Enneagram Since the. early 1970s, religious educators, spiritual men-tors, retreat directors, and, most recently, management trainers have been talking about the "enneagram." 1 The theory proposes that each person is hooked by one of nine psychological compulsions--similar to the seven "capital" sins in classical Christian literature? Dozens of authors. and lecturers nowadays are teaching the theory to help people discover which of the nine compulsions is theirs and bow to accomplish their psychological liberation from it. The nine types are often referred to in caricatures: the Perfectionist, the Helper, ~he Status Seeker, the Sensitive Artist, the Observer, the Accuser, the Planner, the Bully, and the Slug.3 To edch of these descriptions, enneagram teachers attach longer descriptions of phobias, ambitions, expectations, learning style, sexual dynamics, management style, virtues, prides, blind spots, fixations, senses of time, and so on. The r~lations among the com-pulsions are represented by a circle whose circumference is numbered, at nine equidistant points. Within the circle is a triangle drawn from points three to six to nine. Also within the circle is a folded hexagon drawn through the Tad Dunne is an adjunct professor of medical ethics at Marygrove College, Detroit, and a management consultant for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan. He has published Spiritual Mentoring (HarperSanFrancisco) and Lonergan and Spirituality (Loyola University Press). He may be addressed at 2923 Woodslee; Royal Oak, Michigan 48073. guidance July-August 199Y 519 Dunne ¯ The Enneagram cycle 1-4-2-8-5-7-1. This strange figure has become the logo of the enneagram system. Enneagram and Myers-Briggs People often compare the enneagram to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which classifies sixteen personality types accord-ing to one's preference for ways of noticing experience and mak-ing decisions. The chief difference between them is that the Myers-Briggs instrument indicates personal preferences, all of which are psychologically normal, while the enneagram indicates pathologies. That is, in the Myers-Briggs'all the types are healthy, while in the enneagram all the types are sick. So the Myers-Briggs is useful for accommodating one's own thinking style with col-laborators'; it helps groups identify the preferences for ways of learning and evaluating that exist,among their members and to deploy their relative .strengths accordingly. The enneagram, in contrast, is useful for identifying neuroses, mostly in oneself. The Myers-Briggs indicator, rooted in Jungian psychology, carries a positive attitude toward human consciousness, whereas the ennea-gram, rooted partly in Freudian psychology, takes a more suspi-cious stand. Few psyqhologists, however, rely on either tool for diagnostic purposes, because of an absence of empirical studies that correlate with validated' tests. Among other helping professionals, the Myers-Briggs indi-cator enjoys a wider and less controversial reputation than the enneagram. The sixteen preferences are easily understood; one can readily find Jung's comments on people's preferences between extraversion and introversion, between sensate observation and intuition, and between thinking and feeling.4 The enneagram, in contrast, has sources shrouded in arcane knowledge from a cor-ner of the Sufi tradition unknown to most Sufis and from George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, a self-styled visionary from Russia with dubi-ous credentials. The many enneagram books and tapes that have been published in the last decade tend to describe each of the nine compialsions in dogmatic terms--a style of presentation that allures some but alienates others,s 520 Some Positive Aspects of the Enneagram One of the most disturbing claims made by enneagram devo- Review for Religious tees is that these nine types cover the total human range of com-pulsions. Not ten, not eight.6 There are subsets among the nine, but these supposedly cover all possibilities. Devotees base this claim on an unfamiliar model of personality and on the ennea-gram logo, whose origins are untraceable.7 But what is really dis-turbing is that, despite the dogmatic claims of the theory and an absence of experiment-based research, it is difficult to find any-one who fails to fit one of the types. Enneagram fans in the help-ing professions, after years of working with the tool, feel that these nine are just about right. And individuals claim that the enneagram has helped them to reach a deeper understanding of their personal compulsions than any other self-help system has, In other words, this weird, unempirical, upsetting, gnostic, and mys-tifying map of the psyche seems to work. In 1990 Claudio Naranjo MD published Ennea-Type Structures: Self-Analysis for the Seeker. Enneagram students were eager to read what he had to say, since he led the development o_f the the-ory among English-speaking publics. His book, the smallest I know of on the subject, builds the theory on much more solid ground. That book is now out of print, but has been incorpo-rated in Naranjo's new and expanded volume, Character and Neurosis, published in 1994. Naranjo lends legitimacy to the theory in several ways. Unlike most other enneag.ram authors, who tend to pile adjective upon adjective and style upon style to cover the many variations possi-ble within each compulsion, Naranjo,keeps the set of descriptors limited. He wants these descriptors to function the way they func-tion in clinical manuals such as the DSM tli, namely, as a list of discreet phenomena sufficient to distinguish one type from another? By describing diseases with as little overlap as possible, he enables therapists to spot the core problem more quickly and waste less time on manifestations of the problem shared with other compulsions. Naranjo also takes pains to make a distinction between pas-sions (anger, envy, gluttony, and so forth) and the cognitive errors that underlie each passion. These errors amount to uncrit-ical assumptions about what life is like--the kind of oversimpli-fied worldview (and subsequent inappropriate adaptive routines) that Ellis deals with in his rational-emotive therapy.9 By pin-pointing cognitive errors, Naranjo believes, a person can iden-tify and dissolve his or her pet myths in order to rob the j~uly-August 199~ 521 Dunne * The Enneagram corresponding passion of its rationale and thereby weaken its grip on the psyche. Another contribution Naranjo makes to the theory is that he consistently explains the psychological dynamics at work in each compulsion, rather than just stating them. By appealing to his readers' understanding rather than their memory, he invites them to consult the workings of their own psyches to verify the pres-ence of certain subconscious routines. This is no small achievement. The mind is easily content with a notional familiarity with terms. Only under the whip of intel-lectual desire will we push forward to uncover for ourselves some of our psychic gremlins that have never seen the light of con-sciousness. Likewise the heart is easily comforted with comfort-able feelings; it takes an inner discipline, responsible to no one but oneself, to face up to the discomforts of acting responsibly. In my limited experience of teaching the theory, I found that many students find it too difficult to allow the teaching to break through their automatic defenses and deal with their hidden fears and cravings. The enneagram doctrine just feeds a ravenous compul-sion. So the Status Seeker uses the enneagram to advance her own reputation. The Observer uses it to gather yet further infor-mation before he ventiares out into the world. And so on. Enneagram work is particularly difficult for teachers. They are tempted to devour the lore with teaching in mind, not learn-ing. The work, however, is for people on a personal mission-- those who possess enough self-knowledge to know they are learners in the school of self-knowledge. Much of Naranjo's prose envisions a therapeutic setting in which a seeker looks to a men-tor for guidance. The aim of the therapy is not to settle what our basic compulsion is, as if from that point on we know what box we are in. The therapeutic outcome is not to identify a conceptual scheme that sometimes describes our behavior. The desired out-come is to understand specific experiences of being not our best selves, using conceptual schemes as initial indicators of what may be causing the trouble. This is why it is important to hold the enneagram types at arm's length. Although some people seem to fit a single type per-fectly, others seem to fit several types. Are these latter persons-- whose self-deceit eludes everyone's analysis--all the while being victims of only a single compulsion? Or have they really developed several distinct alternatives to authentic living? Practically speak- 522 Review for Religious ing, it makes no difference so long as users rely on the ennea-gram as nothing more than clusters of fixations and behaviors that logically hang together. Their conceptual consistency is merely a model to help people raise relevant questions about the inner events that possess a slippery logic of their own. Besides his economy of description and his reliance on per-sonal understanding, a further significant contribution Naranjo makes to the theory lies in how he has analyzed the connection between psychological difficulties and exis-tential decisions about being human. Going beyond Oscar Ichazo, from whom he first learned the theory, as well as beyond the people who had already published his enneagram material, Naranjo bases each psychological dynamic in a fundamental spiritual crisis he calls "ontic obscuration," which is a kind of a deafness to our inner drives to be authentic persons. He proposes that, just as certain cognitive errors under' lie each passion, so certain existential fail-ures underlie each cognitive error. This is significant because it puts the focus directly on the inner work of being fully human. Other authors settle for cate-gorizing people by behavior patterns or look to childhood trau-mas to explain present weirdness--the kinds of analyses commonly found in popular psychology. Indeed, popular psychology usually lacks the words and ideas with which to reflect on that innermost work of authenticity. But, by paying direct attention to "ontic obscuration," individuals can discover that a major driver behind their compulsive responses lies in how seriously they take those quiet impulses to be fully human or else how consistently they have avoided the inner work involved in staying human. This "ontic obscuration" underlies each compulsion in its own manner. The Slug stands at the center, having thoroughly obscured inner voices about how to be one's truest self. The Bully and the Perfectionist hear the voices dimly, but respond through a focus on externals, especially through various forms of anger they feel because things are not what they should be. The Helper, the Status Seeker, and the Sensitive Artist hear the voices, but they divert their desire to become fully human persons into Enneagram work is particularly difficult for teachers. They are tempted to devour the lore with teaching in mind, not learning. ~uly-Augtwt 199Y 523 Dunne ¯ The Enneag'ram becoming just persons whose image carries clout in the lives of o.thers. The Planner, the Accuser, and the Observer also hear the voiceS, but they divert a fear of not becoming fully human into strategies designed to protect the little bits of personhood they believe they possess.l° ¯ Naranjo refers to this approach as his "Nasruddin" theory. The story goes that this mullah was crawling around in an alley near a marketplace, searching for the key to his house. A friend joined in the search and, after finding nothing, asked the mul-lah, "Are you sure you lost the key around here?" The mullah responded, "No, I lost it at home." The friend naturally asked, "Then why are you looking for the key here?" The mullah replied, "The light is much better here." 1, The point is that we often look for the key to our house out under the sun, where everything seems clear. But the key is in the house, an~l the house is dark. The Existential Questign: How Should I Be? For all the benefits ofNaranjo's "ontic obscuration," he does not explain in precise terms what being human involves; he set-tles for a description of some effects of"obscuration." For exam-ple, "loss of a sense of I-am-ness" and "something missing inside.''12 At times he presumes that deep down people really know the experience of "ontic obscuration." At other times he claims that the obscuration itself prevents people from realizing that any kind of obscuration has occurred. So, while it is appro-priate for him to recommend that the seeker find a mentor to help recognize a compulsion, the theory would benefit also from a positive understanding of just what it is that "ontic obscura-tion" obscures. To uncover this prize, we need to reflect on how being human happens to be obscured ifi the first place. Most psychologists agree that the intellect of children develops not only in the amount of information they learn but, more significantly, in whether or not they learn certain higher-level intellectual skills for understanding their experiences. So Naranjo's "ontic obscura-tion'? indicates, not a breakdown in mental development, but rather an unfinished development. It is not a matter of having obscured what once was clear; it is a matter of having been born blind and gradually learning how to see. 524 Review for Religious The developmental problem is how to move from a world of images, behaviors, symbols, and external sensations to the larger world of meaning and values. As children we were able to pose questions about being human only by using images. Should I be pushy? Compliant? Generous? Teacherly? Observant? Like a lion? A turtle? A bird? A monkey? Early successful functioning of one of these styles sets up a habit and provides evidence that the world around us must be of such and such a nature--the one that matches our chosen strategy. To the Bully, then, the world is dog-eat- dog; to the Accuser, the world is ridden with crooks. We build up a behavioral style and support it with a cognitive belief in a par-ticular strategy like one of those described in .the enneagram: being correct, being related, being impressive, being the victim, being retentive, being wary, being pleasing, being pugnacious, or being deaf. We become capable of noticing our compulsions as such only later, when we learn that proper use of our minds and hearts is more important than proper behavior and that intelligent analy-sis and reasonable judgment put us in touch with the real world far better than myths and symbols can. Only p~ople who have learned to think about inner acts of meaning can make a statement such as "There I go again" as they catch on to unreal thinking and feeling. ~ .~ This learning represents a major jump in thinking skills. A person discovers that the world is not just "already out there.''Is The real world is also the invisible world made up of the acts of meaning that occur in people's minds and hearts: the agreements, the plans, the guiding ideas, the reigning values, the loyalties, the spites, the memories, the laws, and the internalized language of the place. Former precepts such as Be corre'ct~ Be connected, Be suc-cessful, and Be the martyr were established in the mind of a~child who had no alternative but to think with pictures and symbols. Bht, in the world of meaning and values, learning how to be human ought to transcend these image-based precepts and adopt precepts based on the functions of the mind and heart. Bernard Lonergan, the late Canadian philosopher whose Insight and Method in Theology have influenced many practitioners in the human and natural sciences, has identified five such func-tion- based precepts. They are: Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible, Be in love.'4 These voices are in all of us. They are active long before we notice them as distinct July-August 199Y 525 Dunne ¯ The Enneagram impuls.es. Although they still escape the notice of many psychol-ogists as being the most fundamental impulses that make us fully human, they are the living source of our ability to notice, under-stand, realize, take responsibility, and love, For Lonergan, these five precepts support a highly-structured method for the human sciences. But, for people seeking to under-stand their inner compulsions, they can also provide a normal way of referring to the task of being fully human. They can rep-resent the very operations that "ontic obscuration" obscures. These are the events that promise to bring a person to what Naranjo, in a more descriptive and less precise mode, calls "the integrated wholeness of one's experience"; "true aliveness, a sense of existing, a plenitude"; "finding value in the present and the actual.''ts These function-based ~precepts not only transcend image-based precepts; they also enable people to transcend who they are and to rise toward being who they are to be. Lonergan refers to these precepts as "the transcendental precepts." A Therapy of Love The question of how we should be does not end there. While people might rely on a diagnostic tool such as the enneagram to recognize self-defeating thoughts before they become actions, they also need a therapy to help recognize self-transcending thoughts and feelings. This means learning firsthand the differ-ence between the transcendental precepts and their opposites: between being attentive and being oblivious, being intelligent and being stupid, being reasonable and being silly, being respon-sible and being irresponsible, and being loving and being hateful. While anyone can recognize abstractly the contrast between these words, the right-hand members of the pairs conspire quite suc-cessfully to obscure their own functioning right behind our eyes. Fortunately, this conspiracy can be caught in the act. By know-ingly paying attention to the transcendental precepts, we can be more attentive to inner experience. We can be more intelligent about how certain cognitive errors and existential decisions sup-port our compulsions. We can be more reasonable as we admit the truth of how thoroughly our fixation may have dominated our psyches. We can be more responsible in accepting guilt that belongs to us, in shunning guilt that is unreasonable, and in sup-pressing what compulsions we can as they arise. Most wisely, we 526 Review for Religious can let our love for others take the lead more often, including and especially our love for God. When a person falls in love, he or she suddenly sees the exter-nal world as more beautiful, more full of potential, more worthy of respect and care. What has occurred, though, is not a change in the external world one views; it is a self-transcending change in the viewer. Being in love heals much of ~' what was crippled in the other four levels of the person's self-transcendence. That is, being in love gives courage to respon-sibility, realism to reason, insight to intel-ligence, and acumen to attention. The person has risen above the imprisoned self and realized something of the profound marvels of life, nature, and the friendly character of the universe. Love's healing power is evident in the love between friends, within a family, and among fellow citizens and members of a group. It is also evident in the love of God. People who have undergone a religious conversion, whether in a sudden inner revolution or a gradual takeover, experience three new powers. The~y see goodness where the unconverted see only evil. They feel a power to reach out to others at a higher risk to themselves than self-protecting reason would allow. And, after the worst setbacks, they find themselves soon on their feet, mys-teriously alive and submissive to the impulse to love again26 More can be said about the healing effects of religious love, but this milch illustrates how an analysis of our self-transcending acts clar-ifibs'what "being human" means and reveals the available powers that "o'ntic obscuration" obscures. Further analysis along these lines would complement any instance of healing with a thera-peutic theory consistent with religious love. Notice especially how the addition of this account of self-transcendence avoids the typi~cal trap of self-help psychologies. It makes clear that people do not help themselves all by them-selves. When i't is the self that needs help, "self-help" is a con-tradiction in terms. Genuine help must be imported. We rely on each other and we rely on God. In order to let go of our worries that our failures will be someh6w held against us, we rely on the fact that we are loved. Being in love gives courage to responsibility, realism to reason, insight to intelligence, and acumen to attention. Ju~-August199y 527 Dunne ¯ The Enneagram The work of making all this real for oneself is long and hard. It might go something like this: Suppose I typically play the Sensitive Artist, envious of the personas of others and absorbing my injuries in quiet melancholy. I should first keep a diary to log the times I notice my compulsion at work, in order to grow in the habit of noticing, t~nderstanding~ and gradually realizing how precisely my frustrated desire to be a notable person works. (Naranjo suggests that this work on autobiography may take three or four months.) ~7 At the same time, as I grow in self-realization, I should grow in self-responsibility. When I hear the inner voice saying "Be sensitive, be like so-and-so," I should say "Shut up!" and then bend an ear to the quieter voices of authenticity whis-pering, "Just be attentive, intelligent, reasonable, responsible, and in love. Being that is a quite good enough way to be your best." Then, alongside the inner work of self-reflection, I should let myself connect with others. Although Naranjo believes that his book can help a person avoid high-minded and patronizing therapists, I find it hard to imagine people really benefiting from it unless they talk about this inner work with others. Being con-nected to others means obeying the transcendental precept to Be in love. That means letting my love for others be the light that revdals what is truly worth doing, rather than mere consistency or some private ethical principle. Because genuine love heals irre-sponsibility, silliness, stupidity, and inattention, the test of genuine love will be just that: Does it make me more responsible, more ready to face truth, more functionally intelligent, more on the lookout for what really counts? If it does not, it is not love. The inner work also means letting myself be loved. For most of us, with our distorted self-images, this means facing the fact that despite our faults, despite the injuries we have caused others, the person who claims to love us is telling the truth. It means dropping the flimsy defense that "you don't really know me" and admitting that the point is not whether we are fully known, but whether we are appreciated and valued for ourselves. It means realizing that we will never be perfect, that we do not need to expend that much energy defending ourselves, that we do not even need to "fix" ourselves through diligent self-therapy. Unless we rely on God and other people for forgiveness, tolerance, and patience, no pathology or self-help therapy will work. This is only an example of finding our way home. Different people will find different paths. But at least knowing what being 528 Review.for Religious human is about shows us what our home looks like. Gradually-- never fully being, but always becoming, human--we will have returned. We can come in and go out as we please. We will have found our home's key: the house is no longer dark. Notes ~ Enneagram, coined from Greek, means "ninefold marking." 2 Capital means that the sins are principal or "head" (capita) sins from which people's other sins flow. Althofigh the enneagram seems to have arisen independently of the Christian tradition, seven of its compulsions match the seven capital sins. The remaining two are bogus morality (Accuser) and bogus success (Status Seeker). 3 No two authors agree on these generic names, but there is general agreement about the descriptions of each type~ Devotees often refer just to the number, as in "She's a raving Two!" (a Helper). 4 See C.G. Jung, Paychological Types (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1926), chap. 10. Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine C. Briggs, developed the fourth pair of preferences, judging and perceiv-ing, based on further observations made byJung. Note that they realize that its usefulness applies mainly to the young. See Isabel Briggs Myers, Introduction to Type (Gainesville, Florida: Center for Publications' of Psychological Types, 1962), p. 8. s The works on which I have based my remarks are: Maria Beesing et al., The Enneagram: A Journey of Self Discovery (Denville: Dimension Books, 1984); Kathleen Hurley and Theodore Dobson, What's My Type? Use the Enneagram and My Best Self (HarperSanFrancisco, 1991 and 1993); Claudio Naranjo, Ennea-Type Structures: Self-Analysis for the Seeker and Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View (Nevada City: Gateways, 1990 and 1994); Helen Pahner, The Enneagram (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988); Don Richard Riso, Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). I have also relied on various notes taken by students participating in workshops given by Naranjo and others who derive the substance of their doctrine from him. 6 An exception'is Hurley and Dobson, My Best Self, identifying two distinct compulsions in both the Status Seeker and the Accuser, making a total of eleven compulsions. In .any case, there are no enneagram the-orists I know of who have dealt with the fundamental problem of how to set a limit to types. If there is such a limit, then the types will have to be defined by a set of psychological conditions that are limited and verifiable. For example, Karen Horney's division of three reactions to conflict (against people, toward people, away from people) might be matched against three I-world comparisons (bigger than, equal to, smaller than) to generate exactly nine types. Or against the trio Denial, Overconfidence, Underconfidence. The trio Ignorance, Craving, and Fear seems to under-lie Naranjo's thinking. There are many possibilities. This kind of work will 3~ly-August 1995 529 Dunne ¯ The Enneagram be necessary if the professional psychological community is ever to give credence to the theory and, more to the point, if the theory is ever to be shown to explain the actual range of human compulsions. 7 Gurdjieff, the teacher of this model of personality, claims to have discovered the enneagram in the Sufi tradition, but there is little evi-dence in Sufism of any of the heavy interpretative overlay that it now carries. Gurdjieff's confidence in the diagram seems based on numerol-ogy rather than experiment, and he expected that the diagram could rep-resent any human or natural process. 8 Diagnostic and Stat#tical Manual of Mental Disorders III (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1987). 0 9 See Albert Ellis, Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1963), chap. 3, "Irrational Ideas Which Cause and Sustain Emotional Disturbances," pp, 60-88. l0 The reader should note inconsistencies in the enneagram designs. In Naranjo's Character and Neurosis, pp. 199 and 245, and throughout his Ennea-Type Structures, the triangle arrows run clockwise. Everywhere else in Character and Neurosis, they run counterclockwise. tt Naranjo, Ennea-Type Structures, pp. xix-xx, and Character and Neurosis, p 36. Hereafter page references will be to Ennea-Type Structures, with corresponding references to Character and Neurosis in italics. ~2 See pp. 30/61 and 63/219. He also describes ontic obscuration as: "obscuration . . . of the natural, original, and truest support for one's sense of personal value" (45/196); "the universal pain of fallen con-sciousness, beyond type-bound characteristics" (45/196); "lack of ground-ingin being" (107/197); and "loss of wholeness and sense of being" (138/150). o 13 Walter Burghardt SJ notes that John Courtney Murray relies on this distinction to clarify how weak the old Catholic reliance on dogma-tism really was. See "The Richness of a Resource," in A Spirituality for Contemporary Life, ed. David L. Fleming SJ (St. Louis: Review for Religious, 1991). Murray may well have relied on Lonergan's Insight (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958) for this notion (for which, see real in its index). 14 See Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), pp. 53, 55, and passim. I have developed these notions more at length in Lonergan and Spirituality (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985) and Spiritual Mentoring (HarperSanFrancisco, 199 I). Is Naranjo, pp. 47/197, 92/94, and 125/173. 16 These powers are traditionally called faith, charity, and hope. I have avoided the traditional terms in an effort to avoid conceptualism and to make clear how religious love heals the injured psyche. 17 Naranjo, p. 158/275. 530 Review for Religious MARY WINIFRED Imaging Spiritual Direction Ipn spite of a plethora of spiritual direction programs pur-orting to train those who would be spirithal directors, it remains a fact that gifts of direction are just that--gifts, not learned skills. Spiritual direction involves listening and hearing, discernment, clarity of vision, and assistance in the development of a relationship between an 'individual and God. While learned skills may assist a spiritual director, it is only deep sensitivity devel-oped through years of personal prayer that enables true spiritual direction. It is often easier to say what spiritual direction is not, than to describe what it is. For example, spiritual direction is not psychotherapy; it is not life skills taught by a social worker; it is not catechistic training for specific church membership. " In a pamphlet entitled Spiritual Direction, Henri Nouwen says: "It is of great value to submit our prayer life from time to time to the supervision of a spiritual guide. A spiritual director in this strict sense is not a counselor, a therapist, or an analyst, but a mature fellow Christian to whom we choose to be accountable for our spiritual life and from whom we can expect prayerful guid-ance in our constant struggle to discern God's active presence in our lives, A spiritual director can be called 'soul friend' (Kenneth I2eech) or a" 'spiritual friend' (Tilden Edwards). It is important that he or she practice the disciplines of the Church and the Book and thus become familiar with.the space in which we try to listen to God's voice. The way we relate to our spiritual director depends very much on our needs, our personalities, and external circum-stances. Some people may want to see their spiritual director Mary Winifred CtlS is the Sister-in-Charge of St. Cuthbert's Retreat House; Federal Hill Road; Brewster, New York 10509. ¯ July-August 199Y S31 Winifred ¯ Imaging Spiritual Direction biweekly or monthly, others will find it sufficient to be in touch only when the occasion asks for it. Some people may feel the need for a more extensive sharing with their spiritual director, while others will find seeing him or her once in a while for a few short moments to be sufficient. It is essential that one Christian helps another Christian to enter without fear into the presence of God and there to discern God's call" (8-9). Because the singular aim of spiritual direction is to assist in growth toward God, there are no set guidelines, no conventional measuring sticks, no right or wrong answers, and no concretely attainable goals. While training in prayer and meditation may certainly make one a more articulate spiritual director, neverthe-less spiritual direction remains a vocation unfettered by rules and regulations, by industry standards, or by a financial fee scale. Most spiritual directees practice St. Paul's suggestion in the Letter to the Galatians, "Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher" (6:6), by making some gift to their directors: homemade bread, flowers from the garden, a book or tape, or some other item; money does not usually enter into a spiritual direction agreement, nor should it. Unlike therapy or counseling, which are professional relationships between a ther-apist or counselor and a client, spiritual direction is a relation-ship of charity and generosity between fellow Christians. Spiritual gifts cannot be purchased; they are not for sale. Three images of the spiritual life may help to indicate ways in which the presence of a director (or mentor or soul friend) may effectively aid us in our growth Godwards. The first image, offered by Thomas H. Green, is :that of a marketplace. The marketplace--or, as Green also labels it, the ldtchen!--is the part of our lives that encompasses a multitude of small, necessary, sometimes tedious tasks which can seem to draw us away from the richness and quiet of our interior lives. "Frequently," Green says, "the demands and frustrations of the apostolate, or of raising a family and earning a living, seem to be merely obstacles to a genuine and deep prayer life. But if I am right in explaining the way the Lord works through these exter-nal activities and events, then we should see them quite differ-ently. Far from being obstacles to our interior growth, they become for us the very sandpaper of our sanctification, at least as important to our growth as what happens in the solitude of for-mal prayer" (121). 532 Review for Religious These are not particularly comfortable thoughts, especially for those of~us who would like to discover a large block of unin-terrupted quiet. Often it is only with the help of a wise spiritual director that we can begin to uncover and acknowledge the wealth of spiritual graces hidden in our routine daily tasks and to see opportunities in what have earlier appeared to be only obstacles. Another, who listens with detached concern, will not only listen to the occasional frustration, tiredness, or boredom in our every-day tasks, but will also hear the voice of God calling to us from what may, on the surface, seem to be 'merely dull routine. As surely as God works in this world, God is also available to us in our work, however .tedious and distracting our marketplace--or kitchen--may feel at times. Another ancient and popular image for the spiritual life is that of a journey or pilgrimage. John Gorsuch describes such a spiri-tual journey as a moving out from a place of assumed comfort, beckoned on by God into the unknown. The image of a journey is particularly apt if considered in its various stages: there is a beginning, with its preparations and planning; the travel itself; and the goal of the journey. In the early stages of beginning a journey, there may be excitement and feverish planning--a guide is helpful here in focusing our attention and helping us to leave behind our unnecessary baggage. I once watched my sister prepar-ing for a backpacking trip: with the advice of an experienced back-packer friend, she was encouraged to take only the essential objects, leaving her backpack light enough to carry and yet stocked with exactly what she would need. But traveling, no matter how well it is planned and prepared, is nevertheless an adventure into the unknown. Often we must stop to ask for directions or other help. In traveling this may be as simple as "Yes, you're on the right road" or "Two more blocks Because the singular aim of spiritual direction is to assist in growth toward God, there are no set guidelines, no conventional measuring sticks, no right or wrong answers, and no concretely attainable goals. July-August 199Y 533 Winifred ¯ Imaging Spiritual Direction and then turn left"; on a spiritual journey, as simple as "Keep lis-tening in your prayer" or "Look in the mirror every morning: you will see a person God loves profoundly." If we are fortunate enough to have a good and reliable guide or director, we are soon back on track. At times, too, the journey's route may seem long and wearisome--turning aside or even giving up altogether may look like the most positive option. Then a wise mentor's word of encouragement may challenge and enliven us to continue with new energy and zeal. And then there is the goal to our journey. Sometimes we are so caught up in the travel itself that we lose sight of the goal. A friend and I once planned to spend a restful week together; iron-ically, we also planned too many sight-seeing activities, with the result that the true goals of the week--to ,rest and enjoy each other's company--were lost. So, on a spiritual journey, it is easy to be distracted by circumstances and surroundings from our true goal of knowing God. We need a wise and discerning director to help us in maintaining a clarity of vision about our goal. A third image is that of epiphany. Adrian van Kaam, from whom I have borrowed this image, describes an epiphany as the "shining forth of eternity in daily people, in often unnoticed events and things" (8). It is an epiphany that comes through in the openness and vulnerability of spiritual direction. Van Kaam goes on to say: "The risen Lord is our life now. Our life must become a hymn of praise to Jesus rising in us . Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is at hand in each of us. It is already here and now, for we are called to share his resurrection in humanity and history" (65). And surely this is the heart of spiritual direction, that one Christian shares freely with another a word of help, a message of encouragement, a glimpse of eternity. Bibliography Gorsuch, John R An Invitation to the Spiritual Journey. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990. Green, Thomas H. Darkness in the Marketplace. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1981. Nouwen, Henri. Spiritual Direction. Cincinnati: Forward Movement Publications, 1981. Van Kaam, Adrian. The Music of Eternity. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1990, 534 Review for Religious MARY C. SULLIVAN The Brazier That Is My God: Teresa on True Prayer's Dispositions, Gifts, and Signs It is 2 June 1577. Teresa of Avila is, in effect, under house arrest in the convent of the Discalced Carmelites in Toledo, Spain--a community she founded in 1569.1 She has been on the road for almost ten years, establishing reformed monasteries of Carmelite women and even of Carmelite men committed to the poverty, silence, soli-tude, penance, prayer, and detachment she believes are envisioned in the primitive Rule. But now for the last year she has been ordered to remain in one of her convents (she chooses Toledo) because of political tensions between the Calced and Discalced Carmelites. She is regarded by the Calced as a ringleader who must be kept out of cir-culation. To add to her isolation, on 18 June 1577 the papal nuncio Nicol~is Ormaneto, who has been friendly to the reform, will die, and his successor, Felipe Sega, will come to Spain in August already prejudiced against Teresa and her work. He will later call her "a. restless gadabout woman, disobedient and stubborn, who under the cloak of devotion invented wicked opinions, going about breaking enclosure, contrary to the decree of the Council of Trent and the orders of her superiors, teaching as if she were a doctor, in contempt of the teaching of St. Paul, who com-manded women not to teach."2 Mary C. Sullivan RSM works in the College of Liberal Arts of Rochester Institute of Technology. She may be addressed at Sisters of Mercy; 18 Upton Park; Rochester, New York 14607. heritage j~uly-August 1995 535 Sullivan ¯ The Brazier That Is My God Prologue But now, in early June 1577, during her enforced reclusion, Teresa is in Toledo, writing a book on prayer at the request of her confessor, Jer6nimo Gracifin, a Discalced priest. By the end of July, after one month of work on Las Moradas (The Interior Castle, or The Dwelling Places3), she will be recalled to Avila, where against her own desire she has again been elected prioress of Incarnation, the Carmelite convent she entered as a young woman and from which in 1562 she will found San Jos4, the first convent of the Reform, across town in Avila. But the Carmelite authorities do not want Teresa to be the prioress of Incarnation. They will call for a second vote, and when fifty-four sisters at Incarnation persist in electing Teresa, these sisters will be ex-communicated and denied the sacraments. On 3 December of this same year, John of the Cross, the confessor and spiritual director at Incarnation, will be abducted from Avila at night by Calced friars and taken to the windowless closet cell in the Toledo monastery of the Calced Carmelites where he will remain impris-oned for six months. Simultaneous with all this, the modern form of the Spanish Inquisition is in full swing in Seville, having been operating as a powerful ecclesiastical tribunal for almost a hundred years. The manuscript of Teresa's Life has been in the Inquisition's possession for two years, after being denounced to it by the dis-appointed and vindictive Princess of Eboli.4 In the midst of all this difficulty, most of which deeply dis-tressed her, in the six-month period from 2 June to 29 November 1577 (which will actually amount to only two months of writing time), Teresa will start and complete her masterwork, The Dwelling Places, the treatise on prayer and virtue which more than any other of her writings led Pope Paul VI in 1970 to declare her a doctor of the universal church. Not once in this volume does Teresa refer explicitly to the external affairs which weigh so heavily on her mind and heart, though her letters of this period amply demon-strate her concern, and dismay. Rather, in this magnificent book about a human person's gradually increasing communion with the God dwelling within her, Teresa speaks about the prayer of per-sonal conversion, the prayer of reordering and reordered charity within the human heart. And so The Dwelling Places is a book which may contribute immeasurably to the present-day conversion of the church, of religious life, and of the hearts of individual Christian women and men. 536 Review for Reli

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

Issue 48.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1989. ; R F.vu-'.w FOR RF.uG~OUS (ISSN O034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. l_x~uis University by thc Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus: Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Blvd., Rm. 428: St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: $12.00 per year: $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail. add U.S. $5.00 per year: for airmail, add U.S. $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REviEw FO~ REt.~GOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to REVtEW ~'oa RE~ol~;totJS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors Jan./Feb. 1989 Volume 48 Number I Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS; 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 94709-1193. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~:vtEw r'oa REU~aOUS; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M! 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. Review for Religious Volume 48, 1989 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindeil Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors R~:vIEw FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the twentieth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book t~e te~I Index. A microfilm edition of R~:v~Ew FOR RELIGOUS is available from University~ Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyrighl© 1989 by R~vmw FOR RELiGiOUS. A major portion of each issue of REvmw FOR RgL~G~OUS is als~o regu-larly available on cassette recordings as a service for the visuallyl' im-paired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 1 O010. PRISMS . Religious life today presents a varied landscape of images. Some would see the landscape more in the fading light of autumn colors or, perhaps, far more somberly in the gray bleakness of a barren wintertime. Others look out and observe a springtime of new growth, with tender fresh green shoots and small delicate blossoms just visible above the ground level. All the various ways we have of picturing religious life have some basis in reality. For there are various prisms through which we view all life, including religious life. Prisms are very important because they do provide a way for us to see, to highlight and to emphasize, to reject and to ignore. As others share their prisms of vision with us, we gain en-trance to worlds of different colors and new life. Of course, if we main-tain our vision only through our own prism, our world begins to take on a singleness of color and a frozen artificiality of life. REVIEW FOR REL~C~OUS, from its first January issue in 1942, has tried to provide various prisms through which we might view the whole worldscape which must be a part of a vibrant Christian spiritual life and so necessarily a part of religious life. As newly appointed editor of this journal, I intend the variety of insights into the consecrated lifeform, tra-ditionally called religious life, to remain an essential contribution of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. This contribution seems all the more necessary at our particular moment in the Church when often more time is spent in defining and establishing one's own position than in listening or learn-ing of another's. I do not want to wear out an image, but there is another important pointer for us in the kaleidos6ope. The prisms of a kaleidoscope only pro-duce their beauty because of their relationships, one to another. I find that the prisms through which we view life only present us with adequate truth, new life, and fresh ways ofacting if we maintain the relationship of various viewpoints. That is the great strength of the Church who pos-sesses various pictures of Jesus in her gospels, who allows differing phi-losophies and theologies to provide understanding to her faith, and who approves the charisms of vastly differing forms of religious life to be le-gitimate icons of Christ for all the Christian faithful and for the world. It is in the maintenance of relationship that we possess the criteria of le-gitimacy, continuity, and true creativity. 4 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 In our current issue, the usual variety of articles gives indication of the richness of interests which help form the context of religious life. In subsequent numbers I intend to take the opportunity to highlight one or other article because of the importance of its issue or the insight or un-derstanding it provides. Sometimes I would like to reflect more broadly about certain key concerns of religious life as it is being lived in our Churc,h and world today. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in this way will continue to provide prisms as well perspectives on the relationships of the many prisms that make up our religious lives. David L. Fleming, S.J. What Do You Want?m The Role of Desires in Prayer William A. Barry, S.J. A frequent contributor, Father Barry wrote "God's Love Is Not Utilitarian" for our issue of November/December 1987. His address is Jesuit Community: Boston Col-lege; Chestnut Hill, MA 02167. know: you're going to ask what I want. "As I was driving up to the retreat house, I thought of your perennial question: 'What do you want?' and here's what l~came up with." I have often noticed that peo-ple who see me for some time for spiritual direction or directed retreats say things like this. It even becomes a bit of humorous byplay, as though they want to beat me to the punch. Clearly, one of my favorite questions for directees is the one Jesus put to the two disciples who began to fol-low him: "What do you want?" (Jn 1:38). If directees pick up on this predilection and start asking themselves the question, then, I believe, a good deal of my work as spiritual director is done. If we know what we want in prayer, we are going to find our way. After a practical belief that God wants an intimate relationship with each one of us and that God is directly encountered in our experience, nothing is more important for the development of our relationship with God-~-for our prayer, in other words--than knowledge of what we want and of what God wants. In this article I want to discuss the role of desires in prayer. Anyone familiar with the Spiritual Exercises knows that among the preludes to every meditation or contemplation is: "I will ask God our Lord for what I want and desire." In the various stages or weeks of the Exercises, Ignatius states what the desire is in each case. For example, in the First Week I "ask for a growing and intense sorrow and tears for my sins," and in the Second Week I "ask .for an intimate knowledge 5 Review for Religious, January-February 1989 of our Lord, who has .become man for me, that I may love him more and follow him more closely." In an earlier article in the R~v~Ew, l tried to show that each of the desires of the Exercises is a desire for some par-ticular revelation by the Lord. ~ On the face of it, it looks as though Ignatius is saying: "Here is what you should desire at each stage of the Spiritual Exercises." One conclu-sion might be to take a person through the four Weeks and just put be-fore him or her what Ignatius gives as the desire. In fact, this has been the procedure in preached retreats, including the preached thirty-day re-treats we older Jesuits and other religious made in novitiate and tertian-ship. But what happened if, as a matter of fact, I did not really desire to know Jesus more intimately when the Second Week was presented to me. Suppose, for example, I was still too afraid of what he thinks of me. In most instan(es, I would guess, we just presumed that we had the de-sire if it was Second Week time. But I would contend that without the real desire we never got very intimate with Jesus. Indeed, I believe that "what we really desire" is diagnostic of the stage of the Exercises we are actually in. To demonstrate this thesis we need to look at the role of desires in any relationship. If you get a call from someone asking for a.meeting, is not your first question, at least to yourself, "What does she or he want?" In fact, many meetings between people come off badly because the individuals involved have mistaken ideas of what each other wants. For example, I want to become your friend, and you believe that I want help with home-work; you want to help me, but are not even thinking of a deeper friend-ship. At the end of the meeting both of us are going to be pretty frus-trated unless we talk about our different desires and come to some understanding. Often enough, too, relationships become frustrating be-cause of ambivalent or incompatible desires in one or both parties. For example, I want to get closer to you, but I am also afraid of you. Or I want a friendship with you (a happily married woman), but I also want to goto bed with you. Every intended encounter with another person is accompanied by a"desire or desires'. We are not always aware of our de-sires, but they are present, and they condition our behavior in the encoun-ter. Now suppose that I want to befriend you and you do not want my: friendship. Will my efforts :at befriending get me or you anywhere? Only to frustration and resentment, probably. But let us say that I persist in trying to do nice things for you. What will happen? You will probably get more and more irritated and thus less and less likely to become my Role of Desires in Prayer friend. And like many a "do-gooder" whose good deeds are rejected, I may eventually wash my hands of you and call you an ingrate who de-serves his fate. Friendship is possible only when the desires are mutual, when you freely desire my friendship and I freely desire yours. Friend-ship cannot be coerced. "But," someone may object, "we often do things that we don't want to do. Because of my friendship for you, for example, I will go to a movie I don't like." But what do you want? If it is because of friend-ship with me that you go to the movie, is not your deepest desire to please me or to be with me? The friendship is more important than the movie. I believe that the centrality of desire for the developing of a rela-tionship cannot be denied. Now let us look at the importance of desires for the relationship with the Lord. In the first chapter of John's gospel, the two disciples of John are intrigued by this Jesus whom John has just pointed out as the lamb of God. So they start following Jesus. When Jesus asks them what they want, they say, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" They do not yet have strong desires, it seems; curiosity seems to be the desire. Jesus does not disdain this desire. "Come," he replies, "and you will see." Unless we have some attraction toward God, some curiosity or hope or desire, we will not take the time to begin our side of the relationship. If I be-lieve in my heart and feelings that God is an ogre, ready to pounce on any infraction, then I may try to placate him, but I will never want to get close to him. And God, as it were, does handstands.to convince us that he really is benign, that he is, as Jesus asserted, Abba. The p.rofli-gate wonders of nature, our own creation and life, the words of Old and New Testaments, Jesus himself, and other loving, caring people in our lives--these are all signg of God's desire that we find him attractive and let him come close. But he cannot force himself on us, or will not. We must have some desire to get to know him better. Sebastian Moore af-firms that God's creative touch which desires us into being arouses in us a desire for "I know what," that is, a desire for the Mystery we call God.2 This experience (understood as the experience of one's creation and continued creation) can be seen as the affective principle and foun-dation for the development ofone's relationship with God. The desire for "I know what" is what makes' our hearts restless until they rest in God. Many people need help to recognize that they have such a desire. Be-cause of life's hurts they may not recognize any other desire but to be left alone, or not to be hurt any more. Telling such people that God is Review for Religious, January-February 1989 love has little or no effect. They may need help to admit to God that they are afraid of, him and desire to be less afraid. Indeed, they may need help to voice some of their anger at life's hurts which seem to them to have come from the Author of life. The fact that they have not completely turned away from religion indicates that they may still want something from God, even if only an acknowledgment that he knows what hap-pened to them in life. Like Job some may cry out: "Then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Though I c~'y, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice." Only after he has poured out his sorrows, seemingly, can he say: "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth" (Jb ! 9:6-7.25). In other words, it may take a great deal of pas-toral care and patient spiritual direction for some people to come to the point where they can trust life and the Author of life enough to let into their consciousness the desire for "'I know what.'" Job's friends have tried to derail him from expressing his desires to God: In his misery he wants God to speak to him. He will not lie and say, as his friends insinuate,, that he deserves his calamities because of his sins. Hewill not accept the just-world hypothesis proposed by his friends according to which anyone's sufferings must be deserved. No, he knows~that he does not deserve the awful fate that has befallen him and desires to speak directly .to God and to hear God's answer. Often enough we Christians are like the friends of Job. To a mother who has just.lost her only child we might say, "God knows best." and thus make it difficult for her to voice her outrage at God and her need for God's own answer to this awful loss. Sometimes we feel that we have to de-fend God against the anger directed at him by people in pain. Yet the anger may be the most authentic way for a person to relate ~o God and to ex.press a desire to know God's response. Finally in chapters 38 through 41 God does answer Job out of the whirlwind. The response may not sound very comforting or apologetic to _us, but apparently Job is satisfied, for he says: "My ears had heard of you but.now, my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in ~du.s.t and ashes." Moreover, then God speaks to Job's friends, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because yQu have not spo-ken of me what is~right, as my servant Job has" (Jb 42:5-7). Whatever else God's speech from the whirlwind means, it certainly does not mean that Jg~bohas lost God's friendship by voicing so strongly his desire to have God answer him. Another biblical instance of an attempt to derail a desire directed to- Role of Desires in Prayer ward God comes in the first chapter of the First Book of Samuel. Han-nah, one of the two wives of Elkanah, is barren and miserable. She wants a son. Her husband, seeing her weeping and fasting, says to her, "Han-nah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you down-hearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?" In other words, Elka-nah wants Hannah to forget her desire and be satisfied with what she has. In the story we do not hear Hannah's reply, but her actions tell us that she is not put off by Elkanah's entreaties. She goes to the temple and "in bitterness of soul., wept much and prayed to the Lord." Indeed, when accused of drunkenness by Eli, the priest, she says, "Not so, my lord, I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord." Hannah knows what she wants and is not afraid to tell God over and over what it is (I S 1:8, 10, 15). Often we tell ourselves or are told to quell our desires, to look at all the good we already have. We can be made to feel guilty and ungrateful for desiring what we want. But if we do suppress our desires without be-ing satisfied that God has heard us, then, in effect, we pull back from honesty with God. The result for our relationship with God often is po-lite distance or cool civility. Perhaps God cannot or will not grant what we want, but for the sake of the continued development of the relation-ship we need to keep letting him know our real desires until we are sat-isfi~ d or have heard or felt some response. In 2 Cbrinthians Paul says, "There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to tor-ment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' " Now Paul could stop making known his desire because now he knew God's answer. "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. :For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Co 12:7-10). Convictions such as Paul's come not from theological or spiritual nos-trums, but from the experienc~ of growing transparency between a Paul and the Lord. Too often we use the hard-won wisdom of a Paul to short-circuit a similar transparency in our own relationship with the Lord. A woman may, for example, be experiencing the "dark night of the soul" and not like it at all. Her desire may be for it to be removed. She may be helped by the knowledge that others have experienced the same thing before her and been the better for it, but such knowledge does not have to satisfy her desire to be rid of the "dark night." A short circuit in the Review for Religious, January-February 1989 relationship might occur if she is told by her spiritual director or tells her-self to squelch her desire "because the experience is good for you." What she needs to experience is God's response, not a theorem of spiri-tual theology. She needs to know (really, not notionally) that God does want this darkness for the good of their relationship. Such real knowl-edge comes only through mutual transparency. Most of the healing miracles of the New Testament depend on the desire of the recipient for healing.The example of the blind beggar Bar-timaeus (Mk 10:46-52) stands out, but is not unusual. "When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.' Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' " Obviously Bartimaeus will not be hindered from expressing his desire by any num-ber of voices trying to quiet him. These "voices" can come from within us as well as from without, by the way. "Jesus won't have time for the likes of me; other people have more important problems; things aren't so bad." These interior voices may be expressing our ambivalence about being healed. Just as Bartimaeus had made a way of life out of his blindness, so too we may have made our own physical or psychological or sPiritual limitations a way of life and be afraid of what a future without them might be. One person on a retreat thought that he desired healing from a kind of dark-ness that seemed to rule his life. But then he heard the Lord ask, "Do you want me to heal you of this?" and he had to admit that he was not sure. Interestingly, he felt that God approved the honesty of his response. The inner voices may also express our fear of arousing strong desires for healing only to have them dashed. "Suppose I really want to be healed and I hear the answer Paul got? What a disappointment!''3 Desires are complex and often contradictory. However, once we have allowed the ambivalence and complexity of our desires to surface, we have some-thing else to ask the Lord about. In the Bartimaeus story Jesus calls him over and asks, "What do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus is quite clear and unambi-valent, "Rabbi, I want to see." "Go," says Jesus, "your faith has healed you." I have italicized Jesus' words. Without the faith of Barti-maeus, apparently, this miracle could not have occurred. The miracle re-quires a. partnership between Jesus' healing power and desire to heal and Bartimaeus' faith and desire to be healed. Indeed, Bartimaeus' desire is his faith in action. An example may help to illustrate this point. Once I was filled with Role of Desires in Prayer anger and self-pity about the turn a friendship had taken and thought that I was praying for healing. I was contemplating the story of the two blind men in Matthew 9:27-30. When Jesus asked them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" I knew immediately that I was not ready to give up my self-pity and anger. If I did desire healing, it was with the same "but not yet" desire with which Augustine at one time desired chastity. I did not have the "faith" found in the two blind men and in Barti-maeus, a faith that showed itself in unambivalent desire. Another exam-ple that shows how desire is faith in action is provided by the father of the boy with the evil spirit reported in Mark 9: 14-29. Instead of asking directly for a healing, the father said to Jesus, "But if you can do any-thing, take pity on us and help us." Because he did not believe in Jesus' power to heal, he could not desire the hea!ing directly. "If you can?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." To which the father replied, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief." In effect the man is saying, "Help me to desire healing." This last example brings us close to the hub of why desires are the raw material out of which relationships are made. In order for the heal-ing to occur, there must be a meshing of desires. Bartimaeus's desire for healing meets Jesus' desire to heal; without both desires there is no rela-tionship, at least no mutual relationship. This point is beautifully illus-trated in the story of the leper. "A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, 'If you are. willing, you can make me clean.' Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. 'I am willing,' he said. 'Be clean!' Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured" (Mk 1:40-42). Clearly desire meets desire. The kind of relationship Jesus desires is a mutual one', where desire meets desire. The need for a partnership of.desires becomes even clearer when we look at friendship. In John 15:15 Jesus says, "I have called you friends," and then goes on to indicate what that means from his side, "for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." From his side the desire has been to be fully transparent, to com-municate to them all that he is. His desire meets their desire to know him as fully as possible. Of course, full mutuality of friendship means that they desire to be fully transparent before him and he desires to know them fully. Take away one side of these desires and there no longer is a mutual relationship. Of course, on the apostles' part (and on ours) the mere desire for mu-tual transparency does not carry it off. "Between the cup and the lip . " Our desires are ambivalent and complex; we are fearful crea- 12 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 tures, as well, and our fears get in the way of what we most deeply want. We need help and healing to grow toward mutual transparency with the Lord. But that help is available if we want it. If we notice, for example,, that we want to know Jesus better, but are afraid of the consequences, we can ask Jesus for help to overcome our fears. But again we notice that desire is the key to developing the relationship. The retreatant mentioned earlier who told God that he was not sure that he wanted healing of the darkness that ruled his life provides another example of the reciprocity of relationships. Later in the same day he be-came more sure that he wanted healing and asked the Lord to heal him. The Lord's response was perplexing; "I can't," he seemed to say. The retreatant was enraged at such a response when his own reluctance had been overcome, and he let God know in no uncertain terms. Yet still later in the day, out of the blue, as it were~ he heard the Lord say, "But we can." He knew immediately that the Lord meant that he could live more out of joy than sadness if he kept desiring the Lord's helpful presence rather 'than withdrawing into himself. "We can" meant partnership. At the beginning of this article, I stated that the real desires a person has are diagnostic of where the person is in terms of the four Weeks of the Exercises. Let me now return to that point. If retreatants do not have a real trust in God's loving care and providence, they will not desire that God reveal to them their sinfulness. Without an experienced-based be-lief in God's goodness and 16ve, without, in other words, what I have called earlier an affective principle and foundation, people are too fright-ened of God to be able to say and mean the last words of Psalm 139: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (23-24). If there is no such real desire, then the First Week of the Exercises is not on. And, it seems, at this point God's desire is not so much to reveal sinfulness as to convince the person that he is "Abba." Similarly, if a retreatant voices the desire to know Jesus in or-der love him more and to follow him more closely, yet in his prayer con-tinually identifies with those who need healing, perhaps his real desire is to be healed. The desire of the Second Week to know Jesus shows it-self in an interest in Jesus himself, his values, his emotions, his dreams, his apostolate. If the retreatant is not really interested in these matters, but continually focuses on his own needs and weaknesses, then the Sec-ond Week is not. really in progress. Jesus himself may at this time desire more to heal than to call to companionship. The difference between the First and Third Weeks also comes down to a difference in desire. In the Role of Desires in Prayer First Week I desire to know that Jesus forgives me (and us), that he died for my (and our) sins; the focus is on desiring to have a deep experience of how much Jesus loved us even though he knew how sinful we were. The desire of the Third Week is more to share the passion with Jesus in-sofar as this is possible. The focus is on what Jesus felt and suffered, and the desire is that he reveal that to me. Retreat directors, I believe, do their most important work when they help their directees to discover what they do in reality want. And so every retreat could begin with a con-templation of Jesus as he turns and says, "What do you want?" As re-treatants hear these words and let them penetrate their hearts, they will come to know better what they desire; in other words, they will know better who they are at this time in their relationship with the Lord. NOTES ~ "On Asking God to Reveal Himself in Retreat," REVIEW FOR REI.IOWOUS 37 (1978): 171-176; reprinted in David L. Fleming (ed.), Notes on the Spiritual Exercises of St. ignatius of Loyola (St. Louis: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 1983), pp. 72-77. 2 Sebastian Moore, Let This Mind Be in You: The Quest for Identity Through Oedi-pus to Christ (Minneapolis: Winston-Seabury, 1985). 3 In another context I have discussed the courage of Bartimaeus. See "Surrender: Key To Wholeness," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 46 1987): 49-53. Perspectives on Parables and Prayer Donald Macdonald, S.M.M. Father Macdonald's most recent contribution to our journal was "A Pathway to God" (May/June 1988). His address continues to be: St. Joseph's; Wellington Road; Todmorden, Lancashire; 0L14 5HP England. A sister said that her annual retreat was less than satisfying because "the priest, who shall be nameless, seemed to spend a fair bit of time telling us how good he was. I nearly offered him a trumpet." My response was and is to wish that he could come for my annual retreat, if only to exer-cise my sense of humor, even though, as I suspect, he may be speaking tongue in cheek. If not, so much the better! This is not meant to be flip-pant, for it seems to me in recent years that retreats and such like are becoming more technical, esoteric, and managed. So often there has to be a title with content specified, ra~nging from privately directed to Bet- .ter World and charismatic, by way of the Spiritual Exercises, Inigo, Sadhana, Progoff, Zen, Yoga, and so much else; it seems a prudent step, therefore, to first inquire before one enters. The seeker for silence and stillness, for example, is likely to find an all-action organized retreat not a little off-putting. But it all seems so terribly earnest, with little humor. A retreat is undeniably important when seen as a chance for inspira-tion, encouragement, and vision, particularly if the opportunity comes only once a year. It is important that the Gospel is preached; arguably, over the years, some vocations may have gone by default, even among those who die as religious, inasmuch as the Good News, as the New Tes-tament would understand it, might not have been heard. It is sometimes asking much of a preacher during a retreat to try and shore up a creaking building on the verge of collapse when the day-by-day support has not been given. But what seems to happen today is a grasping for technique 14 On Parables and Prayer which is expected to provide the key to the Gospel. The search for the philosopher's stone is endemic. This, of course, may not be quite fair to someone who senses per-haps that "Thou [God] hast made us for thyself and our hearts are rest-less till they rest in thee" (Confessions 1:1).~ But expectation is not God, nor is disappointment nor, indeed, sat-isfaction. To set one's all on technique or the competence of the preacher or the receptivity of the audience is to risk losing everything. Humor will spare us that and much else. The late John Main, O.S.B., told a friend, a Ramakrishnan monk, who had asked him how he proposed to teach meditation, "Sit down, sit erect, say the mantra, and that's it.''2 His friend said that such an approach would never work with Westerners. It is so simple they will not believe you. His advice was to deliberately com-plicate it, saying you have esoteric knowledge which you can give only after they have been coming for at least ten weeks. Only then can t.hey be initiated. Throw in the name John Cassian for good measure. That should attract them. This raises a smile, as it is so close to reality as some of us observe it. A Greek Orthodox priest spoke similarly of students coming to his monastery asking to be initiated into the Jesus Prayer. "Say it." "But. ? . No, just say it." As you advance you need guidance. It is all rather deflating, for someone seeking the heights, to be told to begin at the beginning. It will be recalled that Peter L. Berger identified humor as one of his "signals of transcendence," a marvelous way out from all which might tend to dominate and frighten us in a seemingly locked-in world. It is crucial for perspective. "Laughter can show that power is ultimately' an illusion because it canno( transcend the limits of the empirical world. Laughter can--and does every time it relativizes the seemingly rocklike necessities of this world.''3 There is such a thing as gallows humor. Laughter can be a link with the divine and all that is, not just all that is here. How could a preacher or a community ever take themselves wholly seriously again after hearing this little story about a retreat director? He impressed a community as an obviously saintly man. His reputation grew as the week progressed--until he asked for meat on Friday. No saint would ever do that! On such are reputations built and lost. Favorite humorous authors such as P. G. Wodehouse or James Thurber can provide permanent links to God and reality. Once in their friendly and familiar company, we find space to simply relax and enjoy ourselves. We smile at Walter Mitty as we see ourselves in him. Our prob- 16 / Review for Religious,'January-February 1989 lems lessen in the face of what some of the Wodehouse characters have to meet. A Sergeant Bilko on black-and-white television can do as much. Holding on to the relative like this may help us see that there is always another chance--and if the Go.spei is to be believed, the time is now. I am far from underplaying the need for a properly prepared retreat or suggesting that one can laugh off whatever happens. Nor would I dis-count the value of any particular technique or approach. I would but say that everything here is relative and humor can help us see it. Father Enomiya-Lassalle once gave a day's Zen retreat to forty Korean novices, whose reaction was that "Up to now we used to have a scriptural text in our daily meditation to meditate on. Today for the first time we have felt that to meditate is to pray."4 One is grateful;for the sisters' experi. ence, but even if the priest had neve.r set foot in Korea, the providence of God would not have neglected them. Everything then can help, but nothing is essential. When the retreat .disappoints, all need not be lost. This is particularly so for those who know how to interpret their life in terms of Scripture. A fairly comprehensive experience convinces me that few can. If there is one cause of failure both in preacher and audience, it lies in the inability to do that. I would be astonished if novices knew how to do it, and very surprised to find it in the great majority of their senior brothers and sisters. One simple test is to listen for the Gospel when religious speak of what is happening to them and how they see it. The Gospel is the common coin of the Catholic Church, but many use it gingerly like a foreign currency. They do not know its value, or what to do with it. Authentic Sources 'Religious have been authoritatively urged that to genuinely live their calling they should draw "on the authentic sources of Christian spiritu-ality., in the first place they should take the Sacred Scriptures in hand each day" (Perfectae Caritatis, no. 6). Here faith and life are meshed as one. What a Jewish commentator, W. G. Plaut, said of the Torah, the Christian can wholeheartedly endorse for Scripture in its.entirety. "We hold that the Torah is a record of Israel's striving to meet God and un-derstand his will. In centuries of search, of finding and forgetting, of in-spiration and desperation, God touched the soul of his people and the sparks of these meetings burn in the pages of the Torah.' ,5 The "sparks of these meetings" are found in the pages of Scripture, and once prop-erly kindled they produce an enduring, not fitful, flame. In each meet-ing with God, which really means now, the religious by profession would wish his or her mind to be at one with the will of God, faith and life re- On Parables and Prayer flecting the one reality: "That man is Your best servant who is not so much concerned to hear from You what he wills as to will what he hears from You"(Confessions 10:26). That distinction is crucial, and none knew better than Augustine how hard it was to really make the transi-tion. All of us are innately self-centered, easily deceived. It is, then, prac-tical to go to the authentic sources of the Church's tradition, where "in the centuries of search, of finding and forgetting. God touched the soul of his people." Even Augustine intuitively seems to have felt this in his search for God. "I absolutely refused to entrust the care of my sick soul to the philosophers, because they were without the saving name of Christ. and whatever lacked that name, no matter how learned and excellently written and true, could not win me wholly" (Confessions 5: 14; 3:4). So while the attraction for God in Christ and authenticity was there, Augustine could not at first bring himself to find this, least of all in Scripture. He tells us honestly why: "So I resolved to make some study of the Sacred Scriptures and find what kind of books they were . My conceit was repelled by their simplicity, and I had not the mind to penetrate into their depths" (Confessions 3:5). He lacked "sincerity, openness of mind and that fundamental rev-erence which is a willingness to be commanded" which one who went deeper than most saw as minimum requirements before the Bible can do anything for a person.6 It is so hard to change one's mind radically, and that lovely quality of fundamental reverence before Scripture Js rarely found, especially in those who like to do things their own way--which means all of us, but for the grace of God. ~ Augustine was later to envy the Church's faithful whom he had once patronized as ignorant and unlettered. Once he himself had discovered the treasure which they so nonchalantly possessed, how his perspective changed: "Of what great harm to Your little ones was their far slower intelligence: since they strayed not far from You and so could fledge their wings in safety in the nest of Your Church, and nourish the wings of char-ity with the food of solid faith?" (Confessions 4:16). In thus moving from inauthentic to authentic existence as he saw it, he now realized that his "superior" stance was only that of the man with the empty stomach who does not know where to find food, in his case, "the food of solid faith." The search, tension, and struggle are perhaps heroic and the stakes are life or death, but nothing is gained by patronizing those who sit down each day at a full table. He finally knocked at their door and asked to come in and share what they had. Again his perspective changed: "It is with utter certainty that I love You. You have stricken Review for Religious, January-February 1989 my heart with Your word and I have loved You" (Confessions 10:6). It is well known that an appar.ently chance reading of Romans 13 and 14 finally enabled Augustine to see. Now from within the heart of the Church he is convinced that "Thou [God] didn't touch me, and I have burned for thy peace" (Confessions 10:27). This is not notional knowl-edge enabling him to speak to his intellectual peers, but the real insight given him by the word of God from within the Church enabling him to see faith and life as one. The sparks of the earlier meetings with God are now aflame in re-sponse to his word. His life and perspective are transfigured. It is per-haps not without its underlying humor to see this gifted man, with many of the gli~tering prizes within his grasp, now held enthralled by the faith of his mother and her nurse (see Confessions 9:8). He had traveled for miles and years searching for what he had left at home. If religious had this innate feeling of fundamental reverence before Scripture, always subordinating themselves to the word, never dominat-ing it, they might more easily warm to the sparks of the meetings with God in their own daily life, and so find a flame which they could never leave. Even among the trumpet calls of a preacher's self-proclaimed ex-cellence, the word of God isthere if one knows how to listen, but it is unlikely to be heard unless one is habitually doing this. That perspec-tive is all-important. A practical illustration may perhaps make the point. A Treasure Found Parables form much of the Gospel, and few strike a cord with the religious vocation more than "the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Mt 13:44). Taken from life, it is meant to make us think. What is being said here? We under-stand what is being said, of course, but we are meant to assimilate its implications. Its dynamic is as powerful as Christ is real. Insofar as I be-lieve that God in Christ is here speaking to me, I shall respond and so attempt to make the Gospel my own. In fact, that parable, for many, is little more than an interesting analogy. It is a helpful example, an exter-nal, verbal, and indeed visual aid, as useful in the junior school as in the religious community. Precisely because that may not unfairly be de-scribed as the most usual understanding of the parable, the true perspec-tive is little known, and so those words scarcely ever spark into a flame. If that is compared with the approach to parables of T. W. Manson in a fine book first published over fifty years ago and often reprinted, we will find ourselves in another world where the sparks of the meeting On Parables and Prayer between Christ and ourselves can really catch fire. He says: Jesus is not concerned to demonstrate that God exists but rather to show the nature of the God whose existence is common ground for him and his audience. His aim is not to make God an article of faith but the ob-ject of faith. We are often concerned to make God probable to man; .he set out to make God real to them. It is this fact which makes parable the inevitable form in which the teaching of Jesus on the nature and ways of God should be delivered . The true parable., is not an illus-tration to help one through a theological discussion. It belongs to the same order of things as altar and sacrifice and prayer, the prophetic vi-sion and the like . It is a way in which religious faith is attained, and, as far as it can be, transmitted from one person to another. It is not a crutch for limping intellects but a spur to religious insight. Its object is not to provide simple theological instruction but to produce living re-ligious faith.7 This is Scripture seen from the inside. How many readers of this page honestly think like that? If religious habitually think in those terms, it seems to me that they keep it well hidden. Could the average reader echo, from experience, all that Manson sees--parable, the obvious teach-ing medium to make God real . . . a mode of religious experience on the same plane as altar, sacrifice, prayer, and insight., a way in which faith is attained, not a crutch for limping intellects., producing living religious faith? The easiest way to answer such questions is to ask: What did we feel when the parable was first quoted--' 'the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field."? If Manson was articulating what we have long known and felt, the resonances first produced by the par-able will still be there on the level of faith, not necessarily feeling. His comment would then simply buttress what we know to be true. Is our faith like a treasure found? Is this what has brought us to religious life? Is it a superb insight into reality? Is any sacrifice worthwhile to really possess it? What do we give in view of what we ~et? Can this treasure in any sense be found through the medium of an imperfect preacher? Do these words hold us up as they obviously show us up? One has to ask questions and link details together for the purposes of writing, but if the parable is properly assimilated to any degree, it is better to be silent and still and let the image absorb us and lead us where it will. We are then on the level of altar, sacrifice, prayer, and insight, willingly or even grudgingly, in view of the demands, letting ourselves be drawn into God through his Word. Perspectives that we perhaps know notionally are opened up to limitless horizons. Faith, not feeling, is seek- 20 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 ing to really understand. For years we have known the parable by heart. Have our hearts ever got the point and made it our own? Only silence and wonder stemming from fundamental reverence will do that. Fundamental Reverence For some years now virtually all religious communities have the for-mal daily prayer of the Church as their morning and evening prayer. In-variably, individuals or groups are given charge of liturgy and prayer, which generally means that coming to daily prayer one has to first find out what has been rearranged. Pages have to be marked, hymns noted, and alternative readings attended to. The pattern is rarely predictable. All this is done, one hears, because the community wants it, for the ordi-nary daily office is boring and repetitive. This constant adaptation is then seen as a practical attempt to engage the community in really meaning-ful prayer. In view of what has already been said, much of this suggests that those who foster or want this, apart from the risk of choosing only what-ever has personal appeal, may have no real feeling for Scripture, which may be why continual rearrangement is felt to be necessary to hold at-tention. This is, of course, the technique of the junior school, .where the children's attention span is limited and meaning has to be immediate. Yet if one receives~a line, phrase, sentence, or sentiment of Scripture on the level of altar, sacrifice, prayer, or insight, one just cannot keep chang-ing the focus without fragmenting the reality. Even to move, pick up a hymnbook, attend to alternative prayer or reading, or in general to be .never quite sure what is happening next, can be to break concentration. There may be some gain in alertness but, arguably, loss in continu-ity and assimilation. The Psalms and readings from the daily office have not yet been heard for the first time as Augustine, Manson, the Jewish commentator Plaut, and others would understand it, and will never be if one constantly changes the focus of attention in terms of relevance. One is all the time being brought up to the surface, never left long enough to go down to the depths. Ideally, the Psalms and readings could be so predictable that one almost knows them without turning the page. Only then do they have a chance of becoming part of ourselves so that we can truly listen, not just hear. Fundamental reverence would ask no less. But, however well intentioned, when one has to scan the board for the next item on .the agenda of prayer, or wait for the inspiration of a colleague, one is perhaps paying too high a price for spontaneity. The seemingly prosaic parable as a "spur to religious insight" must be in-vited to speak, not ordered to. On Parables and Prayer When Scripture is approached like this in the context of prayer, what one hears matters little. In time, perhaps less and less comes to mean more and more. It has not been and cannot be quite assimilated. Occa-sionally its relevance may be all too clear, as when, on the morning fol-lowing news of the horrific deaths of the seven astronauts in January 1986, one read: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I shall return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken back. Blessed be the name of the Lord. If we take happiness from God's hand, must we not take sorrow too?" (Jb 1:21, 2:10). Even if the words appear as dull as a school textbook, it does not matter. Nor does immediacy or surface mood. On the level of prayer, altar, sacrifice, and insight, it is one's faith responding to God that makes the connection. In time the words will peel away and matter less and less as one is held in faith, just as a smile or wave from a friend has a mean-ing out of all proportion to the action. It is a perspective on reality for which one is grateful. NOTES t The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by F. J. Sheed (London: Sheed and Ward 1944). All references to The Confessions are from here. 2 John Main, O.S.B., "Christian Meditation," The Grail, 1978, p. 19. 3.Peter L. Berger, A Rumor of Angels (Penguin Books, 1971), p. 91. 4 The Tablet, London, January I 1, 1986, pp. 31-32. 5 The Torah, W. G. Plaut and B. J. Bamberger (New York: Union of American He-brew Congregation, 198 I), p. 1294. 6 C. H. Dodd, The Authority of the Bible [1929] (Fontana Paperback, 1962), p. 269. 7 T. W. Manson. The Teaching of Jesus (CUP, 1931; paperback, 1963), pp. 72-73. The Gift of Not Giving Jane Kammer C.S.Bo In our issue of January/February 1983, we published Sister Jane's "Three Times I Asked: Reflections on Weakness." She is a pastoral associate at St. Benedict Church in San Antonio. She may be addressed at 5107 Ozark; San Antonio, Texas 7820 I. So Jesus said to them, 'Well, then, pay to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and pay to God what belongs to God ' (Mt 22:21). "Jesus exclaimed, 'You ask me for a miracle? No! The only mir-acle you will be given is the miracle of the prophet Jonah' " (Mt 12:39). "As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had had the de-mons begged him, 'Let me go with you!' But Jesus would not let him"(Mk 5:18-19). A popular Christian saying and song is "God loves a cheerful giver." Giving has been exalted as a hallmark of Christianity, and so it is. Didn't our leader, Jesus, give his very life to show us God's great love? Giving has also been extolled as the virtue of the ideal Christian woman. For most of her life, my mother gave. She waited on my father; she gave of herself for her children. For all but the last few years of her life, I never heard her say no to anyone who asked a favor. But after she had grieved over my father's death, a change took place in my mother. At sixty-two she learned to drive a car; she went on vacations; she joined groups and clubs; and she began to say no to requests she really did not want to fulfill. She had discovered another dimension of giving. Giving is not always healthy for the giver or for the receiver. It is not true respect when I continually do for another what the person can do for him/herself. I am beginning to learn the gift of not giving. Teilhard de Chardin said, "Your essential duty and desire is to be 22 The Gift of Not Giving united with God. But in order to be united you must first of all be --be yourself as completely as possible. And so you must develop yourself and take possession of the world in order to be. Once this has been ac-complished, then is the time to think about renunciation; then is the time to accept diminishment for the sake of being in another. Such is the sole and twofold precept of complete Christian asceticism" (The Divine Mi-lieu [New York: Harper and Row, 1960], pp. 70-71). I believe that part of developing myself is learning, through practice, the gift of not giving to everyone who seems to ask. If I continually place my focus on others, then I cannot really give myself in love to them, for I do not have a self to give. It is my task to discover and develop the unique person God intends for me to be. I am codependent. To me that means I tend to place my center out-side of myself. I am inclined to seek affirmation and validation from some-one else. I feel safest when giving, not receiving. I am a people pleaser who fears rejection. Taking things personally and blaming myself for whatever seems less than perfect are aspects of my codependence. I have lived with many "shoulds" from the past which I have interiorized. In many ways my life repeats the story of my mother. But it is not too late to refocus my center within myself. I can learn to allow the true "me" to emerge from within. In time I can become a self-validating, self-affirming person whose peace is permanent and whose happiness does not depend on the mood of another. If I stay with myself, I can learn to love and accept myself as I am, even while want-ing to change some things about myself. I can give myself the gift of not giving up on the real, beautiful, and exciting "me." Moreover, I can learn to give the gift to others of responsibility for themselves. By re-fusing to absorb and carry the emotions of others, I will gift them with the faith that they are capable of living their own lives, making their own decisions, and caring for themselves. One morning I attended a meeting of four people who work in the same field. One of the workers continually griped and complained. Ne-gativity flowed out of her every word and facial expression. At the end of the session, I felt depressed, oppressed, and.burdened. I had absorbed into myself the flow of her negativity. But I can give myself the gift of not taking responsibility for other people's feelings, for others' pleasant or unpleasant feelings. I can maintain my joy, peace, and positive out-look if I am aware of my tendencies and if I give myself the gift of not giving in to codependence. I can learn to trust other people to run their own lives. I can deepen my trust in God. Review for Religious, January-February 1989 As codependent I also try to control others, though I may not be aware that I am doing so. I have not seen my friend for quite a while. I miss him or her. I may long with emotional intensity to see and be with my friend again. This is all right; this is me~ I fall into codependence, however, when I expect my friend to feel the same emotions that I do, the same strong loneliness. Because he/she feels differently does not mean that we are no longer friends. We are still connected by the bonds of love and the union of our spirits, but my friend is entitled to his/her own emotional swings. Occasionally we may both experience the same feelings, but that just happens; it cannot be programmed. By giving the gift of not giving my friend the task of living up to my expectations, I free him/her to be a unique self, and I free myself from the frustration of unmet expectations. As I grow, I learn the gift of n6t giving allegiance to everything that is said about,~me, even when it is said by significant others in my life. Opefiness to consider feedback is good and necessary for growth, but I can take the comments offered, test them sincerely against what I know of my true self, and decide to allow them to influence me or reject them as not fitting. More and more I stand free: receptive but able to make choices and.changes for myself. Each of us operates out of a specific personality type. I know that those "unacceptable" aspec.ts of myself, my "shadow," can become for me sources of undreamt growth and expansion. If I am introverted, recognition' of the shadow invites me to promote the development of more assertiveness, more sociability. By taking up the challenge of my "opposites," I give myself the gift of not giving in and becoming com-pletely immersed in my dominant qualities. I also give to others the gift of my expanded personality., my versatility to be reflective and quiet, and to be spontaneous and outgoing. I then realize that I have the potential to grow in all qualities of personality. Giving the gift of not giving can be risky. This is especially so if one is looked upon as a professional "helper." 1 am supposed to rescue peo-ple, or so it is often assumed. But the divine in me nudges me to grow and to foster my own "undependence" so that I do not need to rescue in order to feel worthy or worthwhile. I can then rejoice with the other in his/her efforts that lead to confidence, success, self-esteem, and de-victimization. When I encourage the other to look within her/himself for the indwell-ing God, the source of strength and goodness, then the other's success in dealing with difficulties is truly authentic and lasting. I become, not The Gift of Not Giving a rescuer or savior, but a real companion and friend. Recently a friend said to me, "I am upset over certain events that have taken place lately. I feel I can share with you about those situations because you are concerned and will give your support and prayers, but you won't take on my problems and become as upset as I am, and so be-come an added problem and burden to me. And you won't smother me with sympathy either." I consider those remarks a confirmation of the rightness of the gift of not giving and an uncovering of the true meaning of compassion. Jesus gave the gift of not giving. He refused to give direct answers to the Pharisees who were trying to trap him. He did not allow them to control him or his mission. Jesus did not perform miracles for those un-believers. He refused to compromise himself in order to please them. He did not even accept the adoration of the man who was cleansed from evil. Jesus will not allow us to follow him out of coercion or ignorahce. We must make up our own minds. He gave us the gift of not giving easy answers; he taught in parables. Jesus leaves us free and invites us to re- .sponsible living and loving. He refuses to take on our responsibility for ourselves and our world even though we often try to put on him th~ blame for our misfortunes and our mistakes. o Christ's peace was from within. He was "self-centered," anchored in the depths of his love springing from deep within. We too are chal-lenged to anchor in the gift of self that we find within, put there by God. One way to self is through the gift of not giving. Chapters and Structures William F. Hogan, C.S.C. Father Hogan wrote "The Cross Reconsidered" for our issue of March/April ! 988. His address remains: Fratelli Cristiani; Via della Maglianelli, 375; 00166 Roma, It-aly. Postconstitution chapters in most congregations take a very different form from those in which much labor was directed to working out, concept by concept, word by word, texts of constitutions to be submitted for ec-clesiastical approval. If there was perplexity in some institutes as to what a chapter would do when there were no more constitutions to write, the wonderment soon dissolved as attention was focused on the principal calls of the times: justice, peace, preferential option for the poor, sim-plification of lifestyle, apostolic spirituality, and so forth. Less legisla-tion emerged from the chapters; the accent was on setting immediate goals for administrations and planning steps for implementation of di-rection by the community: simple documents of challenge for reflection, inspiration, action. A variety of formulas, techniques, and approaches have been used to provoke a deep listening to the Spirit during sessions and to share the chapter's reflections and concerns with the larger con-gregation. Our times have seen much effort and creativity to make chap-ters meaningful experiences, and more will be needed in the future be-cause there is no magical formula that can cover every set of concerns or apply to all chapter circumstances. The uniqueness of each chapter will demand an approach suitable to its particularity: what works for one may very well not be beneficial to another. The experience of many congregations would advocate that it is not necessary for chapters to go over every element of the life of a congre-gation, as ordinarily done in the past, because there are so many other 26 Chapters and Structures participative structures in place between chapters. More effective results emerge when one topic is pursued in depth and the congregation's ef-forts are channeled in a particular direction. At the same time it is im-portant that a chapter and other community organs related to a chapter devote some attention to important points other than the principal topic. The 1983 code of Canon Law determines a number of issues to be treated in the particular law of religious congregations, and these fall under the responsibility of a general chapter. Most of these matters have been leg-islated in the constitutions; there is widespread reluctance to touch them after experiencing the difficulties of having constitutions approved, even when a group intellectually acknowledges the need for modifications. Oth-ers are taken up in the secondary book and should be reviewed by the chapter, even though its primary thrust is not concerned with the particu-lar law as such. There are ways of accomplishing this so as not to dis-tract from the major chapter consideration--for example, through the use of an ad hoc committee reviewing the legislation and making recommen-dations to the assembly. Without this review there is always the possi~ bility of a gap developing between living and the calls of the Spirit to move forward in mission. One of the most basic areas not to be overlooked is that of the struc-tures of government, where there are many questions deserving ongoing congideration even though structures are usually treated in the constitu-tions and considered of more permanent nature than rfiatters'of the sec-ondary book. Frequently the particular law of a congregation will state that structures are for the mission:, that the participation of the institute in the continuing mission of Jesus is the determining factor for structures of authority and government and the division of a congregation into life-promoting and mission-serving units. It .is far too easy to let the concept of structures for mission become a dead letter, since the mission is not staticbut constantly undergoing variables. Reflective vigilance is needed to take into account the changing factors of the mission of Jesus today and be at the service of the mission in fact and not just in word. This is especially true in international congregations with their divi-sions into provinces, regions, sectors, and so forth, but finds application also'in national and diocesan groups. Religious institutes are experienc-ing decreases in some of their internal divisions because of aging, loss of members, and other factors with the result that some previously sta-ble units no longer appear capable of maintaining the autonomy neces-saryto function as a unit in the same way. In not a few instances there is occurring a reversal of what have up to this point been geographical Review for Religious, January-February 1989 central and peripheral areas in congregations; then, too, there often is dis-persion of individuals and communities, along with new forms of com-munity. New foundations in third-world countries being made by differ-ent provinces of the same congregation point to a need for a networking among them to provide for sharing of experiences and insights, even if situations are not yet sufficiently clear to establish more permanent struc-tures. And surely, sufficient reflection on the units of a congregation will give rise to other situations in need of monitoring. Canon law and practice leaves the regulation of internal divisions to the individual institute and the authority therein determined, as long as the basic points of the approved constitutions are followed. These latter often allow for more flexibility than seems apparent at first glance; where there may be lacking the necessary suppleness, recourse should be had to the appropriate Church authority. A desire for survival may force the issue of restructuring in some congregations rather than a more overt con-cern that structures serve the mission; whatever be the motivation in fact, watchfulness is called for and the occasion of a chapter provides an op-portunity to exercise a healthy vigilance. Reflection on structures is not meant to pull religious in on them-selves, but outwards to furthering the work of Christ and promoting the qualitative dimension of ministry, life, and contribution to the local Church--lest there be a discrepancy between what we say of ourselves in principle and the reality of what we live. Connected with this reflec-tion is the issue of identity and charism, in the sense that the question at times arises whether to bolster the presence of the congregation in one part of the world through bringing new members from countries where vocations are still in abundance or simply to let the presence eventually fade out of existence. The tendency is to give an answer in terms of the works the religious are doing and whether the apostolates should be con-tinued; yet there is a deeper element than simply the works: Are the re-ligious bringing anything different in terms of witness to the local Church that others cannot effect? Not just a question of doing, but the reality of being: How are we in wha~ we do? No simple answers can be given to this; much soul-searching about the identity to which we witness is en-tailed. And if there is nothing .particular being shared with the local Church in terms of charism, it may be that the Spirit is saying that the congregation's presence is no longer gifting the local Christian commu-nity. A number of other matters concerning authority structures deserve periodic consideration, such as terms of office, interimsbetween chap- Chapters and Structures / 29 ters, and whether chapters are the only or best vehicles to accomplish the promotion of the mission and life. Many congregations have gone through a number of changes during the last two decades concerning the duration of offices because of concern with people being in positions too long, the need for freshness of vision in monitoring change and the cur-rents of the times, and the promotion of participation and development of individuals' gifts and talents. Sometimes in addressing one set of val-ues and making decisions in accord with them, experience shows that other values suffer and perhaps there is conflict in trying to integrate all the facets. Thus some congregations have gone full circle and returned to their original terms of office after various experiments; others have opted for a longer nonrenewable mandate; and still others have deter-mined upon several shorter terms. It would be idealistic to think that the workable formula reached for the present should not be open for recon-sideration if changing circumstances would indicate the need for another solution. Frequently religious Speak of the amount of energy that is expended in preparing chapters and implementing their decisions and orientations; also of the insufficiency of time between chapters for a congregation to realize the implications of chapter decisions before being moved on as a group to other subject matters. The frustrations sometimes expressed in this regard, in conjunction with fatigue over the number of meetings in which religious at times have to participate on different levels, raise the issue of whether there are other ways to accomplish the goals with-out the mechanism of chapters so regularly and all that is entailed therein, and still preserve and foster the principles of members working together toward policies of life and mission. Creativity of thought is needed here to safeguard the values intended by the structure of chapter and at the same time to prevent excessive use of energy that could be more directly channeled toward mission. Further, it might prove opportune from time to time to reflect on some of the points brought over into religious structures from corpora-tion models to assure the rights of individuals and promote participation. Some were needed to correct abuses or remedy problem areas at a par-ticular time. Are they still needed? Has something been lost from the com-munity- of-faith dimension while stressing organizational approaches? Where is the congregation now in the balance of values? Some benefi-cial insights could be gained by a congregation relative to structures for mission from treating these and similar questions. Not to be overlooked either would be the number of people involved :30 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 in community administration full time: too few? too many? enough for the needs of mission on the part of the congregation? How do we under-stand these needs now, taking into account the concept of community for mission and the need for good government and sufficiently broad-based decision making? The answer given at one time will apply only as long as circumstances remain basically the same: hence the need for periodic review. To look at some of these issues of structure from the viewpoint of service of the mission and the community's growth for mission may ap-pe. ar as an invitation to furiher instability in religious life; perhaps it would involve furthe~r unsettling, but in terms--hopefully--of the unset-tling aspe~zts of Jesus' message and mission a~d of the mentaJity of foun-ders and foundresses. Their primary passion, in following Jesus,,was to reveal the Father's love and assist others to experience it in their lives; institutionalization of religious life and structures as such generally arose after the founders' times. Stability of life is an important aspect of relig-ious life; it is expressed in the Church's definitions of consecrated life (see can. 573,1). However, stability must not be equated with no change, especially when the mission that gives meaning to the consecrated life demands change. Stability demands serious prayerful reflection on the whole issue of change, keeping our vision focused 'on the person of Je-sus arid his mission today. And while we concentrate our ,energies and attention on the great sweeping calls of the Spirit of Jesus as reiterated through the Church, we must also keep alert to whether internal struc-tures are enabling for response to mission. Meta-Expectations and the General Chapter J. Roberta Rivello, S.S.J. Sister J. Roberta Rivello is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia. She is currently Dean of Graduate Studies Division at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia; prior to that she was research analyst for the Department of Army where she worked for the past seven years. This paper is about the difference between expectations reasonably held and "meta-expectations," and what happens when "meta-expecta-tions" are part of the agenda for a general chapter in religious institutes. Having to deal with these meta-expectations in the general chapter may be a part of the reason why so many religious institutes find themselves, in the years immediately following a general chapter, in the midst of a good deal of frustration, anger, even~outright rejection of some of the mandates of the general chapter. I believe this occurs because many of the expectatio.ns explicitly ex-pressed by the members of an institute are clearly not the substantive con-tent for the general chapter to consider. When a religious institute re-quests from the membership proposals, recommendations, and sugges-tions prior to a general chapter, it may be of some benefit to explain at the same time what is reasonable for the members to expect from the chap-ter, and to provide some criteria for arriving at the proper methods for expressing those expectations to the chapter delegates. Part of this edu-cation could include guidance into what constitutes "reasonable expec-tations," and how to differentiate between these and what I term "meta-expectations." I use the term rneta-expectations as a phenomenological description for the kinds of aspirations and expectations which are not structurally 31 Review for Religious, January-February 1989 . and substantively significant to the issues ~hich h~ive been identified as chapter material. Persons who express such "meta-expectations" through their proposals and letters certainly do not perceive them as meta-expectations-- or they would not submit them. I believe it is the job of the prechapter committees to communicate to those who submit such pro-posals, even personally if possible, why it is that their expectations are not reasonable for the chapter to include in its portfolio of proposals. Do-ing this would eliminate some of the postchapter frustration, even if in-itially the explanation is quite difficult to accept. A general chapter may, for example, need to deal with spirituality and prayer as they relate to the charism of the institute, and proceeds to invite proposals to that effect. When the proposals are reviewed, how-ever, it is found that some members have expressed a variety of expec-tations which~ are, not substantive.ly identifiable with the charism and spiri-tuality of the institute. If these .expectations were to become content for the~delegates' consideration during the chapter, they could seriously im-pair the effectiveness of chapter deliberations and could ultimately erode the charis~n itself of the institute. The "mandates" of a general chapter are simply directives with en-forcement p.ower. These mandates deal with matters which have an im~ pact on the~members' sPiritual development, community life, prayer, ap-ostolic works, or other important areas which are integral to the life of a religious.The precise direction which the general chapter should take is undergirded by the constitutions and charism of the institute. Whatever else, a chapter accomplishes, it ought to accomplish the ful-fillment of its members' first-order reasonable expectations. These rea-sonably held expectations, in turn, ought to flow from the institute's spiri-tuality and charism. Ageneral ch.apter,, however, need not attend with great detail to ful-filling second-order expectations since these do not necessarily consti-tute the ne'cessary and sufficient matter for a general chapter to entertain. It is these latter which I term meta-expectations. Meta-expectations are something which a newly elected leadership might need: to consider sometime soon after entering into their term of office. But religious institutes which choose to concern themselves with such non-reasonable expectations during the general.chapter frequently find that there are.significantly sharp differences between the way the dele-gates perceive of the proposals presented to them and the way the pro-posing me,.mbers perceive the resulting chapter mandates. They will ac-cept the mandates accord.ing to what their expectations were prior to gen- Meta-Expectations and the Chapter eral chapter. Even in the Church today there is a growing sense that religious in-stitutes are experiencing very serious differences in the way the mem-bership perceives the outc0me of general chapters. This is partially due to the way general chapters often conduct their prechapter preparations and the way that Chapters of Affairs are conducted. These differences in perception and interpretation area result of the failure to differentiate between the reasonable expectations and the meta-expectations of the in-stitute's membership. This failure further fragments the members and their acceptance of the mandates and authority of the chapter. In this paper I will try to clarify what are reasonable expectations for a general chapter, and to show the difference between reasonable expec-tations and meta-expectations and how they influence the general chap-ter, Conflict between these two kinds of expectations can exist whenever expectations of any kind are elicited and aroused. For example, if one is invited to dinner, it is all right to expect something to eat but it is not reasonable to expect filet of beefi That is a meta-expectation, and while it may not be wrong to hold such a meta-expectation, it certainly is not reasonable; nor need the host meet it. Neither should the one holding such a meta-expectation be disappointed or offended if the host does not ~erve filet! More relevant to our discussion are the expectations religious have about their general chapters especially when preparations for them evoke strong expectations among the members as well as among the delegates. As I gtated above, two. of the things which ought to be simultane-ously evolving in the months prior to a chapter are how to identify and clarify the proper content for consideration and how to prepare both dele-gates and members to be able to differentiate between meta-expectations and reasonable expectations. It is reasonable for members of a religious institute to e£pect its gen-eral chapter to ~nandate programs for renewal, for spiritual development, for apostoli6 works, and for good community life. But it is not.reason-able to (xpect it to'decide how the membership ought to rest and relax, even thou'gti such matters are very important and time arid thou~ht~ought to be given to their consideration. It is as unreasonable for the member-ship to expect this to be considered as it would 'be for the general chap-ter to consider it---even if some of the delegates want it added to the agenda. The business of a general chapter is to redesign the future of the institute as it finds itself called to reveal Christ to the world in its con-temporary situation. This is its first-order work and is the only claim any- Review for Religious, January-February 1989 one can reasonably make on a general chapter. If the institute is true to its charism, the general chapter will succeed in fulfilling reasonable ex-pectations, and a newly elected leadership, or a reelected leadership, will be confirmed and authorized in working together to find ways and means to carry out what the chapter has mandated. In doing so, general administration should act in such a way that it further clarifies the difference between reasonable expectations and meta-expectations. Acting thus after the chapter assures continuity as well as flexibility in the institute's lived-out charism, since it preserves the in-tegrity of the institute's constitutions even while assuring versatility in their application to the reality that presents itself here and now.~ After all, it is in the real world that the institute exists, and its contemporary situation should be the focus of the institute's energies if it is to survive. If, however, the general chapter takes into consideration everything sub-mitted to it, the real essence of the institute's life becomes obscured. In addition, every proposal presented to the chapter contains its own par-ticular character and language which force the delegates to unpack its meaning before addressing the issue it contains. By sifting out the recta-expectations from the agenda, the delegates will be freed to concentrate on the constitutions and charism of the institute and to interpret the con-temporary situation in light of the Gospels for the world the institute is called to serve. There is good evidence that the bishops did this in Vatican II docu-ments. The document Lumen Gentium shows that they were aware of their .responsibility to separate out the recta-expectations from the rea-sonable ones.2 Their emphasis was on common-good considerations. Common-good considerations evolve from whatever the community has in common, not from things incidental to it. I believe this is why the docu-ments are clearly and straightforwardly parousial (expectant), so fitting for a Church in labor to reveal Christ to the world. For religious insti-tutes, the emphasis should also be on the common good, that is, on what the institute holds in common and what it shares as an institute in labor to reveal Christ to the world. For religious, this is found in their consti-tutions and in the charism of its founding. The document Perfectae Cari-tatis expresses the expectation of the Church about what it believes re-ligious institutes are called to be: Religious should carefully consider that through them, to believers and nonbelievers alike, the Church truly wishes to give an increasingly clearer revelation of Christ. Through them Christ should be shown con-templating on the mountain, announcing God's kingdom to the multi- Meta-Expectations and the Chapter / 35 tude, healing the sick and the maimed, turning sinners to wholesome fruit, blessing children, doing good to all, and always obeying the will of the Father who sent him.3 Rather than stating the expectations of religious, the document states what it is the Church expects of the religious institutes. This sense of expectation is not alien to either the Old or New Tes-taments. Scriptures retell the sacred history of a people filled with ex-pectation for a Messiah. For some, that expectation was misplaced or mis-focused so that when the Messiah came, when the expectation was ful-filled, they did not recognize it. Likewise, the message of Christ was clearly a statement of what it was he expected of us as we await his sec-ond coming. It is this same degree of expectation which is the ground-ing for religious institutes coming into being in the first place, that is, to reveal Christ to others even as we await (expect) his second coming. At this time some institutes are preparing for their chapter. A great deal of preparation will take place, I am sure. Included in that prepara-tion should be some education on what constitutes reasonable expecta-tions for the membership to have and how to express those expectations in proposals, letters, and prechapter committee work. I believe that some of the meta-expectations expressed prior tochapter in proposals to the general chapter are the result of excessive reliance on congregational and personal self-analyses which, in turn, rely too heavily on current statis-tics, social analysis, and popular trends. This tendency is best described as the historicist versus the historical view of events.4 Both views are needed but if they are not balanced, the religious institutes are robbed of either their historical tradition and dynamism (charism) or of insights derived from knowledge of the cultural and intellectual shifts occurring in society. Needless to say, I believe the omission of either is wrong. In fact, one of the tasks of the general chapter is to ensure that the bal-ance between both perspectives is maintained. Furthermore, an advan-tage to holding the Chapter of Election after the Chapter of Affairs is to ensure that the elected leadership is committed to carrying out the man-date of the general chapter and to the mission of the institute visible in its charism. The business of meta-expectations derailing expectations occurs daily in society--in the system of justice, in education, in government and other natural systems. It ought to occur less frequently in religious institutes if they are open to the Spirit unfolding in them. One other example of the distinction between meta-expectations and Review for Religious, January-February 1989 expectations might clarify what I am saying. In a religious institute mem-bers may experience some dissatisfaction with the missioning process, and all kinds of proposals expressing both meta-expectations and expec-tations emerge. The dissatisfaction is with the process and not with the people doing the job. Instead of focusing on the dissatisfaction, the dele-gates begin, as a result of some meta-expectations, to design new roles and functions for the persons charged with missioning when they ought to have seriously looked at the process and analyzed the cause of dis-content. The process is in need of change; failure to redesign it changes nothing, and future chapters will find themselves still dealing with dis-content about the process. Sometimes an issue is finally resolved but only after it has resurfaced in several chapters. One cannot be sure, however, that the ultimate resolution flows from reasonable expectations or not. What is certain is that if it is the result of meta-expectation something of the institute's charism is diminished. A model for expectations showing the process involved in discern-ment of the kinds of things which happen as a result of responses pro-vided in proposals follows: -Perception: dissatisfaction with missioning process -Response: a change is needed in the process In this model the response is a ~reasonable expectation for members to have. The model also lends itself to scrutiny by the delegates who will then test various recommendations made in the context of chapter to see how they relate to the charism and spirituality of the institute. In doing this, no special interest or meta~expectation will drive the final outcome. After chapter, the information and proposals not used in chapter can be given additional study and perhaps even be used for input into some ad hoc trial period of experimentation. A second model based on meta-expectations follows: -Perception: dissatiSfaction with missioning process -Response: establishment of new roles for persons charged with process The response in this case is the fulfillment of a meta-expectation since it begins to deal with m'any different aspects of the dissatisfaction. The issue is clearly defined as dissatisfaction with the process; then the charism and spirituality of the institute should dictate the solution. The response in this model is expressive of one of the many meta-expecta-tions expressed, all of which are not substantively, relative to the insti-tute's charism and spirituality. This model is provided as example; it is not a definitive model. Religious institutes can substitute ever so many examples which violate their own particular charism. This is not to say Meta-Expectations and the Chapter / 37 that it is wrong to have the vision to redesign the institute or to follow "paths unknown." What this paper is addressing is the growing aware-ness among religious that somewhere things are going amiss and worse, that it is becoming increasingly more difficult for the institute to recog-nize its own charism and spirituality at work in the Church for which it is called to reveal Christ and through him the Father. In this brief essay I have tried to make a distinction between the jus-tifiable and reasonable expectations one might have for a general chap-ter and the meta-expectations one might have, which are not reasonable for a general chapter to consider in its deliberations, no matter how at-tractive or relevant those meta-expectations appear. NOTES ~ Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J., Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. London. 1958. passim. 2 Walter M. Abbot, S.J. (ed.), The Documents of Vatican !!, p. 225, n. 26. All ref-erences to the Documents are taken from here. 3 Documents, p. 77, n. 46. 4 For an insightful account of the distinction between historicism and historicalism, read Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J., Method In Theology: London, 1971. pp. 323- 326, 239, 318. See also the works of Wilhelm Dilthey and Ernest Troeltsch; Maurice Mandelbaum. Enc. Phil., 4:22-25. Thomas Merton and His Own Cistercian Tradition M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. Father Basil's most recent article in this journal was "Simple Contemplative Prayer" (March/April 1987). He now resides at Assumption Abbey; Rt. 5, Box 193; Ava, Missouri 65608. I presume most of the readers of this essay are fairly familiar with the life and development of Thomas Merton. In the last pages of the Secular Jour-nal, Merton sums up his spiritual journey towards the Church and mon-astery: From Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy I learned a healthy respect for Catholicism. Then Ends andMeans taught me to respect mysticism. Maritain's Art and Scholasticism was another important influence, and Blake's poetry. Perhaps also Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism, though I read precious little of it. I was fascinated by the Jesuit sermons in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man! What horrified him, began to appeal to me. It seemed to me quite sane. Finally G. F. Lahey's Life of Gerard Manley Hopkins; I was reading about Hopkins's conver-sion when 1 dropped the book and ran out of the house to look for Fa-ther Ford. ~ It is not surprising that this author would be influenced primarily by authors and their books. In a preface to A Thomas Merton Reader, published in 1962, six years before his tragic death, Merton summed up his monastic years: I would say that my life at Gethsemani has fallen roughly into four pe-riods. First, the novitiate. I was a novice in 1942-1944. Those were hard years, before the days when radiators were much in favor during the win-ter, when the hours of communal prayer were much longer, when the 38 Merton and Cistercian Tradition fasts were much stricter. It was a period of training, and a happy, aus-tere one; during which 1 wrote little. The best Gethsemani poems be-long to this period. At the end of the novitiate my health broke down and I was ap-pointed to write and do translations of French books and articles. I was also studying philosophy and theology in preparation for ordination to the priesthood. This second period extends from 1944, my first vows, to ordination in 1949. At first the writing was very bad . In 1946 I wrote Seven Storey Mountain, in 1947 Seeds of Contemplation, and in 1948 The Waters of Siloe. After ordination, in 1949, there was an-other brief period of poor health and nervous exhaustion. I was almost incapable of writing for at least a year and a half after I became a priest. Then after a rest period in the hospital, I wrote The Ascent to Truth and Bread in the Wilderness (both about 1951) and finished The Sign of Jonas, 1952. In 1951 1 was appointed the Master of Scholastics, that is, of the young monks studying for ordination in the monastery. This en-tailed a fair amount of work preparing conferences and classes. Books like The Living Bread and particularly No Man is an Island and The Si-lent Life belong to the end of this period. Finally, a fourth stage. In 1955 I was made Master of the Choir Nov-ices. This is an office involving considerable work and responsibility. No writing of any account was done in ! 956, but after that it was possi-ble to produce short books or collections of essays, and some poetry. Disputed Questions, The Wisdom of the Desert, The Behavior of Titans, and New Seeds of Contemplation belong to this last period. So too do more recent essays on nuclear war, on Chinese thought, on liturgy, and on solitude.2 It is notable that in all of this literary reminiscing, Merton does not mention specifically any Cistercian Father or any of the work he did con-cerning them. Actually he does not seem to have had any contact with the Cistercian tradition prior to entering the monastery. But, in fact, once he entered the Cistercian life he so immersed himself in it that it became the very matrix of his life and .thinking. In his early days as he was as-similating Cistercian spirituality, Merton wrote about the Cistercian Fa-thers explicitly. When he served the community as Master of Scholastics and as Novice Master, he spoke about them constantly; his notes and his taped conferences are full of them. Later they cropped up spontaneously in his writings, the paradigm against which he evaluated what he was then absorbing. One of his favorites would find his place in the final talk Merton gave a few hours before his sudden death.3 When Merton first entered the monastery, there was, as he said in the epilogue of The Spirit of, Simplicity,4 little of the Cistercian Fathers 40 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 available in English.5 But this did not hinder him. He not only found no problem in reading the Latin texts in Migne, he strongly believed that translations always lacked something of the origin~il.6 How carefully he studied these texts is witnessed not only by his frequent use of quota-tions from them in his early writings and the talks he gave his scholas-tics and novices, but also by the .und.erlinings and annotations found in the voit]mes of the Fathers which he used. One of Thomas Merton's-- or Frater Louis, as he was then called-- earliest assignments was to translate a.report from the CisterCian Gen-eral Chapter, entitled The Spirit of Simplicity,7 and provide a suitable in-troduction for it. He'not only did that but gathered a complementary selection of texts from St. Bernard on interior simplicity in its fullness. He translated these and commented on them, turning the report into a full book. This part of the The Spirit of Simplicity has recently been published in a volume in the Cistercian Studies Series with two other early Bernar-dine essays of Merton.8 He wrote a five-part study of Bernard and St. John of the Cross for Collectanea which expresses his concern of that period when he was writing The Ascent to Truth .9 We can detect in these essays a certain struggle Merton was experiencing in trying to respond both to the rich, fully human patristic heritage Bernard offered him and the exciting, stimulating, scholastic approach which John of the Cross was able to integrate with a high mystical theology. It wbuld be Ber-nard's approach that would win him over. In the prologue to The Sign of Jonas he would write: "I found in writing The Ascent to Truth that technical language, though it is univer-sal and certain and accepted by theologians, .does not reach the average man and does not convey what is more personal and most vital in relig-ious experience. Since my focus is not upon dogmas as such, but only on their repercussions in the life of a soul in which they begin to find concrete realization, I may be pardoned for using my own words to talk about my own soul." ~0 The third piece in the Cistercian Studies volume witnesses to another early concern of Merton--the superiority of thecontemplative life. In an extensive essay which was first published serially in ~Collectanea and later appeared as a volume in French,~ Merton is at pains to establish that the apostolic life, though it may have a fullness beyond the purely contemplative life, as Bernard ,acknow!edges,.has true:value only inso-far as it flows out of contemplation. And thus the contemplative life is in itself more important or of greater dignity. Merton's~argumentation Merton and Cistercian Tradition here is not all that easy to follow, nor that cogent. Later he himself would comment negatively about such preoccupation.~2 The eighth centenary of Bernard's death led to a spate of publishing on the saint. Merton translated the papal encyclical produced for the oc-casion and wrote an introduction to it. ~3 He was invited to introduce other works. His preface to Bernard de Clairvaux, a collection of studies pub-lished by the Historical Commission of his order and edited by its chair-man, Father Jean-de-la-Croix Bouton, shows the increasing influence of Bernard on Merton.~4 The piece is filled with scriptural texts and allu-sions. We might.say it is a very Bernardine piece about Bernard. In line with his earlier concentration, Merton sees that Bernard added to the Cis-tercian reform "an emphatic call to contemplative union with God." ~5 At the same time Merton begins to reveal a more integral understanding of Bernard as a "man of his times . . . a many-sided saint." 16 This is further in evidence in the next piece. His .introduction to Bruno Scott James's translation of the letters of St. Bernard, he considered important. ~7 At his behest it was included in A Thomas Merton Reader in the section ".Mentors and Doctrines."~8 It revealed Thomas Merton's growth in his appreciation for Bernard in line with his own personal growth. Merton had had his experience on the cor-ner of Maple and Fourth. He now beheld all with a greater integrity. He had a new .appreciation for Bernard the man. H~e appreciated the letters because they so well brought out the human dimension of the great saint: They [the letters] show the man as he is, and because he is so much a man, readers who forget that saints must be men may sometimes be in-clined to question his saintliness . Bernard is sent to instruct us how human a saint must be to forge'out the will of God in the heat of the affairs of men . He had the humility to be himself in the thick of a silly argument. He had the good grace to admit that a saint might pos-sibly have to bicker with another saint . The angry Bernard, the pas-sionate Bernard . . . the merciful Bernard, the gentle long-suffering monk who could be as tender as a mother . 19 As Merton noted in his brief literary biography quoted above, liturgy came more to the fore in a later period of his life. In Seasons of Cele-bration he published one of his most beautiful pieces on St. Bernard: "The Sacrament of Advent in the Spirituality of St. Bernard.' ,20 It is undoubtedly St. Bernard, the "Theologian of the Cistercian Life" (as Merton's friend Jean Leclercq would name him), who received the most attention from Merton. Besides Bernard's prominence as the mas-ter of the Cistercian school, there would be the influence of Gilson. As 42 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 we have seen above, Gilson was one of the first to open the way for Mer-ton towards Catholicism. Merton's respect for him never diminished, and his masterful work The Mystical Theology of Saint BerndrdZ~ was most carefully studied and wholly accepted by Merton.22 But Merton read all the significant Cistercian Fathers, and spoke and wrote on them as occa-sion offered. The "Bernard of the North," Bernard's disciple, the abbot of Rievaulx, Aelred, received special attenti.on. Merton has an extensive un-published piece on him, which looks like it was on the way to becoming a book. We can hope it will. soon appear in Cistercian Studies. It is an important piece, and I shall return to it later in this esgay. As one of his first projects for Cistercian Publications, Merton wrote an introduction for Father Amfd6e Hallier's Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx. Here again we see the later Merton rejecting earlier attitudes: Let us be quite clear the monastic theology of Aelred is not a partisan "theology of monasticism." It is not an apologia for .the life of the monk, and not a kind of gnostic system organized to prove some sup-posed superiority of "the contemplative life," urging a flight to ineffa-ble convulsions,z3 He saw that "the Christian life is, for Aelred, simply the full flow-ering of freedom and consent in the perfection of friendship. Friendship with other human beings is an epiphany of friendship with God." Mer-ton notes that "Not so long ago, some of Aelred's books were kept un-der lock and key in Trappist libraries. ,,24 Merton never wrote a particular essay on Bernard's closest friend, William of Saint Thierry, but he considered him "a profound and origi-nal theologian and a contemplative in his own right."25 He dedicated one of his first books to him, "one of the saints and mystical theologians of the Golden Age," and quoted him extensively in the foreword.26 In regard to the fourth of the evangelists of Citeaux, Guerric of Igny, we have the opportunity to get a sampling of Merton's more ordinary treat-ment of the Cistercian Fathers in his talks to the juniors at Gethsemani. Sister Bernard Martin of Chimay transcribed two of Merton's talks which had been taped and published the transcription in Cistercian Studies in 1972.27 For Merton, "Guerric was really deep and very spiritual and very mystical."28 And as Merton.opens him up for his novices, he is also very much alive, very practical and down to earth. It is in these intimate talks that we best see how the Cistercian Fathers reverberated in the mind and heart of this twentieth-century Cistercian Father. Merton and Cistercian Tradition There is a more formal treatment of Guerric of Igny and his liturgi-cal sermons in Merton's introduction to the Gethsemani Christmas book for 1959: Sister Rose of Lima's translation of Guerric's Christmas ser-mons. 29 Other Cistercian Fathers turn up in Merton's published writings. There are poems about St, Alberic3° and St. Malachy.3! When Cister-cian Studies began publishing Sister Penelope's translation of the ser-mons of Isaac of Stella, Merton provided an introduction for this "not the least interesting of the Cistercian writers."32 He found him a "more independent thinker and less subject to the dominant influence of Saint Bernard''33, whose writings reminded him "at times of Eckhart in their tone."34 Merton's spirit resonated with this abbot who withdrew from a large and important Cistercian abbey to an erernus, a poor and lonely island foundation. Merton provided an introduction for another Cistercian Father, one of his favorites, Adam of Perseigne.35 Earlier he had written about Adam's theory of monastic formation in an essay that was published in Charles Dumont's French translation.36 Adam was for Merton something of a mentor in his duties as novice master, and his admiration for the ab-bot of Perseigne remained till the end. In his final talk at Bangkok he brings him forth to illustrate a basic monastic theory.37 When the earlier essay was further developed, Merton gave it a new title, one that wit-nessed to his own development: The Feast of Freedom. Adam, Aelred, all the great Cistercian Fathers led Merton in the same direction. But Merton did not have an unbounded admiration for all the twelfth-century Cistercian writers, Here is an example, Gamier of Langres: Gamier was not deep and not spiritual and not mystical. He was a literal-minded person with a lot of learning. As a matter of fact he is quite in-teresting, On the liturgy, he has a lot of little statements about what they did at the time and what they thought they were doing and why they did it. But these are just little statements of historical fact. Today Gamier would be a scientific-minded critic. "But a scientific-minded critic in the Middle Ages is just about zero, because he has nothing to work on . He's finished, he's dated, he's way back. He is no more modern than 'a twelfth-century concept of the universe.38 He goes so far as to say: "His work., is not in English at all, and if it never gets translated into English that won't be too soon.' ,39 This does, though, give, us another indication as to the extent to which Merton worked his way through the pages of Migne4° and ex-plored all the published writings of the early Cistercian Fathers. 44 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 Above I have mentioned the monograph that Merton was working on entitled "Saint Aelred of Rievaulx." This is a significant piece of work. In placing Aelred in context Merton gives a fine synopsis of Cis-tercian history and especially literary history from the foundation in 1098 up till the death of Becket (+ 1170). But I think one of the valuable ele-ments of this work is the insight that Merton has as a later Cistercian writer into these early Cisterclan writers. Indeed, as I read the pertinent section I ask.myself if this is not a candid insight into Merton himself as a Cistercian writer: ¯ . . the rich and elegant vitality of Cistercian prose--most of which is sheer poetry--betrays an overflow 0( literary productivity which did not even need to strive for its effects: it achieved them, as it were, sponta-neously. It seemed to be second nature to St. Bernard, William of St. Thierry, Adam of Perseigne, Guerric of lgny, to write with consummate beauty prose full of sound and color and charm, There were two natural explanations for this. The first is that the prolific Cistercian writers of the Golden Age were men who had already been thoroughly steeped in the secular literary .movements of the time before they entered the clois-ter. All of them had rich experience of the current of humanism that flow-ered through the twelfth-century renaissance . There is a second explanation for the richness and exuberance of theo-logical prose in twelfth-century monasteries of Citeaux. If contact with classical humanism had stimulated a certain intellectual vitality in these clerics, it hlso generated a conflict in their souls. The refined natural ex-citements produced by philosophical speculation, by art, poetry, music, by the companionship of restless sensitive and intellectual friends merely unsettled their souls. Far from finding peace and satisfaction in all these things, they found war. The only answer to the problem was to make a clean break with everything that stimulated this spiritual uneasiness, to withdraw from the centers in which it was fomented, and get away somewhere, discover some point of vantage from which they could see the whole difficulty in its proper perspective. This vantage point, of course, was not only the cloister, since Ovid and Tully had already be-come .firmly established' there, but the desert--the terra invia et inaquosa in which the Cistercian labored and suffered and prayed . The tension generated by the conflict between secular humanism and the Christian humanism, which seeks the fulfillment of human nature through ascetic renunciation and mystical union with God, was one 6f the proximate causes of the powerful mystical writing of the Cistercians. , However, once these two natural factors have been considered, we must recognize other and far more decisive influences, belonging to a higher order . It is the relish and savor that only experience can Merton and Cistercian Tradition give, that communicates to the writings of the twelfth-century Cister-cians all the vitality and vividness and impassioned sincerity which are peculiarly their own . The White Monks speak with accents of a more personal and more lyrical conviction that everywhere betrays the influence of an intimate and mystical experience . It is the personal, experiential character of Cistercian mysticism that gives the prose of the White Monks its vivid freshness . Since the theology of the Cistercians was so intimately persona! and experiential, their exposition of it was bound to take a psychological di-rection. All that they wrote was directed by their keen awareness of the presence and action of God in their souls. This was their all-absorbing interest.4~ Many scholars have noted that Merton's writings show a rather su-perficial knowledge of the Eastern religions. But when I traveled in the East and spoke with the spiritual masters there who had come into con-tact with Merton on his last journey, they said they had never met any-one from the West who had so fully understood their ways. I think the same might be said of Merton and the Cistercian Fathers. Certainly many scholars know more about the Fathers and the early history of the Cis-tercian order. But few, if any, so fully understand their spirit as does this twentieth-century Cistercian Father. Moreover, no one has been able to express so fully and clearly, and in a way that communicates to our times, what these Fathers have to say to our times and to the renewal of the Cistercian order. Cistercians cannot but profit from choosing Tho-mas Merton, their F.ather Louis, for their lectio, from spending time with him and letting him lead them into a deeper, fuller understanding and appreciation of their Cistercian Fathers. NOTES ~ Thomas Merton, The Secular Journal ofThomas Merton (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1959), pp. 268f. 2 A Thomas Merton Reader, ed. by Thomas McDonnell (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), pp. viiif. 3 Adam of Perseigne. See The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1973), p. 333. 4 The Spirit of Simplicity: Characteristic of the Cistercian Order (Trappist, Ken-tucky: Abbey of Gethsemani, 1948). 5 Ibid., p. 137. Merton played an important role in remedying this situation in the part he played in the founding of Cistercian Publications, which has now published more than forty volumes of the Cistercian Fathers in English. 6 Reader, p. 317. 46/Review for Religious, January-February 1989 7 See note 4 above. 8 Thomas Merton on Saint Bernard, Cistercian Studies Series (hereafter CS), vol. 9 (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1980), pp. 103-157. 9 New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951. ~0 Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953), pp. 8f. ~ Marthe, Marie, et Lazare (Bruges: Desclee de Brouwer, 1956). ~2 In the preface to A Thomas Merton Reader he would write: ". it would be a still greater misapprehension to say I am simply trying to prove that the contempla-tive life is 'better than the active life,' . Not only am I not trying to prove these propositions, but stated in this bald and unqualified manner, I do not even hold them. It is true that fifteen years ago I was able to get excited about such theses, but I have come to see that controversy about speculative matters of this sort is not only a waste of time but is seriously misleading. We are all too prone to believe in our own pro-grams and to follow the echo of our own slogans into a realm of illusion and unreal-ity"( p, viii). 13 The Last of the Fathers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954). ~4 Bernard of Clairvaux (Paris: Editions Alsatia, 1953). It was later published in The Tablet and Cross and Crown and in Disputed Questions (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1960),.pp. 260-276, under the title "St. Bernard, Monk and Apostle." ~5 Disputed Questions, p. 263. 16 Ibid., p. 262. ~7 Bruno Scott James, St. Bernard of Clairvaux Seen Through his Selected Letters (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953), pp. v-viii. ~8 Reader, pp. 315-319. 19 Reader, pp. 316f. zo Seasons of Celebration (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965), pp. 61-87. z~ New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955. 22 There is a copy of Gilson's work in the Merton Center at Columbi~ University with Merton's underlining and marginalia which indicate the care with which he stud-ied this book. 23 Am~d~e Hallier, The Monastic Theology ofAelred ofRievaulx, tr. by Colum-ban Heaney, CS 2 (Spencer, Massachusetts: Cistercian Publications, 1969), p. viii. 2,~ Ibid., pp. xif. 25 "Saint Aelred of Rievaulx," MSS, p. 20. ??26ft2The Spirit of Simplicity, pp. vf. 27 Thomas Merton, "Guerric of lgny's Easter Sermons" in Cistercian Studies, vol. 7 (1972), pp. 85-95. 28 Ibid., p. 85. 29 The Christmas Sermons of Blessed Guerric of lgny, tr. by Sr. Rose of Lima (Trap-pist, Kentucky: Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, 1959), pp. 1-25. 30 "Saint Alberic" in Selected Poems of Thomas Merton (New York~ New Direc-tions, 1959), pp. 44f. 3~ Ibid., pp. 75ff. This poem is reproduced in the Reader, pp. 177f. 32 Louis Merton, "Isaac of Stella: An Introduction to Selections from his Sermons," in Cistercian Studies, vol. 2 (1967), p. 243. 33 Ibid. 3,~ Ibid., p. 244. 35 "The Feast of Freedom: Monastic Formation according to Adam of Perseigne," Merton and Cistercian Tradition in The Letters of Adam ofPerseigne, vol. 1, tr. by Grace Perigo, Cistercian Fathers Series, no. 21 (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1976), pp. 3-48. 36 "La formation monastique selon Adam de Perseigne," in Collectanea Ordinis Cisterciensium Reformatorum, vol. 19 (1957), pp. 1-17. 37 The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1973), p. 333. 38 "Guerric . . . Easter Sermons," pp. 85f. 39 Ibid. 40 He read Garnier in Patrologia Latina, vol. 205. 4~ MSS. pp. 10-17. Liturgy of the Hours: A Canticle for Canticles Three canticles encompass all our praise: Three sacred songs of trusting love and hope. At dawn there breaks upon us like the sun, Old Zechariah's paean to God's work. At dusk, like Vesper star, young Mary sings Magnificat for mercy to us all. Then at day's end in darkness gently fall Old Simeon's thankful words, as clear and bright As Compline candles glowing in the dark To mark the end of day, perhaps of life: To let God's servants go in peace to him. Three son~s that with their jeweled antiphons, Like winking diamonds, daily bring delight As we lift hearts at dawn, at dusk, at night. Maryanna Childs, O.P. Ohio Dominican College 1818 Sunbury Road Columbus, Ohio 43219 The Challenge of Church Teachings: How Do I Respond? Lucy Blyskal, C.S.J. Sister Lucy Blyskal, C.S.J., has a doctorate in canon law and is a diocesan judge on the Tribunal of the diocese of Rockville Centre, New York. Her article is the fruit of her canon law dissertation on the Church's teaching authority. Her address is Tri-bunal of the Diocese of Rockville Centre; 50 North Park Avenue; Rockville Centre, New York 11570. In view of the increasing number of official Church pronouncements on many debated issues, how can today's religious keep informed and re-flect intelligently on such statements? How does one discern and listen to the Spirit of the teaching Church and the Spirit within oneself? The purpose of this article, comprised of two parts, is to help us to respond appropriately to papal and episcopal documents. The first sec-tion discusses three main aspects of the Church's teaching authority: (I) the truths of the faith as given to the ff.hgle.Church; (2) the concept of infallible Church teaching; (3) the noninfallible teaching and the response owed to it by the faithful. The second part offers the reader a practical method for analyzing doctrinal statements, and then applies this method to evaluate three somewhat controversial doctlments issued recently. Hopefully, this information will lead to a deepened knowledge and love of the faith which ought to transform our hearts and impel us to serve justice and peace in the world. Part I: Church Teaching Authority Revelation as Given to the Whole Church To set the correct context for'a discussion of teaching authority, it is important to keep in mind that the Church is fundamentally a commu- 48 Challenge of Church Teachings / 49 nity of faith and witness which worships God in Jesus Christ and bears witness to the Church's divinely given message throughout the world. Because Christ handed over the deposit of revelation to the whole Church, it is in the possession of the whole body of Spirit-empowered people, not just the hierarchy. While Scripture calls Peter the "rock" on which the Church was to be built, it never refers to him or the twelve apostles as "the Church." Thus, to speak of "the Church" as having done something when in fact an office or official is the source is theo-logic. ally incorrect; one should name the office involved, for example, "the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated . "~ In its doctrine on infallibility, Vatican I carefully and explicitlyaf-firmed that the deposit of revelation is with the whole Church. The text of Vatican I names the Church as the primary subject of infallibility in stating that: "the Roman Pontiff. enjoys the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wanted his'Church to be endowed in defining doc-trine concerning faith or morals."2 Vatican II in The Constitution on the Church (article 12) clearly reitera.ted that, thanks to a supernatural sense of faith which characterizes the People of God, "the body of faithful as a whole, anointed as they are by the Holy One (see Jn 2:20, 27) can-not err in matters of belief." Since all believers possess, can perceive, and have insights into the Christian revelation, what is the specific task and charism of the hierar-chy? By Christ's will, the disciples were commissioned: (I) to be his "witnesses. to the end of the earth" (Ac !:8); (2) to "go and teach all nations" (Mt 28:19) his full revelation, under the guidance of his Spirit. (1) The chief vocation of the disciples and their successors is "to witness" to the integrity and truth of the evangelical doctrine. This call to witness does not necessarily include the capacity to have and to ar-ticulate the deepest insights into the meaning of the mysteries of our faith,3 which is a special gift. It is noteworthy that this gift has produced some of the most significant developments in the understanding of the faith not in members of the hierarchy but in such persons as Thomas Aqui-nas, honored as the common teacher of the Church, and Teresa of Av-ila, named doctor of the spiritual life. (2) Because of Christ's command to his disciples to "teach all na-tions," the Christian community from its earliest days has also recog-nized the importance of an authoritative teaching body to maintain inner unity as the gospel was being spread. By Christ's will, this teaching authority, termed the "magisterium," belongs to the hierarchy who are 50 / Review for Religious, January-February 1989 sacramentally empowered and assisted by the Spirit to speak in the name of.Jesus Christ. Therefore, Catholics are to trust what pope and bishops teach, not because of their personal learning or stated reasons for their teaching, but precisely because of the spiritual authority of the office they occupy.4 Infallible Teaching Authority Vatican Council I first defined the infallible teaching authority of the Church as an article of faith in promulgating the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus in 1870.5 While it reaffirmed this dogma of Vatican I, Vatican Council II integrated it into the doctrine on the collegiality of the bishops united with the pope and the doctrine of the Church as the People of God (Constitution on the Church, articles 12, 18, 25). Article 25 of this constitution6 states that when the pope or the episcopal col-lege (pope and bishops together) solemnly,proclaim matters of faith and morals, they are protected by the Spirit of Christ from misleading the peo-ple by teaching erroneous doctrine; hence their teaching is infallible. Several conditions need to be fulfilled for a teaching to be consid-ered infallible. First, the doctrine must deal with a matter of faith or mor-als. Second, it must be proclaimed by a duly authorized Church teacher as binding on the universal Church. Finally, it must be proclaimed "to be definitively held" by all Catholics as a dogma of faith. This infalli-ble teaching authority has been exercised only rarely since its cautious and circumscribed definition by Vatican Council I. More recently, the Constitution of the Church and the 1983 Code of Canon Law7 describe three ways in which this infallible magisterium can be exercised. (I) The pope may issue a solemn or ex cathedra pronouncement. Ac-cording to Vatican Council I, popes possess and can articulate the infal-libility with which the Divine Redeemer endowed his Church for defini-tive decisions in matters of faith and morals. For example, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption by the bull Mun~ficentissimus issued November i, 1950. (2) The episcopal college may act solemnly in ecumenical councils. In ecumenical councils, the episcopal college, assembled in one place, acquires a special clarity and efficacy. Here the corporate episcopate can act in a solemn manner to define an article of faith; for example, Vati-can Council I promulgated the doctrine of infallibility in Pastor Aeter-nus in 1870. (3) The episcopal college may exercise its "ordinary and universal magisterium." In their ordinary and universal magisterium, the same bish- Challenge of Church Teachings / 51 ops, without coming together in one assembly, and with each remaining at his post, can definitively set forth some doctrine for the absolute ac-ceptance oLthe entire Church. In practice it is not always easy to ascer-tain whether or not the magisterium in a given case is exercising infalli-bility through this "ordinary" manner. It has been suggested that a pos-sible example of this level of Church doctrine is the common and con-stant teaching of pope and bishops throughout the world on the moral evil of abortion. How is an infallible doctrine to be received by the faithful? Vatican II's Constitution on the Church and the 1983 Code hold that infallible teaching must be accepted with obsequium fidei, translated as the 'as-sent of faith." This assent of faith is to be absolute and unconditional because it involves divine authority which utteriy excludes the possibil-ity of error. Consequently, the obstinate denial of truths proclaimed as infallible would constitute heresy. However, various Church documents warn the faithful to receive a teaching as infallible only when it has been definitively proclaimed as such. Vatican II, for example, declared that its statements on faith or morals should be seen as binding on the Church only when the council expressly declared them as such.8 Like'vise, the new Code cautions that no doctrine is understood to~ be infallibly defined "unless this is manifestly demonstrated. ,,9 From this review of the meaning of infallible teaching, it is obvious that the great majority of doctrinal statements issued on a day-to-day ba-sis do not fit into this category. Rather, most documents seem to belong to the nondefinitive level of authority--which makes the accurate under-standing of this noninfallible teaching crucially important today. Noninfallible Church Teaching The noninfallible magisterium is the term used to refer to the follow-ing exercises of the Church's teaching office: (l) the pronouncements of the pope when he is not teaching ex cathedra; (2) the declarations of an office of the Roman See with the special approval of the doctrine by the pope as his own; (3) the declarations of a curial office with routine but not special papal approval; (4) the promulgation of a doctrine by the pope toget, l~er with the college of bishops in council; (5) the teachings of an individual bishop; (6) the pronouncements of a grouping of bishops in an episcopal conference or a particular council. In order to respond appropriately to the numerous doctrinal state-ments issued by these official teachers, one needs to understand: (I) the nature of noninfallible teaching; (2) gradations among nondefinitive teach-ings; (3) inherent difficulties. Review for Religious, January-February 1989 ( I ) The Nature of Noninfallible Teaching. Three basic principles un-derlie this exploration of the noninfallible magisterium. (a) The concepts of noninfallible Church teaching and the response owed to it are evolving concerns whose complete meanings are not yet in the Church's consciousness. ~0 Recall that the definition of infallible teaching authority (1870) took place only within the last one hundred twenty years of the Church's two thousand year existence, (b) The issues of nondefinitive Church teaching and the response owed to it are being examined and applied by a Church that is itself an evolving reality as a community and an institution. ~ (c) With the spread and evolution of the Church, there has been a concomitant growth and development of doctrine, for example, "a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down" (Constitution on Divine Revelation, article 8). Vati-can II reiterated in its Decree on Ecumenism that: "If there are deficien-cies in the formulation of doctrine . these should be appropriately rectified at the proper moment" (article 6). More recently, the Congre-gation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the first time officially acknowl-edged that even the Church's expression of a truth of revelation at a par-ticular age may need to b~ reformulated in a subsequent era. ~2 These of-ficial statements on the growth possible in dogmatic teaching can be ap-plied afortiori to the noninfailible level of teaching. ,Basically, it is difficult to categorize the precise nature of nondefini-tire teaching. According to Orsy, noninfallible teaching is composed of two types of doctrine in an organic unity: some changeable h~uman thoughts (often of a particular school), and incorrupt expressions of the deposit of revelation. For this reason, simplistic statements such as "non-infallible statements by ecclesiastical authorities are binding," or, "dis-sent from noninfallibly stated doctrine should be always permissible" do not recognize .the complex content of the body of noninfallible beliefs. Orsy also makes the important observation that a particular document may, and. usually does, contain a mixture of infallible and noninfallible teachings without any indication of the different levels involved. ~3 In 1967, the German bishops referred to another significant aspect of noninfallible teaching authority when they pointed out that this level of magisterium "can, and on occasion actually does fall into error." 14 Francis Sullivan, a theologian, comments that it seems impossible to fault the reasoning of the German bishops: if the nondefinitive teaching of the magisterium is not infallible, it can be erroneous and can stand in need of correction. ~5 Here the basic principle of the development of Challenge of Church Teachings doctrine comes into play. Indeed the Church has corrected or reversed its stance on a number of occasions. 16 For example, the Decree on Ecu-menism of Vatican II clearly departed from previous papal teaching re-garding the Church's negative stance on relationships with non-Catholic Christians. Another obvious example is the final lifting of the condemna-tions imposed in the celebrated "Galileo case." ~7 In their pastoral letter, the German bishops point out that the Church has always been aware of the possibility of error. They conclude, how-ever, that in order to maintain the true and ultimate substance of faith the Church officials must, even at the risk of error in points of detail, "give expression to doctrinal directives which have a certain degree of binding force." (2) Gradation Among Noninfallible Documents. The weight or gra-dation of importance of a noninfallible statement can be indicated either by the person or body issuing the teaching, or the type of literary genre of the document itself that is utilized to promulgate the teaching. (a) As noted earlier, noninfallible statements can be issued by the pope or the bishops. Since the formal authority o.f the pope and the epis-copal college exceeds that of the bishops acting individually or con-jointly, there are obviously gradations among the various teachings prom-ulgated. (b) The second criterion for ascertaining the weight of a particular ~ondefinitive pronouncement is its literary genre, or, "the nature of the document" that is utilized (Constitution on the Church, article 25). Ap-ostolic constitutions, for example, are considered the most solemn form of papal documents. Then come papal acts in the form of letters in two categories, encyclical epistles and encyclical letters, the latter form be-ing less solemn than the former. The ordinary magisterium of the pope is also found in doctrinal dec-larations of the curia, for example, of the Congregations for Doctrine and for Seminari

Issue 47.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1988. ; Communal Spirituai ~Cons01ation The Blessing of ~OId Age . . .= =,.~ ;. ::. -. : ~ - = :"~ i~',~,~ . Love and !~Apostolate Volume 47 Number 6 Nov./Dec. 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. REWEW FOR RELiGiOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. ©1988 by REVIEW 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 Nov./Dec. 1988 Volume 47 Number 6 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to Rv.wv.w Fon RvaotGmus; 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 Rv.wv.w FOR REt.mtous; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints ar~ 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. Consciousness Examen: Becoming God's Heart for the World George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. Father Aschenbrenn~r, well known to almost all of our readers, returns to our pages,. His article was first published in the April-June 1988 special edition of Prayer and Service (Rome). He is the director of the Spiritual-formation program at North Ameri-can College; 00120 Vatican City State; Europe. To live contemplativeiy. Ind~ed', ~o become Whom we contempl.at~: this is the invi~gorating experience, the hallmark enterprise and adventure that human existence is all about that for which every human heart is long-ing. The magnetic appeal of~tl~e wholly beloved invites our hearts to a transformation which is never e~isy. But it is so intimately renewing as to be almost irresistible. It is the very heart 9f love. Lovers in their mu~- tual ~0ntemplation are not always explicitly aware of this process of self-transformation into which the~y ~are being swept up. But c,ertain claalleng'- ing momen, ts can starkly reveal the risky loss of self that is involved. And yet the very attractiveness of the beloved provides conviction and moti-vation t6 embrace this risk. in that magnetic moment, love seems an op-portunity not to be m'isse'd. B/at love's opportunity "and risk are also costly--and lovers finally know this. Indeed, the cost involved in the con-templation of lovers strikes to the profound level of self, id.entity. But cost what it may, the belove.d~s attractiveness lures the lover on to surpris-ingly new depths. The beloved in our reflection here is Christ Jesus, our God and Lord, our Brother and, finally, all our sisters and brothers, especially the most suffering ones across all time and space (see Mt 25:31-46). And contem-plative transformation into .this beloved is the fundamental process .in-volved in, indeed it is, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. It 801 [102 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 is also the process with which examination of conscience is concerned. And there we have at once the premise and the product of this reflec-tion. Both devotion to the Sacred Heart and examination of conscience have a long history in the Ignatian tradition. But they have rarely, if ever, been viewed in relationship to each other. In this article I will try to show how regular examination of conscience facilitates a transforming expe-rience of one's own heart into the beloved of one's heart, the Sacred Heart of God in Jesus Christ. After a brief summary of the contempo-rary renewed understanding of the examen, I will make use especially of some of the graces prayed for in the First Week Of the Spiritual Exer-cises, in order to describe the continuing conversion involved in a regu-lar practice of examen. Finally, in support of the claim that the examen can convert our hearts into devotion to the Sacred Heart of God, I will describe a little of the apostolic power~ the ardent love and thirst for jus-tice, of such a growing and ongoing conversion. Ongoing: for we are never done with love. In recent years there have been attempts, both within the Jesuit heri-tage and within the whole Church, to renew the understanding and prac-tice of examination of conscience and of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Examination of conscienc~ is now more of(en called consciousness ex-amen or awareness examen. ~ In its renewed form the examen continues to bless and sensitize the hearts of many busy believers to the loving pres-ence of God in all of daily life. And while much work has been done in developing a contemporary theological understanding of devotion to the Sacred Heart,2 perhaps the a~tual practice of the devotion is not so widespread as that of consciousness examen, or at least is not widespread among those who frequently make use of consciousness examen. This article, finally, though its central point is to relate the two practices, is concerned more with the personal effects of regular examen than it is with the details of traditional or recent developments in devotion to the Sacred Heart. Renewed Understanding of Examen In the renewed understanding of the examen, two insights are key. First, a much more positive perspective has corrected a past view that often deteriorated into an overly negative, moralistic misunderstanding. Rather than highlighting the bad actions of a day, the examen gives pri-mary concern to what is primary: God's revelation, a steadfast love in Christ Jesus always inviting and invigorating our consciousness. Formal examen sensitizes our hearts to the presence of this love in the ordinary Becoming God's Heart / 803 details of every day. Whenever this love is recognized and responded to, our hearts simply must c9~me aliw~ with joy and gratitude. So gratitude is the major element in the actual time of examen-prayer, as it should also be in our daily lives of faith. And this gratefulness for the wonder of God's love stirs hearts to action. And so gratitude becomes the chief motive from which all ministry pours. As the examen begins to make our hearts more aware of God's .per-during Io.ve, we also begin to recognize flow often and how easily we can b~ oblivious to that love, or how subtly, yet quite stubbornly, we can refuse response to love. This realization, when faced honestly and not rationalized away, can, whether rudely or quietly, awaken our hearts with healthy guilt, with sorrow and repentance. As this article will de-velop later, this, experience of guilt and sorrow is anything but pleasant; yet, as an experience of God's love, it does purify us, it does transform us. And the effect of that can only be a bolder, freer, more wide-ranging apostolic service. Mature faith and discipleship cannot happen without this painful transformation in the humiliating experience of guilt and sorrow. As the repentant sinner encounters God's forgiveness in Je-sus, sorrow is transformed into hopeful, vigorous gratitude--and a burn-ing zeal to serve God's loving justice in our world. In this way, thanks-giving-- the central driving force in the heart of any mature disciple of Jesus Christ--dominates the dailyexamen and fuels its impulse toward loving action. A second insight that renews our understanding.of the examen is the importance of the informal examen, as distinguished from, though obvi-ously not unrelated to, the formal examen.3 The formal examen is a spe, cific time and style of prayer:. In a previous article I described the five traditional elements of such prayer.4 Never meant as an end in itself, this formal practice of examen should gradually .spill over and infiltrate it-self, as a special faith,sensitivity, into a person's daily ,life. And so we come upon the informal examen:a way of living. The informal examen is more a matter of who we.are and who we are becoming, whereas the formal examen is a specifid prayer we regularly practice. Thus a .regular practice of examen can lead to that self-transformation which make pos-sible a genuine faith-sensitivity of heart, a dynamic connaturality with the Beloved, which we are calling here informal examen. This dynamic development of formal examen into informal, into a pervasive faith-sensitivity of heart, is crucial--crucial both to a proper understanding of examen itself and to its role in the human heart's deeply desired experi-ence of love: our becoming whom we contemplate. Review for Religious, November-December 1988 Daily Conversion in Faith Jesus' ministry erupts publicly among the peopl(-inoa great sense of urgency: a wholly new revelation of God's love and the need for reform of mind and heart, if One is to recognize and respond~to that love. It is so clear at the beginning of Mark and in the synagogue-scene of chapter four in Luke. This radical personal conversion of faith is often described in the Scriptures as a matter of repentance. As a conx~ersion that will cost a whole lifetime, 'it continually involves the risking and sacrificing of a temptingly attractive but false, illusory self while radically true and ra-diantly new creation is born in a person's daily response to the quiet ur-genc~ of God's love. But no experience of merely passing excitement will suffice for this. Nor ~can such repentance and radical change of outlook ever be re-duced simply~ tb our own planning and control. A strategy of clear-sighted tactics and of fierce determination will always prove futile all by itself. In fact, if not properly motivated and accompanied by grace, it can actually corrupt the very adventure of faith into something"unwhole-some and unholy. With0ut,a genuin(rexperience of the wonder of God's love, the Gospel call, the call by grace and favor to radical change, can-not be heard, and healthy repentance cannot happen.5 It is the attractive beauty and power of God's love which reveals the inadequacy and sin-fulness of our condition and unlooseris in our hearts a desire to be much more than what we now may be. It is in this way that the w~onder of God's love reveals our sinfulness. And this profound truth, so capable of being misunderstoOd, is always the bedrock of mature spiritual life. God alone sees our sinfulness most clearly for what it truly is: a choice against love. And it is this God who calls us to intimacy in the beautiful revelation of Jesus come among us as forgiveness. Every detail of Je-sus' life, most especially his dramatic experience on Calvary, stretches and stirs 6ur hearts in hope for a new creation, a new life, a whole new self. But repentance, with its'purifying pain and.suffering, is the only way to this urgently longed-for newness. ¯ ~An ,honest repentant.acknowledgment of sinfulness.in the face of such love is neither'obxiious nor easy, because it cuts Our consciousness in humiliation. 'The guilt and shame and the embarrassment that come in the wake of such~an acknowledgment sting and. singe our conscious-ness. In the presence of such love, they make our spirits blush. The pain and hurt will, most often ,~" and quite spontaneouslyl make us wary and seel~ to activate d~fense mechanisms such'~ as the rationalizations of de-nial and the distractions,~not of joy, but of pleasure. These are moments Becoming God's Heart / 805 for careful discernment in the life of any believer, For the humiliating pain of acknowledged sin, as intended here, is not the result of some overly scrupulous conscience. Nor is it the unhealthy guilt of self-hatred. Rather it is the purifying consolation--not desolation, but con-solation~ however scouring--the consoling experience of God calling us to greater love and life and faith. Despite the pain, therefore, this repen-tant blush of heart is a grace not to be rejected. It is essential to any ma-ture faith, to any measured zeal for God's world, to any discipleship that hopes.to brave the road's full distance. The guilt that introduces our embarrassed, repentant response to God'.s great, tender love requires a brief description here. Much past ex-p. eoence of unhealthy guilt has understandably provoked the over-reaction against, even to the l~oint of a dangerous disregar.d, of, ~all guilt as if all guilt were unhealthy. Though unhealthy guilt can surely plague and disi~eart~n.us, yet there is a guilt born of God. A'nd it ~;tings. But for the lover, it also signals the Beloved's presence, a very active pres-ence, a redemptive consciousness, inoviting great~er intimacy in faith with God. Urihealthy guilt is always anxious, wo~:rie~ aboiat self, in excessive fear of punishment, preoccupied with failure, at tim6s verging on despair in the face of some unrealistic pe~rfectionism. But healthy, consoling guilt is always the result of an interpersonal Iov,e .relationship. And it focuses the heart beyond the self, on the Beloved, in painful so~:row for the wound one's lack of love has caused. Healthy .guilt does not despair, nor does it disrupt the deepest peace of the soul. The reason for this is that healthy guilt is always intimately and very positively related to encoun-ter, a repentant sinner's encounter with God's forgiveness revealed and available now in a crucified Son's intransigent love. In the Dying, a New Life But in the tense struggle'of this inner guilt, shame, and sorrow, we usually become aware of the risk and high stakes involved. A self, or some aspect of a self with which we have been enamored, perhaps for a long time, must be let go of, Something must die if the new is to be born. It is a mortifying experience, but, as it is not a mortification sim-ply of our own making, neither can the outcome of it be clearly grasped in advance, It is a moment of perceived high risk. And the helplessness of such a moment, when we are on the verge of letting go of what used to be and are. not yet in possession of what will be, can profoundly daunt and agitate our spirit. Furthermore, it is in no way simply our own power and ingenuity that will create a different future. In the helpless and sor-rowful awareness of our sinfulness, it is only an 'act of trusting abandon- Review for Religious, November-December 1988 ment of self, sometimes done in the dark aloneness of faith, that will al-low the Beloved to gift us with God's holiness, our only true human fu-ture. A process of conversion that has begun in love leads now to even greater love as a beloved God, in that faithful promise which is the risen Jesus, defies all darkness and rejects absurdity and pain as the final word, whether about this world or the next. The heart of God revealed in"Jesus excites our hearts with the invi-tation to a new and brighter future. But only a heart scoured clean in the humiliation of repentance can respond to that invitatiofi. The issue is as profound as self-transformation and as hopeful as a wholly new c?eation. But without a mortified, response to God's loving invitation and without a risky letting go of self, such a future remains simply tantalizing, cheap grace, illusion. The forgiving love of God ~brings th~ process of repentance to a con-clusion o~ lively gratitude, profound joy, and enthusiastic zeal for min-istry. The sorrow of a forgiven sinner is not depressing, however pain-fully purifying. Neither is this sorrow obliterated by the joyous gratitude and zeal for servic~ that realized forgiveness brings. Rather, the humility of a saved sinner, while not destructively focused on the past, neve'r sim-ply forgets the sorrowful memory of forgiven sin. One cannot help but wonder whether Peter in the maturi~ty of his joy, during his after-breakfast walk with the risen Jesus, did not once again find his eyes well up with tears as three awkward questions burned his soul with his own lonely truth, but burned it precisely for the sake of fidelity, the journey in companionship, and, yes, for the great holiness of Peter that lay ahead (Jn 21:15-19). The new self created in God's fo¢giveness is always strongly char-acterized by a profound, joyful thanksgiving for a deed neither deserved nor capable of accomplishment on one's own. This deed of forgiveness and the hope of a new and better future resonate strongly in the repen-tarot sinner's heart, now riveted on the challenging beauty of God's for-giving love, found fleshed forever in Jesus on the cross. And so the whole dynamic of the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises propels a per-son to confrontation, to enlightenment and encouragement before this pas-sionate experience of Jesus on Calvary. Having taken upon himself the sins of all, this Son, anguished in an olive grove over the agonizing pros-pect of a humiliating death, is able to renew that trusting abandonment of self which allows himoto find once again, as always, not previous to, but in the very abandonment of dying, his dear Father. And his beloyed Father blesses this anguished abandonment with a future of absolute full- Becoming God's Heart ness in resurrection. In the face of such enlivening abandonment on Je-sus' part, we can find the graceful encouragement needed for that sur-render of self which repentance always demands. It is at this moment that the graces of fidelity and perseverance take root in the forgiven sinner's experience. And so Jesus' death into the fu-ture of resurrection stands faithfully, for all ages, as God's forgiveness. It gives graceful encouragement to all repentant sinners in this risky and humiliating process of self-transformation. The persevering faithfulness of this new creation, this new heart, will always depend on how pro-foundly, how pervasively transformed the repentant sinner is in the en-counter with God's Word of forgiveness. As we gaze on God's forgiveness in Jesus crucified, besides a lively gratitude and profound joy, our heart knows the expansiveness of a great desire for God in Jesus--an apostolic desire to give ourselves as Jesus did in the ministry of God's forgiving justice. This desire at the end of the First Week continues to expand as the attractiveness of God's love in Jesus is revealed through the remaining weeks of the Exercises. God's Spirit and kingdom revealed so compellingly in Jesus become our whole-hearted desire. To live in daily imitation of Jesus, to serve as an apostle in whatever way God desires, becomes the very energy of our hearts. And yet, as the experience continues, this desire can stretch our hearts still further: we may be so transformed, we may, in such transformation, be so intimately identified with Jesus, that we become and, in the thor-oughly real way the mysticism of baptism and Eucharist accomplish in us, we may be Jesus in and for our world. And so ttie joyous thanksgiv-ing of a forgiven sinner, so much more than .a mere devotional satisfac-tion, sets our hearts afire with such desire for new identity in Christ Je-sus that we become mystical activists, heralds everywhere of the good news of God's transforming forgiveness. This reflection offers the view that consciousness examen may play a role of special importance in facilitating such a process of radical con-version. The profundity and pervasiveness of the transformation spoken of will depend in large measure on a regular practice of examen. And rather than putting a clear conclusion to the process of radical conver-sion, the Exercises provide enlightening direction for the further and con-tinual deepening of desire for this daily identification with Jesus. For this reason, as the formal Exercises conclude and move to become daily life, we are always left with an even greater need than before for regular ex-amen, that we may continue the daily discernment of God's love con-verting us steadily into Christ Jesus our Lord. Review for Religious, November-December 1988 Goal of Examen: Devotion to the Sacred Heart of God ,in Jesus Long after the retreat experience of the Exercises is finished, regu-lar examen keeps our heart sensitive and responsive to the attractiveness of the Sacred Heart of God: ifi Jesus.As we have already seen, thanks-giving and sorrow are the two chief affections in faith of the examen-- and the sorrow itself, as we~have also seen, finds its fulfillment in thanks-giving.~ And so it is in. and through its term of thanksgiving that regular cxamen mediates our conversion and growth into Christ Jesus. Through the basic thrust of the ex.amcn, each believer becomes a concrete embodi, merit here and now of the Sacred Heart of God in Jesus. Consciousness examen, therefore, by facilitating the transformation whereby.a serious believer and disciple becomes devoted to the Sacred Heart,is profoundly related tothat same,,devotion.For in this sens~e of the word, devotion re-fers to the fundamental shape and orientation of a believing heart to the Heart of God in Christ Jesus. And this sense of devotion cuts far be-neath-- it does not necessarily deny but rather must root--any specific, traditional devotional details and practices. .~o ¯ The transformation of self whereby our hearts radically become de-votion to the Sacred Heart accomplishes some perceptible results in our lives. Growing integrity of heart, wholeheartedness, Ignatian magnanim-ity gradually centers, unites, and identifies our whole person and pres-ence in the world. A white inner stillness, fanned to burning flame in God's own creative love, radiates an. energy bf, recollection~a collect= edness--that can meld our often fragmentary faith into the Strong, live organism of a life decisively for God. Such wholeheartedness first gives enlightenment, then courage, to-wards a fundamental desire and choice in the direction of the "heav-enly" things of consolation and away from the "earthly" things of deso-lation. These desolate "earthly" things live in our flesh as the seven capi-tal, selfish impulses toward sin that the Christian tradition ~has known so well for centuries; whereas the "heavenly" things of God's consoling love are the opposite impulses which also live in our consciousness where the Spirit of Jesus invites and breathes their confirmation, their development in us, as virtues, as the very shape of our .heart. In the in-terweaving complexity and tangle of our daily consciousness, we dis-cover that the tempting experience of these capital impulses to sin is pre-cisely the battlefield upon which the fidelity of our commitment and de-votion to the virtuous heart of God. in Christ is tested and strengthened. And so it is usually by standing strong against the tempting intensity of lust that the virtue of chastity grows. It is by decisively acknowledging Becoming God's Heart .and carefully standing against the violence of desolate rage that the ten-sile strength of nonviolent gentleness is forged. And so of all the per, sonal and community motions of spirit that impel us towards or away from the justice of the Reign of God. The examen is.daily involvement in this process of transforming the impulsive desolations of our conscious-ness into the deep, consoling devotion and virtue of God's Sacred Heart. Once again, as described earlier in this article, we notice that it is pre-cisely in the dying that the new is born.And what is newly born through these mortifying struggles on the inner battlefield of our heart--the heart of each of us and the communal, societal heart of each group, each so-cial structure--always affects apostolic presence in the world, always af-fects decisively actions for or against God's justice as revealed in the lov-ing Heart of Jesus. Fifially, this conversion into the Sacred Heart of God in Jesus, this process of our becoming devotion to the Sacred Heart, does not displace offr weakness ~vith an arrogant sense of ~Sur own stren~gth. No~, just the o'ppo~site! Maturity in faith is always growth t0 grateful realization both of our weakness and of our dependence on God's love for everything. A steadfast belief in God's love does not r.eplace human weakness. Rather, it helps us patiently to wait upon the Lord and recognize arid cele-brate God's love bringing strength into our weakness. For God's power is at its best in our weakness (se.e 2 Co 12:7-10). It is a power that is needed, for becoming whom we contemplate takes courage, even as it brings energy for it. It is high adventure, with a promised wage of per-secution, to enter and be taken up into the affectivity of Jesus, God's coun-tercultural heart for the world. Consciousness examen, then, is not a way to greater, self-reliant strength. But as its daily practice transforms us into the Sacred Heart, we may become whom we contemplate and so stand in this world as liv-ing witnesses, agents of love, inviting others into God's Heart in Christ Jesus: "Come to me, all you who are weary and over-burdened, and I will give you rest! Put on my yoke and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light"(Mt 11:28-30). And one more time we listen to the Beloved, becoming whom we contemplate: "This text is being fulfilled, today, even as you listen . . . 'The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord's year of favor' " (Lk 4:16-21). I~10 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 Through a companionship with Jesus made intimate and tender, strong and apostolically peremptory, through days and years of fidelity to the examen of consciousness, and through the dynamic energy con-tinually released in the experience of forgiven sinfulness, we may come to the apostolic gift which the fidelity of the friends of God can know. In becoming whom we contemplate, we may devoutly, reverently, boldly, and with his thirst for justice become, each of us and together, in the Holy Spirit, God's own heart for the world. NOTES t George Aschenbrenner, S.J., "Consciousness Examen," R~.v~Ew ~oR REt.IG~ot~s 3 I (1972): 14-21. See also the lengthy, very helpful article of David Keith Townsend, S.J., "The Examen Re-Examined," CIS 18, 2 (1987): 11-64. 2 Annice Callahan, R.S.C.J., Karl Rahner's Spirituality of the Pierced Heart: A Re-interpretation of Devotion to the ~a~'red Heart (New York: University Press of Amer-ica, 1985). This book contains references to the essential texts of Rahner on this sub-ject. 3 George Aschenbrenner, S.J., "A Check on Our Availability: The Examen," Rw~w ~oR RE~.~o~ot~s 39 (1980): 321-324. '~ Art. cit., R~vl~.w ~oR R~.~G~ot~s 31 (1972): 14-21. 5 See my article "Forgiveness," Sisters Today 45 (1973): 185-192. Clustering Thomas More Page, C.F.X. Brother Thomas More has written for us before, most recently in our issue of March/ April 1986: "Centering Prayer: A Flight to Reality." He lives at Mission Santa Bar-bara; 2201 Laguna Street; Santa Barbara, California 93105. Three years ago our provincial asked if the members of the province would be willing to commit themselves to form prayer cluster gr.oups dur-ing th~ course of the coming.year. The clusters would be small, six to eight people, voluntary, and would pledge themselves to meet at least twice a year over a long weekend. The timing of the formation of these clusters was just right, for by this time in our history a spirit of trust had ,been developed among the brothers, largely as the result of several provincial gatherings which were organized along different lines from provincial chapters. Provincial chap-ters consisted of a number of elected delegates who deliberated in a for-mal and businesslike manner over a prepared agenda, generally using par-liamentary procedures or "processes" for handling this agenda. The "gatherings," on the other hand, were open to all members and were constructed around themes which were meant to evoke a personal and communal faith-response within the ambience of prayer, personal and communal, with emphasis on our commonality as brothers. Within this framework we related our struggles and successes, recalled our sinful and graceful history, and spent blocks of time in prayerful reflection. Along with appropriate communal prayers composed around the theme of the gatherings, there were carefully prepared liturgies. Some unexpected results came from these new ways of meeting. There was a power released in many that had a healing effect. The prov-ince had experienced a deep division that had a traumatic effect upon the 811 812 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 members, leaving many wounds and a feeling of alienation, along with an unsettling disorientation. Then, also, there was a disturbing loss of identity. But here at these gatherings we were learning to speak a new language--that of faith speaking from lived experience. We spoke from the deepest levels of our lives. We spoke also of who we were. And we listened. In speaking and listening and praying we built up a new rela-tionship with one another andbegan the process of healing and more im-portantly, of refounding and celebrating our identity as brothers. With this healing and rediscovery, the level of trust rose proportionately. Also, an energizing power once more flowed through the province. Having thus rediscovered our identity within the healing and fraternal gatherings, we were ready for the proposal to take the next step of form.ing prayer clusters. The method used to form.the first experimental clusters, three in all, was simple, yet somewhat complicated. We were asked to jot down the names of those brothers with whom we would feel comfortable in such an intimate setting, along with the names of those with whom we would not feel comfortable. The provincial turned the names over to a brother-sociologist, who, after a long Struggle with the assignment, canoe up with three group'ings, ~,hich, ~after some further adjustments, were refined'. The members of the three groups were then asked to begin the process: Some brothers bypassed this process and began on their own. The group I was in has met three°times over the last year and a half. One person had volunteered to prepare th6 agenda for the first session; another, to find a suitable place where the f~icilities were such that they guaranteed the kind of atmosphere needed for this type of meeting. We had agreed that finances should not be an obstacle towards attendance and that, if anyone needed assistance, the group would come to his aid. To dat~, we have met in such diverse places as Loretto, Kentucky; St. Louis, Missouri; and Santa Barbara Mission, California. Our three ma-jor themes were: (.1) Make a review of your life. Isolate one'incident where you had to make a radical decision. How did you resolve it? (2) What has been your experience of God? How has your prayer life devel-oped over the years? (3) What significant things have happened to yot] since our last meeting? Relate an incident of injustice you have experi-enced. How did you handle it? Rather than further describing the mechanics of the prayer-cluster ex-perience, I prefer now to become more personal and isolate three major movements I saw take place. The most singular and overarching move-ment that tied the sessions together was what I would call spiritual inti- Clustering macy, which John Dunne describes as "the heart's desire." 'I had not expected that this would happen, and so it came as a surprise a grace. I was led into the most secret chambers of my brothers' minds and hearts--places that had hitherto been in darkness and inaccessible to oth-ers. To be drawn into a brother's faith experience; to walk with him as he tells me, in language uncluttered by grammatical rubrics, about his personal history--to be drawn into such an intimate circle was to become a witness to how his journey shaped, and molded him. It was to become a companion, a friend, a brother, who has been made aware and has made him aware of the sacredness of his history. He would no longer be alone to those to whom he had opened a clearing where the heart spoke without caution or~embarrassment. Released from the fenced area of private prayer and buried thoughts, each brother opened up the land, scape of his soul, where what was once unspoken, silent, became sto-ries that were, in the words of John Shea, "witnesses to grace, ~tutter-ing accounts, at times,,of,the God whose ways are unknown to us." And after each account, there was a zone of silence more reverent and expec-tant than the hushed, silence that follows upon the last plucked strings of Segovia's guitar. And thus it was that each brother, within the intimate circle of fra-ternal shari.ng, was able to speak without fear,about those things in his life he believed in, knowing that he could do this becau_se he had the sup~ port and trust of his listeners. This spiritual intimacy led to the second movement: a new sense of ideiatity. Each brother spoke in,what Robert Bella calls the "language of the heart," where one is caught up in the restless, flux of thought un-tethered by grammatical ,rubrics. When one heart speaks and another lis-tens, each is .drawn closer together in the bonds of fellowship. The ex-perience of spiritual intimacy made each ,brother feel he was participating in a fellowship in which his identity as a person and a brother was re-captured, maybe even rediscovered. When we were drawn into the feeling level of the brothers as they told their story, there was a shift that brought all the hearers into one com-mon community with common roots. What was experienced was the joy of belonging, with the discovery that "joy is deeper than agony" (Nietzsche). This kind of interchange is what J. A. Appleyard, S.J., would call "agonistic" in the "best sense of the word: it struggles to articulate primary experience, and in doing so it creates an intersUbjec-tive reality, sets relationships of cordialit~y and professionalism on a new basis of experienced faith." Through this deep experience of sharing 1~14 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 their faith, the. brothers broke through the polite slogans by which they once related and placed their newly found relationship on a personal level where their faith journeys converged towards the two poles necessary for a humanly growth-producing state: a deep relationship with God and a deep feeling of brotherhood. This senSe of personal and communal identity, this joy of belong-ing, is not something entirely emotional. It is something more than that. Its merit is that it drew the group into the beguiling and dreaming air of what brotherhood can become, where brother relates to brother. As Bishop Tutu once wrote, "You blossom among those who keep affirm-ing." The third movement was the awareness on the part of the brothers that this experience of spiritual intimacy and the rediscovery of their iden-tity' as brothers was not done within a vacuum, but was fashioned from the agenda of the world from which they temporarily withdrew. If one listened closely to their stories, one became acutely conscious that the brothers came to the cluster to gain strength and support to become even more prayerful men of faith who want to'develop a spirituality for jus-tice and equality which is nonviolent, hopeful, courageous, and collabo-rative. They came from their deep involvement in such ministries as: chemical dependency; professional involvement in heavy ethical and medi-cal questions; inner-city and upper-level-income schools; directors of re-newal programs for clergy and religious; organizers of immigrants from Central America. Against this varied background, they spoke of their call and their efforts toward a radical commitment to be voices for the voice-less, prophets in today's Church and world. They spoke of how they might effectively be involved in the women's movement and how they could be brother to them in their struggles; of the issues and the injus-tices which cry out for their voice; of how they might clarify and articu-late a response to the needs of the Church and of society; of how they can speak out and act individually and collectively regarding specific in-justices they see within the Church; of.how they might be able to speak out about the clericalism within the Church and religious orders; of how they can instill in students values opposed to a consumer society and a vision of the universality of the human family. Clustering, then, has been for the brothers a powerful force for sustaining them.in their involvement in the issues paramount in our society and Church. Without this aware-ness, they realize, the clusters could become a cozy and self-~fulfilling affair, hardly any different from social gatherings or an evening of ca-maraderie. ., ~, Clustering What has been the effect of these clusters on the membership? The question is best answered by the provincial who initiated the effort. In a very recent letter, he wrote as follows: "It is clearly evident that the Lord has been blessing us in a particular way over these last years. Our numbers may be decreasing and most of us may be aging; still we are at a depth of commitment and a level of true fraternal sharing that I per-sonally had never experienced before in my years as a Xaverian. I have lived over forty years of very happy times--of real mutual fraternal as-sistance and good-natured camaraderie. However, it is, I believe, only in these later years that we have begun to share what is deepest in our lives, in our thoughts and feelings. It is only recently that we have be-gun to share what happens to us in our prayers, to open ourselves to each other at the depths of our intimate private prayer. The mutual understand-ing, encouragement, and joy that this. sharing has produced in us is evi-dent every time we gather together: it is vibrant, palpable, and promotes further joy. It is true spiritual happiness, a real spiritual consolation." The Sanctuary Lamp Amid the silence of the night the waxen sentinels do not their vigil keep but one lone beacon stirs the midnight air. The flame, so silent her voice yet so dauntless the strength gathered in the surgings of light defying darkness. How hidden the strain of solitude's demands to give with gentle grace life's unseen gift of gold while others bask in daylight's sweet caress. Barbara Ann Opfer 2027 Campbell, B-8 Sandusky, Ohio 44870 TheMirror in the Field Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J. . , Father Tetlow has worked in the religious formation of junior religious and of theol-ogy students. He is currently spiritual director to the cle~rgy of th, e Diocese of Aus-tin, facilitator of the spirituality program in the Central Texas Pastoral Centel, and tertian director of~the New Orleans Province of the Soc'iety 6f Jesus. He liveg at Xavier Hall; 907 Lydia Street; Austin, Texas 78702. Fvery literate American can rattle off the list of major flaws in the Ameri-can psyche: workaholism, negative self-image, inability to make com-mitments, perfectionism, and so on. We absorb the list from psycho-babble, but we do not accept that these flaw~':are mere personality quirks, "just the way we are." On the contrary, we have the vague but persis-tent sense that not being able not to work, or living continually down on self, or failing in seriously made commitments, and so on, represents some kind of moral or religious wrong. W6' do not, however, know the name of the wrong. I make an attempt here to name that wrong and to diagnose the spiri-tual sickness lurking under workaholism and the rest. Why do business-men who really trust God nonetheless work themselves into coronary care? Why do mature Christians feel that'their prayer is trivial because they do not focus on divine things the way a computer focuses on its data? How can a woman go through a long preparation, soberly take mar-riage vows, and walk away from her Spouse two years later? What would make holy old religious consider themselves worthless? I will contend, first, that a single, serious spiritual failing commonly underlies these spiritual sicknesses. The failing is that we do not believe in and attend to the passionate love of God continually creating each hu-man self. Very likely, many have not even made an adult commitment to a principal foundational truth of revelation: God continues at every mo- 816 The Mirror in the Field ment the Creator even of the free human self. I will argue, secondly, that we have honorable reasons for finding it hard to keep this truth in mind. I will list five. However, thirdly, even if our reasons are honorable, we suffer a good deal because of this unmindfulness. Specifically, we suffer a syn-drome of problems that constantly show 'up in spiritual direction and re-treats, beginning with the perfectionism, negative self-imaging, and workaholism already mentioned and including others. I will list another five that I have observed. These problems, I will insist, have specifically psychological moments, but when we escape our psychological suffer-ing from, say, negative self-imaging, we then face a specifically spiri-tual issue of appropriate self-love. It is the root spiritual problem I am interested in here. To analyze it, fourthly, I. will return to and expand on my first point. For I find the root of this whole range of problems in our refusal to accept God's crea-tive loving not in the abstract (we all give notional assent to God the Crea-tor every Sunday), but in the concrete. I mean that we reject God's cre-ating when we choose to dislike, hate, or repudiate the concrete gifts that I am given and .the whole gift that I am. This radical refusal strains or even breaks an appropriate relationship with the self and with God. Finally, I will suggest that in some measure the cure for all of these problems lies in a wholehearted, living yes to the concrete realities in my history, in my life, and in the self that emerges within them. Forgetting the Constantly Creating God. As children we answered the question "Who made me?" with the belief ~'God made me." Now adults, we need to know that the question cannot read who made, but who is making me. l~or we know that it is not the case that G~)d made me in an historical event done with and over. It is the case that God, who is at every moment Maker, keeps on making me. In the fullest sense, my Maker keeps~3n shaping me as a human per-son and as a self. As a child I imagihed that God creates the w,ay rain fills a. vessel" It rains. The rain fills the vessel. The rain stops. The vessel remains filled. So God made me and now I am. This is an infantile conviction we need to grow out of. If I choose adult belief, I must imagine that God creates the way the sun illumines a mirror standing in a field. The sun's light fills the mirror and the mirror shines back. Did the sun stop. shin-ing, the mirror would go blank; as long as the sun shines, the mirror it-self radiates, light. So, as long as God's creating love burns in me, I am coming to be: Did he stop loving me right now--per impossibile, we like Review for Religious, November-December 1988 to think--I would stop right now coming to be. I would go blank. Why go back over these simple truths? Most feel that, put this baldly, they are too obvious to need saying. Indeed they are obvious, so obvious that we let them fade from functional beliefs to mere formali-ties in our faith-life. For God is so faithful and steadfast that we simply and unreflectively take for granted, not only his love, but even more his creating. Indeed, when men and women turn to God today (as at the be-ginning of a retreat, or in the middle of a life crisis), we gladly accept our divine parent cherishing us and we find deep consolation.and mean-ing in the Lord of all things loving us personally. We are by no means so quick to know our God as our constantly acting, all-powerful creator. I do not mean that the indifferent and sinful among us forget God creating. My experience in spiritual direction and retreat-giving leads me to contend that even people who pray regularly live unmindful of God's actiTe creating. Many who make the thirty-day lgnatian Exercises learn at the beginning to bask in God's steadfast love for them, but never ac-quiesce in the principal foundational truth: that what God wants must pene-trate my whole life and my whole self simply because God the Origin keeps on as the First Maker even of the human self as I keep emerging. We have learned in recent decades to take comfort in the thought that I am not yet complete, not yet finished; but we limit the meaning of that to not being finished making my own self, not mindful of the Other who has not yet finished, either. Perhaps we are not mindful of God's making because we get con-founded by trying to figure out how God's freedom and my personal free-dom fit together. We do indeed face some tremendous Speculative diffi-culties in fitting together human and divine freedom, and some people may suffer spiritual problems because of their speculations. But I have only very rarely met the person who labors under a kind of Luciferian aloneness before God, strapped into spiritual inertia by metaphysical co-nundrums. Most commonly, people live unmindful of God creating for deeply personal and experiential reasons, rooted in our current perception of our self and in our appreciation (or lack of it) of our concrete, per-sonal gifts. Honorable Reasons We are not to believe, however, that we fail to live mindful of the passionately making God from dishonest anger or sinful defiance~ On the contrary, I believe that we fail for several honorable reasons. The first, I think, comes from the way we now perceive the self. John Donne has argued that in the twentieth century we think of the self The Mirror in the Field as a reality that each of us brings forth. I am producing, I am making, myself. Our conviction sh6ws up in the way we talk: I have to do my own thing. I gotta be me. I have to be true to myself. I want to be authen-tic. In earlier ages people perceived the self differently. For instance, when Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord," she was perceiving her "self" as the sum total of her human experience. When she said, "The Lord has done great things in me," she was not talking about her little life right then. She was talking about the entire range of her little life history, all of the beginning, middle, and end. When Jesus asked, "What would a man gain if he got the whole world and lost his self?" he was not making an obscure point about some mysterious essence; he was making an obvious point about the man's entire life, his whole his-tory, his full being. Everyone can understand the point that nothing could reward a man for trashing that. We do not think that way. When we talk about our self, we .are talk-ing about something much more circumscribed, and still in process. We feel engaged in that process in every one of our initiatives and responses. We sense that we are bringing forth who I am moment by moment out of our experience, out of our history. So where does God fit in? We find it much easier to think of God as the Maker of things that are finished, and the Maker of things of which I am not the maker. We find it diffi-cult to keep in touch with the God who keeps engaged in making my whole self. The second reason why we find it: hard to keep mindful of this pas-sionately creating Love in us comes out of our relatively new knowledge of depth psychology. We can easily believe, as any child might, that God once created a self whole and intact, on whom others subsequently wreaked havoc. But we find it hard to believe two things: that God could create a self hag-ridden by an unconscious full of horrors and an id ooz-ing unresolved conflicts. And then, that God could actively continue cre-ating a self that learns lusts, neuroses, compulsions, phobias, and addic-tions before it is intelligently free or while it must choose under ruinous constraints. Does God make the self that craves alcohol which destroys that self? In what way can God be responsible for a self compelled to break out in shingles instead of breaking out of an insufferable situation? How is any god involved in creating that self? How could God be creat-ing a lesbian whose unchosen, vehement sexual desires clash shatteringly with her own cherished conscience? Both speculatively and experien-tially, we have trouble finding God's creating love inside the post- 820 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 Freudian human personality. Thirdly, I think that we find it hard t~ believe that God actively shapes the self because we are so aware of sin structured into our world and of our own introjection of those structured sins. Unavoidably in my society, I feel certain racial prejudices. I came to understand only as an adult how much I am driven b~ sexism. Again with my society, I am com-ing to comprehend the blindnesses of ageism. Ev.ery day, we Americans feel the weight of the world's wealth, which so inequitably divides hu-mankind. Thus, in vague but poignant ways, we feel responsible for struc-tured sin and guilty for our part in it; and yet we feel quite helpless to change things. Why would a good God be creating oa feckless, con-founded self like mine? Fourthly, we face this business of a negative self-image. I find this ugly self-disvaluing hard to define or describe, but great numbers of pop-psychology books suggest that it is very strong. In books like Theodore Isaac Rubin's Compassion and Self-Hate and M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie, psychiatrists contend that distrust and despising of the self poi-sons the American psyche the way radioactive wastes poison: AmeriCan watertables. And noting the tide of seminars on assertiveness and self-improvement and all the Esalen Institutes around, we are forced to con-clude that something is going on in the self-evaluation of postmodern hu-mankind, and it is not positive. We are all members of David Riesman's "lonely crowd." Just recently we celebrated an anniversary and listened again to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." We resonated again to the Beatles' famous line: "All the lonely people, where do they all come from?" Indeed; where do they come from? We find it hard to keep mindful that all these listless folk are the current achievement of a pas-sionately loving God. Fifthly and finally, our difficulties are intensified hourly by the ad-vertisers and taste-makers. They persuade us of the self that we "ought" to,be. During the 1930s, practitioners came to believe that advertising could go far beyond merely extolling the virtues of a product. They de-cided that real advertising should make people feel that we truly need what is being advertised, that we cannot hope to live as fulfilled persons unless we are supported by that product. Ever since, that is how adver-tising works~---and it really does work--teaching us to feel out of it, apart~ not fulfilled, without an infinite number of products and services. Since we are effectively made to feel the need of something new just about every week~ we ~.ever can come to feel that we really belong, are included, are coming to fulfillment. So where is the passionately loving The Mirror in the Field God who is said to be at the core of my--empty-feeling, craving-to-be-filled-- self? There are the five honorable reasons why we find it difficult to stay mindful of God creating us right now and to live attuned to the passion, ate love of God burning in our hearts. Of course, even~if theseoreasons are honorable, they do not make it impossible for us to be responsible for our relationships to our self and to our God. The Sin of Our Age And even if they are honorable reasons, we suffer on account of them. We might have good reason for runn~ing' a car off the road, and still fracture our skull. For these five fractured insight~ into the self give us a badly distorted vision of it and make it easy for us to suffer an inap-propriate self-lov6. That inappropriate self-love, I believe, is the root sin of our age and it produces the whole syndrome of spiritual problems that I will come to i'n the next set of paragraphs. We stand under the commandment "Love your neighbor as your-self." We are thereby under a spiritual obligatioh of ultimate conse-quence,~ since the Last Judgmerit will be made in terms of how well w~ have loved our neighbor. And yet we pay almost no attention to that as yourself and we do not know how to love ourselves well. We give our-selves to many fake wa'ys: self-indulgence in drugs and'sensuous living, the narcissisms of body-building and dieting and fashion, the willful search for the perfect mate, and so ow. But Christlike self-love, or wise and fully human self-love? We hardly ~omprehend what it is: : And yet the spiritual success of appropriate self-love has been de-scribed for us iri wh'ole shelves of books. Their distilled wisdom can be put this way: Appropriate self-love begins in approving and growing to like the divine good in myself--the gifts that I have and the gift that0I am. I approve of my gifts in the concrete, not in the abstract, so that I enjoy (as possible instances) my yen to bevice-president or my daily three-mile run or my .hit-and-miss spelling, and I like the self underly-ing all ttiat. I approve of my gifts in ~the actual contexts of my living, both time and place. In particular; I approve the concrete qualities about myself and realities in my life over which I never did have ~ say, which began and perhaps remain outside my personal, free control. So I might have to approve of having Hispanic parents or growing up in Chicago or being male. Every one of us begins appropriate self-love .with this yes. Martin Luther King did not choose to have a minister for a father, or to grow up in the tradition of American black preaching. Geraldine Ferraro did ~122 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 not choose to be born a woman with a swift, articulate intelligence at a time when such a woman could be invited to enter public life. John F. Kennedy did not choose to be born Irish-American Catholic, of ambi-tious and effective parents. Each of these three faced a series of radical choices that added up to saying yes to their concrete gifts, Had King re-pudiated his tradition of preaching, he could have accomplished little. Had Ferraro feared her intelligence, she could not have made history. Had Kennedy ignored his parents, he might well have spent his life in a dinghy off Hyannis Port collecting sunburn. Certainly, he could not have been elected the first Catholic president. God creates and keeps creating each of us in this and that concre-teness, passionately loving us into this human limitation and that particu-lar share of his infinite self. Whai tasks fall to me, then? First of all, the task of loving myself. But if I love myself, then I love a concrete self, a self that God now creates and now loves into being as I am. Plainly, I cannot love what about me is unlovable--my sins and ugly failings. But neither can I allow my sins and failings to make me hate or even dis-like the self that commits them. (Parenthetically, within this discussion the distinction between love and like cannot separate what.is one thing, and covers a rotten lie.) For if I have learned anything at all from the Word of God, I have learned that God has chosen beforehand to love me, a sin-filled self. If I choose to despise and repudiate what God loves, do I not try to make myself better than God? To look at my own case, then, I had to approve of, appreciate, and grow to like an American born as the Great Depression began, of par-ents utterly impoverished by that cataclysm. I had to come to say yes to much else: male and first child; father a champion athlete and mother lu-minously religious; Southern boy and raised in New Orleans with its Mardi Gras mentality; Catholic and nephew of a Jesuit metaphysician. I had learned to hate "Japs" and to admire soldiers when only a child, and also to consider blacks lazy and Protestants strange. I grew in sex-ual orientation, too, before choosing, and in a hankering for books, in a home where mother and father remained lifelong lovers and all the adults were readers. Of course, I have made many choices that modify all that. But none of those choices was wise that did not begin where each of us must be-gin. First to say yes, I am a gift, and then to say yes in the concrete to each of the gifts that I am. Am I tall? Thank God I am tall. Am I short? That is my gift. If I am angry at standing short--at whom am I angry? Who keeps making me short? If I cannot believe that God wants me The Mirror in the Field / 823 short, then I have made my faith fall short, and I will have to believe in a mythical The Force or in Carl Sagan's demiurge, Chance. Again, am I very, very bright? Would I rather not be very, very bright, °and do I talk and act like a dolt to veil my brightness? Whom am I insulting then, but the One who keeps making me very, very bright? Tile most ba_sic truth emerges: In the most radical ways, I am not my own maker. I.~never was and am not now. We all know Isaiah 45:9: "Does the clay say to its fashioner, 'What are you making?' " But we tend to forget, deny, or repudiate the truth that we are still on the wheel and the Potter's hands are still shaping us. "Does the pot say to the pot-ter, 'You have no skill?' " Well, each of us, insofar as we do not say yes to the gifts that we have and are, are telling our Potter that he does not know what he is doing. We enact this repudiation in a number of ways, but we suffer one spiritual illness from the repudiation itself, no matter how we act it out. When any of us rejects God's passionate love, we diminish joy in our lives. Thomas Aquinas felt that anyone who rancorously repudiated God's concrete gifts in the self would lose all spiritual joy. For we do not make our joy; we find it. Joy is like the brilliance of the sun. I al-ways think of it as whet happens to a mirror when it faces towards the sun. SUddenly the sun's light fills the mirror and in instant consequences the mirror radiates abrilliance all around. In the same way, God's pas-sionate loving continually flows in us or we would not be, and the first consequence of saying yes to God's concrete gifting is radiant joy. How the Refusal Branches Out In this atmosphere of diminished joy, the radical failure or refusal to approve of my concrete gifts as comihg from God commonly gives rise to several gpiritual problems. How do I live if I do not feel that I have all that I need or really want? Or take a worse case: Suppose that I live afraid that I do not have the gifts I need, that I am spiritually in-adequate and just not "good enough." Or worst of all: Suppose that I am angry at life and~at God over concrete realities in my life. How would I show that? How would I live that out? I would suggest the following ways. Each way increases in intensity as a person goes from lack of trust in, to.fear of, and finally to disgust with his or her concrete gifts and self. First: laziness. Any of several causes may underlie a given person's laziness. But if people do not feel themselves worth much, or worthy of anything special, they might well act that out by doing little or nothing. Thus, if a high school girl acts lazy in algebra class, she almost certainly 824 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 believes that, being a girl, she could learn little"about it. And the sin-cere and hard-working parish priest who never gets to the prayer he truly would like to make almost surely feels unequal to the'requirements of prayer or unfit to profit from it. Lazy people accomplish nothing because they try nothing; and they try nothing because they. live' with the sense of having no adequate or relevant resources within themselves. Not~ here that some might appreciate tli~eir own personal gifts but think little of the good things of the earth or"Of human artifice. Some, for instffnce, do not see gifts in food and housing. They have all they need and want, but they take it'all for graiited, implicitly, declaring it slight and unimportant. Conseque'ntly, they simply do not feel the hu-man weight of the hunger and homelessness all around them. They are simply lazy in these matters of justice, and that laziness roots deeply in their despising the good things of the e~arth. Second: ineffectualness. If la~zy people attempt nb~t~ing, ineffectual people attempt things but accomplish nothing. They do n6t trust their own gifts enough to create, to produce, to bring forth. I kne~, an artist onEe, a~ European. 'ffho brought all kinds of material into his studio but put nothing out of it. He fooled around wit~ a~t I~ut 'made. little or ~oth-iflg. As it turned out, I~E lived ineffectuhl because he feared that his gifts as an artist had unbreakable ties'to his sexual orientation. He feared that being a successful artist would n.e~essarily'elicit~plJblicly his hcimosexu-ality, which he fehred and hated. More accurately, he hated himself for having homosexual feelings. After he came to live easy and chastely within his sexual orientation, he began producing the art work o~f which he had all alpng been ~capable. And most of us know devout Christians who get on.e spiritual book after another from thei~ Spiritual Book Club and never~ get beyond a. few pages in any of them. Many people ~dopt this way.0f living out their inadequate se!~f-lov~ or their self-loathing ineffectualness who~cannot be on time, or get an article,finished, or per-forum their jobs the way their talents and .intelligence pl~ainly allow. ,Third: negative self-image. So many suffer this~that it;can reason-ably be called the most common, psychological suffering in our culture. Sometimes it see~s as though the whole population were seeking help tow~ard self-affirmation in institutes, workshops, and popular paperback books with titles like Be Your Own Best Friend. Psychologists are be-ginning to see the roots of most addic.tions and compulsions in self-hatred. ~ Note carefully, however, that this psychological problem can and probably does mask a spiritual problem. Once I have outgrown my in- The Mirror in the Field fantile self-distrust or my adolescent self-loathing, and have come to an adult self-possession and self-approval, I am then free in facing ,relig-ious and spiritu~il reality. Can I--who have found it so easy to feel down on myself--give active approval to my whole history, to the life I now lead, and to myself as God has been and continues to shape me? Thus the problem of a negative self-image transmutes from a psychological problem to a spiritual problem. What do I personally believe about God's creating me? DQ.I feel hope about myself and abgut humankind even in the rush~and torrent of our limitations ands failures? Do I .like the person. God is making me? Can I rejoice in the personalities who burrow into my.eg .o:--or do I insist on more "impr~essivei' friends? Can I approve of and rejoice in those persons whom God has given me to live with and work with? and in "the vast throng of. people" on earth? Probably all of us know some psychologically balanced people who deliberately choose to dislike¢ reject, or despise their history, life, and self. I know'one woman who periodically feels the need to denounce in Savage terms the dedicated women who taught her in grade school. We all know ~men who consider their (quite ordinary and honorable) jobs a degradation. Some see flaws, in the self and vaguely dislike the whole self as a consequen6e--flaws as trivial as fat'hips or shyness or a quick lip. A woman blurted out recently, "I hate myself when I do that." The "that" was a genuinely trivial failing, but she spoke a weighty truth: She does indeed hate herself, and regularly takes the occasion of trivial failing to reassert her hatred. Some even see strengths in the self and hate the strengths and, in them, ,the self. I remember one man feeling,bad about himself becausehe, could "only run three miles a day," and he had passed fifty. The. truth.is that a "negative~seif-image" is one dis, guise that we borrow from our culture in Order to mask our distrust or disapproval of how and what.God is.~.creating us. It is a commonplace'.among us that most of. us find it hard to acknowl-edge our virtues and our strengths. We ,also find it easy to get depressed by our failings. I often.suggest for a period of prayer at the beginning of a retreat the exercise of going over'personal gifts of every .kind, pre-cisely to say yes to God creating me. I find the vast majority of re-treatants unable to stay with this exercise. Why is this? Are these lapses of appropriate self-love mere, ly "psychological" in the sense,that they function less than consciously in the personality? I believe that they are more than that. I believe that they grow from an ongoing option or deci-sion: "I am not much. I am not very good. ! am a nothing." This fun-damental option fractures or even ruptures a person's relationship with Review for Religious, November-December 1988 the self and with the Maker.of the self. It is an offense against, the love of God concretely burning in myself. The option can actually become a repudiation of that creating love. I am afraid it did in'the life of a ex-seminarian who had tried all the drugs and all the sex, and who con-cluded several hours of sharing with the despairing remark, "God made me a piece of junk." Fourth: bitterness and rancor. Some prideful and arrogant people lash out bitterly and destructively when they cannot impose their will on events. But others who live bitter and rancorous lives see everything from the underside. On their tongues every taste of life is bitter; in their eyes every living scene unfolds under a shadow. They aggressively scan events and people for material to "bitch" about. ThEy seem to live to heap up more and more evidence that the'ir world and everyone in it are no good. One ex-priest, for instance, offered to the president of his uni-versity this odd praise about a just-completed.building: "Even I can find nothing to complain about." That man had known for decades that he lived a bitter life, and all he would do about it was to wear a mask of sardonic drollery over his emptiness. His friends all connived in his bit-terness, too, laughing at his lunges and unable to name what made him so rancorous. Yet it was plain: he gave himself to disgust at God's lov-ing creating---of his own artistic gifts, of his self, of the motley collec-tion of men and women around him. A recovering alcoholic, a woman whose children have grown and gone, has decided to live without drink, but has also decided to live feel-ing cheated and shortchanged by her disease. She is what Alcoholics Anonymous calls a "dry alcoholic." She bitterly protests'that she can-not take a drink as can nonalcholics. She demands to be able to take a casual drink and hates that she cannot. Her conversation--on whatever topic--roils with rancor. She certainly does not say yes to a self troub-led by her disease. She plainly repudiates that part of herself and dark-ens her whole life with her refusals. But who creates her alcoholic genes? Who makes a gift of each day she lives? Whom does she offend by re-fusing to rejoice in each of her living days-.'? The bitter and rancorous may seem to hate everyone around them, and may indeed do so, But as "char-ity begins at home," so does hatred. Fifth: workaholism. A lot of holy people work Ioiag, hard days out of sense that their own time is precious and their own gifts needed by God's people. They work in inner freedom. A lot of others fling them-selves into some special work because they truly love and exult in what they are doing. But very many people work and work and work and do The Mirror in the Field / 827 nothing else. They cannot not work. Their work makes up their life and their self. They do not have the freedom to take true leisure--to enjoy, as we say very accurately, themselves. The truth is that they do not en-joy their selves. They do even not approve of themselves, except a little bit when they are exhausting themselves at work. Henri Nouwen tells of a priest who would not, could not, take time in his day to be still and pray and who finally came to admit why: "I am afraid of what I will find in myself." Precisely. Real workaholics fear their selves. They keep producing and producingbecause they do not really believe they are worth anything apart from what they produce. One religious who had badly burned her-self out in twelve years of administration asked, "What am I trying to prove?" She was trying to prove what she did not need to prove, but only to accept: "You are precious in my eyes, and I love you" (see Is 54). The mere attempt to prove that I am worthy of God's creating love stands in direct opposition to acknowledging that his love comes first and humbly acceptipg it. Three other ways that we live out inadequate self-love show up often enough to merit mention, and several minor ways can just be listed. Sixth: perfectionism. Some of us continually place impossibly high goals for ourselves, which "proves" how much we think of ourselves. Then, as a matter of course, we fail toreach those goals, and that "proves" that we are not really what we like to think we are but in fact ~ire not worth much. For the perfectionist, nothing ordinary serves; he or she needs to aim only for the perfect. As an instance: A truly fat man in the.South decided that a man like himself, ought to look like a Califor-nia beach boy. So he.set out to diet by eating only one thousand calories a day, a caloric intake unlikely even for a scarecrow. Within seventy-two hours he found himself back to eating a thousand calories before noon, and, of course, to this day he lumbers around no less large. He does, however, feel more convinced than ever that he is weakwilled and worthless. Why cannot this man simply eat more rationally? Many rea-sons operate, perhaps; but one leadifig reason is that he cannot see him-self simply as a normally rational person. He demands that his mind have despotic sway over his whole self and particularly over his appetite for food. He demands that the physical shape that would emerge from the fat resemble--not an ordinary, regular-sized American male moving to the downside of middle age--but a bronze statue of Hercules by Phidias. He will be perfect! The tr.uth is that with that demand he covers a fear that he can have no kind of reasonable sway over his self and his appe- Review for Religious, November-December 1988 tites. He hides that self-deprecating belief under a cover of perfection-ism. A lot of good,'praying people do the same. One mature and experi-enced nun who ha~l pray~ faithfrilly for years could not shake the feel-ing that'her prayer was "not very good." Her prayer was fine, in my opinioh; what needed spiritual insight and God's gracing was her demand that she pray like Teresa of Avila. This woman had not really been will-ing to approve wholeheartedly her own way of praying, and that unwill-ingness by itself had kept her off center and vaguely unhappy for years. Seventh: lust for experience. We need to note first that~today Ameri-cans place, tremendous trust ih our own experiences and feel keen dis-trust of any "truth" not-arrived at experientially. Further, we can be per-suaded rather readily to try anything, from a drink' or a drug to a new kind of prayer. We tend to subscribe to the pseudomoral dictum that, ~if you are able to, then yowought to expei'ience everything. We :are all in some measure like the'New York woman in analysis who reported her exhaustion to her doctor--too much sex, drugs, dancing, eating,° not enough sleep. The doctor asked her why she' did it,~and the woman bolted up and blurted out, "You mean I don't have to do everything I want to do?" She was in analysis because she was not doing what she wanted to do, but.,what her social group made her feel she ought to want to do. She felt ~compelled to experience whatever the group moved into. 'That compulsivity and obsessiveness grows out of an empty~ center. She did not really know what she, herself, wanted todo in,the depths of her.self; she feared the depths of her self. ~, Many of us give ourselves to experiences that diminish our human dignity or diminish our freedom, as~did the woman in analysis. I know. one couple whose children, now beginning to move into their own ca-reers, have. submitted to eve~ry kind of religious :experience, from CCD at home to charismatic~weekends and the permanent diaconate, because the parents hankered after spiritual"experience, not because the children required anything. Some Catholics roam from liturgy to liturgy,oseeking the ritual that,w.ill fill their "needs"~as though Sunday Mass does not rise out of fullness, 'bUt fills an emptiness. In them, actually, it is made to, occasionally and briefly. Eighth: inability to make commitments. Why have so many failed to make firm, long-range commitments? Among the many reasons, Cas-sian pointed out one very basic reason when he described the gyrovagus, the wandering monk who always came to feel that the'monastery over the next.~hill had a better religious life than the monastery he.live~t in. The Mirror in the Field / 829 So he wandered to the next and the next monastery, hoping to become a better monk. Fundamentally, the monk's problem lies not in his mon-astery; his problem lies in his own self. He does not like the monk he is. He does not approve of the monk he is. Or if he does, he does not want to grow into the man that this monastery, with these monks, at this time, will shape him into. So he moves on again and again, unable to make the crucial permanent commitment. A young Texan turned into a living gyrovagus when he went from a diocesan seminary to a congregation's novitiate to taking vows in an order and then to another diocesan seminary. His disapproval of the way he lived in those places seemed to be of those "monasteries"; actually, it reached deep into his own self. I would not expect ordination to fill his emptiness, and if he does accept ordination, his parishes (a succes-sion of them, surely) will have an impossible time making him under-stand that they appreciate him. Another example of the inability to make lasting commitments: A gifted psychological therapist changed cities several times and kept ac-quiring new skills. He even absorbed thorough training in spirituality and spiritual direction. When he was about thirty-five and weary of starting over again and again, he came to understand that he had never really felt the weight ,and value of his very considerable talents. As he let himself appreciate them withoutguilt, and particularly as he consciously built friendships with highly intelligent and success'ful peers, he felt more and more grateful for his own gifts and freer to rejoice in using them with-out having to feel that he was required to. He also felt himself more and more deeply committed--to his profession, to his faith, to his friends, and to the city where he had settled. Then there is the marriage commitment. We can leave aside cases of psychological dysfunctioning, like the California twenty-year-old who left his often drugged wife three months to the day after the church wed-ding, muttering that he had not known whom he was marrying. He had known, actually, and so had his friends and his parents. His actual spiri-tual problem had been that he had not known that he was punishing him-self by marrying her. Among the sane and whole, every spouse faces bone-deep challenges in living out the marriage commitment. For, once married, each feels invited to be a new person by union and communion with this special spouse who invites him or her. She will at times ask herself vehemently, "Why did I ever marry him?" At those times she will be feeling the stress of still becoming and changing in ways intimate to her marriage that she cannot control. She cannot design to make her Review for Religious, November-December 1988 spouse another person than he is, even though as he is he will give shape to herself. If she truly loves herself as a married woman, she will wel-come those new ways of becoming and growing along with him, saying her yes to her emerging self. In the same way, if a husband deeply ap-proves of himself as husband and likes the man who is this woman's hus-band, he will hardly insulate himself from the summons to grow and change that emanate from this woman as she lives and becomes, even though he has no mastery over the ways he feels summoned to grow and inexorably will at times keenly resent them. So monk and professional and married person all either say yes to an emerging self whose emergence none controls all alone, or say no. Our primordial task as creatures remains intact in and through all our free decisions: to praise God for what we are becoming, reverence his creat-ing, and serve him by following where the Spirit of Life leads us--in the concrete. To this list of eight larger flawed realizations of self-love, various writers add other specific ones. Cassian adds monkish indolence, acedia. St. Thomas adds garrulity, prying curiosity, and true malice. He also lists religious diffidence, which means the refusal to grow in the interior life. Could he speak right now, he might add integralism to that, because the rock-bound conservative often clings to externals like Latin rites or neoscholastic formulations to defend himself against a deep fear that his own faith-commitment and believing would not stand up to current chal-lenges. Some centuries later SCren Kierkegaard explored the "despair from weakness" of those who finally cannot let themselves trust the self that God is creating in them. In their turns, Josef Pieper dwells on one grave inability of those who do not approve of who God makes them to be: the inability to take true leisure. And Sebastian Moore shows that those who feel unlovable do not love anyone or anything very much. All their desiring is pallid, so consistently that he names their condition a spiritual disease: erosthenia, a flaccidity of passion. This makes an impressive list of spiritual problems: laziness, inef-fectualness, negative self-image, bitterness, workaholism, perfectionism, the insatiable lust for experience, the inability to make lasting commit-ments, and also acedia, garrulity, prying curiosity, malice, integralism, the despair of weakness, the inability to take leisure, and erosthenia. Plainly, they arise from many different life experiences and in varied life circumstances. Just as plainly, they have many causes and motivations. But in our own day and time, they all readily grow as it were in vitro, from a hollow self, flooded with the nourishing medium of pitiful self- The Mirror in the Field / 831 disapproval or arrogant self-hatred. This unwillingness to accept the self I am coming to be, which can ripen into a disgust with who I am and even a resentful hatred of myself, very possibly makes up the deepest root of sin in our day and time. The Wholehearted Life In the face of such a list of spiritual problems, any talk about solu-tions would show extravagant optimism. Fortunately, I am not discuss-ing here the solutions of many problems, but the escape from or avoid-ance of a single problem: the radical spiritual one of refusing to accept, in concrete particulars, whom God is making me. But even then I intend not to list all the saving activities we might throw ourselves into to solve that single problem, because that would tend to confirm the very mis-taken conviction that underlies the problem, that our own activity comes first in our salvation. Instead, in this last section, I will sketch briefly and from living mod-els how those people live who are very successfully avoiding or escap-ing this foundational problem. I experience them as, and name them, wholehearted. Not that their hearts beat totally integral and without the murmur of human flaws and failings. Rather, they live out of their whole hearts--their selves--just as they find them in this minute. The whole-hearted might twang like an old player piano, but with every note and chord they give God and the world around them all the music they can pour out. I will speak first about the inner life of the wholehearted and then about its external manifestations. What goes on in their spirit from day to day? First, they say yes to this day, to the gift of it and the gifts in it. They not only "live in the present moment"; they approve of the present moment as of a gift. And in that yes they are approving of their personal history and the life they now lead. More, they choose to live glad to be what they now are and to be doing what they are doing (unless, of course, they have come to a time of decision, which they will perceive more as opportunity than as termination). When they think larger, they do not feel guilty about the plenty and the privilege in which they live. To start, they feel grateful for the earth, and for humankind, and for the universe. They feel desires of many kinds, some of them strong. Among them all, they try to keep their de-sire for God in Christ in first place. For the rest of their desires, they take responsibility as well as they can, enacting those they think authentic Review for Religious, November-December 1988 with courage and with equal courage suppressing those they recognize as drawn from unworthy sources (the Spirit of Darkness or of unruly flesh). In all desiring, what they want keeps them connected with the peo-ple around them and in some appropriate measure with current, affairs~ All in all, their desiring shapes up into a great desire to make things all right for the world and for every single person now in it; but their hop-ing does not depend on immediate success in the eriterprise. The wholehearted live in appropriate autonomy. As teenagers, for in-stance, still coming to be individuals they depend heavily on peer'opin-ion. As young adults, vindicating their uniqueness; they live carefully independent of "popular opinion;" particularly about the moral cruxes in interpersonal relations. As spouses, they give and take in thorough in-terdependence. All along, precisely because they like themselves, they are able to stabilize affective relationships. This liking of themselves gives rise in them to what is sometimes called a'democratic personality structure. Negatively, this means that their personality is not bound down by one need or drive or ideology. The spiritually wholehearted are not broadly compulsive; on the con-trary, they live and move in relative interior freedom. I do not mean that they never have some dominant desire or great enterprise in their lives. Some live outof a profound, specific desire. Neither do I mean that the wholehearted do not sin, ev.en seriously. I have known some who did. They sinned wholeheartedly, and if they repented, they repented whole-heartedly-- hating rather the thing they did than the one who did it. A married man high in a bloated corporation gave himself a year or two of lascivious fornication. When he heard the Spirit (his words) summon him back, he submitted himself to astonishing inconveniences and physi-cal discomforts suggested to him as (a long) penance. Put positively, all of the wholehearted can hold some priority and or-dering in what they want to get accomplished, gladly getting at one goal while postponing others without guilt. They can also respond readily to surprise demands, able to set aside their own agenda when they see that as appropriate and not feeling put upon about it. We need to take care here. In my experience, some of us suffer from one or other addiction or compulsion (neatnik, chocolate maniac, or some less acceptable culturally) and yet live truly wholehearted lives. This is a mystery to me, that we can find ourselves broken and power-less to heal the break and yet lead wonderfully wholehearted lives. I take this as truly suffering from the Original Sin and from all those sins vis-ited .upon us without our approval or connivance, or with our forced co- The Mirror in the Field / 833 operation, by alcoholic parents, sexually addicted elders, neurotic supe-riors, viciously selfish peers, and on and on. Somehow we are sum-moned within the pockmarked life that all of us lead to give our yes to God's passionate loving in us. I do not see that holiness is wholeness. Most of us find ourselves with neuroses, mild or severe, temporary or lifelong. If we can, for all that, love what we find and the One who is making it, then we have begun to live holy lives. There is much more to this, but we cannot ignore addictions and com-pulsions and the yes that those of us who suffer them must say to the self that God is making us. For very many of us find ourselves in this excru-ciating condition. All of us need to remember that at the core of every addicted and every compulsive self--the phobic, the masturbator, the child-beater, even the rapist--the passionate loving of God burns on crea-tively. But each of them stands on the brink of an apparently impassable chasm. For no one can be in touch with that creating love who does not love the self within whom it burns, and such a staggering number of us are taught, subtly.and powerfully and with enormous precision, to dis-like or to hate ourselves. The fact is, social psychologists are beginning to discover, addictions and compulsions normally grow out of an inade-quate appreciation of the self or out of self-hatred. Then how are com~ pulsive people or addicts to think of this? The way all of us think: As I say my yes to God's creating love, I will know that I am humbly truth-ful and wholehearted when I rejoice even while I suffer what I am and what is. I am heroically wholehearted when I can set aside any demand on my self that I myself or any other persons or things be as I think they "ought" to be and can take all as I find it. We all do what Paul did af-ter he had prayed three times and the thorn still rankled. The thorn just kept rankling, and Paul just kept on sinning (by his own testimony); but we have no evidence that he got down on himself for that or any other reason. Paul certainly knew his worth, and that is a great, great virtue. This brings me, second, to the ways a wholehearted yes to the Lord manifests itself externally. The first sign is joy. Let the light bulb accept electric current. In-stantly it is full of light and instantly it radiates that light to all around. In just that way, the wholehearted radiate joy. Even when they find in-justice and disorder, they are filled rather with a sorrow that leads to com-passion that leads to action--than with a sadness that leads to pity that leads to self-absorption. This joy gives the wholehearted a definite, in-viting presence. They like who they are and therefore feel no need to hide or wear masks. They are simply present, shyly if they are shy, brightly Review for Religious, November-December 1988 if they are bright, brashly if they are young enough. Moreover, the wholehearted live an effective life, by which I mean they make things happen. They live content that God is giving them this or that job or task to do, and simply do it. And at the same time, the wholehearted usually have a lively sense of duty and of obligation. They seem to trust their own consciences, and they clearly trust that God is ordering all things sweetly from end to end. So the wholehearted tend to rejoice that they are required to do something or to omit something. They do not have time to regret what they might miss; they are too busy enjoying what they hit upon. Their attitude toward authority shows itself wholehearted, too. Here is a hugely complex business, but let me just say that any who like who they are and what God is making of the world really perceive the work-ing of authority in the world and actually accept the consequences into themselves. They feel the pull of authority where it actually appears, let-ting it instruct their understanding and warm their motivation. They also sense its absence even when someone is throwing his weight around, and if they conform when pressed by raw power, they do it while maintain-ing their sense of self-worth. As the wholehearted grow more and more mature, they can calibrate more and more subtly the weight of authority and their own response to it. I could list a number of other external signs of a wholehearted yes to God's passionate loving. The wholehearted, for instance, show a true love for creation and prefer to honor their environment. The whole-hearted seem able to show benevolence all around, not threatened by the rich or pressured by the poor, gracious to the bright and to the doltish. They tend to learn compassion early in their lives, and empathy, too. They approve of their culture even while rejecting values in it that con-tradict their own. Speaking of Americans, they live very grateful to be called to life in a rich, free, exuberantly creative land, and they show their gratitude not by badmouthing the nation, but by doing what they can to leave it somewhat better than they found it. But let me end by pointing out a nearly infallible sign of a whole-hearted yes to God's creating love: the wholehearted can take true lei-sure. What is true leisure? I find the experts--Karl Rahner and Josef Pieper, for instance--hard-pressed to define leisure, but they are clear that people at leisure are out from under production goals and rigid work-schedules and that whatever activities they might engage in do not pro-duce food and clothing and other things necessary to human life. Nei-ther do those at true leisure lie in passive numbness, their imaginations The Mirror in the Field / 835 blank and their energies depleted. Rather, they typically play or muse or commune with friends or create. In general, leisure means the free en-actment of our whole humanness simply out of joy that we live--in this or that way, here, in this place, among these folk. We take leisure while all our regular tasks wait to be looked after, feeling sure that One watches while we let them go. We evoke leisure, not theoretically, but from the concrete gifts we choose to act grateful for, sensed as rising from the pas-sionate original gift of God's creating love. Those who pray and wor-ship God take the truest of true leisure. The Last Reflection And those who have thought these thoughts about inappropriate self-loathing and appropriate self-love, and felt all these convictions about saying yes to God's creative love burning in the core of their life and their self, have given themselves to true leisure. In the measure that they feel consoled by them, and in the measure that they feel joy rising through them, they are giving themselves wholeheartedly to the passion-ate love of God burning in the center of their selves. They are mirroring back to him the blazing love he radiates to them and in them. They are becoming the mirror in the field. Standing on a Wooden Bridge It creaks now more than it used to . seems I left myself standing here only to meet me farther on here. The swirling water carries my frail leaf far beyond the viewing point. Refulgent water, flow me forth unto the Son! Barbara Ann Opfer 2027 Campbell, B-8 Sandusky, Ohio 44870 The Addicted/Dependent Minister Thomas D. Noesen, O.P. Father Noesen was a diocesan priest for eleven years before entering the Order of Preachers. He may be addressed at Aquinas Institute; 3642 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. "that our affections kill us not--nor dye" (John Donne) It is no secret that stress and burnout are high among professional minis-ters. Priests, religious, and lay professionals need at times to get out of ministry for their own well-being and to get in touch with their own de-pendencies. Priests are in the top listings of professionals with alcoholic addiction. The present-day minister struggles with human dependencies and addictions which bring persons to a dysfunctional level of service. Henri Nouwen says that we are wounded healers and that sometimes the minister is more wounded than healer. "Physician, heal thyself" is whis-pered by some of the confused congregation, but greater numbers in the assembly empathize with a more human condition. Men and women are getting professional help in residential treatment centers, private coun-seling, and support groups. Dependency and addiction are commonplace for today's ministers. C. S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves says that the problem with ministers is that they treat the people they minister to as "other." This failure is making ministry less workable. The minis-ter need not be a barefoot cobbler. This paper will look at addictions and the minister. (In this text I use the words dependency and addiction interchangeably; this will become more obvious to the reader as the behavioral dynamics are explored.) Granted that we are part of an addiction culture, the minister falls prey to it more often. The men and women in ministry are people-oriented per-sons; some of the most perceptive and insightful members of the popu- 836 The Addicted/Dependent Minister lation are in ministry: They are insightful and perceptive not only of oth-ers and themselves but of life itself. This latter visionary quality can cause much anxiety and insecurity. The primal angst of life's meaning can bring great stress to the ministry professions. Teaching and preach-' ing daily, these people live what many people would only think of at times of birth, death, or personal crisis. This type of stress and iniensity makes ministers prime targets of addiction. The minister is granted trust by many to know their secrets, deepest feelings, and hidden thoughts. Because of intirfi~acy, the minister carries the confidences of hundreds all at one time. It is rather easy for the minister to meet the needs of the oth-ers and to neglect his or her own. Ministers can become victims to their own intensities. Four terms are used in this paper talking of addiction. They are in-dependent, dependent, codependent, and interdependent. Independency and codependency are both unhealthy. The reader needs to know that any-one can be part of all four at once. The healthiest movement is always toward chosen dependency and interdependency. Codependency Many times the minister comes from a codependent background and unknowingly continues the dynamics in ministry. Adult children of al-coholics are common codependents. The traits of codependents are closely connected with the minister. The codependent is: I. usually a very good person, valuable to society, and often ends up in the helping professions. (One study shows 83% of nurses were from alcoholic homes and the oldest children.) Codependents are nice and likeable people. 2. a victim of low self-esteem and self-worth and makes himself or herself indispensable to others. (In counseling, the codependent coun-selor gets angry at the dependent spouse rescuing the addicted spouse. That adds up to three dysfunctional addicts--thi~ two spouses and the counselor.) 3. a good sufferer. These people make "good" Christians, martyrs, and so forth. The unspoken script of the codependent is "I'm good be-cause I suffer so much." 4. the first to volunteer; always wanting (actually needing) to be of service; always wanting it to be noticed that they are exhausted. 5. selfless to the point of hurting himself or herself. Psychosomatic illness is common in the codepeqdent. Life becomes a pain in the anat-omy. There is a need for aspirin, Bufferin, Preparation H, and so forth, in the beginning, and it can build to major medical care over years. Review for Religious, November-December 1988 Thes-~'five points can define a messiah complex in a nonreligious ter-minology. A codependent is anyone out of a dysfunctional home; so this term codependent is generic: an embarrassing spouse, children, extended-family members. Codependency even links emotional disabilities to un-known ancestors. So what is the codependent's payoff? The people with whom the codependent interacts become dependent on the codependent; this way the codependent feels needed. Naming the Addictions/Dependencies Since ministers teach the gospel statement that the ff~uth will set one free, denial of addictions should have little space to survive. But nam-ing, claiming, and taming dependencies is very difficult because the de-pendencies are cunning, baffling, and powerful. There are two types of addictions: substance addiction and process addiction. Substance addic-tion is an element that can be and should be totally removed. Process ad-diction is something that will always be present, but needs to be lived with constructively and not destructively. This latter addiction is the thorn in the side of most ministers. Addiction is an exaggerated pattern. Rigorous honesty is the key in reading the following lists. Twelve-step programs use the rigorous-honesty term, and this honesty often needs to come from outside the de-pendent. Until honesty is present, the dependent is a victim. Some common substance addictions/dependencies are: alcohol / sex (cas-ual or recreational) / caffeine / chocolate / nicotine / cocaine/heroin / refined sugar / gambling / marijuana / counter drugs / prescription drugs. Some common process addictions/dependencies are: work or busy-ness / sex (casual or recreational) / negative memories / "prayer" and worry / eating disorders (boulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating) / religious fanaticism / sports (spectator or participant)/"collecting" de-pendent people / exclusive friendships/the Peter Pan syndrome / the Wendy complex / exercise /reading / attention-rejection-exhaustion / greed (compulsive spending) / control-powe'r~manipulation / success-failure- competition / TV ! sleep / anger-guilt-depression / self-pity and co-pity / anger-denial-control. Ministers are often addicted to ministry itself because they are so needed. To be human is to be dependent, but there is a healthy balance which ministers have an obligation to discern. All helping professionals have a responsibility to get their good feelings somewhere other than their clients. Ministers must know their dependencies well in order to min-ister effectively. It is so easy for ministers to project what they them-selves need onto someone else. Really soon--because of the ministers' The Addicted/Dependent Minister addiction bent--feelings get very muddled and quality ministry is endan-gered. Ministers are constantly dealing with others' feelings and can stuff their own. These stuffed feelings can come out as body illness or inap-propriately elsewhere. For example, for ministers to get charged up in anger with the clie ~nt, or with the client's oppressor, or the client's anger at the Church, or the client's anger at government, and so forth, is eas-ier for them than claiming their own inner anger, guilt, or whatever. Granted that these feelings of the client may be very real, still the "dance" of the dependent minister may be to a different tune than the client is trying to play. It is as if one is fox-trotting and the other is do-ing the waltz. Choosing Our Addictions/Dependencies Dependencies are a given to our human condition. Ministers should be model addicts by example; this is where the newer holistic spiritual-ity models can be most helpful. Ministers need to choose daily, healthy dependencies. To list a few: time alone, prayer, reflection, physical ex-ercise, support groups, non-ministry-oriented hobbies and/or friends, and nonprofessional reading. Healthy ministers continually expand and deepen throughout life--this is an integrating process. Unhealthy minis-ters fragment and splinter themselves to meet their needs of dependency and take a flock of disciples along. Healthy ministers need both to mas-ter and be mastered; unhealthy ministers either master totally or become totally mastered. Remember, extremes mark the unhealthy dependent per-sonality. Often unhealthy ministers want to be appreciated (needed) for their wealth of knowledge, fund raising, generosity, cleverness, organiza-tional skills, virtue, leadership, and so forth. None of these qualities can be considered intrinsically wrong, but the ministers' control of them can take away even God's freedom of their use. This is not to say that good is not accomplished by addi~:tive ministers; it is. The problem usually is the unhappiness of the ministers and not always the results of their min-istry. In our Church many of the most rewarded ministers are the most unhe~ilthy addicts. The Codependent Cast of Characters The alcoholic home has taught us much about unhealthy dependen-cies and the roles the members fall into. The minister may often come from a dysfunctional home that is not necessarily alcoholic. The family characters are listed in their usual order. Often the minister is one or 1140 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 more of these characters. Maybe the minister played out one role as a child, a different one as an adult, and maybe even a different role in his/ her professional life. When there is a dependency in a home, the whole family system is dysfunctional. No one escapes and everyone is affected. Those various persons may be described as follows: The dependent(usually a spouse) is the one using the substance around which the whole family unit rearranges itself. The family's individual needs and feelings are not met because of°denial, guilt, and anger. The enabler (usually a spouse) feels responsible for everyone's feel-ings. The enabler usually tries to keep peace, save face, and guard the family secret. The enabler makes ends meet financially and emotionally. The enabler needs to control and needs to be needed. This person thrives on exhaustion. The hero (usually the oldest) tries to keep the family secret by look-ing good at school, work, and so forth. This can be in sports, honor so-cieties, and so forth. The hero is organized, responsibl~, and mature to extremes. The hero is a doer-~cannot stop doing. The hero suffers from fear, loneliness, and stifled anger. The scapegoat (often the second child) is prickly and hard to get along with; he or she appears to be the family problem. The scapegoat often chooses wild friends, gets pregnant in teen years, breaks the law, and gets into substance addiction. Traits of the scapegoat are very diffi-cult and frequently impossible to understand. The lost child (usually the third in birth) often uses isolation for self-protection; lives in fantasy, quietness, and distance; wants to please at all costs; tries to be good but feels bad; has no opinions or feelings to speak of; never causes problems. The mascot (often the youngest) laughs on the outside and cries on the inside; is clumsy, whimsical, and so forth, while trying to focus off the substance; is the clown trying to make the sad family better. This person is hyper, but lonely and scared. He or she is the family medicine man. As ministers try to bring care to a family, the trap may snap and they can easily be caught and overwhelmed. Ministers must therefore have some knowledge of basic dependency dynamics, but, more than that, they should have a keen awareness of their own inner feelings and de-pendencies. They must know their own limitations and be able to say no and to judge when to refer clients. At such times they minister to them-selves. If they do not take care to function at their best, they will be caught in self-pity and/or co-pity games. The minister may say "this whole thing is absurd," "too much The Addicted/Dependent Minister / ~141 analysis," "my past is my past," and so forth. Perhaps the minister is clean and emotionally balanced; that does not mean the parish staff, re-ligious community, and/or office staff share that same wellness. Today more and more ministers are looking hard and long before taking a posi-tion. By the same norms, the employing staffs are screening more be-fore hiring. Many parish staffs are dysfunctional because they are clos-eting one or more unhealthy dependencies. Clinebell (Pastoral Care and Counseling) says that "spiritual vitality and health are contagious; it is caught more than it is taught." Ministers look more and more for an en-vironment of wellness if they themselves are well. The Rocking-Chair Minister Rocking-chair ministers are not on the porch waiting for someone to come and seek help; on the contrary, they are twice as busy as other min-isters trying to get the gospel spread. "Rocking chair' '--because interi-orly they go back and forth like a rocking chair; their feelings and ac-tions are all fuzzy and confused. Nevertheless, they are sometimes bla-tantly forceful people. There are several cycles of feelings and behavior that dovetail together. The following are some specifics of the "proc-ess addiction" mentioned above: Unhealthy Process Healthy Process worry/' 'prayer" anger/guilt/depression attention/rejection/ exhaustion anger/denial/control self-pity/co-pity affirmation/ownership/ integration/letting go anger/ownership/expres-sion/ letting go control/ministry assess-ment/ service/letting go delegation saying no In the following stories, theologies or ministry models vary. But that is not the issue. The issue is the ministers' inner world; that is, the min-isters are not ministering to themselves even though, otherwise, they are very effective ministers. Story A Father Jones worries about his people because they are so poor. They are doing better than they were before he came, and many of them tell him how much they appreciate his concern. He prays that God take care of this poverty and abolish it. Soon he finds himself an-gry at God for not curing the problem, angry at the insensitive bishop and at those in their posh offices for not prioritizing this; he is angry at 1142 / Review for Religious; November-December 1988 the richer members of the parish because they are not removing the pov-erty from their own parish. Burdened with guilt for attacking God, the Church, and his parishioners, Father Jones turns inward; depression and dullness set in and the cycle begins all over again. Father Jones is from a good small-business family that has been reputable in the community for generations. The cycle here is worry, prayer, anger, guilt, depres-sion. Story B Millie is in social-outreach ministry. She started a parish pro-gram and became deanery coordinator in this same area. Now she has founded the diocesan office for reaching out to teenage single mothers, runaways, and abused children. She holds a high profile with the me-dia. It gets money for the project. She loves the attention and limelight, and she feels it is all for Jesus. When given Church honors and civic ac-claim, she rejects it all. Miilie is torn inside between wanting to be no-ticed and disowning the recognition. She has been taking medicine for what her doctor calls exhaustion. Millie has tried to explain to her doc-tor that he is indispensable at this time; she will back off later when the time is right, Millie's dad was an alcoholic, but he has been sober since she was in the first grade. The unhealthy cycle here is attention, rejec-tion, and exhaustion. Story C Tyler is one of those rare, always smiling ministers who do very well with youth. One of his personal goals for youth is sacred space. In both parishes where he has been, he had small, multipurpose rooms that served for recreation and worship space. In the one parish there was a room with a large wooden carved crucifix before the youth took it over; in the other parish, a family had donated a large crucifix in memory of their daughter, killed in a summer outing. In both places Tyler went rounds over the crucifix issue. Always pleasant, he demanded a risen Christ figure. He said we are about resurrection and not all tfiis pain. "I believe it is Easter we are to remember; let's not make our kids hold on to Good Friday." Tyler escalated these issues to maximum polarization; the people became divided. Tyler had theologized his anger, stuffing it away, and used Christ to deny it; using his charism and position, he con-trolled the environment and won out. Tyler had been adopted at two months of age. His birth mother had neglected and abused him. He was raised in a healthy (functional) family since three months of age. Story D Deacon Bernard loves to minister. He would be a priest, but he wanted a wife and family and left seminary in college. Bernard is very well liked by the people because he is so filled with empathy. Recently he has had several counseling sessions with Phyllis. At twen(y-five years The Addicted/Dependent Minister of age, Phyllis has finished two M.A. degrees--one in counseling and the other in theology. Phyllis is very angry with the Church about not being able to be a priest. During many sessions she has talked about how victimized she felt. Bernard shares her feelings; he has felt put off by the Church because he got married. Being ordained a deacon is okay, but he feels victimized also. Bernard and Phyllis are now in their sixth session. In counseling they talk about equal amounts of time on their feel-ings toward the Church. They both agree worship has become harder and harder. They feel they have been good for each other because they share so many of the same hurts. Bernard's homelife is healthy and functional; Phyllis is from a gifted and wealthy family that seems equally healthy. The cycle here is one of self-pity/co-pity. The theologies in these stories are issues, but not as much as the pain and hell these ministers are causing to others. The rocking-chair process addiction is not a matter of standing still; though moving, it is going no-where. All these ministers are gifted and likeable people. These depend-ency stories are more subtle than that of the staggering drunk pastor or the power-hungry director of religious education, but their subtlety serves as a reflection on the movement out of addiction/dependent be-havior. These stories show some common process dependencies, but there are many more. The addict wants to be happy and unconsciously creates a world of "happiness" in which to survive. There are dependency proc-esses not mentioned here peculiar to perhaps one person. The choices and combinations of dependencies are nearly infinite. Ministers are always in need of insight into themselves lest they run the risk of projecting their feelings and dependencies on the client. Minister on the Mend Ministers need to choose not rocking-chair but journey addictions. As they learn from and depend on healthy processes, they become peace-ful within and freer to hear the true struggles of Jesus. The healthy proc-esses that are most easily seen are to say no and to delegate. Both re-quire much tact and articulation if everyone is to remain free. Sometimes the ministry can more easily be done alone; often other factors enter-- such as community, collaboration, and identity--which should be con-sidered and pondered. In any case, ministry always means community. Three more models are listed earlier under the Healthy Process column. Each of these ends in letting go. A common slogan in twelve-step programs is "Let go--let God." Any healthy process will end in letting go. Jesus is clearly the model 844 / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 here. To let go (presuming the preceding steps are gone through), much reflection and healthy prayer time is needed. Ministers need time to di-gest each experience. This includes some time alone and some quality dialogue with what is commonly called theological reflection. A good minister has the ability to stand still. The old statement that moved many a minister was "an idle mind is the devil's workshop." Well, the same idle mind is also God's workshop. Each minister holds the key to the workshop door. When one's whole being is idle, the minister is able to again open himself or herself to caring for others. This means that the minister is caring for himself or herself as the first one to be ministered to. Jesus the Dependent? Jesus was human like us in all ways but sin; yet he was dependent on a home for being raised, dependent on scrolls and on people for his learning, and dependent on the elements of survival like food, warmth, sleep, and friendship. The desert fast was Jesus pulling away from food and people to experience more. Jesus was definitely dependent on the human condition. "He emptied himself" as Philippians says; and yet, without abandoning his divinity, Jesus became enslaved to our human condition of dependency. He became all those things that take each of us to the threshold of addiction and dependency. Jesus became fear, doubt, loneliness, anxiety, and anger. These are not sins but feelings. It is in feelings that one touches the threshold of dependency. Jesus con-tinually emptying himself is the movement from addiction. He did not fill himself with any substance to extreme. Jesus chose his dependencies. From the gospels those chosen dependencies seem to be friendship, the (Jewish) word of God, prayer, and telling the story (parable) plus living the story. So Jesus' dependencies are on a deeply human level but always more. Jesus was empowered with the Spirit and worked miracles of heal-ing, but still had to experience emotional suffering and ultimately death. The addiction of power and control Jesus declined over and over. He did not want to be a king, a religious leader, or a political leader. He emp-tied himself; addicts try to fill themselves. Jesus holistically emptied him-self. Flesh and bones like us, he did not even overly depend on his hu-manity. He lived and believed in his human condition and more, Jesus has the same faith in us for he was one like us. Jesus was dependent on "one day at a time." This was living the model of the Father; for him being open and dependent upon the Father became a daily reality. The "daily bread" Jesus talks of is the daily por- The Addicted/Dependent Minister tion of human and divine needs. Childlike Jesus was dependent on the human condition. True addicts/dependents become blind and their world gets ever smaller. Jesus is not blind but tries to ever open us to the larger world that he called the "reign of God." Jesus is the model for the ad-dict in the way he lived the serenity prayer: "God, grant me the seren-ity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Three Areas of Interdependence for the Minister 1. The minister in a support system A support system means to have a world of peers. Being able to talk honestly and needfully, the minister opens up, allowing himself or her-self to be the recipient of ministry. Ministry by its nature is a parent role. Therefore to be able to step out of that role into a peer relationship is crucial for wellness. To seek support ministers cannot deny or toy with their dependen-cies. They need to be able to say "I need," "I hurt," "I'm angry," and so forth. Even though these "confessions" need be made at times with clients, here it is a perspective of care for the minister. Here minis-ters make their addictions known in trust. Unhealthily dependent persons function under three unwritten rules: (1) Do not talk about the depend-ency; (2) do not trust anyone because in the long run they will hurt you; and (3) do not feel because feelings can only cause trouble or pain. With such a support system, ministers can appear arrogant or even pious. In a support system that offers freedom to talk and an environment of trust for articulation of feelings, ministers minister to themselves. Any aloof-ness starts to subside in the therapy of the support system. This is a form of interdependence. Interdependence is very difficult to accomplish because it must be scheduled on a regular basis and it must seek a quality rapport with one or more persons. So many relationships (addictions/dependencies) are codependent: "You fix me and I'll fix you." In interdependence the de-pendent lives "rent free" (as AA says) of guilt, manipulation, and shame. Once the dependency is named and claimed, some of the twelve-step programs might be appropriate. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), nar-cotics anonymous (NA), sexaholics anonymous (SA), and adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) are support groups that meet regularly and are very good. For ministers with any of these addictions, weekly contact with the relevant group would be appropriate. Meeting less often than this is Review for Religious, November-December 1988 a form of denial to a given addiction. Other support systems like clinical counseling might be in order. See-ing a counselor can help one to look at addictive behavior. Again, a weekly meeting would be appropriate for the same reasons of denial. A spiritual director can also be helpful. It is important that the spiritual di-rector also be in spiritual direction. For the minister to ask for direction would be most helpful. If the spiritual director is not in direction, he or she is probably not conscious of personal dependencies in process ad-diction. Diocesan priests can have a support system in "Jesu Caritas" or "Emmaus" groups. The interdependence support area affords intimacy that is construc-tive and articulate. There must be a constant (weekly) point where min-isters are vulnerable, candid, and open. Ministers need intimacy more than most people; they need to have their own needs met. The more pas-toral responsibilities they have, the more difficult will be the problem of a support system that will work. Not finding such a system drives one right back into unhealthy dependency/addiction. This support system pre-sumes skills of great openness, and it demands qualified supporters who are themselves in touch with their own dependencies. God will be part of this because "where two or more are gathered, I am there"; this gath-ering of support will be the human condition laid open, and this sharing leads to the divine. Christianity itself is a support system not in theory only but in expe-rienced reality. To be Christian is to be community. Ministers model Christian living at its best as they acquire ministry to themselves. There will need to be many subcommunities like support groups within the sup-port system. For example, the substance-abuse minister may be in a "non-Christian" twelve-step program; still, the very dynamic is intrin-sically Christian by the fruits that are produced. The support system keeps (or even makes) the minister docile. Our Christian model of support is that the Master is always with us; no disci-ple ever becomes the master in Christianity. Christians are dependent on the Master. The minister lives this posture of the support system with a life of prayer. Prayer must be meditative and routine. Prayer must be daily. The minister will address Christ with "now I feel . . ." and be naked of all dependencies in his presence. 2. The Minister Using Humor as Healing Somewhere in the ritual of each day, the call to play must come. Just as "Let us pray" is ritualized, so must "let us play" be said and done. Ministers take themselves too seriously. To have a sense of humor is to The Addicted/Dependent Minister / 1~47 have a sense of healing. For some a sense of humor can get rough, laugh-ing at another's expense. Even if someone encourages being laughed at, discernment of the healing or hurting nature of humor is needed. Not all humor is healing. The virtue that comes with levity is gentleness. If ministers can laugh at themselves in a gentle and affectionate way, the humor is healing. So often caught in addiction/dependency, ministers may smile at their short-comings and say to themselves, "I'm not a saint yet," and move on with life. Humor does not mean telling jokes or developing talks (homilies) that are funny or entertaining. Humor simply brings us to reality away from our world of illusion. Substance and process addictions do produce a world of illusion. Just watching TV commercials shows us illusions, humor, and addiction. The problem with much in the media is that truth is not the main product being sold. Humor has truth at its core, and per-haps an exaggeration of that truth in humor can make a point of healing. An example of this might be telling a workaholic who is exhausted that you see no reason for him to sleep tonight: "I don't know why you can't work all night writing a major address for that group--you'd do it better than anyone else." Humor brings us to gentleness and reality; another quality is that of forgiveness. Sometimes in the healing of humor more forgiveness can take place than in more formal settings. A wink or kind facial expres-sion can be the forgiving gesture of gentleness that a given moment may need. Humor is a way of recycling the minister in a very healthy way. 3. The Minister and a Sense of Adventure This need of interdependence is seen more readily in retired minis-ters, but it needs to be present all along the journey of development. Min-isters in retirement can be the personifie~ wisdom of God even (or espe-cially) in their decrepit physical condition, or they can be Scrooge-like "humbug" people holding tightly to the past. The sense of adventure always is looking at the present and the future. Ministers can feel that "they owe me after all that I've done for them." Addicted ministers often will want to cause their own early retirement (or death). In aged ministers it is still the world of extremes if addiction is present. In a sense of adventure there is a sense of tomorrow. Ever changing by an open-ness to grace, ministers can keep looking forward to more in their life. The life of unhealthy addiction/dependency always seduces one to be-come fixated. In the interdependence of adventure, ministers respond to and embrace the limited world of themselves and the limited world of their environment. Using personal creativity, ministers can become eter- 1~41~ / Review for Religious, November-December 1988 nal students of life itself. Healthy ministers can be recognized here, with their level of interests always expanding. Self-improvement and educa-tion become an ever present sense of direction for them. They have a zest for life and a loving interest in others. Unhealthy ministers often scorn and condemn the life they see in healthy ministers. This can manifest it-self in competition or gossip or both. Ministers often live in their own professional world, a world no larger than the client's care and working for the community. "All work and no play makes John a dull boy." John is not only a dull minister but an addicted minister. There is a flatness and pity that emerge when the sense of adventure is not maintained on a regular level. Some say that a minister should always be reading a secular novel (and that does not necessarily mean of the Andrew Greeley variety). Friends and hobbies that have nothing to do with religion are excellent for the minister. The priests' poker club does not meet this need because "business" will al-ways creep into the conversation. Ministers can feel lost when not known in some place for who they are or what they are--this is a good chal-lenge to the minister. Ministers who are able to change through self-experimentation, self-denial, and self-ministry will find themselves flex-ible enough to grow in wisdom, age, and grace to the very point of death. Conclusion St. Augustine tells us that we are restless until we rest in God. There are many resting places on the journey of the minister that are anything but peaceful; these rest stops are often addictions. Satiated, confused, and disoriented, the minister quickly becomes less a minister than he or she would wish to be. These pages have looked at some cultural handi-caps in order to help ministers to be more free of them. Ministers living their faith are likely to feel some anxiety and insecurity. In a highly pos-session- oriented society that measures life by production and consump-tion, ministers become models of freedom by living a simple, unattached lifestyle. The "product" is freedom in Jesus himself. Thus, even though most ministers are addicted, they have a world of choice in their depend-encies. Those choices determine their personal happiness and effective-ness. Communal Spiritual Consolation John English, S.J. Many of our readers know at least some of Father English's writings on spirituality. In this article he discusses the significance of communal spiritual consolation for com-munal spirituality. He may be addressed at Ignatius College; P.O. Box 1238; Guelph, Ontario; N IH 6N6 Canada. The understanding and practice of spirituality has tended to focus on an individual person's experience and aspirations, but the individual needs to realize that spirituality is always in a communal context. If spiritual-ity focuses on the experiences the individual has in, through, and of com-munity, there is less danger of an individualistic spirituality. Consider the many examples in the Old Testament and the whole "Body of Chr

Issue 46.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1987. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Deparlment of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO. 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. ©1987 by REWEW FOR RELtG~OtJS. Single copies $2.50. Subscriptions: U.S.A. $11.00 a year; $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (surface mail); airmail (Book Rate): $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW FOR RELI(;IOUS: P.O. Box 6070; D~luth, MN 55806. Daniel F.X. Meenan, 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. Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors September/October, 1987 Volume 46 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to Rt:wEw voR Rt:Lmu)us; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW t'OR REI.I(:IOUS; 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, M1 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visu-ally impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. What Do the Laity Expect of Religious Life Guzm6n Carriquiry This article was prepared for the USIG (International Union of Superiors General) and originally appeared in the USIG Bulletin (no. 73, 1987). It is reprinted here with permission. Dr. Carriquiry, a native of Uruguay, is married and father of four. He is head of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and a professor at the Pontifical University Urbaniana. Two Remarks and a Propitious Occasion '~(ou have proposed and requested a very difficult task. Probably I accepted it with a considerable lack of awareness. Preparing for this meeting, I was able to realize the predicament in which I had placed myself. I am not a theologian by profession and even less an expert on the theology of religious life. I have had to read and reflect a good deal on the theme, but even so, I feel very inadequate in facing such a delicate question. I will limit myself, therefore, t.o giving some impressions, reflections and challenges, without any pretense at having a profound penetration into the "mystery" of the religious life. I would like to make a second remark., through a concern for hon-esty. "What do the laity expect. ?" is the question. When we speak of "laity," however, we are referring to many different people. It is good to suspect, or at times to smile at, those who with an excessive fa-cility and pretension claim to be "representatives" of the laity (or of youth, or of the poor, or of women . . .). We are tempted to dress our-selves in plumed clothing in order to hide our nakedness and to give our-selves a better or stronger "image." I am going to answer the question-- What do the laity expect. ? knowing that there will be much that is 641 1542 / fleview for Religious, September-October, 1987 personal to this individual layman, to this poor Christian, as a result of his own journey, experience and convictions. The fact of working in the Pontifical Council for the Laity for many years, however, has placed me in a privileged situation because if one wishes to serve the participation of the laity in the life and mission of the Church effectively--which is the competency of this Dicastery--then it is necessary to listen to and follow with special attention the sensitivities, demands, needs and ex-periences which are part of this multifaceted lay world. I hope to be able to transmit some of this rich experience to you. If, however, there are two evident limitations to this contribution, there is no doubt that it comes at an opportune and propitious moment in the life of the Church. We are in the time between the recent past extraordinary Synod--a commemoration, verification and actualization of Vatican Council II twenty years after its conclusion--and the next ordinary Synod of 1987, which will have as its theme "The vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and in society." The relations between laity and religious are adequately clarified by the knowledge the Church has at present of its mystery of communion and of the demands of i(s mission. And all, bish-ops, priests, deacons, religious and laity--as is stated in the final mes-sage of the extraordinary Synod--are invited to participate in the work of preparation for the next Synod, which "should constitute a decisive step so that all Catholics might receive the grace of Vatican II." From an Ecclesiology of Communion We can begin from an obvious daily experience. Many walls of sepa-ration- material, cultural, ecclesiastical--have been torn down, and to-day a close, simple, fraternal experience of collaboration between the la-ity and religious is lived and shared. This occurs within the most diverse Christian communities, in the most varied works of the Church, in asso-ciations and movements, in structures of "communion and participa-tion" of the combined pastoral team of the local Churches . It is like an immediate, accessible, verified evidence of fraternal collaboration and of common participation. No one can deny it. It can be stated that this is like a reflection and a fruit, a sign and a realization of the "ecclesiology of communion" of Vatican Council II. This I give here as something taken for granted. I find it interesting to point out a double movement, indivisible, in the carrying out of this con-ciliar ecclesioiogy. On one hand, we have gradually gone beyond a cor-porate or governmental division between clergy, religious and laity, com-partmentalized and sometimes in tension or in struggle for the division Expectations of Religious Life / 643 of "power" in the Church. What is anterior and interior to any dis-tinction has been affirmed and accented in this developing movement; that is, what is more essential, common to all, more original and radical in all Christian life. We are members of the great family of the "Chris-tian faithful," incorporated into Christ by baptism, participants in his priesthood, called to holiness, with equal dignity in the eyes of God, all co-responsible for the communion and the mission of the Church. But all "in their own way" because, at the same time, we experience that we are distinct, that this unity of all does not reduce us to uniformity and impoverish us by it, but that it develops fruitfully in the diversity of vo-cations, ministries and charisms which express and enrich the commun-ion and mission of the Church. It is with this ecclesiological basis and in intense ecclesial experience that we pose the question of what the laity expect of religious life . The Laity Expect "Something More" In the first place, I believe that many lay people would be surprised and somewhat disconcerted with the question, unable to respond in a con-scious and well-planned way. However, I think that, instinctively, in-tuitively, their response would be that of expecting "something more" of religious. Yes, they expect something more! Something more radical, more total, more definitive, more profound, more demanding and chal-lenging, in the relationship with God. They expect something more of holiness. In giving this spontaneous response, I pictured the alert, concerned, astonished reaction of the sister who says: "but, Dr . are not the laity also called to sanctity? . . ." And she says something obviously true if considered in the light of present ecclesial self-knowledge, but not so obvious in the understanding of all Christians. That conventional and arbitrary prejudice which seems to reserve holiness to the religious state, judging it in some way the monopoly of the following of Christ or of the evangelical counsels--has been gradually abandoned, and yet, at the same time, the lay condition was often considered a second-class Chris-tian life, a concession to human weaknesses. Ai times, the ideal of holi-ness was seen as a heroic and somewhat "aristocratic" option of per-fection, attained through the initiative of superior men and women. But, be at peace; good sister, because in ever greater numbers, the laity are becoming conscious of this universal vocation to holiness to which Chapter 15 of Lumen Gentium refers in a clear and distinct man-ner. 644 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 This being accepted, perhaps you still remain disturbed that the laity continue expecting from religious a greater radicality of commitment and donation to God (the three vows are like dimensions of a unique vow--I read this some days ago--of the vow of one's whole self, the gift of the entire person, offering oneself to God with all one's energies.); they expect a greater, more immediate and more total liberty and availability in order to follow-imitate-serve Christ; they expect a more direct and tan-gible referenceto the presence of the mystery of God in human life. They are very sure of what they expect even though they cannot always ex-press it well. For this reason, the ordinary lay person is much more exi-gent in observing and in judging the witness given by religious than that given by lay people. In general, this is so. It is surprising that this ex-pectation- which rises up from the "sensum fidei," from this "super-natural instinct" of simple Christians--corresponds perfectly to what the Church considers the radical originality of the religious life: to give wit-ness to and "impulse" in the area of the growth of life, of sanctity. Con-sciously or intuitively, the laity expect that religious will keep as a high priority the primacy, the radicality of the witness to sanctity, not as .a,pat-rimony or goal exclusively their own, but as a call and warning, a chal-lenge and attraction for all the members of the people of God toward this vocation and program of life. It is right that religious should be a bit disturbed when they feel them-selves burdened with such expectations because they feel that it is not. a question of a privilege but of a grave responsibility. In other words, there is a preferential love of God for each one of you--it was he who chose you first and who put his "aspiration" in you, and not you your-selves who decided to be more holy--which burdens you with responsi-bility in the response to God in the Church, I would say before the most "insignificant" of the baptized . . . and even before the most "care-less" of human beings. And it is not sufficient to p~ut on the habit~t~) say, "Lord, Lord." This vocation must be carried out effectively as the will of the Father. Saints or Reformers? In the long history of the Church one can find strong confirmation of what the laity today expect of the religious life. They expect what the Church has always expected, an assurance that they will never be de-prived of this "special gift" which is the religious life. Almost two mil-lennia of life teach that the crucial periods or phases of renewal of the Church--in its communion and in its mission--were brought about and' carried out through the great and liberated energies of holiness, and that Expectations of Religious Life / 645 in the "vanguard" of these holy and reforming energies the numerous and diverse charisms of the religious life proved powerful and fruitful. Let us have a bird's eye view of all this. - When the Church lived under the tension of the seducing powers of "worldliness" on the one hand and of vigorous heretical movements on the other, during the Roman-Christian Empire, the tradition of con-secrated life, of which the first witnesses are already met within the New Testament writings, flowered in the monastic experience, raising up a new spiritual "oxygenation," a passion for unity and a lively responsi-bility for the truth. - Shortly,afterwards, when Ambrose saw "the end of the world" in the total destruction of the Roman Empire of the West and before the invasion of the "barbarians," there came the charism of a Benedict-- as well as of Cyril and Methodius--whose cloistered disciples and fol-lowers would be nothing less than the evangelizers of the new peoples and the principal protagonists of the construction of a new civilization, medieval Christianity. - When the liberty of the Church was being strangled in the suffo-cating and corrupting embrace of feudal chains, currents of sanctity ra-diating from Cluny and Cister made possible the Gregorian reform and a sort of "second evangelization" of medieval Christianity. - And before the upheaval of the urban-mercantile-university revo-lution of the later medieval period--when the sectarian phenomena were swarming like so many devious responses to new sensitivities and cul-tural demands which went beyond the limits of the feudal "order"-- God enriched the communion and mission of the Church with the men-dicant orders for the most incisive and suitable evangelization of the new world and the new culture in process of being born. - And how is it possible to speak of the "Catholic reform" at the moment of the Council of Trent in face of the drama and challenge of the "Protestant reform" and the new missionary needs created by the European expansion at the dawn of modem times without considering the holy charisms of Ignatius, Teresa of Avila, Philip Neri, Angela Merici, Francis de Sales, Vincent de Paul. ? - In the second half of the nineteenth century, the intellectual, spiri-tual and missionary revival of the Church, harassed by the impetus of the secularizing and anti-clerical modernism, had its strong point in the multiplication of religious orders, masculine and feminine, which it would take too long to mention . 646 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 This is a mere schematic outline, certainly, but substantially true in what I wish to demonstrate. Speaking to Superiors General, after hav-ing mentioned the names of great and holy founders, John Paul II con-cluded: All these names testify that the paths of holiness, to which the members of the people of God are called, passed and continue to pass in great part through religious life. And there is no need to marvel at that, given the fact that religious life was founded on the most precise "prescription" for holiness, constituted by love lived according to the evangelical coun-sels. Also, mentioning two essential criteria for the renewal of religious life, the Pope said during his trip to Brazil: The first criterion is that religious life (and concretely every religious community) is not seriously renewed if the objective of the renewal is, in fact, the seeking of the greatest ease and convenience, but only if this objective is the seeking of what is most authentic in religious life and most harmonious with it. The second criterion is that religious life is re-newed by being ever more a road of sanctity. This is nothing else than what is stated by the conciliar decree Per-fectae Caritatis in Number 21. All this brings to mind a marvelous reminder of John Paul II to the laity, when he celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the conciliar de-cree Apostolicam Actuositatem in November, 1985: The Church needs great currents, movements and testimonies of holi-ness among the Christian faithful because it is from holiness that all authentic renewal of the Church is born, all enrichment of the intelli-gence of faith and of the following of Christ, a vital and fruitful re-actualization of Christianity in meeting with human needs, renewed forms of presence in the heart of human existence and in the culture of the nations. More than "reformers," the Church needs saints--frequently re-peats the Pope because saints are the best reformers. And this is the same point stressed by all the participants in the recent extraordinary Synod. Twenty years after the end of Vatican Council II the "univer-sal vocation to sanctity" must have the primacy. Between Crises and Hopes Well. twenty years after the end of Vatican Council II, that great gift of God to the Church of our times, in this crucial phase of renewal of the Church. how does it appear to you? Are religious in the van- Expectations of Religious Life / 647 guard, as first and primary witnesses of those energies and currents of sanctity which effectively renew the Church and the world? A lay per-son responds with fear and trembling: it does not seem to me to be so. Certainly there are not lacking admirable personal and communitarian tes-timonies in religious life--we have them present here--which have an impact far beyond the visible limits of the Church. Thanks be to God! But, in general, there are also the weighty results of the convulsive cri-sis which occurred during the first phase of the "post-conciliar times." The great yon Balthasar says that the strong crisis felt by the Church in the immediate post-conciliar time, and which was partially a crisis of secularization and partially a crisis of comprehension of authority in the Church, affected the priesthood and the religious state in the very depths of its theology and in a manner in-comparably stronger than for the laity who had no great reason to re-flect on its identity and to question itself. What a painful distance there was between the great conciliar hopes of an "adequate renewal of religious life" and the heavy price of un-certainty and instability, of disquiet and disoriented nervousness, of secu-larization and crisis which followed it: so heavy a price that some are still suffering from the results of it and many were ruined by it. A heavy price which indicates, on the one hand, how fossilized and anachronis-tic were some forms inherited from the past--already hatching a crisis under a rather sclerotic shell--and which signals, on the other hand, de-vious and unilateral interpretations and actions in the realization of the renewal desired by Council;, in which there tended to predominate worldly criteria rather than an authentic and rigorous discernment "of the spirit." And this is not the result of expert examinations. The ordinary laity witnessed this crisis when, for example, sending their children to Catho-lic schools, they realized that many religious were leaving their commu-nities, that there were very few novices, that those who remained were usually the oldest . But where do vocations come from? From the grace of God which is never lacking, and from the response of lay men and women who wish to live their baptism more radically. These have not been lacking in these twenty post-conciliar years either. So? We tend to take refuge in a detailed and often rather intellectual enumeration of all the obstacles which are found on the road of total commitment: secu-larism, consumerism, pansexualism, and so forth. Who can deny this? But the "worldly" difficultie~ ought to make even more evident the chal-lenging vigor in the sign, the witness, thecalling. Perhaps the most se- Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 rious,reply with regard to the "crisis" is that, in these last decades, re-ligious life has failed to be radical enough in its following of Christ, suf-ficiently rooted in the full certainties of life, passionate enough as an ex-pression of the mystery of communion, challenging enough for con-version, vigorous enough in its apostolate, transparent enough in its wit-ness to awaken amazement, fascination, admiration, imitation among the many laity made aware of the requirements of baptism and of their Chris-tian responsibility. Today the "uneasy time" has passed. Serenity has been regained. There are promising signs of an increase of vocations. From the at-tempted experimentations there have come more criteria to consolidate the positive and reject the negative. There is a different atmosphere. Re-ligious life is beginning to reflect the new ecclesiai climate. But the Church expects much more from it. It should be strengthened in the Lord. A crisis is fully overcome when the reasons which caused it are discerned in depth: crisis of spiritual discipline, crisis of authority, obe-dience, crisis of communion . It is necessary to "refound" relig-ious life, said Don Egidio Viganb a few years ago. And the great con-necting threads for this new phase of the carrying out of the Council, which gave direction to this refoundation, seem clear: radicality on the road of holiness, passion for the truth, solidity and fidelity to com-munion, missionary impetus of a new evangelization. New Forms of Consecrated Life If there has been a crisis of religious institutes--also states Balthasar--it cannot be said that there has been a crisis of consecrated life because, in addition to the traditional forms of religious life, there have been developing lately new forms of consecration, new forms of "monastic" experiences in the world. In the vigorous "ecclesial move-ments" at the present time--such as the Focolarini, Communion and Lib-eration, Charismatic Renewal in the Spirit--and also in very many other communitarian experiences on local levels, there have been maturing per-sons and groups of persons who have decided, privately, to assume as a radical commitment the practice of the evangelical counsels in life com-munities. These types of vocations have abounded and a great number of new vocations, especially to the contemplative religious life, come from these movements. To be sure, history teaches that different impulses of renewal of re-ligious life are generated from strong charismatic and communitarian ex-periments which do not fit easily into existing forms and which were gen-erating--- or were heading toward--new roads of sanctity. But those more Expectations of Religious Life / 649 and more numerous lay vocations to live the evangelical counsels in a radical form, in forms that are different from the traditional forms of "consecration," should constitute a questioning and challenging sign for religious institutes. Why do they not have a similar attraction? On the other hand, the institutes have a precious patrimony of traditions and of spiritual wisdom which, revitalized and clarified, could be of primary im-portance in facing and directing the new forms which are arising. In the Return of the Sacred Not a few attentive observers at the present time note the emerging signs of a complete process of cultural transition, as if we were in mo-ments of maximum realization and, at the same time, of exhaustion 'from the process of secularization stirred up by the secularist and materialis-tic ideologies: a nihilistic phase, the indifferent absence of great motives and ideals of life, spiritual emptiness and lethargy, the predominance of the miserable idols of money, pleasure, power. At the same time there are emerging everywhere, at times with surprising or ambiguous mani-festations, new sensitive, new "significant" dem~inds, new "religious" expectations. Do we, perhal~s, 'see this under such varied signs as the re-vitalization of the cultural-religious substratum of some nations-- Poland, the Philippines, Haiti;--the resistance to secularizing modern-ism: the renewal of Islam; the accelerated and dangerous expansion of sects and of "mysterious" and "esoteric" cults; the sensitive "relig-ious" antennae of the new generations of youth; the increase of priestly and religious vocations; the great number of places in which individuals and whole peoples claim at the present time to have enjoyed apparitions of the Virgin; the enormous popular repercussions of the apostolic trips of the Holy Father; the growing flood of pilgrims going to the sanctuar-ies of their country? And in so many other and varied ways . "In s.pite of secular-ism," says the final message of the extraordinary Synod, "there exist also signs of a return to the sacred . . , of a new hunger and thirst for the transcendent and the divine . We should open the way to the di-mension of the 'divine' or of the 'mystery.' " This resurgence of the sacred--states a synodal father--will be more vigorous yet in the perspective of the end of the second millennium, but care must be taken so that the response and satisfaction of this new sen-sitivity and need is not given through devious channels and forms, frus-trating in the end because it will appear that the Catholic Church does not itself refer sufficiently to the sacred. 650 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 The whole Church is challenged, but I ask if there is not a special warning call to religious life. Instead of pursuing a retarded and submis-sive adaptation to a secularist culture in process of disintegration, the signs of an emerging culture can be fed on and deciphered only by the signs of the Absolute of God, by the radical testimony of the Mystery of God in human life. In the Agitation of the Secular Life Now let us be more specific. Let us look more carefully at the con-crete and daily experience of lay people. It is their specific work to or-der the world according to the designs of God, to live their Christian vo-cation in the ordinary conditions of family, work, and social life, in the logic and even dullness of created things. This is the road-~diversified in an enormous multiplicity of ways---of their sanctification. Yes, in-deed! I believe that there are many silent, hidden, daily witnesses to sanc-tity among lay people. At times, however, it is truly wearying to have to endure a certain "idealism" or a great deal of ecclesiastical rhetoric when reference is made to the lay state, to the "adult lay person". One gets the im-pression that often it is an abstraction of the real rhythm and weight of the normal day of an ordinary lay person. It is necessary to sanctify and to sanctify oneself in the family, professional and social life. But, how avoid being "pulled about," absorbed by a permanent agitation of the rhythm of life in order to obtain those material and spiritual times nec-essary to give "breath," "feeling" and an orientation to one's own life? Generally, in order to find these moments, as, for example, to as-sist at Mass, to pray in the family, to speak of God with one's children, to grow spiritually as a couple, to be silent., it is necessary to strug-gle and even more, to acquire a "discipline" and to respect it and to put it into practice. Most often one is pulled along by the bustle of the activities, preoccupations, responsibilities and the immediate anxieties of daily life to such a point that life becomes opaque, gray, is impover-ished of spiritual content, goes on marginalizing "the religious" to de-termined ritual moments which become ever more infrequent. And yet more . The laity are asked to assume ecclesiai and secu-lar responsibilities which are on a large scale and require time and la-bor. They are asked to be "militant." And that i~ fine. But what does it mean concretely? That the hours dedicated as catechist in the parish or in teams of service, or to meetings of movements or apostolic groups to which they belong, or absorbed by union responsibilities or participa-tion in the political party--and in this type of commitment the demands Expectations of Religious Life / 651 always seem to multiply if one wishes things to go along better continu-ally-. those hours of "militancy" have to be taken or "stolen" from the domestic and family life at the end of a day's work. For this reason, lay militants are always unstable minorities, threat-ened with discontinuity, doubly sacrificed, in abnegation and dedication. This is not to be regretted; it is their normal habitual condition. Great institutions are not built nor great works done with "extra" hours. Two remarks seem important for service of religious life in face of these situations of the laity. The first is to realize the need that the lay people have--today more than ever---of time, signs and specific spaces of prayer, of being filled with the perspective of the kingdom, savoring the things of God, becoming impregnated with the spirit of the beatitudes which can provide specific nourishment for their family, professional or political life. Many lay people look at and are seeking the contemplative life of religious communities so as to enter into contact with their spiri-tual radiation. You know how difficult it is to be contemplatives in the secular life, since many of your communities are dedicated to works of the apostolate. You can imagine how much more difficult it is for the laity . The second remark refers to the availability of religious for the serv-ice of the Gospel when compared to the obligations of lay people. When I end my day's work, I return home, not in order to rest but to help my wife who is carrying out her duties for the children, to bathe the little ones, to attend to a thousand little domestic needs . I would like to read so many things that could help me grow--and my wife also, natu-rally- but I do not have the time. I would like to visit friends in diffi-culty, to participate in ecclesial or cultural meetings which seem impor-tant to me, to get to know important persons or experiences. But I can-not sacrifice more than a minimum of family time. It is in my marriage and in my family that I see my first and most important responsibilities as a Christian. I am a happy man, but at times I admire and envy the "full time" workers for the Gospel, the "professional revolutionaries" of the Church, those who consecrate themselves exclusively and totally to the Lord. They should show a liberty and availability of tremendous energies for the most varied services for the Christian people. Does it perhaps happen that where there is more time to dispose of, there is more time to waste? On Political Participation If the chief witness of the laity is the Christian presence in the con-duct of the economy of creation, this does not mean that this is a field 659 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 exclusively reserved to them. The witness of lay people challenges re-ligious to go beyond caricatures of flight from the world and to consider their own consecration to God a radical commitment in the service of hu-man beings and of society. The great contributions of the religious life in social construction and progress can be found throughout history; but it is a fact that since the Council they have been going beyond the nar-row horizons, the so-called exclusivity or spiritual incompetence in the name of which religious life degenerated into forms of insensitivity in the face of situations and conditions of injustice and oppressiori suffered by persons, social groups, entire peoples. If the struggle for justice is a constitutive dimension of evangeliza-tion; if the defense and promotion of the dignity, rights and liberties of all human beings are a necessary part of the mission of the Church; if the kingdom of God--kingdom of peace and of justice, of truth and of love--is growing mysteriously in human, history--no religious can con-sider extraneous to her own peculiar vocation these commitments and tasks. It also falls to the religious "to evangelize the political' '--as says the Puebla document--in the sense of values of the Gospel and in con-formity with them. Up to this point, everything is clear. But there are cases in which, in the face of flagrant situations of injustice, misery and violence, when a vigorous and incisive commitment on the part of lay people is lacking, religious feel called to a more direct, surer, more incisive social and po-litical action. No one can be "neutral" in face of such situations. Even in these cases, however, it is necessary, on the one hand, to control the "immediate reaction" which ends up by absorbing and weakening the original vocation of the religious, and on th~ other, to prevent their ac-tions ending up in a well-determined political praxis, in a militant, dis-ciplined commitment, organized in a political party or strategy, with a basic reference to power. In taking this road, the premises for "secularization" are created. In addition, there is the "clerical" temptation of using prestige, social weight and the cultural representativity of ecclesiastics--above all, in Christian environments--as a basis to affirm definite political options worthwhile and free in themselves, and left then to the prudence of each Christian. In cases in which this "political praxis" of religious exists, many of the laity are conscious of a great lack of preparation of an "idealis-tic" voluntarism which substitute forms of "moral indignation" for the complex calculation of political .analysis. Expectations of Religious Life The categorical imperative "it is necessary to become committed" is identified, by some religious, in a mech'anical or simplistic manner with a "plunging into" the agitation of political matters without discern-ment. And this "plunging," with their lack of technical and political preparation, with their "ecclesiastical" condition of life far from the re-alistic stability of family and professional life and responsibility, with their lack of respect for the "weightiness" of the daily life of ordinary mortals, and with their counting on the particular protection of the Church--all this ends up by creating a particular type of untrustworthy political person and confused religious. The ease and simplicity with which some religious pass from traditional forms of life to political radi-calizations and moralistic ideologies is incredible. They are easily ma-nipulated and absorbed into a horizon which gradually becomes a prior-ity and then into a respect which becomes a substitute for ecclesial communion. Truly the Pope is right in insisting that it is not the proper role for religious to be converted into political or union leaders, and even less into state functionaries! Various Methods of Service to Humanity In these experiences of specific political participation, there is, on the part of religious, even if not consciously, a certain devaluation of their particular vocation and, consequently, an inferiority complex which makes one want to excel in the typically lay manner of service to human-ity. This service seems identified with social and political militancy if it is to be truly efficacious. Anything else seems like alienation, indif-ference and even the complicity of religious with injustice and oppres-sion. With this attitude as a basis, there comes a loss of confidence in the specificity of the religious consecration as a fundamental manner of serv-ice to humanity. The council was already warning about this when it said: Let no one think that, by their consecration, religious have become strang-ers to their feliowmen or useless citizens of this earthly city. But, even though in some instances they do not directly mingle with their contem-poraries, yet in a more profound sense, these religious are united with them in the heart of Christ and cooperate with them spiritually. In this way the work of building up the earthly city can always have its foun-dation in the Lord and can tend toward him. Otherwise, those who build this city will perhaps have labored in vain (LG n. 46). Does not the witness of St. Th6r~se of Lisieux teach us the incom- 654 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 parable value of prayer for all human service? Those who take on as a priority the construction of the world through matrimony, the administra-tion of goods and power--such are the laity--greatly need those who ac-company them with prayer as a priority, who remind them that we are in the world but not of the world and that we cannot conform ourselves to the present time; that we must safeguard and strengthen our Christian liberty in face of the seductions of the idols of money, power and pleas-ure; that the "logic" of the beatitudes is authentically revolutionary; that Christ is the cornerstone of all social construction which is to be truly human; that it is worth the trouble to struggle and sacrifice in order to continue creating conditions and experiences of greater justice, solidar-ity and peace so that nothing will be forgotten and all will be redeemed when God grants us "new heavens and a new earth". The best and most radical service to humanity is the testimony of a life which manifests the total supremacy of the love of God. For this rea-son, the special road of service to humanity for religious life consists, today more than ever, in being centered in one's "consecration," in a special care and cultivation of its religious dimension, of its discipline of life and spiritual growth. Living and Manifesting a Specific Charism This life according to the Spirit is diversified and deepened in the fol-lowing of the "charism of the founders." The apostolic exhortation Evangelica Testificatio and the decree Mutuae Relationes emphasized this in a special way. For the majority of lay people, however, I believe that this statement would not be well understood because there is the dan-ger of considering religious life generically, with little variations, with more or less uniform ways, barely differentiated into families with dif-ferent names and habits. It is necessary to ask if the various religious com-munities witness effectively to the gift they have received, to their own original spiritual richness, their particular contribution to the Christian enrichment of all the people of God. If fidelity to one's own charism is a form of obedience to the grace of Christ, if it characterizes the origi-nality of an evangelical project for the following of Christ and encour-ages the discovery of new lights and new dimensions of the totality of Christian life, if it is a specific way of sanctification, the greatest contri-bution of a religious community to the life of the Church and of each Christian is to keep'very much alive the fidelity to this charism, to live it with the same radicality as the founder lived it, to regenerate and radi-ate its relevancy before the needs of the Church and the people, I believe that thus the whole of the people of God would feel more "encouraged" Expectations of Religious Life / 655 and "worked upon" by the powerful ferment of renewal of Christian life. The laity who have contact with religious communities, directly or through schools, clinics, and so forth, would be much more "struck" by these radical charisms. All of that is contained in the generic term-- the Sisters. In this sense, we find much to the point the words of John Paul II in Brazil when, after having emphasized the great pastoral and apostolic service accomplished by religious, he stated: It is not because it is useful to the pastoral work that religious life occu-pies a very definite place in the Church and has an indispensable value. The contrary is true: religious life lends an efficacious service to the pas-toral work because it is and keeps itself firmly faithful to the position it occupies in the Church and to the charisms which characterize this po-sition. In addition, I ask myself if religious communities should not put more emphasis on the witness of the sanctity of their founders or spiri-tual teachers. Many times witness is of more value than words and Chris-tians need "models," fathers and teachers on the road of faith. Life Communities in the Church Permanent life communities which fully involve the person are found in the life of the Church only in religious communities and in Christian families. The differences between these two are obvious. The famil~ is a "natural" community, whose matrimonial nucleusbin the loving and fruitful union of the man and woman--is "sacramentalized" by the Church. The religious community does not have a "natural" base and those who participate in it freely sacrifice precious goods--such as the whole field of conjugal love, the free disposal of material goods, indi-vidual autonomy for the great decisions of life--for a Good, for a Love which is much greater. ~But in both cases we see, in different forms, the mystery of commun-ion which there is in the human origin and destiny and which becomes a daily miracle. In societies which are ever more disunited and frag-mented, where the powerful and uniforming tides of massification break up social bonds in the social fabric--much has been written about th'is-- these very forms of community life acquire even more importance and a great "impact." There is an intense desire for personal recognition, friendship, solidarity, authentic reconciliation, deeper and fuller human encounters and relationships so that people are very sensitive to the hu-man witness and acceptance of these life communities. 656 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 There are beautiful analogies which could be made between religious communities and. family communities. Do not the various aspects of hu-man love which are found ,in family life and which reflect the insepara-ble dimensions of divine love exist in their own manner and even more fully in the religious community as signs, glimpses, first-fruits of the king-dom? Both communities are based on the indestructible and fruitful foun-dation of a spousal love. While in the person-to-person encounter of the man and his wife, their passionate experience of love truly reflects the covenant of Christ with his Church, the religious lets herself be grasped directly and tota~lly by the limitless love of Christ, in the immediilcy of the covenant between Spouse and spouse, with the totality and sublima-tion of a commitment to which all human love is called. Cohsecrated vir-ginity- lived in its serene and mysterious fullness~is the sign of p~ssi-bility and of example to order and encourage the "chastity" of married life in this vital, delicate and fragile complex between the spi,ritual sway and instinctive impulses. There is a complete education to lib~rty, to do-minion over selfl which 'is a ~:ondition of authentic love--so important and urgent today on the level of tlae' new generations, determined and marked by a hedonist mentality and an atmosphere of flagrant eroticism-- which shines through a healthy religious life. ~ ~ The family, although implicitly, also requires a "rule" for i!s com-munity life, and authority is the prinqiple and guarantee of communion. In the rule of rules--that of St. Benedict--the "superior".of the com-mu~ nity is called "father"--abbot. It is good that the superior is recog-nized as "mother" and all are "sisters." Without paternity (maternity) we would remain orphans, community would disintegrate because it would be without a source and point of reference. This is the value of "authority" as derived from "augere," that which helps to increase, to grow in life, which permits the human to grow in persons. It i~ always a reflection on the paternity (maternity) of God, who giyes us life, makes. it grow in faith, brings it to plentitude. There is a spiritual fruitfulness which~.engenders abundant fruits of Christian life. Lay people often observe with special attention the life of r~eligious communities so as to see if they discover, if they perceive that "some-thin~ more" which they expect. For this reason, excessive formalism, minor quarrels, divisions, absence of human warmth, and more dull the communitarian witness. It is as if community were more an obligatory formality than a radiation of liberty and life. The laity must be able to see in the life of religious communities the carrying out in a small way of this reconciliation in depth, of this fraternity and solidarity,, of this Expectations of Religious Life / 657 peace and happiness in communion for which all human beings yearn in their heart, a strong sign of "reconciled humanity" in the interior of the mystery of communion of the Church, a model of "the new society" in which can be found united liberty and solidarity, where authority is exercised as paternity (maternity), where there is a different attitude to-wards riches, in which human relations are brought to their fullness by liberty and do not degenerate into domination, and which brings all its members to an ordered participation;'and "above all," as says a beauti-ful text bf the Puebia document: where it is unequivocally manifested that, without a radical communion with, God in Jesus Christ, any form of purely human communion re-mains in the long run incapable of being sustained and ends totally in tu'rning against the human person. In other words, nothing less than a corner of heaven! Some Priority Areas Lay people are very sensitive to the way religious life witnesses to poverty, and they are also very demanding, at times too demanding, with religious and little, indeed, with themselves. It is good, howev.er, to be challenged by this exigency. More than an "area" of work or of commitment, poverty is a radi-cal dimension of "cbnsecration" insofar as it is detachment from mate-rial goods and affirmation of the liberty which recognizes God as its only good. These are admirable witnesses. On too many occasions, however, the laity do not succeed in seeing how this vow of poverty is manifested concretely as detachment and liberty. Even more, many times, with no malice, they notice that religious liv~e rather conveniently~---even comfort- ~ably--x~ith all material problems settled in the present and in the future, and that in environments which show nothing of "poverty." It'is not a question of their asking for "romantic" gestures nor of exaggerat)ng criticism. But, at least a greater austerity and severity of life is required, a more generous availability in the sharing of material and spiritual goods, the elimination of all that is superfluous . This exigency is even more challenging since it is within a Church which is ever more conscious of and determined concerning the so-called "preferential option for the poor." "This preferential option for the poor," says Don Egidio Viganb in a very expressive synthesis which we cannot examine in detail now, questions religious very concretely, especially the institutes of active life. It demands a review of the specific mission in light of those receiv- Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 ing it. It requires a study and replanning of the presence of the religious. It deepens the sacramental meaning of the vow of poverty, places in dia-logue the great values of evangelical poverty with the pressing obliga-tions of social misery, proclaims with ever greater clarity that the pov-erty of the beatitudes is a challenge to materialism and opens doors to solutions which are alternatives to those of the consumer society. Religious should also take to heart the criteria mentioned by the magis-terium of the Church as to the evangelical authenticity of this "option": it is not exclusive nor excluding because the message of salvation is di-rected to all; it is animated by an intention which is primarily religious and not political; it does not let itself be entrapped by nor reduced to a class dialectic; it takes into consideration the existence of various forms of poverty in situations of 'hunger and misery, of unemployment and marginalization, of deprivation of liberty, of physical or mental health or other material and/or moral privations. In this preferential love for the poor as derived from the love of Christ for all is found in great measure the witness of religious life today. A special attention to the young also seems to be a basic and urgent requirement for religious communities of our times. There is a long and impressive religious tradition of the education of youth which shou!d not be abandoned but should be renewed and deepened. The point is clear; an individual becomes social and is educated, from the most tender age, fundamentally through the family and the school. These are the two ba-sic "channels" to lead youth to reality. But could it be that the States, political parties, ideological strategists would take a strong interest in the school in order to "penetrate" into the world of youth and direct it ac-cording to their various criteria and interests, while the Church-- especially religious communities--would underestimate its educational tradition and its educational institutions and responsibilities? In times of crisis of credibility and of search for "ideologies," when the most no-ble energies and concerns remain dissatisfied with the suffocating mate-rialism of the consumer society, it is more important than ever to offer to the young great and vigorous proposals, ideal certainties of life as signs and guides for their own education. Christian lay people, parents of families, need to count on the help of the Catholic school because the first responsibility for education falls on the parents, and the family is the basic place for growth in the faith of its members. Nevertheless, there is a considerable amount of catecheti-cal instruction, of Christian attitudes, of fruitful joining of faith with cul-ture which is acquired in. the environment and activity of the school. The Expectations of Religious Life I 659 most fruitful means is that of an active and co-responsible educational collaboration between the family and the Catholic school. I am sure that it is not without concern to the laity that educational religious communi-ties are abandoning the field of the school. On the contrary, they should intensify their commitment involving the collaboration of the laity, es-pecially of the parents, and should go beyond the "administrative" and routine activities in the running of the school, transforming it ever more into a vigorous, radiant, highly educational environment and seek means to make their services always more accessible and fruitful. Here there is much to rethink, to plan and to carry out along the line of a scholastic pastoral which meets all these demands. I think also of other milieux and human activities which have been converted into new frontiers of the ecclesial mission, in which the pres-ence of the Church cannot be limited to some free-lance laity. There surely is no lack of religious charisms for the apostolic work among in-tellectuals, artists, professionals of social communication, factory work-ers . According to the Measure of the Gift of Christ One last remark. The Council says that while profession of the evangelical counsels involves the renunciation of goods which undoubtedly deserve to be highly valued, it does not con-stitute an obstacle to the true development of the human person, but by its nature is supremely beneficial to that development (LG 46). Thus the renunciation should not diminish the human but rather help to develop the human stature according to the measure of the gift of Christ. This "something more," this "much more," of holiness, which the laity expect of religious finds its response in the witness of new men, of new women, penetrated with the Absolute of God, radically incorpo-rated into Christ, totally dedicated to the service of others. If Christ re-veals to human persons the 'fullness of their being and their destiny, all radical following of Christ can be only a path of integral fulfillment for humanity. It is necessary to show that what one abandons in order to fol-low Christ will be recovered even now, multiplied, as more human riches more full of humanity. Lay people hope to meet in religious well-balanced Christian person-alities because they are centered in God and, therefore, persons having an effective equilibrium and emotional serenity (how many "argu-ments" reveal psychological immaturity !) of ever more solid intellectual formation (why in the past did one so rarely meet religious on this 660 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 level?), with 'a great liberty because a great obedience radiates a richness of life from their "interior castle." They expect them to be attentive and generous in dedication and service, spreading a happiness and a joy which come from within, persons of whom one can speak and think of as models for women of hidden but full life, in the image of Mary, first and greatest disciple of Christ. Words, Words, Words How glibly do we toss them off, precious self-wrought jewels, precious beyond diamond, sapphire or pearl: Mined from quickened breath, warmed by channeled blood, carried live on currents of air they glow to foul or fair. Let us then nourish them ~with care, knowing their fire can rage uncontrolled to devastating No or curved to simple Yes, can make a world of bleak distress spin in giddy joy, and bring a God to birth while angels sing! Marcella M. Holloway, C.S.J. 6321 Clemens Avenue, Saint Louis, Missouri 63130 The Public and Witness Religious Life Dimension of David F. O'Connor, S.T. Father O'_Connor, past president of the Canon Law Society of America, is chairman of the Department of Church Law at the Washington Theological Union. He resides at the Holy Trinity Mission Seminary; 9001 New Hampshire Avenue; Silver Spring, Maryland 20903. Religious life has a public dimension to it which is intended by the Church. Religious, both in their personal and their corporate lifestyles, are meant to be identifiable as Church-people and to witness Gospel val-ues. They engage in' forms of the apostolate and in ministry always in the name of the Church and under the authority of their respective relig-ious SUl~eriors and local bishops. All of this manifests their distinctive character, their place in the Church and their canonical status. An awareness of this--and it is not always viewed by everyone as an unambigtious biessing~--helps us better understand some of the events occurring on the contemporary scene; for example, the reaction of the hierarchy to religious who are seeking public office or those who sign published statements which a.ppear to be contrary to Church positions. The following article is iritended to elaborate somewhat on this pub-lic dimension of the religious life and some of its implications for relig-ious. The Institutionalizing of a Charismatic Fbrm Since Vatican II, we have a renewed awareness of the religious life as a charismatic vocation, a gift of the Spirit to the Church.2 This has helped deepen our understanding and appreciation of its place and role in the Church. For the Holy Spirit is not only the source of the inspira- 661 662 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 tion of the founders, but also of those who have followed after them down through the succeeding generations. These charisms have contrib-uted in a significant and special way to the very holiness of the Church and to its ability to fulfill its mission in this world.3 A religious commu-nity is obliged to hand on an awareness of its charism to new members so that these gifts of the Spirit may be lived, safeguarded, deepened and constantly developed.4 Charisms are given within the Church for the building up of the Church community. Whenever a claim is made by a group of the faith-ful that it is living a radical form of the Gospel life, such a claim cannot be ignored by the wider Church, especially by the bishops who are the pastors and guardians of the faith.5 The assertion that one is being led by the Spirit, now as in the past, needs to be examined and authenticated by the wider Church community before it can be given credence and ac-ceptance. Historically, ecclesial recognition was given informally and im-plicitly for the first few centuries. But, beginning in the fourth century, bishops of the local churches, aware of certain abuses and of the disrup-tiveness of some wandering monks, required monastic groups to have of-ficial and explicit approval before establishing a foundation. Indeed, the canons of the Council of Chalcedon (45 I) established the norms Which regulated the relationship of bishops and monasteries up until the Mid-dle Ages. Then, because of the development of large and centralized re-ligious orders in the thirteenth century, official recognition was fre-quently reserved to Rome. It is a fact, then, that ecclesial recognition and authentication of charis-matic groups existed in some form from the beginning of the devel-opment of religious life. It was necessary in order to determine whether or not a particular group or rule truly was presenting a viable form of Gospel life. Ecclesial or canonical approbation had the added benefit of helping to preserve the original charism of the founder and the first mem-bers by institutionalizing it within the visible community of faith. Ca-nonical authentication of a particular style of Gospel life has helped it to be passed on to succeeding generations of men and women, and this has redounded to the benefit of the wider Church. The religious life, as we know it today, is canonically established only through the official recognition of the Church's pastors, the hierar-chy. This has helped safeguard the faithful from. being led astray by ab-errant forms of Christianity which, in the past, frequently ended up in fanaticism, schism or heresy. The Church possesses within itself the charism of discerning spirits, and this is exercised by the bishops as part Witness of Religious Life / 663 of their pastoral office. As Karl Rahner has stated: " . . . the official Church is also the guardian and guide of the charismatic element--she herself possesses the gift of the discernment of spirits."6 Canonical Approval of a Religious Institute The Church, through the pastoral office of its bishops, is forced at various times and places to state what it considers to be compatible or incompatible with the Gospel because the Church does sponsor groups, institutions and agencies which publicly and officially represent it. These public institutions have to be supervised lest they present a distorted pic-ture of the gospel values which the Church incarnates. Religious insti-tutes are one such form. Both the institutes as such and its members rep-resent the Church. Once canonical or ecclesiastical recognition is granted to a religious community, that community no longer exists as a private and independ-ent group of the faithful, nor does the institute exist in isolation from par-ties external to it, even though it does enjoy some canonical autonomy.7 For, once having sought and been granted official recognition and ap-proval, the religious institute takes upon itself an added identity--it be-comes an ecclesial institute and is linked to the hierarchy in a special man-ner. 8 Official Church recognition identifies the institute as a Church in-stitution, and it identifies its members, women or men religious, as Church-people, involved in a life of public dedication and service in the name of the Catholic Church.9 Membership in a canonically approved form of consecrated life, which requires the profession of public vows, involves an ecclesial form of commitment that distinguishes religious from other members of the faithful, even those who may be in secular institutes. The latter do not represent the Church in its public life, but live somewhat anonymously, maintain their secular vocation, and qui-etly work to Christianize their milieu. ~0 A Personal Witness That Is Public Religious, as publicly consecrated members of the faithful, are ex-pected, as is every Christian, to witness a personal commitment to Christ. But because they are called by their vocation to an ecclesiai form of public consecration, they are expected tO bear a visible witness to a deep, personal experience of Christ and to share the faith, hope and love which it inspires. ~ For religious, above all, are consecrated to the Lord. Their development in holiness of life is more important than the good works they perform. As John Paul II has remarked: "What counts most 664/Review for Religious~ September-October, 1987 is not what religious do, but what they are as persons consecrated to the Lord." ~2 The canons of the Code of Canon Law reassert some of these essen-tial personal obligations. Canon 662 states that religious are to have as their highest rule of life the ['ollowing of Christ as it is proposed in the Gospel and in their constitutions. The constitutions of each institute help specify and make the Gospel particular for their religious, how it is to be lived in service to others in the name of Christ and of his Church. Re, ligious are to bemen and women of prayer. Their first and foremost duty is the contemplation of divine things, and assiduous union with God in prayer. ~3 They are expected to use the traditional forms ,of, worship and devotion: daily participation in the eucharistic sacrifice, the prayerful read-ing of Sacred Scripture, mental prayer, devotion to Our Lady, and the Liturgy of the Hours. ~'~ .Religious, as individuals,.are ,to engage, in the asceticism required for personal conversion of heart through a daily ex-amination o~ conscience and by frequently receiving the sacrament of pen-ance. 15 These devotional obligations are assumed personally by every relig-ious who takes his or her spiritual life seriously. The cultivation of the interior life is an absolute necessity if the public consecration of a relig-ious is not to become a charade. Without a deep, personal spiritual life, perseverance in a public form of consecrated life becomes tenuous and the fulfillment of the vows turns int~) a heavy burden. " Th~ faithful have a right to expect that those who have publicly ded-icated their lives to Christ by religious profession will be living exam-ples of a GoSpel life. The Church presents religious to the world as pub-lic witnesses of evangelibal values. Holiness of life and a generous, un-selfish service of the People of God are a'rightful expect, ation from each religious. A Corporate Witness That Is Public Religious life is characterized by a communitarian lifestyle. All reli-gious are expected to live in some form of common life which is proper to the specific institute to which they belong. 16 Because of the centrality of the enclosure for monastic religious and some form of active service for apostolic religious, the styles of their common life will be radically different. Indeed, monastic institutes which are totally ordered to the con-templative life are prohibited from engaging in any form of pastoral min-istry outside the monastery,. ~7 However, all religious are expected to live in a house of their own institute with their.brothers or sisters. ~8 Their life together is intended to be a microcosm of the Church, idealized in the Witness of Religious Life / 665 Jerusalem community described in the Acts of the Apostles (2:44): "The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared among themselves according to what each one needed." Religious community life is to be filled with pray-erfuines~ and with Christian service and love. Religious life is actually lived on the local level, in a pa.rticular house with specific women or men. The locai community takes on certain char-acteristics, principally because of the individual religious who live to-gether, and secondarily because of the apostolates in which they are en-gaged. The image or witness which they project will depend upon many factors, especially the expectations and experience of the people with whom the religious interact. If the religious are perceived as prayerful, charitable, joyful and generous in their community life together, their cor-porate or collective witness will evidence the Gospel ideal and they will be what the Church intends--living witnesses of Christian love. It may be well to recall the fact that a group is frequently able to wit-ness better than individual persons. An individual can be--all too easily-- simply dismissed as just an eccentric. However, a community of Chris-tian men or women, living a similarly dedicated lifestyle, cannot be so perfunctorily ignored or written-off. Moreover, the members of a relig-ious community can offer support to one another by their companionship and prayerfulness, especially when the Gospel values they embody are countercultural. Living witnesses are a powerful sign. Reflective people will be forced to examine the faith dimension and Gospel values which are the foundation of their own religious lifestyle. Those who do not share our Christian values may be led to a greater appreciation of them by the wit-ness of a vibrant, faith-filled religious community. In fact, it was just such an experience which led the famous~ agnostic, British commenta-tor, Malcolm Muggeridge, to become a Christian-- and later a Catholic-- after his experience in Calcutta with Mother Teresa and her Missionar-ies of Charity. Few people can remain totally indifferent to a corporate Christian wit-ness. Either they will reject it or accept it. That is why the Church pre-sents religious as living witnesses of Christ, as Lumen Gentium, 46, states: Let religious see well to it that the Church truly show forth Christ through them with ever increasing clarity to believers and unbelievers alike --- Christ in contemplation on the mountain, or proclaiming the king-dom of God to the multitudes, or healing the sick and maimed and con- 666 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 verting sinners to a good life, or blessing children and doing good to all people, always in obedience to the will of the Father who sent him. The Witness of Public Vows Religious profess the evangelical counsels as public vows in the con-text of their community lifestyle. Their vows cannot be properly under-stood or appreciated apart from the context of their common life. The Witness of Consecrated Poverty The public vow of poverty, as professed in religious institutes, would be better appreciated and offer a better public witness if it were presented as a vow of common life and goods. Too often the term "poverty" is judged by socio-economic criteria and religious are misjudged as lack-ing because they are not "poor" in that ordinary meaning of the term. Those of us who are educated or who live in comfortable houses, drive automobiles, eat three meals a day, and so forth, (and that is the vast majority of American religious) are sometimes even thought to be vio-lating our commitment. We are judged as hypocritical for professing a "vow of poverty," when it is obvious that we are not "poor." There certainly is a socio-economic dimension to how we are to live our religious life. Our lifestyle must be adapted to the particular cultural and economic situation in which we live, so that we do not give the appearance of being wealthy. Also, there are ascetical demands made upon us, personally and corporately, to live simply and avoid the dele-terious influences of the larger consumer society. Nevertheless, we are not, in fact, invited by our vow to embrace a debilitating, crushing, in-humane form of economic poverty as the ideal of our commitment. That is not religious poverty. That is not the purpose of our vow. Religious poverty can only be valued and offer edification if it is recognized as an essential aspect of community life and, where applica-ble, a dimension of an apostolate. Thus everything a religious acquires as a member of the institute is acquired for the institute. 19 The religious community, in turn, provides for the needs of its members so that they can fulfill the purpose of their vocation in that specific religious family.2° Ascetically, religious are urged to forego standards of comfort and conven-ience which may be legitimate for others and to exercise a certain re-straint in the forms of relaxation and entertainment they choose.2~ All of this is intended to promote the spiritual life of the religious and to help free us from the desire to accumulate things and, positively, to liberate our hearts for the things of God. Witness of Religious Life / 667 When religious undertake apostolates among the socio-economically and culturally deprived, they are required to adapt their style of living to the demands of their apostolate. This will often involve a style of life approximating that of the people among whom they live and work. Life on the missions is not like life at home. Life among the poor in the rural areas of Appalachia or in the inner-city of our large urban centers will bring with it many restrictions and the call for a special asceticism. Those religious can well be viewed as living "poorly" in the more ordinary sense of the word. Generally, if religious are seen as lix;ing a rather simple lifestyle, per-sonally and communally, this will be a source of great edification, espe-cially if they are serving others generously and unselfishly. The Gospel ideal of poverty and simplicity can be beautifully manifested by such a public witness. The faithful are reminded that superfluous goods are not necessary for happiness and contentment. The unencumbered life of reli-gious can help people to look beyond the present world. It can support the credibility of the Gospel° message which religious are to preach by their lifestyle. Religious poverty can be a reminder to every member of the faithful that we are all called to rely upon the Lord, and to manifest a loving concern for our neighbor, especially the needy and the .deprived, whoever they may be. The Witness of Consecrated Chastity If there is anything that is truly countercultural in our modern soci-ety, it is the value of Christian chastity and marital fidelity. A life of dedi-cated chastity and celibacy runs directly contrary to the pleasure princi-ple which is so dominant in our post-Christian western world. Our contem-poraries cannot ignore the witness of thousands of men and women who profess to live chastely and celibately out of love for God and in the serv-ice of others. Those who share our common faith and values, especially those who are themselves without spouses because of circumstances be-yond their control, find great support and consolation in the awareness that many of their sisters and brothers in the Lord live happy and fulfill-ing lives as celibate religious. The community lifestyle of religious provides them with their princi-ple support group.22 Their life shared in common with their religious brothers or sisters is a Christian and humane lifestyle that offers an ideal context for their vowed life. Apostolic religious especially benefit from a communal dimension to their dedication to mission. While their pri-mary orientation may be to serving others, their religious community set-ting on the local level should be the base to which they return for spiri- 668 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 tual ,and fraternal/sisterly refreshment. Again, the fact that a group can offer a better witness than individuals is an important consideration when it involves a chaste and celibate Christian lifestyle. Individuals find their commitment under assault or too heavy a burden if they live alone and apart. Living celibately in a communal setting can witness that religious do not live lonely and eccentric single lives, but live in a Christian faith community and in hope of complete fulfillment in the eschaton. The Witness of Consecrated Obedience Religious have willingly accepte~d,a pattern of life that is largely laid down for them.23 They follow a,rule or constitution and live in residence under the authority of those who have been elected or appointed as reli-gious superiors.24 Their vow of obedience has limited their freedom and their options so that they might pursue the cor~mon good and the corpo-rate mission of their particular religious institute. Ultimately, they seek, as women and men of faith, to discern the will of God in the commands they are given in holy obedience. This enalSles their institute to under-take corporate commitments and helps galvanize the personal investmeni of time and talent into a commhnity endeavor. ' The life of religious obedience requires a great sense of faith. The generosity that this clemands can help foster the spiritual maturity of re-ligious as they strive humbly to imitate the obedience and love of Jesus who sought only.to do the will of his Father. Certainly, jn a society and culture that exaggerates the importance of individual freedom, Christian obedience is truly countercultural. The obedience of religious is fre-quently denigrated as a "blind obedience" by those who do not share our faith values. However, our brothers and sisters in the faith often find it a rather Christ-like response and are disedified when they perceive the opposite in the lives of religious. All Christians are obliged to seek the will of the Lord. Thus the hum-ble example of obedient religious can only help to build up the Body of Christ. Canonical Consequences of the Public Dimension Appropriate Attire Since religious life has a public dimension to it, it seems reasonable, all things considered, that a distinctive style of garb might have some advantages, especially in many apostolates, and in our commitment to a simple lifestyle. It is quite common to find that people in "service" roles, even professional ones, are recognizable .by their uniform or pro- Witness of Religious Life / 669 fessional'attire. We tend to expect that these people will be readily iden-tifiable when we need their services. 'Indeed, the sign or witness dimension is referred to in the canon which concerns the garb of religious.25 While a religious "habit," in the strict sense of the term, is more appropriately a monastic garment, custom and tradition among many apostolic institutes has provided them with a style of dress which identified them as pertaining to a particular religious family. Often enough it was a form of dress suitable to another age or culture. Frequently, too, apostolic groups adopted the contempo-rary clerical dress, if they were men religious. While not adopting a habit, as such, they did choose a style of dress that gradually became a traditional garb that went unchanged and unadapted to times and circum-stances. It was for the most part a post-Vatican II phenomenon that, in-stead of guitably adapting the dress, as was expected, it was often dis-carded entirely in part because of the difficulty of deciding on something acceptable to all the members. Another purpose for wearing a religious garb is that it is intended to be a sign of simplicity of lifestyle and religious poverty. It is appropri-ate that a public witness to the Gospel should evidence a certain degree of Christian detachment and modesty. Experience has shown that it is difficult to,dress attractively and appropriately for every occasion with-out having to invest in a.rather extensive wardrobe. A simple garb which is modest, becoming and dignified solves this problem. However, the rules and regulations of each institute, the expectations of the local Church, the demands of the apostolate and the requirements of the particular culture and clime all have to be considered when it comes to deciding in concrete situations how one ought to be dressed. There is no requirement in Canon Law that the habit or religious garb be worn on every occasion, nor at all times, nor in all places. Indeed, the Apostolic~ See itself has stated that a secular style of dress, without any recognizable sign or symbol, can be permitted when a habit would be an impediment to the everyday exercise of activities which should be undertaken by the relig'ious.26 Mission in the Name,.of the Church All forms of apostolic activity are to be undertaken by men and women religious only in the name of the Church and in communion with it.27 The exercise of the apostolate by religious is never entirely a pri-vate and personal ministry. It is always, in some sense, a public and cor-porate one.28 The Vatican Council stated that one of the essential ele-ments of the Christian apostolate is that it be conducted in union with 670 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 those whom the Holy Spirit has assigned pastorally to govern the Church.29 It is the duty of the local bishop to coordinate all forms of the apostolate among his portion of the People of God.3° Religious are' al-ways to be subject to their own superiors and to the local bishop in the exercise of all forms of the external apostolate.3~ Unbecoming Activities Church law has always recognized that the public nature of the cleri-cal ministry and the religious life places certain restrictions on the ac-tivities in which clerics or religious may engage. However, what may be inappropriate at one time and place may not be so in another. Times change and so do the circumstances. As a result, the 1983 Code of Canon Law is both different and simi-lar to the 1917 Code. It is different insofar as some of the activi, ties which were considered unbecoming for clerics and religious, such as the prac-tice of medicine, especially surgery, are no longer prohibited by the re-vised code. It is the same in that a number of activities which were proscribed by the old code appear again in the new one-~especially the general prohibition that forbids religious and clerics to engage in any ac-tivity which is foreign to their way of life.32 No specific unbecoming are enumerated here. Such determination is be left to the good judgment and prudence of mature women and men religious as they con-sider the demands of the apostolate in their .particular culture, time and place. Of course, specific directives can be given by the proper religious superiors and by the local bishops. These would have to be observed. Public or Political Office The new code continues the prohibition of the old one that religious are not to assume a public office to which is attached the exercise of civil authority, such as the office of mayor, attorney general, governor, or sim-ilar offices.33 The reason seems self-evident--persons holding such of-rices confuse Church ministry with a civil role, and inhibit a Gospel and prophetic stance. Religious are meant to be°at the service of people as heralds of the Gospel in the name of the Church. Similarly, they are not to take an active role in partisan political par-ties nor in the management of labor unions, unless they have the permis-sion of their ecclesiastical superiors.34 Again, the reason for this general proscription is that the public image and identity of a religious is that of a representative of the Church community. When publicly dedicated Church-people become too closely identified with a specific ideology, any Gospel witness is blunted, and the situation often distracts people Witness of Religious Life / 671 from the various social justice and public stands which the Church may want to make through its pastors.35 Finally, religious are supposed to be agents of reconciliation, not division. They should foster peace and jus-tice as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.36 Secular Financial Responsibilities , Another general area which religious are wisely urged to avoid, un-less good reasons indicate otherwise--in which cases permission can be granted--is the acceptance of secular financial responsibilities or involve-ment in business and trade activities. The canons prohibit religious, gen-erally, from undertaking the management of property owned by the la-ity and from assuming any secular office which require financial accountability.37 However, today it is easy to envision situations in which a religious might be expected to do so. For example, the demands of a certain apostolate may require that, at least for the time being, a re-ligious administer the finances of an organization, especially when no one else is in a position to do so. Likewise, a religious may find himself or herself having to take care of the financial affairs of an incapacitated relative or friend. Charity and common sense may simply demand this. However, the general prohibition is a wise one and should force a relig-ious to consider alternatives. And having to explain a request to do so to the religious superior can help prevent an imprudent decision. The same type of consideration should be given to the matter of a religious becoming involved in business or trade, personally or on be-half of others.38 The present code is more lenient than the 1917 one and expressly indicates that permission to do so can be granted, presumably for good reasons. Again, it is not difficult to imagine situations where this may be necessary or beneficial, at least for a reasonable period of time. If, for example, a religious is an only child and inherits a small family business with which he or she had been most familiar before en-tering religion, the most prudent decision could be for the religious tem-porarily to oversee the business until other provisions can be made. The above prohibitions are, in general, completely consonant with the nature of the religious life. Yet it is eminently reasonable that excep-tions be permitted. The dangers present for religious, in becoming too hastily and imprudently involved in financial matters that have nothing to do with their community, are all too evident. It is especially fitting that religious not be burdened with financial involvements when they have responded to a vocation which requires them to develop an asceti- 679 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 cism of detachment and a life of simplicity. Military Service and Civil Exemptions Finally, since religious are followers of the Prince of Peace, it is par-ticularly incongruous that they volunteer to bear arms in times of con-flict, unless they are legally bound to do so. Therefore, the canons state that religious are not to volunteer for military service and they should take advantage of civil exemptions, if they exist, to avoid this and any other public or civic duty which is foreign to religious life.39 Certainly this prohibition does not apply to service as military chaplains or any simi-lar type of ministry. The prohibition would seem to apply to accepting jury duty in criminal cases also, especially if they are capital offenses, when an exemption is possible. It seems most inappropriate that a relig-ious be in a position of determining the guilt of citizens and playing part in their incarceration or execution. Again, canon law recognizes that there can be exceptional cases in which the proper religious superior and ecclesiastical authority can grant permission to a religious to act contrary to the general canonical norm that the above activities are to be avoided. Conclusion Ecclesial authentication of charismatic forms of the Gospel life ex-isted from the beginning. At first, ,such approbation was given unoffi-cially and implicitly. Later, it became an official and explicit necessity. The religious life is a charismatic and an ecclesial form of public conse-cration. Religious institutes are public agencies of the Church which pre-sents the members as public witnesses of Gospel values. The personal and corporate lifestyles of religious, as well as their apostolic activities, are at the service of the Church and are supervised by their superiors and the bishops. Since religious are iri apublic form of consecrated life, they are expected, all things considered, to be recognizable, and to avoid those activities which muddle or confuse their ecclesiai image. Above all, religious are expected to be living examples of evangelical values: chastity for the sake of the kingdom; Gospel simplicity in lifestyle; hum-ble~ and Christ-like obedience; and complete dedication to a loving serv-ice of people in the name of the Church. The counterculturai witness of religious is meant to speak eloquently of a deep faith conviction that Je-sus is the way, and the truth and the life. NOTES See Carolyn Osiek in Vatican H and Its Documents: An American Reappraisal, ed., Witness of Religious Life / 6"/3 Timothy E. O'Connell0(Michael Glazier, Inc., Wilmington, Delware, 1986), pp. 86- 87. 2 Perfectae caritatis, 1; canon 575. 3 Lumen Gentium, 39. '~ Mutual Relations, II (Henceforth MR). 5 See Raymond Hostie, The Life and Death of Refigious Orders (CARA, Washing-ton, D.C., 1983), p. 21. 6 See The Dynamic Element in The Church (Herder, New "fork, 1964) p. 62; Lumen Gentium, 43; canon 573, §1 and §2. 7 Canon 586, §1. 8 Canons 573, §2, 575-579. 9 Canon 675, 93. l0 Canons 710-730. I~ Essential Elements, 33. (Henceforth EE). ~z Papal Message to the Plenary Assembly of CRIS, March 1980; EE, 33. ~3 Canon 663, 91. ~4 Canon 663, §2, §4. ~5 Canon 664. 16 Canons 607, 92 and 665. ~7 Canon 674. 18 Canon 665, 91. ~9 Canon 668, §3. 20Canon 679; see David F. O'Connor, "Two Forms of Consecrated Life; Religious and Secular Institutes," REvmw voR Rv.~.m~ous, 46, n. 2 (1986) pp. 205-219. z~ Christus Dominus, 33-35. ~ Canons 599, 602 and 607, §2. 23EE, 34. 24Canons 601,608 and 665. 25Canon 669. 26See Canon Law Digest, 7 (1975) pp. 534-535. 27Canon 675, §3. 28EE, I 0. 29Apostolicam actuositatem, 23; MR, 9 (a). 30Canons 394, 91 and 680; MR, Chapt. II. 3~ Canon 678. 32Canons 285 and 672. 33Canons 285, §3 and 672. 34 Canons 287 and 672. 35 See George Aschenbrenner, "Currents in Spirituality," Rv.w~w voR R~L~o~ous, 42, n. 2 (I 983), pp. 183-186. 36 CRIS, "Religi6us and Human Promotion," Canon Law Digest, 9 (1983), pp. 379-410; David F. O'Connor, "Religious in Politics," R~wEw ~oa R~L~6~ous, 41, n. 6 (1982), pp. 834-848. 37 Canons 285, §4 and 672. 38 Canons 286 and 672. 39 Canons 289 and 672. The Religious as "Sentry": A Reflection on the Prophet Ezekiel James Fitz, S.M. Father Fitz is a member of the Provincial Administration of his congregation's Cin-cinnati Province. An earlier article, "Religious Life as Acted Prophecy," appeared in the issue of November/December, 1982. Father Fitz may be addressed at the Mari-anist Provincialate; 4435 East Patterson Road; Dayton, Ohio 45430-1095. [~uring my twenty-one years as a religious, I have attended many vow cer-emonies in support of brothers and sisters saying "yes" to their call from the Lord. At these liturgies the first reading has often come from the Old Testament prophets--the call of Isaiah or Jeremiah, for exam-pie-- to indicate that those making profession identify with the call Of these prophets. But, I have yet to attend a ceremony where the call of Ezekiel is the Old Testament reading. In fact, it is not even one of the optional readings in the Lectionary for the Mass of Religious Profession. Yet, I believe the call of Ezekiel as sentry is an apt model and image for religious life today. The Value of an Image In recent years, theologians and spiritual writers have used images and models to describe the mysteries of our Christian faith. In so doing they have imitated Jesus himself, ~who often used images to evoke understanding: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.; the kingdom of heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour.; the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.; the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.; the kingdom of heaven is like a drag- 674 The Religious as Sentry / 675 net. " These images helped Jesus' hearers enter into the mystery of faith. The Second Vatican Council used images when it described the mys-tery of the Church in its Dogmatic Constitution, Lumen Gentium. Im-ages like "the People of God," "a sheepfold," "the edifice of God," "our Mother," "the body of Christ," "a pilgrim in a foreign land," "a kind of sacrament" help elucidate the mystery of the Church. Avery Dulles' book, Models of the Church,~ uses images and mod-els in a similar way. Images and models, then, can be helpful ways to penetrate the richness of a mystery of our faith, to evoke an understand-ing of some complex reality of our tradition. Images and models have been helpful also in the understanding of religious life. The authors of Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life,2 for example, have imagined religious in the different eras of religious life as ascetics, monks, mendicants, soldiers and apostolic servants. These images help elucidate the predominant understanding of religious life during the various eras of Church history. This article will explore the image of the prophet Ezekiel as sentry in the belief that it helps elucidate our contemporary understanding of religious life. The Call of Ezekiel In the third chapter of Ezekiel, we hear: "Child of the earth, I have appointed you as a sentry to the House of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, you shall warn them for me" (3:16). The third chapter continues to expand on this call. If God says to wicked people, "You shall surely die" (3:18), and Ezekiel does not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their wicked conduct, the wicked people will die for their sins but God will hold Ezekiel responsible for their death. If Ezekiel speaks out and the people do not change, then Ezekiel is not held responsible. Not only is Ezekiel to challenge the wicked but he is also to be a prophet to the virtuous. If virtuous people turn away from virtue and Ezekiel does not warn them, then God will hold him responsible for their death. However, if Ezekiel does warn them, then the virtuous will surely live and Ezekiel will also save his life (3:16-21). This same de-scription of the prophet's role is repeated in Chapter 33:1-9. In explor-ing the image of prophet as sentry as appropriate for the role of the re-ligious in the world today, this article will first examine the role of the sentry, and then how this role might illuminate the role of religious in 676 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 the Church today. The Role of the Sentry The role of the sentry has four characteristics which I believe help explicate the mystery of the call to religious life. Call to See. The sentry's first responsibility is to see, to be watch-ful. This seeing is twofold: to announce the signs of good news and to warn of coming danger. The sentry is to be watchful for the signs of good news. For exam-ple, the sentry on a ship watches for the sign of land; the sentry at the gate of a medieval city watches for the signs of the coming of a beloved monarch in order to prepare the people for this great event; or the sentry watches for the runner returning from battle to share the news of victory. The sentry also needs to be watchful of signs of danger. The sentry on the ship needs to be conscious of the signs of bad weather so that the crew can be prepared to respond; the sentry at the gate needs to be con-scious of the signs of an approaching enemy. Call to Discern. A second responsibility of a sentry is to discern signs. Is the approaching rider friend or foe? Is the moving wind the sign of an approaching storm or the advent of good weather? Is it land that is seen or a mirage, a trick of the imagination? This discernment is an important responsibility. If a sentry is fearful or shallow, then he or she will proclaim good news that does not come to pass, or give false warn-ings of events that fail to materialize. People will no longer take seri-ously any message of the sentry. Responsibility to Proclaim. Once the se~lt.r.y has discerned the signs, the next responsibility is to announce the good news or the approach of danger to the people. When he or she has completed this proclamation, the responsibility for action is no longer just the sentry's but the respon-sibility of the entire community--as we have seen in the call of Ezekiel. In fact, the role of the sentry may now become secondary to the role of others who move the community to ,action. One Role Among Many. A sentry is often on the margins of society, outof synchronization with the rest of society, even while interdepend-ent with them.~As the sentry is watching, others are busy about other activ-ities.~ To have a sense of security, the people have need of the sentry. However, the sentry cannot survive without the people who are doing other activities (e.g., producing food, clothing and the other necessities of life), The sentry is, then, one role among many---different, but nei- The Religious as Sentry / 67'7 ther more nor less important than the other roles in society. The Religious as Sentry How does the role of the sentry, and more specifically, the call of Ezekiel, help us to understand religious life in the Church today? I be-lieve that the four characteristics just described can help illuminate the mystery of religious life. Call to See. Religious are called to be attentive, to be watchful. They do this first and foremost as people of prayer. Prayer, of course, is not ¯ the occupation of religious alone--all Christians are called to pray. How-ever, one cannot be a good religious without prayer, without attentive-ness to the religious dimension of life. Contemplation (to see clearly) has traditionally been part of religious life, whether one speaks of the con-templative life as manifested in the monastic movement or contemplation-in- action as manifested in service-oriented religious orders. I believe this responsibility of being attentive and watchful is very important to relig-ious today. Clearly we need people to read the signs of the times. Prayer-ful religious can contribute this gift to the Church. Call to Discern. For the religious to see clearly, there needs to be discernment. The first step in this discernment is honesty with oneself in order not to project danger where there is none or to characterize as hopeful movements that are contrary to the Gospel. A sentry who is fear-ful or shallow will give false warnings and proclamations. Eventually peo-ple will cease to take his or her word seriously. The practice of self-knowledge (achieved through prayer, examen, spiritual direction, and similar helps) will be essential to the religious who hopes to see clearly and proclaim what is seen in a way that will truly build up the commu-nity of the Church and the world. Discernment is not an easy task. What is heralded as good news by some is seen as danger by others. We witness this, for example, in the various responses to the development of new technology. Some see in this advancement the liberation of humankind; others feel we are being enslaved and controlled by these same technological advances. Discern-ment is an important task in the Church today, a task in which religious clearly have a role. Responsibility to Proclaim. Once the signs have been seen and dis-cerned, the religious has the responsibility of proclaiming the message, that is, the word of the Lord. If religious are good sentries, they will be able to proclaim the good news (the signs of the reign of God) and warn of danger (signs of the counterspirit). Ezekiel is a good model for relig-ious in this proclamation. Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 First of all, Ezekiel, like all the prophets, denounces and announces; he afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. His book not only contains oracles that are warnings of danger to the Chosen People (4- 24), the nations (25-32), and the shepherds of Israel (34), but powerful statements of hope such as the vision of dry bones (37) and the raising of a good shepherd for Israel (34). Secondly, Ezekiel is a good model for religious because he proclaims the word of God in both words and symbolic action. His signs are par-ables in action. For example, Ezekiel performs acts symbolic of siege and exile (4-5); prepares his baggage and digs a hole in the wall of the city as an act symbolic of exile (12); groans bitterly to symbolize the city's coming fall(12); neglects the normal mourning customs at the death of his wife as symbolic of the fact that Israel will not be able to mourn when the city of Jerusalem is besieged (24); and, finally, joins two sticks as a symbolic prophecy of the new covenant people (37). These actions raise questions among the people which allow the prophet to proclaim the word of the Lord: "Will you not tell us what all these things that you are doing mean for us?" (24:19; 39:18). This proclamation of God's word by prophetic action is a valuable way of viewing our living of the vowed life. The vows are symbolic ac-tions that often open to religious the possibility of proclaiming a word of the Lord. Religious life is acted prophecy.3 The lived vows can warn of danger and proclaim good news. For example, the vow of poverty can warn of the dangers of consumerism and can challenge the prevailing be-lief that more is better. It can also proclaim good news. The sharing of common goods lived by religious, for example, can proclaim that shar-ing is a life-giving alternative to greed and exclusive possess!on. The sym-bolic action of living the vows will hopefully lead others to ask questions: "Why do you do this? . What does this mean?" Thus re-ligious will have an opportunity to further proclaim the word of the Lord. As I mentioned earlier, once the sentry has proclaimed what has b~en seen, it is no longer solely his or her responsibility to act. This is clear in the call of Ezekiel. The role of Ezekiel is to be the sentry, the watcher and proclaimer. The responsibility to act is the responsibility of the en-tire people. The important thing for the religious is to proclaim clearly the message of the Lord in our world today, even though religious can-not ¯ control the response to the proclamation. As Ezekiel is told: "And whether they heed or resist--for they are a rebellious house--they shall know that a prophet has been among them" (2:5). The call to religious, then, is to stand for certain values and to speak those values in word, The Religious as Sentry / 679 and especially in deed, so that people will know that a word of the Lord has been spoken in their midst. Would it not have a tremendous impact on our modern world if people would know that a prophet has been among them? One Role Among Many. Another characteristic of the sentry is to have a uniquely different role, a role that can be out of synchronization with the rest of society. The vowed life of religious often places them out of synchronization with others. In the past this uniqueness has been explained as a form of life superior to other Christian lifestyles. The im-age of the sentry helps us image the complementarity of different life-styles. To say that religious have a unique role in the Church and society is not to say that it is better or more important than the roles of others. By their gifts, religious contribute to the world, but they are at the same time dependent on the gifts and lifestyles of others. All contribute to the common good. In the past, to be a sentry often meant to live on the margins of soci-ety. Religious, too, have often moved to the margins of society. Relig-ious houses were set up on the fringes of the city or separated from the city in the desert or countryside. There is a need for this type of sentry today. But signs of good news and omens of danger are also in the midst of society. In our day, when we read about terrorist attacks almost daily, we know that the greatest danger may come from within the city gates themselves. Those who can harm us live in our midst. Therefore, there will be need for religious immersed in society to read the signs of God's reign, that is, the movement of the Spirit in the midst of the world. At the same time, they will need to read the signs of peril and danger, that is, of the counterspirit in the midst of the world. Conclusion I believe that reflection upon Ezekiel and his call as sentry can en-rich the vision of the prophetic role of religious in our day, can be for religious a new way of imagining their role. Many religious will ask whether they are worthy or capable of such a call. Most honest religious will feel unworthy, as did Ezekiel, who fell upon his face when he was called (I :28). To take up the challenge can only be in response to God's call. "Child of the earth. Stand up! I wish to speak to you" (2: I). The call of the religious will be a response to the Spirit moving within. This will be the source of the authentic voca-tion to be a sentry for God's people and for the world. Finally, since the call to be a sentry will be a call from the Lord, he will be with the relig-ious on the journey. "Fear them not," (3:10) the Lord tells Ezekiel. The 680 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 Lord tells religious today the same: He will be with the sentry today, as he was with Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and the other prophets. "I am with you always, yes, even to the end of time" (Mt 28:20). NOTES ~Avery Dulles, S.J., Mddels of the Church (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1974). 2Lawrence Cada, S.M. et al., Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life (New York: The Seabury Press, 1979), pp. I 1-50~ 3See my article "Religious Life as Acted Prophecy" REvmw ~OR REt.mIOUS 41, n. 6, November/December, 1982, pp. 923-927. ,From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions I and II by Patricia Spillane, M.S.C. Address: Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The Fathers in the Office of Readings: St. Cyprian of Carthage Anthony Daly, S.J. Father Anthony Duly has been a member of the faculty of the Languages Depart-ment of Saint Louis University. He has published several of these descriptive and brief biographies of Fathers of the Church who have been used in the Office of Read-ings of the Liturgy of the Hours. His last contribution appeared in the issue of Sep-tember/ October 1983. He may be addressed at Jesuit Hall; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. The third-century writings of St. Cyprian, bishop and martyr, are impor-tant today because they furnish otherwise unknown details of the life of both the Christians and pagans of his day and because they provide an illustration, hard to interpret though it is, of third-century African epis-copal attitudes toward the Roman papacy, a topic, however, which is not treated here. More directly, the writings reveal the character of St. Cyprian him-self, an interesting man with qualities people of any era can admire and imitate and who has many things to say which will never go out of date. What follows is first a brief overall sketch of St. Cyprian's life and then a more detailed account of certain matters which seemed likely to be of interest to readers of the Liturgy of the Hours. Well educated in the secular tradition of his times, Cyprian was a man who actively and thoroughly integrated his knowledge and experi-ence within a completely Christian ideology. He appears as an effective rhetorician, a competent bishop and administrator, a practical leader who knows how to make the best of a difficult situation, and a man of great personal charm, courage, and compassion. But perhaps his most strik-ing characteristic is his ability to face martyrdom, that of others and then 681 61~9 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 finally his own, not only with equanimity but even with joy and satis-faction. ~ The selections from his writings in the Liturgy of the Hours com-municate a spirit of firm religiosity which is rendered more attractive by human charm and more realistic by a moderate cast of mind. His mar-tyrdom adds to his words the weight of tested sincerity and makes more telling his exhortations to hope, courage, and joy. Thascius Caecilianus Cyprianus (c.205-258) was an African, born per-haps at Carthage, of wealthy pagan parents. He lived at Carthage where he was an orator and prominent citizen, and, like the more famous St. Augustine who for a time, but more than a century later, also lived in that North African city, Cyprian was a teacher of rhetoric. In midlife he took stock of his own character and of the repugnant pagan society in which he lived. This led him in the year 246 to become a Christian. He gave his money to the poor, took a vow of chastity, was ordained a priest, and in 248-49 he was consecrated bishop of Carthage. The ideal of personal integrity seems to have been what first attracted Cyprian to Christianity, an ideal which he found fulfilled for him there as a gift from God. He seems never to have lost it again, and secure in it, he began to devote himself to helping others. This was especially true as he performed his episcopal tasks of encouraging the faithful, teach-ing sound doctrine, and governing well, always seeking to preserve and foster the unity of the Church. But his desire to help others seems to have accompanied his conversion itself, for one of the first things he did as a Christian was write To Donatus, the purpose of which was to convert to Christianity his friend Donatus and others. Cyprian's election as bishop was unusual in that it occurred not very long after his conversion to Christianity. That the choice fell upon him seems to have been due to his obvious sincerity, his high standing in the local community, his eminent personal qualifications, and the fact that he had already published at least one and perhaps as many as three of his Christian writings.2 Although the exact process of his election is not known, it is clear that it involved the agreement of a majority of the clergy, of the neighboring bishops who assembled to ordain him, and of the laity who were his strongest supporters. Confidence in Adversity His episcopal career was stormy right from the time of his election as bishop. There were some who opposed selecting him, and among them were a certain Novatus and some other elderly presbyters at St. Cyprian of Carthage [ 683 Carthage, who, although they may have had other motives as well, prob-ably were jealous of Cyprian. Soon, in 250, the Roman emperor Decius instituted the first truly sys-tematic and universal persecution of Christians. Commissions were set up throughout the empire which were to witness certain acts of worship of the pagan gods which were to be performed by everyone as a relig-ious test. Some of the Ch?istians complied; others were able to secure official certificates of compliance (libelli) even though they had not in fact worshiped; still others refused to comply and were subject to impris-onment, torture, or even death. Cyprian was among yet a fourth class of Christians who avoided the confrontation by going into hiding. He was criticized for this, but, as he explained it, when the edict against Christians was promulgated, the pagan populace at Carthage called for him to be brought forward. He fled not so much for his own safety, he explained, but in order to avoid a public uprising which he feared would endanger his flock. He further explained that despite his physical sepa-ration he kept in close touch with his people by letter.3 Some of these communications are included in the collection of his extant letters. In this, in other episcopal decisions, and in the general conduct of his personal life, St. Cyprian displays remarkable self-confidence. In this episode, he gives his reasons for withdrawing from Carthage, expects them to be accepted, and does not seem at all embarrassed to return, show his face, and even to admonish in certain matters those who had suffered or were still in prison for the faith, the confessors. Cyprian found it necessary to warn the confessors not to try to usurp the role of the bishop in granting ecclesiastical pardon to those who had given in to the authorities, the lapsed. Not altogether unreasonably, the custom was gaining ground according to which some of the lapsed were securing from the confessors requests for full and immediate reinstate-ment in the Church, and these requests, either written or oral, were gen-erally being honored, thus gaining quasi-hierarchical authority. In addi-tion to cautioning the confessors in this matter, Cyprian also admonished them not to give in to softness and vice once their trials had ended. Cyprian'.s is an attractive self-confidence, not haughty, a self-confidence based on truth and courageous love. One wonders if it en-tailed an inner struggle for Cyprian; if so, it is part of his private life and is not reflected in his writings. The Novatian Schism Probably because the severity of the persecution was unpopular with most pagans, and because the courage of the martyrs was probably at- Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 tracting enough converts to make the persecution self-defeating, it was ended early in 251. At that point Cyprian was faced with a controversy over how the bishops and clergy themselves should treat the lapsed, both those who had obeyed the edict and sacrificed to idols, and those who had obtained fraudulent certificates, or libelli. Cyprian, who adopted moderate and individualized attitude toward those who had lapsed in these ways, was able to make his view prevail'. His guiding principle was that those guilty of serious sin should be given an opportunity to achieve genuine repentance, a state of soul which he thought a sinner could ex-perience only through undergoing a suitable period of penance. But at the same time he insisted that sin can in fact be forgiven and that no re-pentant person should be deprived of hope, that each should be readmit-ted to the Church at the appropriate time. Against Cyprian were both those who wanted everyone readmitted to the Church without further com-plication and those who advised that reconciliation with the Church be forever withheld from those who had fallen. Chief among the proponents of this last course of action were the No-vatianists, so called because they were followers of Novatian, a rigorist Roman bishop who claimed the papal throne. Because his claim was re-jected by the Church at large and because of his rigorism, he and his fol-lowers became schismatic, and their rival church, widespread through-out the empire, was not entirely reconciled with Catholics until the end of the seventh century. Baptism by Heretics Under the Emperor Gallus (25 ! -53) a second persecution took place which was itself followed, in the years 255-57, by another major con-troversy, this time over the validity of baptism administered by heretics, chiefly the Novatianists. The difficulty arose over whether those origi-nally baptized by Novatianists and others not in communion with the Church should be rebaptized when they were accepted into the Catholic communion. Cyprian championed the losing cause, maintaining that the baptisms administered by heretics had no value. He appears still to have been of this opinion when, under the Emperor Valerian (253-60), a third persecution cost him his life. Although the Church later determined that baptism administered by non-Catholics is valid provided certain elements are present, on the un-derstanding that it is Christ himself who truly baptizes rather than the in-dividual who happens to be administering the rites, the whole matter was not yet worked out in Cyprian's day. Clearly he too would attribute the effects of the sacraments to Christ, but in his mind heresy and schism, St. Cyprian of Carthage / 685 since they involve separation from the Church, are tantamount to reject-ing Christ. How, he reasoned, could someone who rejects Christ bap-tize in his name? By the same token, such a person "shall not come to the rewards of Christ," even if he suffers martyrdom.4 His position on the matter underscores the importance he placed on unity in the Church. In the year 258 Cyprian ended his life in stirring fashion, boldly em-bracing his martyrdom. The account of his death forms the alternate sec-ond reading of the Office of Readings on his feast day. It is celebrated on September 16, along with that of Pope Cornelius whom Cyprian sup-ported against the rival claimant to the papacy mentioned above, Nova-tian. Writings Cyprian's treatise On the Lord's Prayer furnishes the largest single group of selections from his writings in the Liturgy of the Hours. These are nearly matched in volume by extracts from his Letters, and the ma-terial is rounded out by single samples from several works: On the D?ess of Virgins, On the Value of Patience, On Man's Mortality, and the Ex-hortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus. Finally there is the description of his martyrdom by an unknown author, taken from The Pro-consular Acts. There are eight other works by Cyprian not included in the Liturgy. Of these, To Demetrianus is a work similar to the longer, more famous City of God by St. Augustine. Both works deny that Christians are to be held responsible for wars and natural disasters, and attribute them instead to the vices of the pagans. Another title of Cyprian's often likened to a writing of St. Augustine, in this instance the Confessions, is To Donatus, mentioned earlier, which describes Cyprian's conversion to Christianity from paganism. Here Cyp-rian rejoices in his new life which he attributes to the cleansing of sav-ing water and the effects of "a quickening act of divin~ grace." Through power given by God he has been enabled to abandon lavish banquets, expensive clothing, and public honors in favor of a private life, simple clothes, and thrift. Although he once thought he could never be rid of his sins which he had come to indulge as "proper and belonging to" him, he had left hard drinking behind, together with exaggerated self-importance, anger, covetousness, cruelty, ambition and lust. He empha-sizes that his new way of life is not to be attributed to himself, but to God.5 As has been mentioned, because it recounts Cyprian's conversion from sin through the power of God, and because he wrote it to help oth- 61~6 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 ers experience a similar conversion, To Donatus has been compared to the Confessions of St. Augustine. Nevertheless, there are three sharp dif-ferences between the two works. Most obvious is their difference in length, Cyprian's work being much shorter. Second, Augustine is spe-cific in recounting his sins and the steps by which he became a Chris-tian, whereas Cyprian summarizes his experiences in general terms. Third, Augustine addresses God directly in the Confessions and always emphasizes his personal love for God. Cyprian addresses his friend Do-natus; he attributes to God his newfound mastery over himself, but he does not dwell on his relationship with God. Instead, his attention cen-ters on treasuring his newly purified way of life and on contrasting it with the wickedness of the pagan society which he has left behind. Cyprian pities the world and gives thanks to God for having escaped from it with its robbers, pirates, wars, and gladiatorial contests.6 He be-lieves the themes of the tragedies presented in the theater corrupt private morals: parricide, incest, and adultery which "is learned as it is seen"; and these things are all the worse because they are presented with the approval of public authority. Men make themselves effeminate on stage, and Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are depicted as unchaste, Jupiter even ad-vancing to "the raping of young boys . Ask now whether he who looks upon this can be healthy-minded or chaste. One imitates the gods whom he venerates. For these poor wretches sins become even religious acts. ' ' 7 Further evils in society include homosexuality, prostitution, litigious-ness, bribery and collusion, fraud, forgery, perjury, and the falsification of charges. In court the wicked fare better than the innocent. To secure a place of prominence in society, men become sycophants, spendthrifts on public spectacles, or they build up estates, dispossessing the poor, and must live in fear of thieves and lawsuits.8 Cyprian recounts all of this in order to show the goodness of God who saves us from becoming wicked or vain.9 The Christian way to live in such a world is to raise one's eyes from earth to heaven, to be next to God in mind, to ignore what is seemingly sublime and great in human affairs, and to be greater than the world, for a religiously oriented way of life is a greater prize than anything the world has to offer. Five other works not included in the Liturgy of the Hours have fairly self-explanatory titles: The Lapsed, The Unity of the Church, Works and Almsgiving, Jealousy and Envy, and That the Idols Are Not Gods, a work sometimes considered spurious.~° A final work not used in the Liturgy is To Quirinus: Three Books of Testimonies. This treatise, which seems St. Cyprian of Carthage actually to represent two separate works by Cyprian which were com-bined later, perhaps by someone else, lists scriptural passages designed to show that the Christians h~ve inherited the promises made to the Jews, texts which illustrate the mysteries of Christ, and passages designed to show how to live the Christian life. Interpreting Cyprian Three aspects of the life of St. Cyprian seem particularly significant for interpreting and appreciating his writings: first, he was a rhetorician; second, he became a bishop; and then finally, he died a martyr. As a rheto-rician he knows how to use words to achieve the result he wants; but he uses them in a less literal sense than does a philosopher or a speculative theologian, and he gives more weight to various ideas and attitudes than would a disinterested writer who is unaffected by the press of circum-stances. Thus it is often necessary to consider carefully the context in which he is writing, and to subordinate the literal meaning of what he says to the effect he seems to be trying to achieve,, A bishop's preoccupation with his duty to guide, instruct, protect, and correct his people permeates the writings of Cyprian. In this office, it is obvious that he is motivated first and last by his love of Christ and the Church, and that he views everything else from a Christian perspec-tive. Constantly he shows good common sense and a sane grasp of the limits and potential of human nature. Finally, the atmosphere of hostility to the faith in which Cyprian ex-ercised his episcopacy'and which finally resulted in his death shaped and sharpened his vision of the world and how it is to be approached; this may well be the most important factor influencing his strong emphasis on eternal life. He quotes the Scriptures, both Old Testament and New, with a natu-ral ease which indicates true familiarity; having made a thorough study of them at the time of his conversion to Christianity, he seems to have continued this study throughout his career as a bishop. Quotations are always at hand to reinforce and embellish the points he wants to make. Among his works are the To Quirinus described above, and another col-lection of Scripture texts briefly mentioned as a work quoted in the Lit-urgy of the Hours, the Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortu-natus. Here, under twelve headings, are texts bearing generally on mar-tyrdom which a preacher or writer could use to encourage Christians liv-ing under the threat of persecution. Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 Literary Style Cyprian's style is clear, orderly, and often ornate, marked by a lib-eral but tasteful use of rhetorical figures such as parallel clauses whose grammatical structures are similar, phrases ending in the same sound, and the strategic repetition of words. His love of metaphors, some of which are quite engaging, is not obscured by translation into English. Vir-gins, for instance, are termed blossoms;~ like the emperor or one of his generals, God watches us doing battle with evil;~2 "the commands of the Gospel. are the rudder for keeping us on the right course";~3 and the Christian victorious over "earth's torment and suffering" is com-pared to a soldier returning home in triumph after defeating the enemy. ~4 On the Lord's Prayer This treatise, more than a third of,which has been included in the Lit-urgy ofothe Hours, has been praised throughout history as a fine com-mentary, certainly among the best non-technical ones ever written. Three points from the material in the Liturgy seem especially note-worthy. The first is Cyprian's insistence that prayer should have a social dimension: "We do not say 'My Father, who art in heaven,' nor 'Give me this day my daily bread'. Rather, we pray., not for one in-dividual but for all. For the people of God are all one." ~5 Second, there is Cyprian's sober awareness that we all sin every day and stand in con-stant need of sanctification. 16 A third point is Cyprian's stirring expres-sion of Christian steadfastness. When he speaks of accepting suffering and even death with Christ who suffered for us, we are reminded of the terrible hostility which confronted him and his fellow Christians.~7 Portions of the work not quoted in the Liturgy show that Cyprian's caution about the world is remarkably well balanced. This is especially true if the pagan culture in which he lived is fully taken into account. For instance, despite superficial similarity between pagan Stoicism and his remarks about rising above the world, Cyprian clearly shows that he does not underestimate the value of material creation; on the contrary, he advises us to pray that by the help of God we experience a harmony between the flesh an°d the spirit, the earthly and' the heavenly; and he un-derstands that Christ renews and preserves humanity. ~8 ~;imilarly, in his warning about the entangling effect of riches, Cyprian may have been more emphatic than he would otherwise have been because he realized that the thought of losing property kept many from confessin~ Christ dur-ing the persecution. 19 Off the negative side, the work includes an embar-rassingly strong and wholesale condemnation of the Jews; Cyprian goes so far as to say that they can no longer call God their Father, since they St. Cyprian of Carthage / 689 rejected and killed Christ.2° On the Dress of Virgins The final work to be considered here is On the Dress of Virgins, ex-cerpts from which make up the second reading in the Common of Vir-gins. (There is an alternate second reading taken from the Decree on the Renewal of Religious Life of the Second Vatican Council.) In the excerpts (chs. 3-4, 22, 23) St. Cyprian describes virgins adorned with right conduct as beautiful, as "the image of God that re-flects the holiness of the Lord," and as "the most illustrious members of Christ's flock." He interprets the virginal life as beginning to be "now what we shall all be in the future," in the kingdom of heaven, he means, where there is no marriage. As a matter of fact, Cyprian's thought goes even further. He sees virginity as a part of the image of the heavenly man, Christ, to whom we are encouraged to conform ourselves. Virgins are "equal to God's angels." ~ Humbled by the thought of them, and not, he says, in a spirit of cen-sure or even of authority, but out of concern for them, he exhorts them to "persevere in chastity and virginity." Having renounced the pleas-ures of the flesh, "they should not strive to adorn themselves or give pleasure to anyone but the Lord." In this way, having passed "through this world without the world's infection," they "will receive a glorious prize" for their virtue.2~ The passages from this treatise which are included in the Liturgy of the Hours express sound and encouraging attitudes good for all time; some of the material not included sounds strange to modern ears. This material, because it is historically conditioned on the one hand or rheto-rically condemnatory on the other, is harder to understand. . Although the excerpts seem to concern women rather than men, else-where in the treatise Cyprian states that he intends .his general remarks for "men as well as women, boys as well as girls, every sex and every age."22 This does not mean, however, that he viewed men and women as equal in every respect, or even that he disagreed with the traditional Roman view of women as the weaker sex. For instance, regarding mar-tyrs in The Lapsed, he says, "Joining.~the victory of their men, come the women too, triumphing over the world and over their sex alike."23 So too, he uses as an. argumeht on behalf of virginity that it frees a woman not.only from the pains of childbirth but also from the dominion of a husband.24 On the warrant of Scripture Cyprian insists that physical adornments should be rejected by virgins, who should strive to please God rather than 690 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1987 men.25 Furthermore, women are to avoid being an occasion of sin for men.26 Even if a woman has wealth, it is false to argue that she should make use of it to improve her physical appearance; rather, things "that have been acquired in the world and will remain here with the world, should be despised (contemni) just as the world itself is despised."27 In-deed, virgins should be like martyrs in that they should avoid the "wide and broad roads" in favor of the "hard and steep path which ascends to glory," for the devil uses allurements and pleasures "that he may kill.' ,28 Today many would consider the judicious and modest use of makeup simply a part of formal dress. From this point of view Cyprian's invec-tive against necklaces, earrings, makeup, and red articles of clothing seems overdrawn. But for Cyprian such things are not innocent. Not only for virgins but for all women makeup and earrings are, to his mind, in-ventions of the devil: "the work of God and his creature and image should in no way be falsified;., everything that comes into existence is the work of God. whatever is changed, is the work of the devil."29 The difference between today's view and his seems to stem neither from licentiousness in us nor from prudishness in him, but from Cyprian's an-cient cultur

Issue 46.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1987. ; Self-Awareness and Ministry Gender, History, and Liturgy Humanity's Humble Stable God's Love Is Not Utilitarian Volume 46 Number 6 Nov./Dec. 1987 Rv:vw.w t:o~ R~,~olous (ISSN 0034-639X), published eve~ two months, is edited in collaboration with lhe faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Lx~uis University. The edito-rial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO. 63108-3393. R~vu-:w ~:o~ R~:.~.~t~ous is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. Ol987 by R~-:wt.:w ~:o~ R~.~.~ous. Single copies $2.50. Subscriptions: U.S.A. $11.00 a year: $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (surface mail); airmail (Book Rate): $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: R~:v~v:w roa R~:t.mmtts: 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 Nov./Dec. 1987 Volume 46 Number 6 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to wm R~:t.t(:totJs; 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 R~:vt~:w wm R~:tot~;totJs; 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. Four Ecclesial Problems Left Unresolved Since Vatican II Martin R.Tripole, S.J. Father Tripole is an associate professor of th.eology at St. Joseph's University; Phila-delphia, Pennsylvania ! 913 !. He,wrote "Suffering with the Humble Chi'ist" for the March,April 1981 issue of this periodical. Catholic scholars have been.talking about crisis in the Catholic Church for so long a time now that almost everyone has gotten used to it. In fact, too many people have been saying there is a crisis for anyone to ignore the situation. But not everyone uses the term. It depends on whom you tall~ to. Until recently, the higher you went in the Church, the less likely you were to find admission of crisis. For example, Bishop Ja~mes Malone of Youngstown, Ohio, former president of the National conference of Catho-lic Bishops, submitted a report to the Vatican in the summer of 1985 on the state of the Church. in the United States since Vatican II, a report made in preparation for the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops that met in Rome November 25-December 8, 1985.:In his. report, Bishop Malone stated the Church in the United S(ates is "basically sound." The bishop made no mention of cri~is; instead he talked of "confusion" and "abuses" and "false ideas'" and "diffiC'ulties" in various areas of church life.~ While many praised th~report, it was also criticized as "looking at the Church in the United States through 'rose-colored glasses.' "2 But another high-level member of the clergy has no difficulty speak-ing of crisis. Joseph Cardinal' Ratzinger,. prefect of the Sacred Congre-gation for the Doctrine of the Faith, surely one of themost powe~rful of-ficials in tlie Vatican, made the ~tiscussion of crisis in the Church today 801 Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 the c.entr~l theme of his Ratzinger Report. This 1985' publicati6r~ of an exclusive interview given to an Italian journalist caught the attention of everyone and produced much controversy, in'view of the cardinal's strong views on the Church, as well as the fact that he published them just before the extraordinary synod was to be held. Ratzinger and his in-terviewer discourse at length on "a crisis of faith and of the Church," of "an identity crisis" in priests and religious, a "crisis of trust in the dogma," a "crisis of confidence in Scripture," a crisis "of the moral-ity. "In his summation of "the gravity of the crisis" in the Church since Vatican II, Ratzinger's tone is markedly different from Bishop Malone's. The interviewer cites views written by Ratzinger ten years earlier and con-firmed by him for the Report as still valid: It is incontestable that the last ten years have been decidedly unfavor-able for the Catholic Church . What the popes and the Couhcil Fa-thers were expecting was a new,Catholic unity, and instead one has en-countered a dissension which--to use the words of Paul Vl--seems to have pasg~d over from self-criticism to self-destruction . it has ended in boredom and discouragement . one found oneself facing a progressive process of decadence . [and] erroneous paths whose catastrophic consequences are already incontestable.3 Nevertheless, when the bishops came together at the extraordinary synod, they spoke of sharing in "mankind's present crisis and dramas" and of the "spiritual crisis., so many people feel" today, but not of an, y crisis of the Church as such. Less exfflt6d Catholic leaders, theologians, and publishers readily speak of crisis in the Church. The Rev. Robert Johnson, president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, in 1985 stated: Priesthood is in crisis. The vocation of the ordained priest is not what it used to be. The data tells us that. Our own experience tells us that also. There is a crisis in numbers. At its zenith in 1970, the diocesan priesthood .in the United States numbered some 37,000. By the year 2000, it is estimated that this population will be 16,000 or 17,000. This would represent a declin.e of some 54%. i in the year 2000 we will have roughly the same number of priests we had in 1925. Meanwhile, the people we were ordained to serve will have quadrupled.4 Edward C. Herr, in a report on "The State of the Church," in 1985 stated that, whereas in a similar report in 1983 there were "hopes that a relatively stableoand tranquil period" was about to arrive in the Church, he must now report those hopes were "naive," that "the tensions and turmoil have increased and show no signs of ebbing."4A He reports the Four Ecclesial Problems recent findings of Dr. William J. McCready, program director of the Uni-versity of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC), that "a third of the 52 million Roman Catholics in America rarely or never go to church."5 Herr cites an article by James Hitchcock, professor of his-tory at St. Louis University, which lis~ed a catalo~g of ~'problems facing the Church in America" today: REligious orders openly pro.moting dissent Official Church agencies providing platforms for dissent ~"Radical redefinition of the traditional religious vows" Tolerance of "known violations" of chlibacy Growing influence of "militant homosexual network" in seminaries and religious orders Almost total collapse of seminary discipline "Probably a large majority of Catholic colleges hnd universities have become bffectively secular" Widespread deviations from "official liturgical norms" Majority of Catholic students no longer receive an adequate grounding in their faith Bishops and priests "largely refrain from teaching ,, disputed doctrines.' ,6 ~' Herr also reports the views of Richard Schoenherr, soc'iologist and asso-ciate dean at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1985, on "a cri-sis for the Church by the year 2000." Acc6rding to Herr, Schoenherr presents ~ a bleak picture of the Church-at the turn of the century. Opportunities to attend Mass will be fewer since each priest will have to serve 4,000 Catholics in a burgeoning Church; laity,.tired of a subordinate position in the Church, will withdraw from active leadership while those who do continue to serve will be laden with greater responsibility . There will be "an organizational crisis of immense proportion," accord-ing to Schoenherr, with an "ehormous youth drain in theministry," and with more "resigned" than active priests in the United States.7 Norbertine Father Alfred McBride, president of the University of Al-buquerque, also predicts a "ministry crisis" in 2000. He foresees a to-tal of 30,000 priests serving. 65 million Catholics.8 Finally., novelist Mor-ris West, author of many best-sellers on (~atholicism, is reported as see-ing the possibility of "a silent schism" in the Church of the future, as a result of "a defection of millioi~s by a-slow decline into indiffer-ence. ' ,9 Review, for Religious, November-December, 1987 The fact is: there has been talk of a crisis in the Church ever since the '60's--that per_iod which constitutes a kind of a turning point.in the life of the modern Church. That decade, from which date many of the issues whi~c,h 'trouble~the American Church today was equally a problemati~ decade for American society in gene,ra~l., and indeed for the world. In fact, the world is "officially" in a state of crisis---~f sorts. The bishops told us that at Vatican II when they stated the "human race is passing through a.new stag~ 0fits history" where it is undergoing "a true social and cultural transformation" causing a "crisis of gro~vth. "~0 The modern world is experiencing "new foLoas of social and p~sychologi-cai slavery" as well as "imbalances" that lead to "Mutual distrust, en-mities, conflicts, an~'hardships" (~audium el spes 4, 8). According to the bishops, this situation of crisis inevitably "has repercussions on man's religious life as~ well": it cause,s "spiritual agitation,"4"many peo-ple are shaken" in their convictions, and '~growing humbers~ of people are abandoning religion fin pr~actice" .(GS 5, 7). Later in the _same docu-ment, though in the context of a discussion on war and peace, the bish-ops speak of "the whole human family" as having "reached an hour of supreme crisis in its advance toward maturity" (GS 77). While the bishops at Vatican II did not go so far as to say directly that the Church was in a state of crisis, they certainly meant to say that the Church shared in the~crisis situation of the'world in ggneral. It was not long after, however, that writers.started speaking directly, of a crisis in the Church. We may note only a few. Father Andrew Greeley loudly proclaimed that as a fact in an important series of articles he published in diocesan newspapers in 1976; entitled "The Crisis in American Ca-tholicism" (and later in a book entitled Crisis in the Church),~ but the idea of ,the Church. in crisis had already quietly come into standard con-sideratiOn or was .soon to do so through the writings of such renowned historians, scrilSture scholars, and theologians as Raymond Brown, S.S. (B~blical Reflections on Crises Facing the C. hurch),~2 Richard P. McBr~en (he speaks of the "pre.sent crisis within the Catholic Church" in The Remaking oft~ Churcl~),~3 Avery Dulles, S.J. (fie sl~eaks of a "crisis of identity" in the Church in The Resilient Church), 14 and David J. O'Brien (h611spe~iks of the '~Catholic crisis," the "American crisis," and "an age Of crisis" in The Renewal of A. merican Catholicism).~5 Statistical~d~ta since the end of Vatican II--th~e latest reports of An-drew Greeley's National °Opinion Research Center in Chicago,~6 from George Gallup Jr.'s continuing analysis of the state of the Catholic Church in America,~7 and from the Notre Dame Study of Catholic Par- Four Ecclesial Problems /805 ish Life~8--provide overwhelming evidence, as far as statistical data is able to do so, that the American Catholic Church is in a state of crisis. ¯ Evidence: American Catholics no longer accept official teaching of the Church simply,on the basis of the fact that it is official teaching; Catho-lics no lbnger go to church, as much as ~hey used to, to fulfill their Sun-day obligation or from ~i sense of duty; they ~ai'e not contributing to the sti~iport of the Church.in a way consonant with their earnings; they are o~penly criticizing the Chui'ch in a way" that seems to i'epresent a new ¯ sense ol~ independence over agains~t the institutional Church" and its offi- Cial teachers. What is going on, and when will it end? Causes of Crisis Since Vatican II ,Numerous publications have been~ritteri since Vatican II seeking to determine the causes of the crisis Which has beset the Church since~that time. The fact is, the ca~iases are manifold, and only a, lhrge t0ine could hope to anal~,ze and cover them all thoroughl)~. What I attempt here is -'C0: fbcus on what I shall call four unresolved antinomi~ek which are re-flected in the thinking and practices of the Church since Va[i~an II. My point is to argue that the bishops at Vatican II not o~nly were aware o,f, but shgred in,. the theologically, antinomous viewpoints which have largely served to. polarize the Church sin.ce~ the end of the Council.° Though there is~ some exaggera~tion in categorizing these viewpoints quite simplyas conservative/traditionalist and liberal/progressivist, I shall do that for want of better terms, and also because the viewpoints do .tend to be of these two types. Though these terms have a political and ideo-logical connotation, their use here is not meant to imply that. What we,mean.by the use of these terms is that there are two oppos-ing movements working in the Church today. The first is inclined to want ,to preserve elements today which were also characteristic of the life of the Chtirch ~before Vatican II,-elements such as hierarchical authority, clerical priority, and institutional identity;~the second is more inclined toward~elements which arose in the life of the Church since Vatican II, elements such as democratic~procedures, equality of membership, unity based on shared convictions and shared authority. ,Neither group is. to-tally opposed to the values identified with the other, except at the outer fringes. Thus~extreme traditionalists---c~illed reactionaries wish no part of what~the Church since Vatican II has come to be identified with; ex-treme liberals~alled radicals--reject automatically whatever was promi-nent in the Church before Vatican II and yearn for a congregationalist type of community. For the larger membership in both groups, the prob- Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 lem is mainly one of emphasis: which set of values, which viewpoint should ,be the dominant one in the .life of the Church?. That question of emphasis is a serious one. In spite of the fact that it is only a question of emphasis, it leads in practice to polarization. Re-cent events in .the .life of the Church.have increased this experience of polarization rather than diluted it, mainly because the traditionalist camp, which had largely fallen into the ~silent majority in ~the Church .in the post- Vatican II peri0d, has gained a new sense of power in the last ten yehr~s. The struggle between these two, groups is now, in my opinion, at the most intense point of conflict the Church has felt since the early pp,s~t- Vatican II days of the Church. What, if anything, can be done to reduce this polarization? I wish in this article only to point to what I consider the four major areas of po-larization which were left unresolved by Vatican II. They continue to re-main largely unresolved by the post-Vatican II Church, even after the Ex-traordinary Synod of 1985, and they need to be resolved before the po-larization can b6 overcome:~I~ t me discuss each of these areas singly_, and at some length:. Saci~ed ~vs."Si~cular ' The" Catholic Church has had a strong sense of social responsibility throughout the modern era., as shown in a history of concern forrectify-ing inhumane workihg conditions, unjust wages, and unfair labor prac- .tices, starting at least with Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum: On the Condi-tioh of Workers (1891). Nevertheless, there is no doubt that a new and profound theological significance has been given to the role of the Church in regard to such matters since Vatican II. Prior to Vatican II, social activity was generally considered to be peripheral to the primary ¯ work o(the Church, to administer the s~icraments and preach the gospel of salvation in Christ. With Vatican II, the Church seemed to be saying that the .social apostolate was as important to the life of the Church as these two other activities. .A major transformation in the relationship of the Church to the world got underway at Vatican II. The .Chur~hnow saw itself not only right-fully but also dutifully bound to bring the insight and power of the gos-pel into the .arena of world problems, in the hope of changing th~ un-holy conditibns and direction of the life'of the world from within. Church concern for such issues was obvious ifi the countless conventions and publicat!ons on social, political, and moral issues that sprang up in the post-Vatican II era. Most notable was the conference by the Latin Ameri-can bishops at Medellin, Colombia, in 1968, which registered a strong Four Ecclesial Problems / 807 commitment by Latin American bishops to Overcoming the problems of the poor and oppressed in their countries; and the international Synod of Bishops in Rome in 1971, which published the historic document Jus-tice in the World, which, "Scrutinizing the signs of the times.ai~d seek-ing to detect the meaning of emerging history," concluded that "Ac-tion on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemp-tion of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situ-ation." 19 One of the 9learest examples of how important the new thrust into social and political matters would be forthe American Church may be seen from a 1981 publication of the U.S. Catholic Conference enti-tledA Compendium of Statements of the United States Catholic Bishops on the Political and Social Order. It takes 487 pages to cover the docu-ment~ ition from 1966 .to 1980, which includes statements on "war and peace, development, and human rights," as ~eil as "~tbo~tion, birth con-trol, Call to Action (the U.S. Bishops' Bic~htennial Consultation on So-cial Justice), crime'and punishment, economic issues, family life, free-dom of religion, housing, immigrants, labor disputes, minorities, race, rural America, and television."2° More recently the United States bish-ops have taken forthright and controversial stands ori the matters of war and peace and the American economy,'the former in their pastoral.letter The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise~and Our Response (May 3, 1983), the latter in their Economic Justice foroAll~" Catholic Social Teach-ing and the U.S. Economy (November 13, 1986). In each case the bish-ops argue to. the implications of the gospel message, singling out the im-morality of nuclear warfare or the scandalous operations, in the Ameri-can economic system. The full implications of these strong teachings have yet to be determined. ~, All of this would be cause fo'~ unmitigated joy, were it not for the fact that with. this new emphasis UpiSn the social implications of the Gos-pel, something transcendent in the' gospel teaching may have been lost. One :of the major problems in the life of the.Church since Vatican II, according to the bishops at the Extraordinary Synod of 1985, has been the lack of recognition and acceptance of a sacral or theological depth to the Churcti's life--what the synod calls the "mystery" of the Church. The bishops .take responsibility for the fact that this dimension of Churcfi life has been undermined, especially among young people, by a too secu-lar conception of the .Church as a mere human institution. The bishops assert: ~ I~Oll / Review for Religious~ ~November-December, 1987 , a unilateral'presentation of:the 13hurch as a purely institutional structure devoid of her mx.stery has been made. We~are probably not immune from all respon, sibility for th.e fact that, especially the young consider the Chur~ch a pure institution. Have we not perhaps favored this opinion in them by speaking ~too much of the i'enewal Of the Church's external struc-tures and too little of God a'hd of Christ? The bisl~ops admit ~that in their eagerness to open the. Church to the ~,orld they h, ave~qot suffici,ently di~tinguishe.d legitimate openness to the world from a secularization of the Church by the world: From time to time there has also been a lack of the~discernment of spir-' its, with~the failure to correctly distinguish between a legitimate open-ness of the council to the world and ~the acceptance of a secularized ¯ world's mentality and order of~values, . . . An easy accommodation that could lead to the secularizmion of the Church is to be excluded. /(ls0 excluded is an immobile closing in upon itself of the community of the faithful. Affirmed instead is a'missionary openness for the inte-gral salvation of the wo~ld.21 ~ Part of the problem has been the Church's eagerness to,enter the social arena with calls for social justice. While it is vital to the Church to em-phasize ~an active concern for social issues, the Church's concern for these issues should not become so great that it loses sight of .the fact that its deepest life is lived in "mystery" as the Church o_f God, and that the Church is ultimately made,up of the community"of the redeemed in Christ serving his mission of salvation: The primary mission of the Church, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, is to preach and to witness to the good and joyftil news of the election, the mercy and the charity of God which manifest themselves in salvation history, which through Jesus Christ reach their culmination in the fullness of time and which communicate and offer salvation to man by virtue of the Holy Spir.it. Christ is,the light of humanity. The Church, proclaiming the Gospel, must see to it that this light clearly shines out from her.countenance (ibid., p. 446). Social activism without that sacral 'dimension risks becoming purely secu-lar and human; such activity is totallymconsistent with the life of the Church, however good such acti~ism might otherwise be. To the extent that secularization in its various forms has happened in theChurch since Vatican II, something.inconsistent with what the Church should be arisen .in the community. To restore, a proper~balance, the Church .needs.to'reaffirm the primacy of its religious commitment, and to let that commitment shine before the Four, ,Ecclesial Problems, world.Only.,in the clarity of that commitment conveyed to the.world through its members is it able to seek effective ways of changing the world. These in turn must see themselves as having a primary mission to prove to the world the validityof the sacra~l o trranscendent dimen-sion of life as conveyed in the mission of Chrisi. ~n this respecti0ne not ov~erestimate the importance of Vatican II's and' the s~,nod's ne~ly developed and reaffirmed theology 6f the~ laity~ by Which thdrole of the laity in the.promotion of Christian and human values in.,the wo~ld is heightened ai~d theologically validated. Christians need also to find a way to counte~ract, the.increasing intru-sion ~of the power of the secul.ar into their. 9wn lives. To my mind, there is.no ,way for the Church more dramatically and decisively to restore the primacy, of the faith experience to Christian diving than emphatically to reassert its importance in the personal commi,tment to Christ. The "pas-sion"-, for Christ and the commitme~.t, to God's plan for the world in Christ .have too often been put on the back burner as we enter into the discussion of the problems of the world and seek to resolve them from within, using the naturalistic and,humanistic standards and instruments of action the world is often quite willing at least in,the~i~y to accept. But these are not enough for the Church. We must once again~become "p.as-sionately" committed to Christ and his purposes, and openly manifest to the world that it is primarily these for ~tii~h we stand, If the transcendent dimension, to life is rea!ly crucial to the well-being of the world and~therefore must bepreserved, it will have to come from deeply religiously-committed Christians. For them to be found in any great number, however, a new zeal for Christ and his purposes must be restored. The Church, and especi.ally its leaders both lay and religious, have no greater challenge today. Whether the zeal. necessary to restore the sense of the religious dimension to life in the,world chn be found, however, is not easily answered. Somehow we Christians shall have to enter more deeply into Ourselves, to find out if we really, share strongly a commitment tO Christ and his visi0fi °of the world and ~re willirig to make ~the sacrifices demanded o~°us as we enter into /~ ~riaarketplace al-ready increasingly intolerant of his vie~. W~"shall not~have the impact necessary to the success of the Christian vision merely,, by exporting Chris-tian values in a secularized form. The world does not need to know there is a need for justice nearly so much as it needs t6 kno.w that justice is a dimension of the faith experience in Christ.To seek to alleviate the cries of the poor in social action is really~not the, Christian~mission; rather, our mission is to bring to the poor the vision of~hrist, con- Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 sciously known and passionately calling all people to a commitment to him and to the consequences of that commitment in a life of faith and service. Innovation vs. Traditi6n Th~re is a second, inner-Church conflict to be resolved: between the new and the _old, between innovatidn and tradition. Vatic~'n II met at a crucial point in the life of the Church, when Catho-lic liberal~ were calling for reform while the conservatives wanted to stand by tradition. The bishops who came together represented both view-points. In the final documents they deliberately attempted ~ to draw to- . gether elements from th~ thinking 6f both. camps, hoping to blend their opposing viewpoints.enough to satisfy the desires of each. Apparently both sides were willing to accept compromise. Both also recognized that total consistency was impossible at that time there was simply not enough time to work out the niceties of perfect harmonization, nor was it necessarily desirable. It surely"was expected that the ongoing life of the Church, especially in the work of the theologians under the direc-tion of the bishbps, would work out any incongruities or inconsistencies in thought or prac'tice that ~ight be left over from the Council. And so the Council ended. But as one reporter put it: Yet the Counci'l's efforts to assimilate modernity and still be true to a 2000-year tradition also created the potential for vast misunderstanding. The Council called upon the Church to uphold, simultaneously, freedom and orthodoxy, culturalopenness and identity, change and continuity, modernity and tradition, hierarchy and participation. That is a tall or-der. 22 Avery Dulles, S.J~,.,asks the question that emphasizes the inevitability of the p~:o.b_lem.: Can a Church that simul.taneously moves in thes~ contradictory direc-tions. keep enough homogeneit~y to remain a single social body? . . . Can the Church adopt new symbols, languages, structures and behav-ioral patte .ms 6n a massive scale without losing continuity with its own origins and its ow.n pa~t? (ib!d.) Any break from tradition for any organization necessarily leads to con-fusion. But this would have been a problem even more for the Catholic Church because the break was so abrupt.and deep. Before the Council, many Catholics had~ accepted ex.aggerated acquiescence to unchange as a theological truism, with little or no sense of the role_of history in. the formation'of dogma and Church practice: Because all Church statements Four Ecclesial Problems / I~11 hadotended to be regarded as dogma unquestioningly to be accepted, obe-diential deference to authority was orthodox; freedom ofthbught, unor-thodox independence. Suddenly, after Vatican II, what had been consid-ered un-Catholic was espoused as good Catholicism. Whereas acceptance of lohg-standing traditions was the n~irm for acceptableoCatholic living prior to Vatican II.; now freedom of thought and openness to new ideas and individual conscience became acceptable. This break with tradition, l~owever, was not simply a break from the old frr the neff, but a rever-sal from standards recognizing something as unacceptable to standards recognizing the same as acceptable and even desirable.,Thus ~0nfusion, disagreement, and fallout were inevitable. Also, it is inevitable t'h~t all this leads to a deeper question: what does it mean to be a Catholic and to have the faith? ' There i~ no doubt a wide spectrum of viewpoints regarding'the theo-logica! role of innovatiori vs. that of tradition, and What, if any, the proper combination ofothe two might be. But in certain areas there is cr'rn~ mon consensus and in other areas a lack of consehsus. There is growing consensus that the break with past traditions ~vas too abrupt and that there is a ;need,to retui'n to some past symbols an'd traditions withou~ renouncing everything new. At the time of the Ameri-can bicentennial, John Coleman, S.J., called for an ""open-ended re-sourcement," a dialogue or "creative engageme,nt" between the tradi-tional Catholic sYmbols and new ones that wouldopen up. or adapt to "new purposes, experiences and questions" in an integrating "process of g~:owth."23 More recently, Greeley has also called for a return to the "experience~' and-"imagination" .ofoour "Catholic her!tage" so re-cently abandoned as either irrelevant or impeding ecumenism or incom-patible with the modem world. Greeley understands Catholicism .to,stress the "sacramental" presence of the divine in Christian living, and says that this sacramental "religious style" should now be recognized as of the "essence" of the Catholic "insight," andan invaluable feature of the Catholic approach to religio.n.24 ,~There is growing consensus that there is widespread ignorance of the fundamental teachings of Christianity, especially among Xhe young, and that the problem must be addressed quickly. In an effort ~to make Chris-tianityrelevant to our lives, we shifted too quickly from the rigorous for-malism of the catechism and the memorization of. its teachings to dia-log'oe about the lived experience of the faith. What we lost was a solid understanding of what that faith believed, What is called for today is not necessarily the catechism method, but wtiatever method(s) may be nec- Review for Religiousl November-December, 1987 essary .to restore'to its rightful place knowledg6 about the history of sal-vation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A common foun-dation'in,, faith teachings may make it. possible to fost.er conviction, com-mitment, and action. ~ There is lack of consensus on the role of authority in the Church; on the role of the clergy, as well as the Church itself, in social and political activity; and on the degree of freedom to be allowed to personal con-scienc.~ e, espec,ially in matters that do not pe~ain directly to formal dogma in the Church, such 9s moral theology and mattgrs of sex. However rig-orous! y.~,~.ne might uphold the tea, chings of the Church on artificial c~?n7 tracept~ion., few would consider the Church's teachings on the matter as infallibly proclaimed. If that is the case, what degree of disagreement. o if any, is per.missible? In such cases, how much room i~ to be given for private conscience, or for public teaching not fully in accord with offi-cial pronouncements of the Church? VatiEan II clearly gave great weight tO~the right of personal conscience and to scholhrsh!p regarding nonin-fallible teachings, but how far did it intend these°rights'to go? Innova-tors tend toward absolute freedom on noninfallible teachings, traditioii'- ~lists° toward compliance even there. Thes.e,ideologica! disagreements cofistitute adeep source of divisioff in the Chi~rch .today, and represent today's ~xperience of what it means wheri the old clashes with the new~ The Church has yet to come up with a~th~blogy thgt can provid6 an adequate e~clesiology to handle this prob- Compatibility Vs~ Contradiction with,,the World ° There is a third ,problem not adequately resolved by Vatican II; which returns once again to'th~e:relationship of the Church to the world: the prob-lem between compatibility of.the Church with the world ~ahd contradic-tian with it? Prior to VatiEan II, the Church had never published an official docu-ment expounding,a posiiive theology on the'r01e of the Church,-in the world. Traditionally, the world had been an arena of evil or temptation to evil. ISatholics were urged to.remove themselves from the.world if they wished to ,attain sanctity, and the priestly and religious life were com-monly acceptrd as means to that end. Those who needed to become, in: volved in the Wodd;~choosing to remain laypersons,' were allowed to ~be in the world, but .were expected to' be as unworldly as possible in0the midst of the world: Evefi though Christians learned very well how to, live in~ the world by accepting ,itk ~,alues,~ and acquired the world ~s commodi-ties as instruments of well-being and standards of0success,.this accom- Four Ecclesial Problems modi~tion was often done with a feeling of guilt. That the world Was bad was based on the clear teaching of Christ: his followers did~not belong to the world, the world hated the'm, Christ did not take them out,of the wbi'ld but asked the"Father to "guard them from the evil one" in' the world (Jn 17:14-15) until they would one day be united with the Father in heaveh. ~ Now with Vatican II, the Church turned toward the world and, in many ways, accepted th~ world for the first time. Th6 Council Asserted the Church's "sOlidarity with the entire human family," that "nothing genuinely human" is foreign to Christians, that the "joys and the hopes, the griefs hn~l the anxieties of the men of this are" are those of the fol-lowers ofChrist too (LG 1-3). The Council urged Christians to build up the world because "the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God's greatness dnd the flowering of His own haysterious design" (34). In a remarkable affirmation of the value of secular activity, the Cou0cil "ac-knowledges that human progress can serve man's true happiness" (37) and that, insofar as "Earthly progress., can contribute to~the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the kingdom of God" (39). The Council admits~ the world can be "an instrument of sin" and that a "monumental struggle against the power of darkness pervades the whole history of man" (37). Nevertheless, when all is said and done, the emphasis is clearly optimistic--so much so that, when~Karl Barth came back from his visit to Rome during the Council's first session, he expressed a fear the bishops were bbcoming too optimistically oriented toward the World and suggested they take a miare guarded position. And so the question remains: Is the world a good thing, to be ac-cepted and integrated inio the life of the Christian, or isqt to be rejected because it is infected with sin? The Council urged both; 6f course, but failed to indicate how both were possible, or how and where to draw the line limitinginvolvement~: More importantly, however, the new spirit bf the Coiancil had clearly left the impression that theworld a's a whole had been sanctioned as a .giaod thing :and that, with Christian and human co-operation and goodwill, there ~vas no reason why the Church and'the World could not easily become assimilated to each other. The question ofqntegration into the life of the world versus opposi-tion trthe world in favor of Christian values'is not a re'rent one. As.Ger-main Gri~ez recently pointed out, much of the history of Christianity can be seen in terms of a "tension between legitimate ~ispirations frr human and this-worldly fulfillment and God's c~ll to divine and everlasting life.'" Depending upon the emphasis that is greater at any 0h~ torment Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 in Christian thinking, the tendency may be to emphasize "disrespect for the 'merely,' human" and emphasize fulfillment in God, or, as seems to be. happening ~toda);, to emphasize a reaction against other-worldly spiri-tuality, a reaction which has '~crystal!ized into various forms of secular humanism." VaticanlI failed to take a stand on this issue, according to Grisez, or more precisely, not knowing how to resolve the tensign be-tween the two tendencies, glossed over them "with ambiguous formu-las." Instead of acknowledging their inability to resolve the problem and implementing a postconciliar process to work on it, the Council Fathers, caught up themselves in the spirit of optimism generated by John XXIII, chose to try to "maintain ,the appearance of unity" and solidarity on this issue and departed. Afterwards, liberals and conservatives began to read in the documents exactly what each had been looking for and ignoring the. opposite, and used whatever political means were available to have their own position dominate. The need now, according to Grisez, is to face up, to the divisions and try to resolve them.25 Others have stressed very pointedly that the orientation of the world today is strongly toward values quite inconsistent with Christian values. The world today is bombarded by powerful influences from the media, which emphasize for commercial purposes a humanism void of religious direction, which preach success in terms of materialistic values and goals such as accumulation of power and money, which proclaim fulfillment of self in terms of satisfaction of sexual drives rather than in love as per-manent commitment to the other, which evaluate persons in terms of utili-tarian norms, whiCh promote personal satisfaction as the criterion for the worth of all activity, which make the ultimate goal of life the achieve-ment of self rather than the donation of self. In such a ,world, there is inevitable contradiction between the values of the world and those of the Christian faith experience, where personal communion with Christ in a community of believers serving the well-being of all is. the standard of value. The humanistic orientation of a world without religious direction risks becoming ultimately a purely worldly humanism antagonistic to Christian values. For many, the opposition is so great at the .present time that, it seems to be moving toward total and absolute contradiction of the values of Christ. The Council Fathers, in recognizing the need to open the Church to the world, did not indicate strongly enough the nature or degree of this opposition, although it must be admitted 'that, even when they did indicate opposition, their words were largely ignored. But ~as Grisez indicates, the opposition is there and must.be faced. By failing to indicate strongly enough the contradiction between the values of the Four Ecclesial Problems / I~15 world and those of Christ, the Council Fathers unwittingly made accom-modation with the ways of the world that much easier. It is that accom-modation that the Extraordinary Synod of 1985 began totry to correct, but a clear theology of contradiction, is still needed. Active vs. Passive Church Life The last root cause of the problems left by Vatican II may be ex-plained in terms of Vatican II's failure to resolve the conflict between the active and passive dimensions of Christian life. A new spirit of involvement in social and political action, as we have seen, had been emphasized by the Council as an element intrinsic to the life of the Church. This spirit was highly attractive for many reasons: It was new and new things tend to attract; it was optimistic and people tend to like optimism; it was a free and open spirit cgnsequent upon the new theology of the laity, and .more appealing than the more traditional litur-gical and doctrinal elements in Vatican II; it spoke to a strong desire in the '60's to become actively involved in the processes of history rather ttrhaanns ftoor macaqtuioiens ocfe tihne twheomrld; itth naot tw oansl~y h purmovaindlyed e nthgeinoereertiecda,bl usut palpsoor jtu fsotir- a fied it as providing greater fulfillment of the human potential. In all these ways, this new element of "activism" contra~ted so much with the traditional call for restraint on involvement, and spoke di-rectly to many Catholics who were interested in joining the world in a combined divine-human creative.proje.ct. These were delighted to find there was theological justification and ecclesial approval for using one's talents in such a project. Personal involvement and responsibility for cre-ating one's own life in the world spoke more readily to the post-Vatican II age.than acquiescence in the decisions, actions, and authority of oth-ers. At least in the '60's, the mentality of the outspoken members of the Church was increasingly liberal, and the .idea of creating one's future rather than submitting to it was especially appealing to them. Vatican II sanctioned these ideas. It emphasized the theological importance of life in the world and active involvement in the cause of justice and equality, and was to give rise to a dominance after Vatican II of theological move-ments that stressed that same type of involvement. The Church was now also in a position to accept many currents rising in western Protestant cir-cles, such as the new theology of hope and political theology, the theol-ogy of revolution, and finally, in Catholic circles in South American, lib-eration theology. By emphasizing active involvement in creative transformation of the worid, Vatican II unfortunately seemed to downgrade th'e old and less Review for Rel~gious,~ November-December, 1987 captivating styles of spirituality, such as personal prayer, contemplation, and spiritual communion with God alone and in the quiet of one's room. It became increasingly difficult in modern Catholicism to justify a spiri-tual dimension to !ife unless it was translated into active change of the world. Spiritual terminology began to take on a purely active meaning: prayer, commitment to Christ, concern for the salvation of human be-ings '~ all these meant to be in active involvement in the world. Monas-tic theology and asceticism .were seriously questioned, for how could any-one iustify removing on~eself from the world when the only important thing wffs to change the world for the better? Those who dared to speak of contemplatio~n or asceticism in tli'e more traditional ways were often seen as outdated and to be pitied for their archaic ways. The new theol-ogy of spiritual activism slowly took over contrbl of the major or-ganizations in the Church: religious orders, diocesan and parish coun-cils, and other Catholic agencies~' and a new theology of social and po-litical activism translating most or all of Catholic spirituality into causes for peace and justice in the world held sway, The few who dared to criti- "cize these movements as one-sided were ignored. Ct~riously; the more this ~ctivism was promoted as the new and en-lightened foi:m of Christian living, the ~ore vocations to the priestly and religious life went down. The major exception to this trend~was in relig-ious orders, especially of nuns, where the stress On traditional piety was retained--here vocations continued to ~rise or remain stable. But few dared to suggest that this validated'in any way maintaining some room for more traditional contemplative and other-worldly forms of spiritual-ity. " Only recent!y has' it begun to dawn on many that activism without passivism is un-Christian. A spirituality that is t~otally activated tod, ard htlman creation of the world is inconsistent with Christian teaching, which, while s![essing human~involvement in God's creation 6f the king-dom; stresses even more that we are ~saved bec~iuse we have been saved in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We receive God,s kingdom far more than we create it. If that is the case, a Christian spirituality of ascetical contemplation is important to the Church because it lives as well as symbolizes the importance of this pass.!ve involvement in God's crea-tive process. Coleman ohce wrote: It is helpful to consider some of the cultural paradoxes in contemporary American Catholicism. In a nation n6ted for its one-sided, if not patho-logical, emphasis on activism, instrumental rationality, and opt'imistic pragmatism,, Catholic intellectuals seem to have suffered a bout of am- Four Ecclesial Problems nesia about their classic wisdom concerning contemplation, mysticism, pas.sivity, and receptive acceptance of inevitable and unavoidable lim-its. The Church. in its American incarnation has become almost ex-clusively masculine, with dominant concerns for action, success, build-ing the new e~trth and results (Coleman, p. 553). Christopher Mooney, S.J., argues that in America God rather than hu-man beings was always understood as "the power of our future," the one "from whom the nation had received its mission," and the one "~who works through the structures of society and manifests himself in publi~ affairs." Without that emphasis upon the centrality of God in his-tory, America will lose its sense of destiny.26 Dulles gives personal sup-port to those who argue that "the Kingdom of God is viewed in the New Testament as God's work, not man's," that the Church "is seen as ex-isting for the glory of God and of Christ, and for the salvation of its mem-bers in a life beyond the grave," and that in the New Testarfient it "is not suggested that it is the Church's task to make the world a better place to live in."27 Harvey Egan, S.J., argues that Christians today face "the serious temptation of worsh.iping political pressure groups, causes, move-ments, slogans, and ideo]ogies," and that their social involvement "de-generates into 'pseudo-activism' " unless it is built upon "authentic in-ner freedom, contemplative peace'; spiritual insight, the love born from prayer, integration, and inner transforrnati6n."28 " What we are asserting, then, is that Vatican II, in its effort to sanc-tion involvement in the life of the world as a legitimate dimensio~ of Christian living, unwittingly tended to downgrade the more contempla-tive, prayerful dimension of'Christian and Catholic spirituality. To that extent, Vatican II opened the doors too widely toward the world and pro-vided a gateway to the development of a secular humanism in contem-porary Catholic life. " Christian humanism without.a strong"spiritual foundation in a prayer-ful dependence upon God and his revelation in Jesus Christ is inevitably doomed to secularism. Once that stage is attained, it is inevitable that Christians begin to question whether there is any valid distinction be-tween Christianity and secular ac.tivism; andsince, once this aberration sets in, there is no real distinction between the two, it is only natural that many Christians find the faith experience unrewarding. It is only in the strength given Christianity by its passive dimension that its activist di-mension has any purpose or will to endure. Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 Conclusibn We have argued that at least in these four ways Vatican II left us a spirituality that is ambiguous, in conflict with itself, and undirected. This may indeed have been the Council's intention." To some extent, the Ex-traordinary Synod of 1985 served a valuable purpose in attempting to rec-tify these imbalances and ambiguities. It took twenty-five years to real-ize the bad effects and what needed to be corrected. Nevertheless, the ambivalences we have itemized .still reside in the Church and account for much of the conservative-liberal polarization of today. The next stage will be for the Church to reconvene and resolve the ambiguities. It will be an amazing and groundbreaking Council when it does. NOTES I "Vatican II and the Postconciliar Era in the U.S. Church," Origins 15, 15 (Sep-tember 26, 1985), pp. 225,233. 2 Vivian W. Dudro, "Toward the Synod: General Praise, Some Criticism of Malone Report," National Catholic Register 61, 39 (September 29, 1985), pp. l, 8. The reporter make~ reference to an expression used by Gerrnain Grisez, Professor of Chris-tian Ethics at Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, MD. 3 Joseph Cardinal RatZinger with Vittorio Messori, The Ratzinger Report (San Fran-cisco: Ignatius, 1985), pp. 44, 55, 71, 74, 83, 62, 29-30. '~ In "The Catholic Priesthood," Overview 19, 10 (undated [August 1985]), p. I, citing a report in NFPC:News Notes, March 1984. aA Overview, May. 1985, p. 1. 5 Overview, June 1985, p. 1, citing a report in New ~'ork Times December 9, 1984. 6 Ibid., p. 2. The 'article was in National ReviewS" November 25, 1983. 7 Overview, May 1985, p. 5. Herr is citing an article by Mary K. Tilghman in The Catholic Review of March 20, 1985. The words are Tilghman's except for the quo-tation from Schoenherr on the "?rganizational crisis." 8 Ibid., p, 6. 9 Ibid., p. 3. 10 Walter M. Abbott, S.J., ed., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: Guild, 1966): "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modem World" or Gaudium et spes sec. 4 and 5; hereafter, Latin titles used and noted in text. i1 Thomas More, 1979. 12 Paulist, 1975. 13 Harper & Row, 1973, p. 71. 14 Doubleday, 1977, p. 12. 15 Paulist, 1972, citing an article he wrote as early as 1967. ' 16 Greeley's first controversial conclusions were published in Catholic Schools in a Declining Church, with William C. McCready and Kathleen McCourt (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1976); his latest is American Catholics Since the Council: An Un-authorized Report (Chicago: Thomas More, 1985). 17 Gallup publishes yearly reports on Religion in Americh, and has just completed (with Jim Castelli) The American Catholic People: Their Beliefs, Practices, and Val-ues (Garden City: Doubleday, 1987). Four Ecclesial Problems 18 Eight reports from this invaluable study of "core Catholic" parishioners' think-ing and practices hav~ been published so far, appearing in Origins from December 27, 1984, to August 28, 1986. 19 In Justice in the Marketplace: Collected Statements of the Vatican and the U.S. Catholic Bishops on Economic Policy, 1891-1984, David M. Byers, ed. (Washing-ton, DC: NCCB/USCC, 1985), pp. 249-250. 20 Quest for Justice: A Compendium. , J. Brian Benestad and Francis J. Butler, eds. (Washington, DC: NCCB/USCC, 1981), pp. v-vi. 21 Synod of Bishops: "The Final Report," Origins 15, 27 (December 19, 1985), pp. 445,449. 22 E. J. Dionne, Jr., "The Pope's Guardian of Orthodoxy," New York Times Maga-zine, November 24, 1985, p. 45. 23 John A, Coleman, S.J., "American Bicentennial, Catholic Crisis," America, June 26, 1976, p. 553. 24 Andrew M. Greeley and Mary Greeley Durkin, How to Save the Catholic Church (New York: Viking, 1984), pp. xviii-xix, 35, passim. 25 Germain and Jeannette Grisez, "Conservatives, liberals duel over leaking barque," National Catholic Reporter 22, 5 (November 22, 1985), p. 14. 26 Christopher F. Mooney, S.J., Religion and the American Dream: The Search for Freedom under God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), pp. 35-36. 27 Avery Dulles, S.J., Models of the Church (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 94-95. 28 Harvey D~ Egan, S.J., Christian Mysticism: The Future of a Tradition (New York: Pueblo, 1984), p. 234. The Autumn Years: A Touch of God Joseph M. McCloskey, "S.J., and M. Paulette Doyas, S.S.N.D. Father McCloskey is Director of Shalom House-Retreat Center; P.O. Box 196; Montpelier, Virginia 23192. Sigier Paulette teaches at the College of Notre Dame; 4710 N. Charles Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21210. Autumn colors stimulate our aesthetic sense. Leaves grown old are beau-tiful to behold, a truth of creation that gives dying its own color. In, our later years our activities are like autumn leaves before they fall to the ground; each one is a jewel in our crown, worn with pride but sometimes hard to see against the perspective of a cold winter. Winter follows autumn; it is the winter we fear. Winter allows us to view the forest of our lives without being lost. in details. The forest stripped of its foliage, our lives are open to scrutiny; unencumbered by duties, we have the chance to really see ourselves. But autumn, with its warnings of dying, allOws us to look at winter with a hope of new birth. Autumn brings a special brand of happiness which belongs to God and is worth reflecting upon. Our autumn years do not have to be unhappy ones if we appreci-ate the meaning of our lives. No one likes to think about growing older, yet the truth is, we have been aging since conception. There is no es-caping autumn; growing older can bring colorful changes into our lives even if we must yield to a certain amount of inactivity. Love frees the spirit. Alienation brings loss of heart and dims our ap-preciation of life. Passion for life belongs to love, yet the passion for life wanes and we yearn for something more when we feel ourselves no longer needed. The mid-life crisis is a taste of what is to come as we ex-perience doubts about our work and what we have been doing with our lives. Glory, honor, and power are perpetual temptations of life, even when we are not sure just what it is we want. We struggle to hold on 820 The Autumn Years / 821 t~J the possibility and potential of doing something wonderful. As We be-come tired of trying to'h61d on and despair cofifronts us, we finally real-ize that life has-a meaning--being in God. "When we finfilly face the meaning of life, the idea of sitting on a porch watc.hing the rest of the world go by.does not have to seem terri-ble. The autumn years are su~ounded by the storms of others' activities and the job still gets done even when we are no longer bearing the brunt of the heat of the-day. As 'we watch the jobget done, we cab laugh at ourselves for all the times we pictured ours61ves as indispensable. We db not have to identify who we are by what we do. We identify ourselves by not doing; we may be retired. The constant round of activities which ful~d Our lives'belongs to those who follow. ~The fruitful year~ of.prbd~ictio~ ~nd hyp~'activity seem unreal as we watch them'in others.The mystic in life touches us; we watch, like con-templatives in prayer sitting on our autumn veranda, the storm of God's love come up in the for.m~ 6f others' work. God bring.s beauty into our lives as we appreciate what others Ho. 'People need our affirmation a~ad appreciation. L'ife is not over because wecan no longer do, it is just be-ginning. Today is the first_day of the rest of our lives, no matter how old we are. Traumatized by thoughts of our past, we can miss the colors of now. Anxious ,about tomorrow, we are sometimes only half present to what we are dbing. E~;en as yesterday can dampen our enthusiasm in what w~ are doing, anxiety over tomorrow can keep us from being fullyi.nvolved now. We live in an age of. activity and our .minds resemble motor boats, chugging noisily over the wavesof what must be done. There has to be a po.int where we cut the m0tor, give up the noises we make, and just glide, delighting in the freedom of knowing that our work may be almost finished. As we grow older, spirituality can give meaning to the lessen-ing activity in our lives. Slowing down without feeling worthless is what spirituality can help us.do.,No ~matter how old we are, idleness can threaten self-worth. We become :victims ,of our own doing, as thoughts of What we could, do to make our lives worthwhile prod us to keep go-ir~ g: "If we stop, that magic momentof doing something great may be missed." Pushing ourselves t6 exhaustion, we do not have time for our-selves now. We fail to apigreciate what we are right now. Unusual are the autumn souls, really alive t6dayin the richness of yesterday's expe-rience, y6t still open to tomorrow's vision of life with new meaning. Many still search for the secret of iife--f6und in living wholeheartedly 822/Review for Religious, Novemb.er-December, 1987 the fullness of now--in some nebulous fountain of youthful actiyity. We need to open ourselves up to'where we are and who we are right now. Spirituality's ultimate goal consists in seeing God face to face. This means "being" with God. All of life, everything we have ever done, everything we have ever been, is a preparation.that we might "be." Be-ing does not imply vegetating. There is a responsibility to b~ for one an-other attached to being for Christ. Whatever. we do for the least one of our brothers or sisters, even when we are not aware of doing it for Christ, is accepted by, him as bei.ng done for himself. In identifying himself as the "I am who I am" God, God reveals himself as reachable in the here and now. The only moment in time truly real is now, touching the "Eternal Now." Living in the now, for even a moment of time, garners those nows of life when we opened our hearts to being loved. These moments become sacramental. We live the "Sac-rament of the Present Moment." 'There are seven sacraments that the Church recognizes as special moments in life where Christ wants to be present in our lives and is giving himself. In these sacraments of the Church, Christ does the work. In the sacrament of the present moment we can make a moment sacramental by our ~illingness tb make Christ present frr each otlaer.° Living in the present, with what good there is, frees us of what anchors us to the past. Because it only takes a moment to love for a lifetime, we have tliE poss!bility of being Christ lovers by giving of who we are to the least person we meet, in any moment of our lives. We are children of the Father. God takes us as his own because we are precious to him. The Psalms tell tls that.: "Before you were born, I knew you!" (Ps 139). We are loved because Of who we are even be-fore we had accomplishments to boast of. Saint Paul teaches us in Ephe-sians 1 : 1-13 that God' s love is deserved in the goodness of Christ. Christ is our Way and our Truth and our.Life. Saint John's first epistle on Love teaches us that .all of life is a preparation for the opening of our hearts, now, to the fullness of the Lord of Life coming into our hearts. All of life is a preparation for this very moment We are living! Wisdom brings knowledge of how to live in God's love, and the contemplative in action lives in God's love by letting God ,work one hundred percent. Doing in God's love becomes being in his love. What becomes of paramount im-portance is how much love we.can accept in Christ, and how much Christ we live for God and each other in return. ~ Being does not happen jus.t because we are old enough. Incapacita-tion is always a possibility when being is thrust upon us. Being is maxi- The Autumn Years mized by freedom and life, but a lot of dying has to take place in each of us before we are really free to love for the sake of Christ. Growing older is part of tile stripping process of b~coming free to let God do all he can in our hearts. Love needs time to mature. The Church says of the young saints that they fulfilled a long life in a short time, so that even th~ child saint can be old when considering years spent on earth. It only take~ a moment to love for a lifetime, andthe meaning of the greatest love of all is giving of one's life for the sake of a ne.ighbor. Giving can be done by being for another. If we think we can do things for ourselves alone, our whole life is wasted. Being in the autumn years can become adoing for others. Being is knowing how to love. Love is being present to the need of another ffhich sometimes in-volves pain. As humans, we would rather bypass the cross and get right to the resurrection. But we are unrealistic if we think the resurrection is possible without,the crucifixion. There can be no spring without the autumn and the winter. Resurrection portrays Christ reaching out to the hurt and pain of his disciples. Christ is our holiness, and the fruitfulhess of our lives in Christis found in how much of Christ's death we are will-ing to accept forbthers. The ultimate, decisive word of God, in the hu-manness of Christ, is Christ's dying on the cro~s. His suffering gives ~m~aning to our pains and our dying even When we do not relate it to our autumn years. Everything we did or woul~t have liked to do becomes as nothing in the light of Christ's suffering and death. He took care of it all. The ultimate, decisive word of God, sp6ken in the humannness of Christ, comes to us in his d~athon the cross. Counselors and sigiritual directors bften meet couples whose mar-riages have revolved around doing'for their offspring, and who now'com-plain about lack of meaning to their lives with'6ut~ their children. After the childi-en are growr~ and off on their own, these pai'ents have not learned how to accept each other, to be with each other. Many priests and religious brothers and sisters have the same problem. So many years found them in their work that they never learned to enjoy each other. So intense was the doing, the~ never discovered the secret of being, for them-selves or others. They ~vere all so busy doing in the spring and summer of their lives that they gave n~o thought to the autumn and winter that had to follow--when doing became more difficult. Working at accomplishing something involves the danger of making doing the meaning of life. The need of another opens our lives to the rush of the Spirit filling us with God's love. The second comings of the Spirit to the Church are pe6ple filled with love who reach out with their gifts 1~24 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 to the needs of others. The problem is no~ whether we did enough in our lifeti~ae, but whether we did~:.what we di~l-~vith love. We may complain that we have never had any.thing werth doing. Ye't each time we moan about not being satisfied with what we have done, or regret not hax~ing done enough, always w~tnting to do more with our liyes, we limit our love of God to wh~t.we are ci6ing noV, rather than bringing all we have done in our lives t~ ~,hat we do. Life teaches us toAive in God's love. We do not deserve God's love, but we can accept it. We waste love, think-ing of all we could have done or w, ould~have liked to d~o.~God.'s love frees us to giv~ ourselves.~ It brings the wisdom whichohelps us to ,put aside our accomplishments or hopes of achieveme.nt, and opens our hearts to be filled with God's love in Christ. The awareness of Christ in our lives frees us to live in the Father's love. ~ The victory won by:Christ when he "took captivity._captive," when he took away the scandal attached t6 our suffering and dying; allows us share in the resurrection when we take up our crosses and follow him. Christ calls us in our inadequacies, our brokenness, our nakedness, our need of others, to be part of the resurrection by claimiong~the foothold in heaven we have in him. Our needs bring Christ into our lives. We be-come other Christs by.-lett!ng him do in our live~s. Growing older ih a world with so many younger,~people frees us to be.in their love, even as we learn to be in God's love. If we were.really and truly competent enough to do it all by ourselves, we would never~ need God. Needing God and other's allows our captiyity to-be taken cal~tive by ~hrist. Aristotle, the great philosopher and teacher-some centuries before Christ, said that. a person could become a philosopher only after forty years of age. It is only When we have enough .experience of life that we begin to find the meaning of life, 19v.e, and values which have to do with being rather than doing. All of life's acc6mplishments are insignificant if we are unable to be in the love of God., if we are unable to be in the love of our brothers and sisters around us. Loye is God's relationship to us, and theGod Who gives all in our lives receives it back When we are able to offer our lives in Christ, when we try to be his life by our love for each other. We are called to be lov- ~ers. Even as the doing of our early years is the beginning of love, it is in the need for each other of our autumn years that love is completed, the love which allows us to~be in the f~ullness of Ch,r!st who lives.Eithin us. Our world needs us and we. should be proud to be aging ,in God's love, .basking in the autumn .years of life, content to be in his love for the sake of all who are still able to do'in his love. We are now like th'e " .,Th~ Autumn Years / 825 Eternal Word of the Trinity, always receiving from the F~ther, even as we are"i'eceiving from others who love us. We are created iri the image and likeness of the God who is Trinity. Trinity has its counterpoini in the mystery of indwelling, where G6d is found in the still point of our lives. Family and community are the outer reaches of this m~yst~ry of indwelling where God lives in the love of our hear~sl and in how we reach out to our brothers and sisters. We are told bY the first commandment of life to love God. We would not know how to do this if Christ had not told us he lok, ed us just as the Father loves him. Christ asks us to live in'his l~v~e, and tells us we love him by keep-ing the commandments which show us the ways we ~hould devil with one another and God. Faithfulness to the commandments is faithfulness to one another. How can ~ve lov~ the God we do not see, if we do not love the neighbo~ we do see? God' is love and we live in his lo~ve in the way we love 0n~ another. Wherever there is. ipve, G~I is. Lo~,e calls us to be like the G~d we image and brings us into commu.nity a~ men and women 6reated to lok, e 6ne another. Spirff~al life can be traced_back to T~rinity: in':-TTinit~,, being and do- !ng meet in the total giving and receiving,of the Father and th6 Son. The Father holds b~ck nothing of himself. The S,on, totally receiving of th~ Father, has nothing the Father has not given him. All of life i~ a combi-nation of these two forces, the active and passive 0"f life. The principles of life find in Trinity the °meaning and the sourceof love. Even if we have spent a. life totally, giv, ing all we are in order that the mystery of the Trinity m_ay be comple.ted in us, the autumn of our lives finds meaning in rec~eiving./~s the child needs parents to grow, so too we grow in those moments when our heart~ need each other. We ac-cept the richness o~each otl~r'~/~ifts when we are willing to need one another from the depths of our being.Then the beauty of life finds the special expression of th6oTrinity completed in the giving and~:eceiving which touches Being, and that very_ being i's love. Love is God's, relatioriShip ~to us, '~n.d the God whb gives ~11 lives in our lov~ when w~ are able,t0 ~J.ffer bin: lives in Ch~rist;.wfien ~.t~ry to live his life by our love for each other. We are called to be lovers. But most of all we are c~lled to be loved in Christ. Autumn years bring the kisses and the embraces of our.,Lord which are felt even in the hurts and the pains of our body's resistance to the call of our Lord .to our eternal reward. The warnings of sufferings do not have to be a threat, in our hope of the resurrection, as a lifetime of love and work in response to the call of God's love claims relationship to Christ. Our pains in letting Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 go of our work,:and our good health bear relationship to the ultimate word of God's love in the passion and death of Jesus Christ and offer the love of God in the resurrection. Even as the dping of our early years is the beginnin.g of love, the letting go of the autumn years completes our love as we feel the need for God and each other. The Christ who is in the least one of otir brothers and sisters is now in us, allowing us to be Christ in our need. We become the Christ to whom we have given hll our life, as all~the good we have done for others comes back upon us. Our world awaits a generation of people proud to be'aging in-his love, basking in the warmth of love which ~omes their way in the autumn of life. Mary is the ultimate model of being for Christ, being for God. She accompan'i~d the Church of theresurre6tibn by being present to their needs and helping them to remember her Son in the many ways of a mother's love, as she took care of h.er. children in the trust given to her by Jesus from the ci'oss~ Because Mary was so present to the needs of the Cl~urch before h_er Assumption, the early Church learned to respect her as mo(her, oA very significant part of the spiri.tuality of the autumn years in the lives of m_any is their devotioh to Mary by following her ex-ample in praying for the Church. The work of the autumn years is the same as Mary's; the" limits of that work ar'~ the size of oiir heart. Even as our autumn years are the time for being as much as we can be, they are the time for loving as much as we can love. Mary has taught us how to li~,e, h'ow to love, and how to be, both by her love for her Son and by the way she lived with the early Church. Just as Mary's autumn years were filled with the touch of God, her presence brought that same touch of God's love to the ea~:ly Church. Mary and God's touch would always be close. So too our autumn y.ears can have the touch of God strength-ening the Mystical,.Body of Christ. Mary is therole model of our autumn years and our patron as we pray: Heav.enly Father,.help us to understand the meaningof growing older in wisdom and knowledge. Allow us to gracefully accept the slowing down in the autumn of life. May we be as loving as Mary in her autumn years, presefit to the needs of c'bmpanions~ filled with I.ife and its inys-ter~, so that all will feel free to share your gift, to find your love within us. Open us, O Father, to a concern for.the liu~an race. Fill our hearts with living in the fulfillment of your abiding love every'moment of every day. Help us to be so resonant and filled with the meaning of the mo-ment that we may:be truly able to love,.as you.loved. May we eagerly look forward to the "being'.~'of the autumn years, reaping the golden rewards, fully open to the winter-that is to come, where all is wanned ~bY your love. ~ Community Dialogue and Religious Tradition Sebastian MacDonald, C.P. Father MacDonald is provincial superior of the Holy Cross Province. He may fie reached at Passionist Community; 5700 North Harlem Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60631. Dialogue is a common form of community experience today. It is an en-deavor which has the capacity of exposing the wealth of tradition latent in a community. Such tradition is often the unspoken element bonding a community together, the ineffable cementing relationships. It can be a mistake, of course, to uncritically commend the rgle of dialogue in religious life, Given the negative experience of it that many religi~us have encountered the past few years, citing its advantages must be balanced with recognizing its difficultie~ and disadvantages. ~'hese latter largely center about the conflict and division that often occurs among community members, as the~y encounter in one another ap- ¯ parently irreconcilable positions on often fundamental and basic aspects of religious life. Dialogue, as the publi~c articulation of these p~ositions, can add to an already~latent conflict. Once public positions are taken by community members, this may freeze a division that has always be~n there, but, here-tofore, private, and to that extent, potentially malleable. By enhancing the feeling elenaent, dialogue can be a further obstacle to community build-ing. II. An aspect of the problem which needs to be recognized is the often 827 828 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 ~restrictive or constrained, nature of community dialogue. At times it does not allow full expression of opinion on the part of all present, as when, should everyone address an issue, the frequent result is that the depth of conversation is shallow and glosses over deep feelings and heartfelt con-victions. This may result in one side gradually prevailing, in a community dif-ference of opinion. An unequal division occurs on an issue when the ma-jority silences the minority, or articulate spokespersons cause members who support an opposing opinion to withdraw in some way and possibly to absent themselves from community dialogue: If this happens, an unspoken element remains in the community, fu-eling even more the disagreement raised to prominence by the public dia-logues that have taken place. Just because ~something is unspoken does not mean that'it ce~ases to exist or exert its influence. lie " To offset this development, a full-blown community dialogue be-comes desirable, where each member has the opportunity, and actively utilizes it, of fully expressing himself or herself regarding fundamental issues of religious life, as well as seCondary but still importantelernents. '. Adults who live together for a period of time accumulate a rich de, posit of spirit and. tradition. Any community bonding that 'Occurs must respect that. richness. But where dialogue is restricted and constrained, and opinions go un, expressed, monologue prevails, not genuine dialogue. There may be an appearance of dialogue, as community members dutifully assemble ac-cording to schedule. But if they do so reluctantly and,. fearing r~ancor, sniping or misrepresentation, do not speak from their hearts on issu.es, then only a facsimile of dialogue is present, with peopl~ merely going through the motions of conversing With one another. Honest ~elf, expression is a duty and a respons.ib~ility, together with a willingness to listen to ~thers, who may voice positions in conflict with ~eeply held convictions. Th!s kind of community dia.logue is an art form riot come by easily, spontaiaeous!y or naturally. It has to be worked at with grace, balance and harmony to make the conversation helpful and productive. There is a rich mother-lode of spiritual exp.erience in religious com-munities that beg~ to be exposed, recognized and admired. It is a thing of beauty that often eludes written or spoken form. Congregational documents, such as Constitutions and Regulations, do,not always capture the "tradition" of a religious community which, Community Dialogue and Tradition / 1t29 in large part, is often inexpressible. But it does strive to see the light of day and to be ack.nowledged for what it is, a major cementing factor in a community's life and existence. .Religious life is one of faith. In our efforts to explain it in its com-munal form, we refer to other kinds of community living, especially the family. However, we know that these comparisons are only partially sat-isfactory. The physical bonding factors which account for the stability of communal units such ,as the familY explain much of the emotional and spiritual quality present there. ~ The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, however, are bonding factors of a different type, which must be described as intangibles. The ~faith quality and spirituality of religious community is intelligible only in their terms. Indeed, religious life is designed to witness to the kind of community living together based on such values. This witness is, hope-fully, given to one another, and to those who observe religious in prac-tice. The spirituality of the "apostolic community,'~' about which we hear so much today, consists of this faith witness on the part of religious bound together by such "intangible" vows accounting for their life and work together. Precisely because the "anchors" for the faith quality of religious life are intangible, it is possible they will be submerged, sliding beneath the surface and remaining invisible, unless they are consciously and delib-erately disengaged and exposed to view. Community dialogue is one way of allowing this to happen. IV. The fuller the attention and exposure that a tradition of religious life receives, the more promising the access it provides to building and unit-ing a religious community together. Tradition can be ineffable, or expressible only with difficulty for the reasons given above. If this .occurs, it is not acknowledged, responded to or accounted for, despite its important role in the community. Tradition often constitutes the very center of religious life in com~ munity. It can explain the reason behind who they are and the values they abide by. When these are not plainly evident to otliers, their lives as com-munity members can in large part go unappreciated by and even un-known to their fellow religious. Can this be community? Unwritten and unspoken tradition bonds a community together, but it needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. Practices regarding poverty, prayer, silence, fraternal relationships, and so forth, often refer to expe- Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 riences that flow deeply and silently, possibly never seeing the light of day, exc6pt symbolically and representatively. It is imperative that they emerge in community dialogue. Otherwise an explosive energy build-up results, driving co-existing lives in opposite directions, into inevitable collision. This is the hidden resistance so often experienced as divisive in community dialogue. It rep-resents the unspoken ground on which people take stands, inadequately explored and investigated with their fellow religious. Much of this tradition is rooted in religious and sacred ~aeaning, and concerns God himself. This adds a dimension of strength and power to values that weigh heavily upon a community that fails to discover them, unspoken and hidden in the depths of certain members who feel that the way they experience God in their lives is not esteemed by others. V. Tradition within the smaller confines of religious community reflects Catholic tradition within the Church at large. It is endowed with a ver-sion of catholicity in its capacity to bind together those who share it. On the other hand, a schism or division can begin among those religious who do not share a common tradition, or fail to appreciate or even perceive its presence. A religious community is like "a little church" in this re-gard. Community dialogue is at its best when it provides full scope to re-ligious experience. In this way it discloses a deposit of reasons and val-ues that give meaning to people's lives and make them real. If it suc-ceeds in this, it helps build community on a solid foundation of full, hon-est, and authentic exchange between people intent on sharing life to-gether. Conclusion Living by a largely unwritten tradition containing rich personal and communal experiences, we stand to benefit by an exposure of this "tra-dition" to others through, dialogue. Hopefully it will win their esteem too, and bind religious more ~closely together. God's Love Is Not Utilitarian William A. Barry, S.J. This is the final of Father Barry's series of four articles which began with a considera-tion of our resistances to God. He may be addressed at Saint Andrew House; 300 Newbury Street; Boston, Massachusetts 02115. A number of years ago---more than I care to remember--as a brash young scholastic I was° engaged in a spirited conversation with some other Jesu-its, priests and scholastics. We were discussing the reasons for being a Jesuit. During the discussion I found myself more and more dissatisfied with the reasons given. I had seen married and single lay men and women who were at least 9s dedicated to being,followers of Christ as any of us. My own parents were examples of rather remarkably unselfish lov-ers. I could not believe that God was more pleased with us than with them~ Nor could I accept the notion that God wanted me to be a Jesuit in order to save some part of the world. That just did not ring true to my experience and reflection. At one point I blurted out something like this: "I'm a.Jesuit because God wants me to be happy and productive. God"s love for me has led me to choose this life, just as his love for o~hers leads them to choose their way of life." I am not su.re I understood all the implications of what I said, nor was I sure that the implied theology would stand up to scru-tiny. But that outburst has stayed with me through the years, and I have pondered its meaning off and on. In the process I began to enunciate a conviction that God's love is~not utilitarian; i.e., God does not love me or anyone primarily in order to achieve some other goals. In this article I want to unpack some of the meaning of this conviction, impelled by a number of recent experiences of directing retreats and giving spiritual direction. 831 ~1~12 / Review for Religious, N~vember-December, 1987 My youthful outburst was occasioned by the realization that much of the reasoning that justified being a religious presumed that being one was a great sacrifice, indeed, even painful. So the life had to be justified or made palatable. But I did not feel that my life entailed any more sacri-fice than anyone else's. I was rather happy, all things considered, and would not have traded my life for anyone's. So I felt that the "call" to Jesuit life was God's gift to me, his way of loving me. To put the same thing in another way: I felt that God wanted me to be a Jesuit because that was the best way for me to be happy and productive. That convic-tion has not changed since. Over the years I have come to believe that all God wants of any of us is to let him love us. I hax;e also come to believe that one of the most difficult things for us to do is precisely to let God love us, to receive his love. We resist his advances, his overtures of love as though they were the plague. In three earlier articles I have tried to probe the sources of that resistance.l In this article I want to focus on what I have come to believe is God's desire in bur regard. Sebastian Moore,2 in his latest book, makes the point brilliantly: God desires us into being. Before ever we were, God desired us so much that he made us, and made us desirable and lovely. And he desires, that we find him lovely, that we love him. But that can only happen if we !et ourselves believe and experience that we are, as it were, the apple of his eye. To the extent that we believe and experience that God finds us de-sirable, to that extent will we be in love with him. People who have let God, demonstrate his love for them often affirm that it is a love without any demands, an3; strings attached. This is a diffi-cult point to grasp, so let us try to be clear. Often enough we are afraid of God's closeness because we fear the demands he will make of us. "He may askme to go to Ethiopia." As far as I can te!l, when God comes close, he does not c6rrie with a list'of demands or conditions for continuing to remain close. For example, he does not seem to say: "Yes, I love you, but I will only keep on loving you if you [fill in the blank]." Infact, he does not even seem to say: "I love you, but I will only keep on loving you if you stop this pai'ticular sin:" God seems to be just what the First Letter of John says he is, namely'love ,'and uncon-ditional love at that. All he seem~ to want is to be able to love Us, to be close and intimate with us. Does this mean that God has no standards, no values? By no means; but his Values are not perceived as demands by those who have let him come close. Rather they find themselves desirous of sharing his values, God's Love Is°Not Utilitaridn / I]~13 of being' like him--not because God'demands that they do so, butobe-causethey are happier and more alive when they live according to God's values. For example, I realize that I am happier, more alive and more purposeful when I can desire to forgive as Jesus forgives, to love as Je-sus loves. Married men and women have found themselves most fulfilled when they have:remained faithful to their marital commitments, even when the grass looked greener elsewhere. Religious have discovered that their great-est happiness lies in giving themselves wholeheartedly to the demands of their vows, even when the bloom seems off the rose, as it were. Many Christians have also discovered that they are most alive and happy when they give themselves as wholeheartedly as possible to living with and working with and for the poor. Of course, at times all these people weaken, and are helped to stay the course by some negative sanction, for example, fear of loss of face, or of sinning and disappointing God, or of hell. But at bottom the motivation for sticking to their lasts is the desire to imitate the God who has so unconditionally and faithfully loved them. In other words they want to be perfect as'their heavenly Father is perfect. Of course, they cannot .do this. Sin is an ever present reality which even the holiest of saints must contend with. However, those who have experienced God as lover do not experience him as contemptuous of their sinfulness but as compassionate and patient. In their best moments, when they are aware of God's love, they recognize that all they have to do is to ask forgiveness and healing for their lapses, and to desire to have their hearts made more like the heart of Jesus. And they can hope that continued contemplation of Jesus will transform their hearts almost by osmosis. Now, perhaps, we have come to the key that opens the last door to insight. Jesus is the perfect human being, we believe, the one who most fully realizes the potential of humanity. When all is said ~nd done, What is the central insight Jesus had? Was it not that Yahweh, the creator of the universe, the unnameable, unfathomable mystery, is "Abba," "dear Father," "dear Mother," Love itself? To the maximum extent possible for a human being Jesus knew God, and he experienced God as Love.3 Let us reflect a bit on Jesus' baptism in the Jordan. I realize that I am reading into the text, but I find it intriguing that the synoptics pic-ture God as saying that Jesus is his beloved in whom he is well pleased before Jesus has begun his public ministry. What has he done to elicit such praise? Perhaps "all" that he has done is to allow God to come ~134 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 as close as God wants to come; perhaps "all" that he has done is just to let himself be loved as much as God wants to love him. Perhaps Jesus is so dear to God just because he let God do what God has always wanted to do: reveal himself as our lover par excellence. It is also intriguing to speculate that Jesus' fundamental salvific act may have been, not dying on the cross, but rather accepting God's love as much as it is humanly possible to do. Then the following of Christ might mean not so much doing iheroic deeds, nor even wanting to love as Jesus loves, but much more fundamentally, desiring to let oneself be loved as much as Jesus was and is loved. PerhaPs the world will be saved when a critical mass is reached of people who deeply believe and expe-rience how much they are loved by God. What I have been saying may strike some readers as advocacy of a "me and God" spirituality. It is true that this can all sound very narcis-sistic. But in practice, it is the exact opposite. Those who let themselves be loved by God find in doing so that their own love and compassion for others is enormously increased. This trans-formation does not happen because God demands such love of them. In fact, these persons know that for years they tried to be loving in response to what they took to be God's demands: they made resolution after reso-lution, and failed miserably. Now without effort, almost, they find their hearts going out to others, and especially to the neediest. They are sur, prised themselves at what is happening to their hearts. The more they al-low themselves to be loved unconditionally by God, the more loving they become. And the love of these persons, like that of Jesus, is a tough love. They speak the truth, but it is a truth that is not contemptuous, nor an-grily demanding--at least while they are aware of being loved. This last aside is a necessary nod to realism. For even the holiest of saints has days he or she regrets. Moreover, as they become or are made aware that they are socio-political beings, i.e., constituted at least in,part by the social and. political institutions into which they are born or freely enter, they begin to undergo what Father Gelpi calls a socio-political,conversion, and take steps to make these institutions more just' and caring through organizing, networking, lobbying, and protesting where necessary.4 Moreover, people who let God come close realize, without self-contempt, how far they fall short, and always will fail short, of being like Jesus. They know. from experience why the saints protested so strongly their sinfulness. They feel over and over again how much God loves them and how much God desires to shower them with his love, and God's Love Is Not Utilitarian they see themselves turning their backs on him, resisting his advances, refusing his invitations to intimacy. They find themselves to be enigmas because the experience of God's closeness fulfills their deepest desires, yet they fight him off. In spite of being such sinners they know that God still loves them. Hence, they view themselves and all human beings more and more with the compassionate eyes of God. I have begun to suspect that the notion of God's love as utilitarian is a defense against God's love. IfI convince myself that God loves me for the sake of other people, then I do not have to face the enormity of being' loved for myself alone by God. Many people shelter themselves from the full implications of God's love by seeing themselves as the ob-ject of that love only as part of a group. In other words, God loves all people, and I am included under the umbrella,,as it were. Now there is a truth in this notion, but I can use it to keep God's love very impersonal and distanced. So, too, God'is kept distanced if I conceive of tiis love for me as utili-tarian. "He loves me for what I can do for the people of Ethiopia." It is a very subtle way of keeping God at a distance: he does hoi loveme so much as Ethiopia. It is also subtly Pelagian: God loves me for what I can do for him. Interestingly enough, it is also a subtle way both to puff up my ego, and also to make sure that I am never satisfied with my-self. On the one hand, I am aware of all that I am doing for Ethiopia; on the other hand, I am constantly reminded of how much more there is to be done, and may also be reminded that others have done more. One person on, a retreat, for example, felt that if God really loved her, then he would be using her in more important ways. She discovered that such reasoning was making her unhappy and keeping God at arm's length. Perhaps the burden of the argument thus far can be summed up in an experience of another retreatant. He had experienced deeply that Je-sus knew he was a sinner and would always be a sinner. Jesus commu-nicated to him in a gentle, loving way how he had betrz'yed him in the past, and that he would do it again in the future. Yet he looked at him with enormous tenderness and love. The retreatant felt that Jesus said to him: "I love no one more than I love you--but I love no one less than I love you." God does not love some people more because of what they do, or what they will do. He is just greatly pleased that anyone lets him come as close as he wants to come. If God's love is not utilitarian, does this mean that it is meaningless to ask whether God has a will for me apart from letting him love me and Review for 'Religious, November-December, 1987 loving him in re~urn? If God will continue to love me whether I become a doctor, a carpenter,.a social worker, or a Jesuit, does 'it matter at all to God which I become, as'long as I am happy? To take the question one step further: if God will continue to love me even if I~ continue to sin, does it matte~r to God whether I stop sinning or not? In other words, if we say that God is unconditional Love and that he is not utilitarian in his love, do we not eviscerate of meaning such traditional Christian and Catholic notions as the discernment of God's will, the exist~ence of hell, the call to co.nversion from sin, the person as.God's instrument and vo-cation? Perhaps John was addressing some of the ~same questions when he has Jesus say; For'God so loved the world that he gave'his only Son~ that whoever be-lieves in him should not perish but hav6 eternal life. For'God sent the Son into the world, nbt to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not b.elieve is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has ~ome into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every .one wh6 does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his' deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, thi~t it may be clearly seen that his~deeds have been wrought in God (Jn 3:16-21). A comment by Raymond Brown on this passage and others in John, may show us a path out of the, dilemma: We believe that the translation of krinein as "condemn" in these pas- .sages (also in 8:26) is clearly justified by the contrast with "save." Nev-ertheless, the statement that Jesus did not come to condemn does not ex-clude the very real judgment that Jesus provokes . The idea in John, then, seems to be that during his ministry Jesus is. no. apocalyptic judge like the one expected at the end of time; yet his presence does cause men to judge themselves.5 In other words, Jesus does not condemn, but his presence brings out what people really are like. He, the human presence of God on earth, loves people and wants their good, indeed their absolute good, which is union with God, and he continues to love even those who spurn the of-fer, They condemn themselves. Let us see where this path leads us. When we love people unselfishly (insofar as this is possible for a hu-man: being), we want their good. We want them to be as happy, fulfilled, right with God and the world as possible. We want them to fulfill all their God's Love Is Not Utilitarian / 837 potential, "to be ttie best that they can be," as the commercial for the Army dins into our memories. At our best ~ve do not demand all this as a condition for our love, but we want it because we love. If this is the case with us, we can imagine what God desires. In his ',~'Contemplation to Obtain Love,'? Ignatius of Loyola tries to help us to imagine all that God's love wants. In an almost poignant line he'says: "I will ponder with great. affection how much God our Lord has done for me, and how much he has given me of what he~ possesses, and fi-nally, how much, as far as he~ can, the same Lord desires to give.himself to me according to his divine decrees."6 God creates a world that he sees is "very good" (Gn 1:31) for his loved ones to live in. He wants them to be co-creators with him of this evolving world. The Garden of Eden image in Genesisl is awonderful symbol of wl~at.Gbd wants for those whom he lo~,es into existence. He °wants us to li~,e in harmony ~vith, and with reverence for the universe and all that is in it, because that is the way to ou~r greatest li~lppines's and fulfillment both as individuals and as brothers and sisters. Moreover, he wants to giye himself to us "as far as he can"; limita-tion comes not just. from our fin.itude, but also from our perversity. God, however, will not compel us to accept what is for. our good. Does GOd puni.sh us for our perversity? It is an age-old tradition that ascribes natural disasters to God's wrath. The Old Testa.ment is~ replete with such ascription~s, beginning with Genesis 2. In the New Testament Jesus is asked: "Rabbi, ,whq,sinned, this,man or his parents,~ that he was born blind~?" He a.nswers: "It was not that this man sinned, or his par-ents, but that the works of God might be made,manifest in him" (Jn 9:2- 3). To say the least, this answer is enigmatic, but it does belie the as-cription of disasters to God's wrath ~at sin, On the hypothesis that God is Love I want to say that we punish our-selves by turning away from God's love. God remains steadfast in his love. But hatred, suspicion, prejudice, fear--these and other emotions-- are the product of our sins and the sins of our forebears. And they are not emotions that are for our peace. In other wor.ds, God made us broth-ers and sisters and desired us to live in harmony and mutual love, but we human beings have brought on ourselves the disharmony and distrust that now threaten the world as we know it. And if anyone does remain willfully and perVersely turned away from God's love and the love of neighbor to the end, then he or she chooses eternal unhappiness. But ~God's love does not change into 'something else. Review for Religious, November-De~cember, 1987 But what abgut the man born blind? What about the child with Down's syndrome? What about natural disasters such as the eruption of the volcano in Colombia which destroyed.~a town and took 20,000 lives in one day? We want to know why such things happen. It lies close to hand to ascribe such events either to the punishment of God, or fate, or to the stupidity of the victims. Social psychologists speak of the ."just world hypothesis" in .describing such attitudes. According to this view, everybody believes the world is a place where people generally get what they deserve and deserve wffat they get. To believe that our own good deeds and hard work may come to naught and, indeed, that we can encounter a calamity for totally fortuitous rea-sons, is simply too threatening to most of us. And yet we see people whose lives have been shattered and who seem like us in every way. Are these paraplegics, blind people, sufferers from cancer really innocent vic- .tims, and are we, therefore, candidates for s~ffering the S~me fate? The just world hypoth.esis posits that in these circum~stances we are likely to reject that possibility as intolerable and to conclude that those stricken individuals ~re really wicked, or at least foolish, and deserve their fate.7 Some of these calamities may be caused by human sinfulness or stu-pidity at some time in history. In the United states and in Latin America people still experience the effects of the evil of slavery and of greedy colo-nization. Other calamities may just be random events in a finite world; e.g., some Of the effects of genetic disorders. Others may be caused by someone else's perversity, but the victim is seemingly picked out at ran-dom: for ~xample, the drunken driver plows into John Jones' car, hav-ing just barely missed ten others, and out of the blffe John is dead~ and his daughter is maimed ~for life, through no fault of theirs. The "just world hypothesis" reminds us of the friends of Job or the disciples who asked Jesus about the sin that caused the man to be born blind. It will not work in the case of innocent victims of either random events, the pre-sent sins of others, or the effects of historic evils. How do we square the unconditional love of God with such calami-ties? In experience, people who engage God directly in a relationship, and who look at the world realistically, have the "just world hypothe-sis" pulled out from under them. They see that Jesus, the sinless, be-loved Son, died horribly, and that no bolts of lightning took vengeance on his killers or saved him. As they develop their relationship with God, they may find themselves raging at him for.the seemingly needless suf-fering they ,undergo or see others experience. Somehow or other they dis-cover a God who is beyond what we conceive as justice, a God they can God's Love Is Not Utilitarian hope in and live for, No more than the author of the book of Job can they explain it; but for sure it i~ not the answer proposed by the "just world hypothesis." People who have de'0eloped such a relationship with God experience the deep m~ystery of creation and co-creation. God loves into existence not only the stars that so bedazzle us in the night sky but also the vol-cano~ that erupts suddenly and engulfs a whole city killing 20,000 peo-ple, 'and he loves those people into existence. God not only loves into existence Jesus and Mary, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, and the lovely people who have lok, ed us in our lives, but also Herod and Hero-dias, Genghis Khan, Lucrezia Borgia, Hitler and the torturers of politi-cal prisoners:of our day. People who meet this God at a deep level sense a bottomless ~compassion and pain at the heart of the world, yet a vibrant hope for life. They become more compassionate--and passionate-~ them-selves. Perhaps they can understand that it was not bravado that kept the martyrs joyful in their s.ufferings and dying. Perhaps, too, they can un-de¢ stand how the poorest of the poor still are capable of tremendous acts of generosity toward their fellow sufferers, just as they can understand the great cruelty o.f which the poor are also capable. Thus far we have threaded our path oiat of the seeming dilemma of the coexistence of God's unconditional love and-punishment for sin and hell. We have also seen a way'of explaining the call to conversion from sin. God wants the best for us and that best includes our turning away from sin and toward living a life that is consonant with a relationship of mutual love with the Lord. Sin does not produce happiness or harmony or peace of mind. Nor does it create harmonious relationsh~p.s between people, or political and social and religious institutions that work toward such harmonious and just relationships. So God's love for us desires that we be converted on all the levels postulated by Gelpi, the affective, the intellectual, the moral and the socio-political.8 Note, however, that God does not make such'integral conversion a condition for continuing to love us. He desires it b~ecause it is for our good; bu~ he does not demand it as the price of his love. Now let us mo4e on to the issue of the discernment of God's will, especially as this regards the question of a vocation to a way of life. Traditionally Catholics have believed that God has a plan for each per-son. He 'calls some to the religious or priestly life and others to the mar- ,ried state. It is true that the term "vocation" was most often restricted to the religious or priestly life. "He-hasa vocation" was shorthand in Catholic circles for saying that an individual felt called to religious or Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 priestly life. But a. more careful use oftanguage:also,saw married life as a calling. A further problem, of course~ is that this language left in limbo those who remain single (and not religious or priests) either vol-untarily or involuntarily. At,any rate, does God call people to a particu-lar way of life? And if. so, how is this calling consonant with the non-utilitarian nature of his love? ~ 0 Again we return to the idea that the lover wants the good of the be-loved. I will use the case of Ignatius of.Loyola to illustrate a way of under-standing God's call in terms of his~love, without~making that love. utilitar-ian. 9 ~ Inigo (his original name) was a hell-raising, ambitious, vain, coura-geous man, a'.man who dreamed of doing great exploits. At Pamplona, according to his own account, he was the rallying point, in resisting the French attackers. When he. was severely wounded in the leg, the defend-ers immediately surrendered. God seems to have used this crooked line to write straight. During his 10ng convalescence Inigo continued his dreaming. He dreamt of doing great knightly deeds to win fame and honor and the favor of a great lady. These daydreams.would absorb him for up to four hours'at a time. The only books at hand for him were a life of Christ and a book of the lives of the saints. When he read these, he began to dream of doing what Dominic and Francis did, and again he would become absorbed for hours. Notice that in both cases ~his ar-dor, ambition, bravery, and even vanity were operative. Finally, after some time of alternating daydreams, he began to notice a difference. When he was thinking about the things of the world, he'took much de-light in them, but afterwards, when he was tired and put theha aside, he found that he was dry and discontented. But when he thought of going to Jerusalem, barefoot and eating nothing but herbs and undergoing all the other rigors that he saw the saints had endured, not only was he con-soled when he had these thoughts, but even after putting them aside, he remained content and happy. He did not wonder, however, at th~s; nor ~:. did he stop to ponder the difference until one time his eyes were opened a little, and he began to marvel at the difference and to reflect upon it, ~ realizing from experience that some "thoughts left him sad and others happy)~0 ~' This was the beginning of Ignatius' own discovery of the discernment of spirits, a discernment that eventually led him to found the Society of Jesus, with enormous consequences for the Church and the world--and for not a few individuals who in almost four hundred and fifty years have joined this Society. God's Love Is Not Utilitarian How are we to understand this story of a vocation? I would maintain that ~God's 10ve for Inigo involved his desire that Inigo use his great ener-gies, his ardor, his ambition in ways that would make. him most happy, most fulfilled, and most useful to others. I believe that it mattered a great deal to God how Inigo used his talents, for Inigo's sake first of all, but also"for the sake.of others .whom God loved. However, God would not have loved Inigo any the less if he had missed the opportunity for dis-cernment, and had ~ontinued on his course toward "worldly" achieve-ment. But he might have been greatly saddened that Inigo did not choose what was for his greater happiness and peace. Later in life Inigo himself might have felt the sadness as he pondered how his life had gone since his recuperation. Only God could so love us that he would allow us the freedom to turn away from receiving all that he wants .to give us, and still keep loving us unconditionally, even when we so chopse. ., It seems to me that a consi.stent cleaving to the central insight of the New Testament, that God is "Abba," does not force .us to give up any truths of.faith and has several distinct advantages. The preceding pages have shown some ways of understanding traditional truths that hold in the forefront that" God is unconditional love, a love that is not utilitar-ian. Su(h an understanding demonstrates an intrinsic connection between the love of God and the search for his frill. Because God loves me, he wants the best for me. Because and insofar as I love God, I want the best for him, which is that he may give.himself to me as much as he can. The way of life God wants for me is the best way for me to receive his love and to be a co-creator with him. Hence, in my better moments, I try to the best of my ability to discern wfiere his love leads me. I do not try to find his will for fear that he will punish me, but rather for fear that I will miss the way that would allow him to give me more of him-self. I also try to find his will because I.know that his love desires more good for all those whom I will touch in my life. Perhaps we can understand in a slightly new way an axiom attributed to Ignatius (and often put inversely). Loosely translated the saying goes: "Pray as if everything depended on you; work as if everything depended on God." 1 ~ It is very important for me to pray in order to know how and where God wants to love me, how he wants to gift me. It is important not only for me, but also because of others. The more I let God give him-self to me as far as he can, the more "sacrat~entally" present he is to others with whom I interact. And once I have discerned God's way, I can work without ambivalence and self.concern, trusting that God will accomplish whatever else he intends. Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 One final question occurs. Suppose that Inigo's eyes had not opened up during his convalescence, and that he had gone on to worldly exploits. Would he have been given another chance? That is, of course, an unan-swerable question. But God would surely continue to love him and, we presume, continually offer him a call to a radical conversion of heart. ~If, later in life, he were to have his eyes opened, he'might have to come to terms with those earlier missed opportunities. Repentance would be in.~order, but a wallowing in his "spilt milk" would not be an appropri-ate response to the God of love. Conversion'means to accept my past pre-cisely as my past, i.e., both mine and past, and to surrender in freedom to the new and mysterious future offered by God's love now. But an historic moment surely would have been lost if Ignatius had gone an alternate route instead of the one he did take. There are conse-quences to our choices. Hence, it is incumbent on all of us who minister to help people who stand, or soon will stand, before serious life choices to become discerning Christians. Historic consequences may be at stake. -And now a final word. For the past year and a half I have been com-ing at the same issue from different angles. At first I was intrigued by a strange resistance to God's initiative, a resistance that clearly was a run-ning from a positive experience of God'~ presence. My curiosity pro-duced the three articles for this review mentioned earlier. Then a few experi,ences with direcfees prompted this article. I want to end where I began, with the first article. We need to be mind-ful that there is a force within us ~hat does hate the light, that seems to want to thwart all God's loving desire to give us of himself. We need to be on the alert to discern the presence of that force, but also to rely on thos~ various sayings that have given people hope through the ages, sayings like: "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God" (Mk 10:27) or "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made per.fect in weakness" (2 Co 12:9). NOTES 1 William A. Barry, "Resistance to Union: A Virulent Strain," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 44 (1985), pp. 592-596; "The Desire to 'Love as Jesus Loved' and its Vicissitudes," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 44 (1985), pp. 747-753; "Surrender: The Key to Wholeness," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 46 (1987), pp. 49-53. 2 Sebastian Moore, Let This Mind Be in You (Minneapolis: Seabury, 1985). 3 After I had finished this article I came upon Francis Baur's Life in Abundance: A Contemporary Spirituality (New York/Ramsey: Paulist, 1983) who uses process the-ology to develop a spirituality based on the definition of God as love. While some- God's Love Is Not Utilitarian what hortatory and at times polemical, the book can serve as a theological underpinning for the more experience-based assertions of this article. 4 Donald L. Gelpi, "The Converting Jesuit," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, XVII, no. 1 (Jan. 1986). 5 Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John: I-XII. The Anchor Bible, vol. 29. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966), p. 345. 6 The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. trans. Louis Puhl. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951), no. 234, p. 102. 7 Edward E. Jones, Amerigo Farina, Albert H. Hastorf, Hazel Markus, Dale T. Miller, and Robert A. Scott, Social Stigma: The Psychology of Marked Relatiohships (New York: Freeman, 1984), pp. 59-60. 8 Gelpi, op. cit. 9 What follows is based on The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola, trans. Joseph F. O'Callaghan. ed. John C. Olin (New York: Harper & Row, 1974). 10 lbid, p. 24. ~ The Latin version can be found in "Selectae S. Patris Nostri Ignatii Sententiae," no, II, in Thesaurus Spiritualis Societatis Jesu (Roma: Typis Polygiottis Vaticanis, 1948), p. 480. Gaston Fessard, in a long appendix to volume I of his La dialectique des Exercices Spirituels de saint Ignace de Loyola (Paris: Aubier, 1966), traces the historical background of the saying. He demonstrates that although not from Igna-tius' hand the saying does express the dialectic of his spirituality. Vocation She said she wished to be a shrub And sit in silence, lost, obscure In some dim woods where no one ever comes and she could muse and watch the quiet winds go by. But He who long ago observed a brambled bush Looked at her once among the ferns. He looked but once; the winds became a storm And now she burns, she. bu.rns! Ruth de Menezes 2819 D Arizona Avenue Santa Monica, CA 90404 Novitiate: Captivity or Liberty? Mariette Martineau Mariette Martineau, a novice with the Sisters of Mission Service, had recently com-pleted sixteen months of formation at St. Albert, Alberta, when she wrote these re-flections which she hopes will benefit others in novitiate life. She may be reached at Box 2861; Merritt, British Columbia; VOK 2BO, Canada. ~l~hat are the realities of being a novice in a religious community in the Church today? Since the exodus following Vatican II, communities have been growing smaller and older. Novitiates have been created and re-created to meet the ever changing formation needs of both the commu-nity and the candidates. How often have novices of today heard this com-ment from one of the older members of their community, "How for-tunate you are to have such a novitiate, full of prayer and study! In our days . " Come and journey with me as ! reflect on my novitiate experience. I am on the last Stretch of that journey ~as I am presently completing a six-month apostolic experience before returning to Edmonton in June for immediate preparation for vows scheduled to be, celebrated in August. I have often asked myself, particularly in the early months, "Is this no-vitiate experience one of captivity or liberty?" When I first arrived at the novitiate I experienced what I like to call the "honeymoon" phase. Life was fairly flexible as time was granted to unpack, to explore the h6use a6d neighborhood, and most importantly to meet the new commuriity and ito become comfortable with the direc-tor. The excitement of not knowing exactly what to expect and of enter-ing into the newness of activities energized me and I felt that I had made a good decision. Reality soon set in, and the struggling began. Before I entered, I prom-ised myself that I would give me, the community, and God a year to dis- 844 Novitiate: Captivity or Liberty cover if this was truly the way of life for Mariette to grow fully alive. I am thankful for that commitment for there ~vere many times during th'ose first few.months that I was ready to pack my ba~s and leave~. My director was also aware of that commitment and when times were rough she gently reminded me of it. The challenge to let go of one's independ-ence- socially, financially, emotionally, and so forth---can be a painful one. If I had chosen to leave at this stage in the novitiate procesS, I would have been leaving not because I had chosen the wrong way of life but because I was unable to release certain things in my life and give all to God. The second phase or reality of novitiate after the honeymoon phase is this ti~e of purification, of letting go. Tears can be an enriching and cleansing experience! One's schedule soon seems to become another's schedule as 'the director sets her expectations before you and challenges you to integrate and balhnce your time between formal classes, prayer, spiritual reading, community, household chores, writing papers, and per-haps weekly apostolic experiences andthe ~ccasional weekend work~ shop. Your life no longer seems to 15e yoOr own; anger and depression sometimes become an everyday experience as you strive to fully enter into the year. One has usually left a job behind and now feels like a "non-producer," dependent on the community for food, shelter, recreation. Suddenly you have to keep an account of the money you spend and have to ask someone for that money. You now have to ask permission before disappearing in the community car or going out with a friend. In some ways you feel that your personal autonomy is being threatened and you no longer have control over your life. You do not understand all the things that are being 'asked of you. In fact, some of the requests make no sense at all, This calls for trust--in tile community and in the forma-tion personnel. Trust that they do know what they are doing and have your growth as their priority, while attempting to see if you do indeed have the charism of this community. The Yes I said when I ei~tered soon grew into a series of "yeses" that were not always easy to say. I must point out that it was not a "yes" to°having things done to me but a yes that said, "I will enter into the process that you have set before me." During this phase the novices may find themselves projecting a lot of anger at their director. It is they who are setting down the guidelines, they who are enforcing them. The director is the one called to tell the novice, "This year is a time to place some relationships on the back burner, a time to get in touch with who you are, your relationship with God and the community in which you have chOsen to live out that rela- Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 tionship." The director is the one who has been given the sometimes pain-ful responsibility of making the novices aware of areas in their lives that need growth. "I do not feel that you are using your time properly--Do you realize that you snapped ~at Suzanne during supper last night?--You are too,much of a perfectionist." A novice, like anyone; finds it painful to look at her brokenness. I sometimes found myself saying in response, "What about Sister Perpetua? I look great beside her and she has been in the community for twenty years." It is much easier to focus on some-one else's areas of growth rather than your own. In the midst of all of this is the fear of reje6tion: One can begin to foc~s entirely on the nega-tive while neglecting to hear the affirmation that is also present. During the novitiate phase one journeys closely with the director. The goal is to have someone to process the year with you, to guide you, to challenge you,. to affirm you, to see if you do have a vocation to religious life. I found this aspect of my journey difficult. As. much as I wanted to dis-cover if I was in the right place, I feared rejection and wanted to appear as someone who had it all "together," I wanted to be an instant relig-ious, comfortable with poverty, celibacy, community, and obedience. Simply put, I wanted to be perfect and got angry with myself and: others when I was not. Directors often tell their novices to be prepared for a time of regres-sion following their initial entry into novitiate. One can hear this with the mind but the heart sometimes gets in the way. One cannot understand why she feels depressed, angry, without energy, and without the finesse she had when she entered. Insecurity may be another reality, but doubt is always good because it challenges one to dig deeper. The gift during this time of grieving and regression is the realization that, "Hey, I am not going crazy! I am just striving to say good-bye to some excess bag-gage. I am feeling the loss of many things and many people. I am spend- .ing so much energy on being angry, I need some way to deal with the anger in a more creative way. I want to grow and become me fully alive, but that hurts and I just cannot seem to grow fast enough." A novice was asked one time, "When did your novitiate start?" She replied: "Nine months into it!" Another reality of novitiate life is the focus on community. One no longer, has the freedom to skip supper when she feels like it and go shop-ping instead. Recreation often takes place in the community context, and outside contacts can be limited and are often with other religious. One may get the sense of dead air--I need to.see other people! The challenge is to enter into the times of community and group activity while remem, Novitiate: Captivity or Liberty / 1~47 bering to also enter into moments of aloneness. We all need some de-gree of personal space. In relation to community, the novice who enters and places before herself the goal of reforming the community will find herself in conflict and perhaps will receive an invitation to leave. It is similar to marrying someone with the intent of changing that person into the person ~hat you think he or she should be. Those of us novices who are still young when we enter often bring with us our youthful idealism. This idealism is not wrong, and may indeed carry with it challen.ges to the community. But we must remember that novitiate is a dialectical proc-ess; both the community and the individual have so.mething to leai'n from each ot~her. Neither is perfect and neither should be expected to be per-fect. A line from a friend says, "I love you as you are in the middle of where you are." How does one know when to leave? After haying earlier stated that I had committed myself (t° myself) for a year, what would have caused ~e to leave? If at any point in that year the person of Mariette completely disappeared, I think it would have been time to pull out. If I had to die to all that I was, I think I would have been in the wrong place, perhaps simply at the.wrong time, or forever. Dialogue with the director is ex-tremely important during this discernment.' She is an objective observer, trained to help one make such decisions. Naturally the decision is always our own, and one always has to keep before herself the freedom to stay or to leave. Again I would say, trust the formation personnel, as it is easy to get entangled in one's emotions and make a decision to leave for the wrong reasons. I would not encourage anyone to leave while in the mid-dle of the grieving process. One can expect to say some good-byes to journey companions dur-ing novitiate. Some people will be with us until the end of the journey, others are called to different places before then. Good-byes can be pain-ful, especially if you have shared a deep relationship with the person leav-ing or if you have difficulty accepting the reasons for leaving. Each time someone left, it was an opportunity for me to reexamine my own rea-sons for staying or to find some good reasons to leave. Usually new life followed these reflections especially if I had been given the opportunity to sa~, good-bye to the person leaving and/or to ritualize her departure with the community--whether it be my own or the intercommunity no-vitiate of which I was a member as I was the only novice in my own com-munity. I strongly encourage and invite novices who have decided to con-tinue their journey in a different direction to realize the importance of saying good-bye to their directors and their communities. "848 / Review for Religious, November-December, 1987 The happie,st phase of the novitiate seems to come too late. You feel ready to enter into the process, you have develop.ed new relationships, ygur, anger and depression no longer seem to have control over you, the journey inward has become a challenge that energizes you. And guess what? It is time to move on, perhaps to an apostolic experience or fur-ther studies or even vows. It is gratifying at this time to look at how one was at the beginning and how one appears to be now. Signs of growth are evident and as you reflect back you. feel yourself wondering,. "Was I, really like that? Did I make life that miserable for others in the house, especiall3~ my director? . . ." Now may also be a time of increased heal-ing, reaching out in love and forgiven, ess in a deep and meaningful way to those wh6 have journeyed so f,,aithfully with 'you. One still does not haveit ~11 "together" bu~'acknowledges the joys and pains of being a pilgrim. Is novitiate a time of captivity or liberty? It can be a time of captiv-ity, ofimprisoning one's self in anger, loneliness, schedules, pride, in-security, or one's past, But it is designed to be a time of liberty. A time to spend kvitli,y.ourself and God, journeying towards wholeness by being -given the gift to leave behind many of the earthly cares that can take over our existence. It is a time to begin to d~velop the"skillS and behavior pat5 terns that a religious needs to integrate her life choice of prophet into the world" and the Church today. Community in Religious Life and the - Church: Some Reflections Angelo M. Caligiuri Monsignor Caligiuri is Episcopal Vicar for Religious in his diocese. His reflections here represent his part in dialogues between bishops and religious in several areas of the country and discussion with various religious superiors and other vicars. He may be reached at the Office of the Vicar for Religious; Diocese of Buffalo; 100 South Elmwood Avenue; Buffalo, New York 14202. During the final months of 1985 and the first months of 1986, through-out the dioceses of the United Sti~tes, diocesan bishops met with their re-ligious to dialogue about six areas of mutual concern. These areas of in-terest and concern surfaced from the series of listenin~ sessions held the previous year under the leadership ~nd guidance of the special Pontifical Commission established by our Holy Father, under the chairmanship of Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco. As a result of these listening sessions, .each diocese prepared a writ-ten report on what was heard and these reports were sent to Archbishop Qtiinn and his committee. From a reading and evaluation of the many reports, the committee saw the following subject areas surfacing as mer-i

Issue 45.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1986. ; Vocation Ministry A Sociological View of Commitment Religious and Secular Institutes Imagination Within the Act of Faith Volume 46 Number 2 March/April, 1986 REvIEw FOR REI,IGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at'Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REVIEW EOt~ REI.IGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, M O © 1986 by REVIEW FOR RELtGIOOS. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $ I 1.00 a year; $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (postage). Airmail (Book Rate) $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor March/April, 1986 Volume 46 Number 2 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of p~int~ issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major po~on 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 I0010. The Vowed Life in a Secularized World Desmond O'Donnell, O M.I. Father O'Donnell's earlier "Focused Freedom: To Someone in Formation"appeared in the issue of January/February, 1985. He is a General Councillor for his community and, though often on the road, may be addressed at its Generalate: Oblati di Maria; C.P. 9061; 00100 Roma Aurelia, Italy. ouring out a plethora of easy answers to complex questions does not bring us any closer to permanent solutions. Neither is it helpful to offer a new one-word solution for everything taking place in the Church at this time. And yet secularization might be a useful umbrella-word ~,to explain much, of what is taking place both, to the Church and to the vowed life today. If it is in fact found to be a satisfactory seminal term, it will also help us to focus rather than to diffuse our response. It can aid the process of discernment. Situating the Question The good news about our way of life is that a deep spiritual renewal is being experienced by many and that the importance of prayer is being rediscovered. There has been a notable updating in theology and real--if not always successful--attempts to build authentic faith-communities. There also is a growing freedom and practice of discernment about our apostolates and about our private lives as well. There is other news which does not' seem so obviously good, such as the large numbers who left us, the small numbers joining and the increasing median age. In some places, community life is moving towards becoming politely-shared space, enclosing many unspoken polarizations about deep realities among us. Authority has tended to go from heavy-handedness to 161 "i69/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 ¯ laissez-faire and so consensus about anything of serious communal signifi-cance is often hard to come by. Governments gradually move in to take over our institutions, either because we have chosen to let them or because they have helped themselves. The degree to which all this is related to secularization is disputable, but related it is, and I will try to show why this is so. Before we go into this, may I look at some more personal experiences of vowed people in most countries today--experiences which I think are related to secularization even more deeply than those mentioned above. Many of us have been through more or less severe vocational question-ing of some kind in recent years, because the rationale of our way Of life did not seem capable of answering the questions popping up all around us. Maybe it was triggered off by simply seeing one of our now-married novitiate companions do equally good apostolic work and do it well. It may also have been that we grew tired of mobility, or just vaguely short of motivation for the continual questioning of our chosen lifestyle. Many of us have found some new difficulties in prayer, as God seemed to withdraw and leaqe the world to evil pebple. Or maybe the emergence of so many small friendship-groups has left us out in the cold called "com-munity life." The variety of new prayer-forms and so many seminars, have a way of increasing our desire for some stability and wondering if it might not be found elsewhere, In response to'all of this, many felt the growing ambiguities and endless updating led them to personal selectivity in belief and practice. Others moved to the edge~of the storm by choosing some form of fundamentalism or an atheism' which expressed itself in mere social horizontalism while still remaining in the ~3ongregation. Some of us chose to becom~ left-wing unloving critics of the present and others moved to become right-wing uncritical lovers of the past, as the middle ground grew unpopular and became such a solitary exprience. These deeper and more personal phenomena~ are related to modernization and secularization too, as I will try to demonstrate. And so the response to these experiences, might first be to understand the meaning of modernization and the resultihg secularization-experience. Modernization The amount of knowledge in the world continues to increase because of constant research and it is rapidly diffused through very efficient communicatioh systems. Modernization is what happens when the knowledge is~ transferred into technology, which then has ~increasing and unforeseeable effects on economic growth, on social systems and on political decisidns. Inevitably the individual too is affected in his or her The Vowed Life in a Secularized World / 165 values, attitudes, beliefs and behavior. Most of us remember the discovery of plastic 'in the 40s, of the transistor in the 50s, of computers in the 60s, of microcomputers in .the 70s and now we observe technology move forward into genetic engineering in the 80s. All of these have affected people and systems in serious and often irreversibl~e ways. This march of modernization shows no signs of slowing down and often appears to have its own~self-propelled, autonomous momentum. It took one hundred twelve years for photography to go from discovery to commercial product, fifty-six for the telephone, thirty-five for the radio, fifteen for radar, twelve for television and only five for transistors to find their way from the laboratory into the market. Again, as each of these products comes on the market, it touches--and in the case of genetic engineering, tampers with human nature and human systems in often lastingly significant ways, It is with the human effects of modernity that we are concerned and these are sometime.s good, sometimes evil, and often ambiguous. Moder-nity can lead to human community and comfort,-.or to pollution and poverty for millions; it can facilitate or disrupt human values; it can enrich °a poor country or steal its unrenewable sources of energy; it can help in the diffusion of truth or of lies through the media and it can pass on productive information or child,pornography. In each of our .lives it can .make the superfluous become the convenient, ~the convenient become the necessary and the necessary become the indispensable, thus changing human nature itself. ~ Peter Berger's definition summarizes, all this: "Modernization is the transformation of the world, brought about by the technological innova-tions of the last few centuries having economic, social and political dimen-sions all immense in scope." With many otherwriters he goes on to outline the many very,personal effects resulting from the economic, social, political ones in his definition, Secularization is a very significant one of these. Secularization It is important to stress that we are not talking here about secularism which is a theory, an ideology denying the existence of God or at least his action and relevance in the world. Nor is secularization .to be equated with atheism when in fact it might be the very opposite experience for many who are desperately trying to hold on toGod who seems to be withdrawing from them. And certainly it would be simplistic to think that secularization is the same as materialism, Secularization is claimed to.be more a fact than a theory, a reality more than an ideology, a process taking place more than.a point of view. While it "i64/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 can lead to secularism, materialism, or atheism, it is in fact none of these. Some religious people find words like secularism, materialism and atheism convenient labels for what is happening in the Church or in_the vowed life today and it may be a description in some cases, but it is not addressing the deeper and more pervasive reality we call secularization. Secularization manifests itself when explanations of reality previously attributed to mythical or religious sources, are shown to have .rational ones, as when the~scientist takes over from the witch doctor, the. psychologist assumes some previously priestly functions or when a technological discovo ery,disintegrates a theological theory. A group of Animists in Java lost their gods a few years ago when a new seismographic station began to foretell and explain volcanic eruptions more accurately than the local holy man, The Diak people of Borneo lost their fear of and their belief in their forest gods when bulldozers razed the jungle. For some people, the study of a good theology of providence could have a similar effect. These people are experiencing secularization. In a similar way, many modern Christians first felt uncomfortable and then felt their faith questioned by a good church-history book, an accurate TV documentary, a skilled psychiatrist, two men on the moon, an old law proven pointless, a church authority found unworthy, a symbol disappear-ing or a culture collapsing~-all more or less the result of modernization. The resulting discomfort and questioning within the individual person, is close to the secularization-experience. It is an experience of no longer having one overall reference-point--a feeling of increasing disintegration. If you are experiencing that somehow God is withdrawing because religious explanations are increasingly less necessary, that the quantum of the secular is increasing at the expense of the sacred, that maybe~ God is now less necessary as a postulate for human living or that because of modern evidence your longheld experience of God is no longer a comfort-able one, you are probably undergoing the pressure of the secularization-experience. This is not a decisionnor even a desire to become an atheist; even if it could lead to it. Nor is it necessarily the result of "giving in" to materialism or to less-than-moral behavior, admitting, of course, that both of these can easily increase its momentum. If you are not undergoing the experience of secularization, then it is still important to uiaderstand it, because most of the peopl~ you are trying to evangelize, especially in the developed world, are probably experiencing it. It is from this fact that the present great missiological question arises--how announce the Good News of Jesus Christ to a secularized world? Moderni-zation and its result in secularization are now recognized as cultures, new cultures, ever-changing cultures and it is at this point that we recognize the The Vowed l_Jfe in a Secularized World / 165 break between faith and culture today. Thus for the modern person, secularization is a feelin~ of dissonance in .trying to hold together what is happening in the world and what the Bible seems to say about God's providence or what is often said in churches and what is taking place in real life around us. It results in discomfort with one's present experience of God. Any naive belief in the immediacy of God will be challenged .by secularization and modernity. Old fashioned god-words and some ecclesiastical jargon will appear increasingly irrelevant to sincere secularized persons everywhere. Secularization can be defined as the grad-ual disappearance of mythical and religious legitimations or explanations of society. Living with the ambiguities of the secularization-experience leads to a temptation to take refuge in fundamentalism which can be described as believing more and more in less and less in order to feel secure, or in agnosticism which is a lazy neither-nor ~land excusing one from the strug-gles, doubts and decisions which are part of any faith. Let us now try to analyze the challenge and opportunity which secularization offers the vowed life. The Vowed Life For the vowed life, secularization can be a deep call and a deep grace. Lumen Gentium calls us to enrich, challenge, encourage and stimulate the Church by our lives and our action (Par. 44). This is all the more reason why we must study, understand and give a gospel response to seculariza-tion, to a secularized world. Because secularization implies change at so many levels of human existence, we should recall that sociologists stress the vital importance of internal consistency for all groups in time of change. This internal consis-tency- our basic authenticity measured against what we claim to be--is now a matter of survival. Institutions which lack internal consistency are likdy to disappear in tim~s of rapid change, especially if their external image is also unclear. For these reasons, we who profess the vowed life must address the phenomenon and the grace of secularization. May I suggest that there are five areas where God might well be speaking to us in all this? ~ansmitting a New Integrating Presence of God Secularization, as we saw, forces us to find a new presence of God, a presence which permeates, integrates, energizes for action and which brings human and divine values into secular realities. Karl Rahner spoke of the vowed woman as having a profession which has no justification from the "166 / Review for :Religious, March-April, 1986 secular point of view even if she performs many useful secular tasks. What then might her iprofession and that of vowed men be? It is surely--as it always was--to give or rather to share with people their own experience of God. This is a demanding task; it demands that we each have such an experience first of all. We will have to pass on "so.mething which we have seen with our own eyes, that we have watched and touched with our own .hands" (1 Jn l:l'b) and it will be vital that "in Christ we speak as men of sincerity, as envoys of God and in God's presence" (2 Co 2:17), It seems to be a call to discover and lead in a new integrating mysticism as this quote from John Macquarie expresses: ¯ It is interesting to note that Bonhoeffer, though he advocated a 'worldly' Christia°nity, made it 'perfectly explicit that the kind of w0rldline~ss that he had in mind has nothing to do with the immersion in"material pursuits and enjoyments that we commonly associate with the "worldly' man. Bon-hoeffer makes a :statement that ought to be'pondered by those who invoke his support for a thoroughly secularized Christianity. He says: 'In Christ we are offered the possibility of partaking in the reality'of God and in the reality of the world, but not in the one without the other The reality of God discloses itself only by setting me entirely in the reality of the world, and when I encounter the reality of the world, it is always already sus-tained: accepted and reconciled in the reality of God.' There is a dialectic here that takes us beyond any naive world affirmation, just as it rules out any false religiosity. God,is met in the world, but the world is known in its reality only as Grd's world? Back in 1970, Karl Rahner wrote: Maybe we [he was addressing his own Society] ourselves have been super-f! cialized by the consumer society. Maybe we ourselves have not come to any original experience of God. Maybe we have not taken .the .trouble to let others participate in the mystical technique leading.to such an expe-rience. If all that is the case, we have of course, no alternative but to take refuge in a secular horizontalism which tries to interpret and live our own lives on the same level . The coming thing is the spiritual dimension, the experience of God, the taste of eternity no matte~ how valid our social involvement (with ~regard to which we have a terrible'lot to make up). The coming thing is sober peace, in face of all the absurdity of existence, the absurdity which no social involvement will spirit away. That rather bour-geois- chequered spirituality which was found--to outward appearances at least--in the orders before the first world war and which influenced reli-gious life too much~ may belong to the past and the young may say rightly that it is useless.from the start. But a new spirituality in religious life and in the Church will be assured of a real future. Whatever form this new spirituality will have, it must surely~be a very 7he Vowed life in a Secularized Worm personal "faith in the Son of God who loved me and who sacrificed himself for my sake" (Ga 2:20) and a very integrating one, enabling us to "bring everything together~ under Christ" (Ep 1:10). This--it seemsto me--is the most serious challenge which secularization puts to vowed communities today. Integration Through Reflection As we saw, one of the deepest effects of secularization is disintegration. There is no longer any one overarching human legitimation for the think-ing person today. We, even as vowed people, stand and struggle side by side with the modem person in loneliness, doubts, fears' and feelings of disinte-gration. We too are among the "new poor." The third world is closer to us than we think; it is inside our shirts especially if we have already chosen the still greater poverty of fundamentalism with iis moral, dogmatic and spirit-ual naivet6 and ~elitism. We are, however, expected to .stand with our fellow Christians in seren-ity and in a "peace which the world cannot give" (Jfi 14:27). We stand with them in a spirit of confidence too, as Jesus did with his disciples, when for him and for them everything seemed lost; "I have told you all this so that you may find peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but be brave; I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:23). Only a life of prayer can discover and sustain this peace, this joy in the midst of a secularizing experience. Jesus led a busy life and had constant calls on his service, but we find the source of his power in the actual physical withdrawal, to be with God: "His reputation continued to grow and large crowds would gather to hear him and to have their sickness cured but ~he would always go away to some place to be alone and pray" (Lk 15:16). The form of prayer for today would seem to be what Macquarie calls "prayer as thinking";5 it is a prayer.which reflects on what God is doing in the world more than on what he,has done in scriptural times, without of course neglecting this latter. It is a praye~: which keeps our spiritual faculties alive. All reality, especially fast-changing or disintegrated reality~ is opaque and this is especially true in the m6dern world when ambiguity is part of life everywhere. We need to sharpen our spiritual eyesight to see what Bonhoffer described as the "holy depths" of.things and events. It is not so much a prayer "giving us time to refuel, but a prayer'which gives us increased awareness for better and deeper involvement and which motivates us for the human task of offering the world salvation from '~'everything that oppresses the.human person especially sin and the .evil one" (EN n. 9). Lest we ourselves succumb to the burnout of compulsive activity or the dropout of ceaseless seminars this life of "prayer as thinking" 1611/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 seems essential. . A long time ago, Christopher Dawson observed: "Men today are divided between those who have kept their spiritual roots and lost their contact with the existing order of society, and those who have preserved their social contacts and lost their spiritual roots." Could this be a descrip-tion of vowed persons today? Relativization of All Reality ~ I read somewhere that the Talmud says we will be held accountable to God for all the legitimate pleasures we have not enjoyed. When all this is said and dqne, there still remains the fact that so many of life's legitimate-- or even essential--pleasures are denied millions today, in even our devel-oped world. There also stands the fact that "we have not here a lasting city" (Heb 1:3:14) ahd that we possess only the certaintY of Christian hope: "We have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away because it is being kept for you in the heavens" (1 P 3:4). One part of our mission is to keep.Christian hope clearly before people and thus relativize reality, both good and evil. Secularization or not, the human person has a tendency to appropriate goods, material and spiritual, to hold them closely and even to be possessed by them. Our lives if they are lived in the simplicity and detachment which we .profess, will relativize the enjoyment or deprivation of material things and remind others that t.hey are to be shared: "Warn those who are rich in this world's goods, that they are not to look down on other people and not to set their hopes on money which is untrustworthy but on God, who out of his riches, gives us all that we need for our happiness. Tell them that they are to do good and be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share"(l Tm 6:17,18). We can do this "telling" by our lifestyle, before we do it in words, the opportunity for which may never come our way. We also speak to the poor enabling them to relativize their desire for justice and to recall that while they struggle for their rights, there isan opportunity for growth in their poverty too. "Listen, my dear brothers, it was those who are poor accord, ing to the world that God chose to be rich in faith and to be heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him" (Jm 2:5). Modernization has created so many who are enduring forced celibacy through broken marriages or infidelity and who are still avalanched by the media's sexual imperative. We can support these people even without speaking, because our lives experience the same yearnings and our minds are exposed to the same urgings and yet we struggle successfully on, with-out the assurance of genital involvement. But all this depends on our Vowed ~'fe in a Secularized World / 169 manifesting balanced and happy personalities, as people who have inte-grated their relationships and their sexuality in a healthy way. For secular-ized persons--many of whom suffer from confused psychosexuality--we can be supportive signs of survival and of fulfilled happiness through our lived celibacy. Individualism is a mark of the secularized person, coming very often as it does from hurt, insecurity and alienation. This can be so in our own communities too. The insecure person lives ambivalently between a desire to be accepted through cooperation and a fear of being dominated by submission. This is part of the disintegrating experience of modern life. If alienation is the pathology of our age, individualism is one of its clearest manifestations. By our vow of obedience lived out and seen not as "doing what one is told" but as discernment of what is best leadership in and through a caring community, we have much to say to the modern person about finding his or her own best expression of self in a confused world. It is even humanly true that "none of us is as wise as all of us." The secularized person, tempted to extreme individualism needs to rediscover this; for the good of ¯ families, local groups and for national and international survival, o Process.and Pilgrimage , It is clear that we vowed people will not be on the edge of the human experience of secularization and its consequential feeling of disintegration much longer. We share with men and women everywhere their search for stability and for lost certainties as the river of secularization tries to move all of us up, down and forward. To an extent, we found ourselves insulated from the human condition until recently, but no longer. Even if it were. not through necessity, we know that if we are to hold conversation with and to evangelize the world, we must pitch our tents within it; as God did. We must be prepared to pilgrimage our way once again and enter into the human process which we'should never have deserted. The fact that we accept this, will help so many others who find it difficult and who drop out into drugs or other forms of anomie and despair. Again, our vows lived authentically prepare us for the pilgrimage, ready us to keep moving, because we have publicly professed not to hold on, not to settle and not to be held. By our lived poverty, we refuse to be possessed by any material consideration and by our vows of chastity we also refuse to be possessed by ahy relationship. Obedience enables us to keep listening and looking at the map of moving events with eyes of faith and lbve. To quote Karl Rahner again from the same article: "The concrete future of Christianity, the Church and religious life remains largely hidden 17{I / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 from us . what historical and social form the Church and ecclesial Christianity will take in the future, remains largely hidden from us., we have to fight for victory without.a prognosis of victory" (p. 136). He was not° referring tothe effects of secularization at that time, but what he wrote is truer than ever now, and it puts us side by side and hopefully hand in hand with the modern man or woman as they endure the sec-ularization- experience. Interdependence and Involvement Our communities are not islands of isolated peace in a troubled uni-verse. No, they are sources from which we. emerge to makea more human and so a more godly world. Our vows enable us to do this; having freed us from, they also free usforLin a liberating way. ~',~ Our vow of poverty truly lived, makes us free for involvement. Because we have nothing to lose, we can carry the struggle for justice .further and when our lives are skilled in dispossession, we are not open to criticism from the rich~whose lives we question for the sake of the poor. Our good news for the poor has to be in some way perceived as bad news for the rich and they will readily point to any beam or bank account in our own lives if these are obvious. Only 'by relinquishing the power of possessions .can we demonstrate our competence to communicate freedom. Our vow of chastity makes us free to keep moving and to freely ask even our close friends: "Do you want to go away too?" (Jn 6:67). Again, we can take risks which married people with concern for their,families and for each other cannot be asked to take. Obedience, as we saw, offers us a freedom to live out a ,radar-like listening to God's word in the world around us. Truth comes only with listening :and discernment and these take. place best among a group of sharing people~ Obedience is .a public statement, that we bind ourselves to listen within and are missioned by a community through its leaders. This offers a model~for others to do the same in the Church. The quality of relationships and of concern for anyone at a distance suffers greatly in this time of disintegrative secularization, as each one looks to his or her own very personal success or survival. Nations do the same. This di-ama is, played out on a smaller scale every day in the average city too. Surely our communities have something important to say to people in this bleak situation. In our public interaction with one another° and for those who visit our communities,.the prayer ot~Jesus for his whole Church must tend towards .fulfillment: "_May they all be one, Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me" (.In 17:21). The Vowed Life in a Secularized Worm / 1.71 In' conclusion, I submit that we are approaching the ideal today, as we find the vowed life standing less at a point of comfortable distance from the world and more at a point of painful dialectic with it. At this point it must be ready to say a confirming yes or a challenging no--and do this by its life and activity--to all the results of secularization. To quote .the Anglican writer, Macquarie again: Here it must be said with regret that the trouble with some of our less responsible contemporary Christian secularizers is that they have taken up the ideal of holy worldliness, but seem to have promptly forgotten the adjective and reduced the ideal to a worldly concern tout court. They tell us that Christianity is a purely secular movement, their ideal of the good life seems scarcely distinguishable from the one that is so assiduously propagated by Madison Avenue, and the more extreme among them, in their horror at any supposed 'withdrawal' from the world, come near to advocating that the time has arrived to replace "poverty, chastity, and obedience with affluence, promiscuity, and autonomy as the highest goals for human life, or even as (he new evangelical counsels! The s!ogan for all this'is that w'e sho.uld 'say yes' to the world. But I do not think thata simple world affirmatioa will either help us to find God in the world or help the world to know his presence.6 - ~ Indeed, if we are to follow the words of Lumen Gentium, Chapter VI, par 44, the vowed life must say yes and no even to the Church itself. NOTES ~Facing Up to Moflernity, New York: Basic Books, 1977, 2John Macquarie, New Directions in Theology Today, Vol. III, p. 67, Philadelphia: 1981. 3"The Future of Religious Life" in Supplement to Doctrine and Life, Dublin: Domini-can l%_blications, May, 1972. 4The Greek' word anakephalasiosastai~is used in secular literature to express the con-ceptof many different ideas being subsumed under one theme. 5John Macquarie, Paths in Spirituality, Chapter 3, SCM Press, 1980, 6Op tit 2, p. 66. Vocation Ministry: Continuing the Invitation of Jesus Thomas E. Clark, ES.C. Brother Clark, Associate Vocation Director for the Chicago Province of the Christian Brothers, sees his work to be very much a ministry. This article is based on a presenta-tion he gave to the faculties of his congregation's schools in the Chicago area. He may be addressed at his .office: 200 De La Salle Drive; Romeoville, lllinois 60441. y ~vork 'as a full'time vocation minister for my community has often given me the opportunity to speak with young people, both individually and in groups, about the experience of being called by the Lord. My message to them is nearly identical to that of hundreds of other vocation ministers: each of us is called by God, each of us has a vocation, and it is up to each of us to discover what that vocation is. Onthe surface, the message seems clear, theologically sound, and understandable. However, what I have become aware of recently is th~at, in the two years I have been deliver-ing the message that each of us is called, the feeling with which I have been delivering that message has sometimes left something to be desired. Rather than offering a challenge to the young people with whbm I speak--a ch~allenge to discover a meaningful and significant way of living the Gospel ¯ in today's world--I've often felt that I am offering instead an apology for the choices I have made. It is as though the challenge of the Gospel might be just a little too naive for today's world, and to invite anyone to take it seriously may seem foolish and unrealistic. And even more foolish might be the invitation of young people to consider religious life and Church ministry as real options for themselves, ways of living out the Gospel challenge. I would certainly be out of touch with reality, I sometimes feel,-if I were to think that these people sitting in front of me--healthy, normal, 172 Vocation Ministry American young adults might consider religious life and Church ministry as serious-options for themselves. Thus when I speak with them, my invitation is sometimes clouded over with justifications ("I'm here today simply to make you aware of some choices I've made"), or sprinkled with "escape clauses" ("Any career you choose can be ministry"). The'underlying message, of course, is "I don't really expect you to consider any of these things for yourself." (In citing the above examples, of justification and "escape clauses," I do not mean to imply that there is no place in vocation ministry for "awareness education" or for a broad understanding of minis-try and community. On the contrary, these two approaches are essential to vocation ministry. They do not, however, constitute the whole of vocation ministry, and are sometimes used to avoid its more challenging aspect: that of invitation.) In speaking with a number of religious who are involved in vocation ministry, I have discovered that they, too, have much the same experience at times. Put simply, there are times when I do not believe there are any people who would be open to considering religious life as an option for themselves. Such an attitude is easily communicated to others, though it may not be directly stated,'and has the effect of turning away anyone who may consider religious life as a personal option. Further, a religious who holds such an attitude could never extend a confident and joyful invitation to an individual to consider religious life. It is my belief that such an attitude will keep religious not just from extending invitations to people to consider religious life, but on a deeper and more fundamental level, will keep us from fulfilling the responsibility we have to call people to build the kingdom of God. It is this invitation to the kingdom which is at the heart of vocation ministry, and which I wish to explore in more detail. In doing so, I shall consider several related topics: the model of invitation which Jesus gives us in the Gospels; vocation ministry as a means of living out that model; the philosophy of vocation ministry which has emerged in recent years; and finally, the challenge which we religious have been given in regard to vocation ministry. Jesus: Model of Invitation A simple perusal of the Gospels will show that Jesus had no hesitation about inviting peopl~ to follow him. His invitations are clear and concise. There is no misunderstanding what he means; the challenge is laid out on the table and nothing is hidden: Come after me and I will make you fishers of men (Mr 5:19). Follow me (Mr 9:9). Come and see (Jn 1:39). 1"/4/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 While such invitations may have been disarming or even~ unne ,rying to his listeners, it is difficult to imagine their being misunderstood. Jesus .has asked someone'to be his follower; it is as simple as that. ~ Neither does Jesus fail to make known to his followers his expe~ctations of them. In fact, his~requirements are so clear that~ sometimes they sound almost harsh. Whoever wishes to be my follower must deny his very self, thke Up his° '~ cross each day, and follow in my steps. Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it (Lk 9:23-24). ~.Let the dead bury their dead; come away and proclaim the kingdom of God (Lk 9:60). The requirements of following Jesus are great. He knows this, and does not hide this frown those whom he invites. At the same time, the invitation is issued with a certain excitement stemming from urgency of the call as well as its promise: Tliis is the tim~ of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Refo~-m ~our lives and believe in the Gospel! (Mk 1":5). Go a~d sell what you have and give to the poor; you will then have treasure in heaven. After that, come and follow me (Mk 10:21). This last invitation of Jesus was issued in response to the question of the rich young man, "What must I do to share in everlasting life?" (Mk 10".17). An.d it is here that we find out why Jesus issues the invitation t[iat he does: He knows everlasting life, and wants to share that with us. Again and again, Jesus promises us the kingdom and all that goes with it: fullness of life (Jn 10:10); complete joy (Jn 17:13); knowledge of th~ true God (Jn 17:3); the freedom of the truth (Jn 8:32); his own peace (Jn 14:27); the hundredfold and ~verlasting life (Mk 10:30). Jesus knows the k.ingdom and the gifts of the kingdom, and wants that experience for those to whom he has been sent. Herein we find the motivation behind his in~vitation, his c~all to take up the cross, [o sell all our possessions, to follow him. It is becaus~ he knows it will lead to the kingdom and everlasting lye,, arid he wants nothing less for us. It is love which has produced the clear, concise and even harsh invitation we find in the Gospel. With what kind of response .did Jesus' invitation meet? The Gospels sl~ow us pictures of every kind of response imaginable: Peter and Andrew "abandoned their nets and became his followers," as did James and John (Mt 4:20-22); Matthew left his post as tax collec~tor (Mt 9:9). The rich young man went away sad because of his many possessions (Mk 10:22). In a particularl~ poignant episode ~ecorded in John's gospel, Jesus' teaching leads many of his disciples to protest and ultimately to break away from his company. On seeing this, Jesus asks the Twelve if they, too, will leave him. Vocation Ministry / 175 Peter responds, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words :of eternal life" (Jn 6:60 ff.). Thus, the responses to Jesus' invitations are many and varied, for Jesus always allowed the individual to respond freely. What is evident, however, is that Jesus never stopped inviting, no matter what kind of response he met with. For Jesus, the important thing is that everyone be invited to follow him and to proclaim the kingdom. Negative responses, while disheartening, must not keep one from continuing to:issue the call, for all people deserve the opportunity to respond to the call. It is a matter of no :smalLsignificance, I believe, that the final words of Jesus in John's gospel are: "Follow me" (Jn 21:22). Continuing the Invitation: Vocation Ministry What does this never-ending invitation mean for us religio.us? What does it tell us, not only about our own response to Jesus' call, but about the mess-age we takb to the ~vorld? We have noted that Jesus' invitation flows from his expe~rience. He knows the Father, and the life that the Father gives~ Be.cause he knows, he Can ~nvite clearly, concisely and with authority. As men and women who have made life choices for the kingdom, and who have shared, at least in part, in the life of the kingdom, we too can invite others to embrace th~ kingdom. As men and women who have clearly chosen community and. ministry in the Church, we can invite others to conside~ community and ministry in the Chhrch as optionsfor.themselves. As men and women who have experieficed joy and. peace and life in these choices, as well as hardship and even pain, we can invite with the same confidence of Jesus, for we, too, know the burden and the gifts of the kingdom. In fact, Oot only can we continue to issue the invitation of Jesus, but in a certain sense, we have a responsibility to issue that invitation. !n a world where nuclear holocaust seems imminent, where starvation is the daily experience of millions, where poverty, unemployment and illiteracy a.re the lifestyle of whole ~egments of the world population.---in such a world, we who have been given the knowledge of the kingdom have a responsibility to call others to build that kingdom. In a world where people, especially young people, are searching for meaning and significance in their lives, where many live in confusion caused by crises of every kind, where whole societies are caught in the race for economic and political superiority--in such a world, we who have been promised the everlasting life of the kingdom have a responsibility to share that gift with this world. It is not that we .are holier o.r wiser than the rest of the world. Rather, we have been given the gift ~of a vision of how things can be. It is not our vision; it is God's vision that we have been given. And because we have 176/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 been given the vision, we must also bear theresponsibility--sometimes the burdgnsome responsibility--of calling others to God's vision. As religious, we have publicly proclaimed with joy and faith our desire to be a part of the kingdom, and that desire has been accepted joyfully by God. Now we must set ourselves to the task of inviting others, with our lives, to the ultimate meaning and significance which God's vision, the vision of the Kingdom, holds for the world. In the course of this lived invitation, we, like Jesus, must invite others clearly, concisely and directly to join us in bringing about God's vision for the world. We have the responsibility to say to people: "Sell all you have, give to the poor, and come away to proclaim the kingdom of God!" We must invite those with whom we work and pray and live to "Come and see" what we have seen. Like Jesus, our invitation will have authority if its motivation is love and its roots are found in our lived experien.ce. Thus, if we have found the meaning and significance of the kingdom in our religious commitment, in our community life, and in our ministry, then we must invlte others to that same experience. If religious life has been the context of God's kingdom for us, then we must invite others to consider that same context for themselves. We cannot deny others the opportunity that is ours, the gift we have been given in religious life. I believe that not to make others aware of this gift, not to speak of God's vision for us, and most importantly, not to invite others to consider this gift for themselves would constitute such a denial. I believe that vocation ministry if you will, the ministry of invitation and discovery--can be a powerful means of carrying on the invitation of Jesus. A Philosophy of ¥ootion Ministry Vocation ministry has emerged in recent years as a valid and accepted ministry in the ~Church. This emergence is due in large part to a new u~nderstanding of vocation ministry, an understanding which has its foun-dation in the model of 'invitation which Jesus provides in the Gospel. Unfortunateiy, this approach to vocation ministry is not' understood by many religious, and consequently keeps them from supporting the voca-tion efforts of their communities, and even more importantly, from involv-ing themselves in these efforts. As we have seen, vocation ministry, when considered as a ministry of invitation, is modeled by Jesus. But such an understanding of vocation ministry is relatively new. There was ~ time in the not too distant past (and which still e~xists today in some circles) when vocation ministry was consi-dered to be "recruitment," and the person who did this work was known as the "recruiter." This designation was appropriate at the time, for the person Vocation Ministry / 177 who served as a recruiter for a religious community attempted to find and enlist people, especially young peol~le, who seemed suitable for her or his particular community. The religious recruiter was searching for people to carry onthe work--the good work---of her or. his congregation. The job of the religious recruiter was similar to that of recruiters for the military, for schools or for corporations: namely, to ensure the continuance of the group's interests. The beneficiary of this process was the group and in 'the case of the religious recruiter, the beneficiary was her or his community and the people the community served. The term "recruitment" and the philosophy ~vhich it designates does not fit what Jesus does in the Gospels when he invites people to follow him. I believe that as the work of "recruitment" becomes more and more pat-terned after the model of invitation which Jesus provides, we need to call it by another name. It is at this point that we can begin to speak of "vocation ministry." The difference in language is reflective of the difference in philos-ophy and practice. It is, in fact, the difference between "recruitment and ministry," and it is shown in a new role for the person who does this work. This role is no longer one of serving primarily the needs of the congrega-tion, but is one of serving the needs of the people with whom the vocation minister works directly, the people whom she or he assists in discovering how and where and with whom the Lord calls them to build the kingdom. The priorities of the vocation minister have changed, from a focus on ensuring that the life of her or his congregation continues by enlisting people into the order, to a focus on ensuring that people discover who it is that God calls them to be. The agenda from which the vocation minister works has changed, from being primarily the order's agenda, to being primarily God's agenda. To some, such differentiation rhay seem too subtle to be of any impor-tance; .it may even seem like hairsplitting or word games. I believe, how-ever, that it is not too subtle, nor is =it hairsplitting, nor is it word games. For when looked at from the perspective of the person attempting to discern God's call, and especially the young person faced with fife-choices to make, there is a world of difference between the recruiter who wants that person to be a sister or brother or priest, and the minister who wants to help that person discover where God calls him or her to build the kingdom, where life will hold the most meaning for him or her, with no preconceived notion of where that might be. I contend further that, when considered from God's perspective, there is an ~ven more profound difference between "recruitment" and "ministry." It is the difference between the recruiter who believes that the continuance of her or his congregation is in the recruiter's hands, and that it is up to the recruiter to supply the needs of the order; and 1711 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 the minister.who trusts that God callg people to build his kingdom as sisters,, brothers, priests, married people and single people, and belieVes that her or his role is to act as Jesus did in inviting people to listen for God's .call and to act on it. Such a stand places the responsibility for supplying the needs of the order in God's hands, and~ recognizes the responsibility of the vocation minister and° the members of the congrega-tion to act as instruments-of his call by issuing the invitation to the kingdom. ~ Vocation ministry, and not recruitment, is the responsibility of every religious. It is a responsibility which stems not from fear for the future of religious life, but rather from the fact that each of us has been given a great and wonderful gift in religious life, a gift which must be shared with others. Our invitation to religious life is given in the context of the kingdom: because we have known the kingdom in our life and ministry with one another, we'invite others to that same experience. It is not recruitment for a particular order that vocation ministry is about; it is an invitation to nothing less than the kingdom of God that we,. as religious, must be about. The Challenge to Re!igious When vocation ministry is seen not as recruitment but as a ministry whose foundation is the model of invitation, which Jesus himself offers, an entirely new challenge is given to .religious. It is a challenge which brings about a n.ew set of questions: --Have I ~experien~ed the kingdom of"God? Where and with. whom was that experience~of the kingdom ? --Is the experience of living in religious community and doing Church ministry an experience of the kingdom for me? --Do I sense both the responsibility and the desire to share the king-dom with others by inviting them to build the kingdom? -~Am I willing to invite others to consider religious community and Church ministry as a way of building the kingdom, a way which has been life-giving and Satisfying for me? I believe that we religious can continue to invite others to join us i~n community and m~nistry. Some Of those whom we invite will join us; others will find another flay of building the. kingdom; still others~will go away sad. But vhatever the response, we can continue to invite, secure in the knowl-keidngged otmha~t,, tion wouhric rhe lwigei oinuvs i~teo mthmosiet mwehnotm, w we eh maveee tb. eOenu rg iinvveinta"ati osnh ai'sr.em iont it-he vated not by fear of the fu(ure, but rather by a sincere desire to share the gift we have been given, With joy ~and confidence we can coniinue to spe~k the invitation of Jesus: "Come away and proclaim the kingdom of God!" Gentle Exile: Reflections on Formation Mary Ellen Dougherty~ S.S.N.D. After a long stint in formation work for her community, Sister Dougherty has returned to the teaching of English. Sh.e may be addressed at The College of Notre Dame of Maryland; 4701 N. Charles Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21210. Shortly.before I finished a long term in formation work, I told myself that eventually I would write an article that might be of use to others in that ministry. I waited. I needed distance. After a year or so, subjectivity settled into uncertainty. I did not know what I wanted to say. Now, more than four years later, I think 1 do. ~ Initially, I would have commented on the characteristics of candidates currently interested in religious life, the inevitable challenges in dealing with them, and the necessity of both structure and latitude in a formation program. I would have talked about the generosity of young people in ministry, their ambivalence about vows. Now, however, I would like to focus on formation, personnel. 1 address my remarks especially to those who are in the work, and to those who .are considering it as ministry. In more than.eight ye~ars in this ministry, I worked, directly, in various team arrangements, with eight different directors. As director of novices, I participated, with the novices, in intercommunity programs in which directors shared on a regular basis. I speak, then, out of my own experience, and out of some ongoing reflections with at least two dozen directors, men and women. And I speak, still, tentatively. These are my insights now. In many ways I was nbt an effective director. In some ways I was. I have learned from both. I do not think there is a standard profile for a successful director~ There are countless variations on virtues that could be 179 1110/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 considered. Certainly a consistent attitude and practice of prayer, along with a keen mind and a clean heart, are essential. Inner freedom issuing from a clear depth of uncluttered spirituality is central. It is not my intention, however, to explore these here. That, perhaps, is another article. I would like, instead, to address three fundamental areas which, in practice, prove t.o be crucial: experience, affectivity, and integrity. Experience Age, I think, is only a factor for the director insofar as it permits experience. What one has done is not necessarily what one has experienced. To receive experiences of poverty, failure, darkness, in the light of grace, balanced with experiences of fulfillment and productivity, requires time; one must have lived long enough and well enough to know the inevitability of the rhythm, to expect the seasons to change. In that sense, age is important. It is not just what one has experienced, but what one has not experienced that should be consid~reff. One who has been given the time to live as well as the time to die, and has learned to receive both with equanimity, has lived long enough. And one who has not, should not be expected to deal with her own discoveries easily in the context of formation work. Events may always surprise us; the curr~nt of life should not. Affectivity I am not professionally equipped in terms of academic background t6 talk about the psychology of affectivity, or stages of affective development. My observations are purely practical: when the affective or relational life of a director is undeveloped or undernourished, there are generall~ relational problems with those she is directing; these are Often lodged in some variation of dependency, usually mutual. The director, from my observa-tions, usually takes the relationship more seriously, in the long run, than the candidate; the director seems to have some expectations of permanence, whereas the candidate, especially if she is young, is more than likely to tr~insfer her emotions rather quickly. There often is, however, some degree of mutual destruction. It is essential, 'then, that formation directors have the capacity for, and the activity of, peer relationships, that over the years they demonstrate an ability to interact in friendship with inutuality and absence of unwarranted dependency. The demands of formation work are constant and draining, especially if the director is living ~vith her directees. Candidates, especially younger ones, often exhibit a love-hate response toward authority. Unless the director has a belief in her own lovableness, created by a deep personal sense of God, and the experience of significant peer relationships over the years, she can be quickly undone. So can those Gentle Exile / 1111 she directs. Oia the other hand, a director who has a variety of relationships, and who is secure in at least a few of them, is not likely to need her directees. She may, over the months or the years, develop some friendships among them, but these will be a matter of choice, not of necessity. Integrity, Given a person who has lived long enough and loved hard enough, we come to the point of integrity, which I use in a limited sense here. I speak only of that dimension of integrity which enables one to experience some independent clarity about the truth, and to be faithful to it in spite of opposition. It is not my intention to suggest moral judgments. Like many people in positions of authority, formation directors must be able, if necessary, to stand alone. They must be capable of making and living out graced decisions which may create great conflict. And they must be as capable of independent thinking as, they are of consultation. A director who is not comfortable thinking for herself, who relies too heavily on approval and too little, on her own graced instincts, is usually transparent to her directees; wittingly or unwittingly, they may use her. While the need for dialogue, for collaboration, for consensus cannot be overstated, neither can the need for slow, clear, independent decisions that begin in the deepest level of self, where, in the face of opposition, integrity, a matter of grace, becomes a manifestation of courage. When all is said and done, it is fidelity (or infidelity) to the graced self with whom one must live. There is nothing new under the sun. The ability to receive experience and to let it become wisdom; the calbacity to love and to be loved without ownership; the self-possession and the faith to risk a gentle (or not so gentle) exile--these are characteristic of any authority who claims Jesus as her source. If formation work is anything, it is daily. If anyone needs Jesus as her source, a formation director does. Working with the Young Adult with Temporary Vows Vito Aresto, EM. S._ Brother Aresto is Vice Provincial and .Director of Formation for,the Poughkeepsie (NY) Province of the Marist Brothers. Heohas been ,working with brothers under temporary profession for more than six years. He may be addressed at his Vice-Pro-vincial Office: 4200 W. l i5th Street; Chicago, Illinois 60655. Much has been written over the last several years about_the conditions and problems of the yoeng adult within formation programs of, religious life. Since many of the young people who come seeking this new lifestyle come after years 9f college or work experience, formation directors are finding that the traditionally tried and true methods, of formation~seem to contain significant gaps when dealing with this new kind of person. The problem becomes even more complicated when the young person is in t~emporary vows. In this paper I would like to delve into some of the significant areas that have emerged in my working with our temporary professed. For the most part they are young men who have achieved rather comfortable recogni-tion professionally. They have taken their first vows in their middle twen-ties and look forward to years of growth and service within religious life. Final profession comes somewhere around age thirty. Developmental psychology has examined this period of growth young adulthood with great earnestness. Clearly, it is being recggnized that as life develops it confronts, struggles, and tackles successive issues in life's fabric and resolves them only to move forward to confront still newer issues towards growth. Such progress is noted as maturation, growing in one's potential, developing into a full human person. ~Vorking with the Young Adult . When the issues of spirituality are overlayed upon this rich process, we begin to see something of the concept of conversion. Obviously, when one begins to probe conversion, there is a point where even the best of the social sciences"pales before the mystery of faith: But nonetheless, we can learn much about growth and developmenL particularly in the struggles of a young adult who is attempting to find his or her place within a religious .family. This unfolding of life's grandeur and mystery is not at all easy. It can never be pain free if it is authentic. For the formation personnel working with young religious a good grasp of this process is obviously needed. Crisis needs to be viewed as part of the human drama, and neither .overstated nor underplayed. Rather the formation director can be a calming influence for~ individuals as they probe the' issues and unravel a course of action. In this light it is also very important to note that the director ~should be very comfortable with assisting the young adult to tap into such helping services as therapy or spiritual direction. It is important to realize that the varying issues which emerge are not all vocational conflicts. Rather some very necessary growing-pain situations may be interpreted as "vocational,' which in actual fact are merely struggles with growth issues. At other times personal,life issues may be confused as stress issues needing therapy, but are deeply vocational. Finally, there may be.a blend of both. It is the task of the formatioh director .as calming influence to help the young person wade through the issues, and recognize where they lie. In naming the dil~.~a, the course.to resolution becomes less threatening. For most young religious the transition from novitiate life to active ministry carries with it some straining adjustments. There is a great differ, ence between accepting the need to integrate the essential elements of reli-gious life and actually attempting to do so. This strain to interpret and realize the ideal can either bring about growth in young persons, or have them develop a selective sense which, ma~y in the long run distort growth. Each person must face honestly that the balance of the essential elements of the religious life structure cannot be merely put aside for some personal notion of the greater good. In the long run true growth for the young religious only takes place in confronting each aspect of vowed life as important, and then developing a proper rhythm for themselves. Fidelity to their vowed commitment must be presented as their primary work, By doing this they will be realistic in discerning this lifestyle within their congregation and how it truly fits into their own needs ~ind response to the Lord and his people. This approach, one that asks young persons not to compromise any aspect of their vowed commitment, even when faced with the tremendous 11t4 / Review for Religi~ous, March.April, 1986 pressures of the varying adjustments of prayer, community and apostolate, is utterly honest in recognizing and treating religious as adults. The fact remains that as they unravel their dreams and expectationsi they must also be totally immersed in what actually is the life they now share in their new religious family. This task can become even more burdensome as the young religious begin to recognize and feel the depth of confusion, and even sinfulness within their chosen religious family. Yet, within this sobering reality one fundamental task for.the temporary professed religious is to come to real-ize whether their dreams can be honestly integrated within this particular congregation. If this cannot be done then an honest and courageous act would be to depart. The Lord is not asking anyone to surrender his or her dreams, nor is he asking the impossible in great and massive adjustments to what a person holds sacred to the purpose and direction in life. It becomes the task of the formation director to help and accompany the young religious in this discerning process. But the director should never water down or compromise in the name of charity what he or she knows are realities incompatible to the values and goals of the congregation. Furthermore, the director must a.lways make the distinction between fidel-ity to a lifestyle and fidelity to the Lord. The young must come to realize that commitment to Jesus as their Lord can be lived in all the genuine forms and calls to holiness within the Church. Hopefully, the novitiate process has solidly grounded these young persons in their commitment to Jesus. Temporary vows must focus on the parameters of this particular religious family and charism as one valid and true means towards holiness for this young religious. Therefore, a truly respectful and, honest relationship must exist between the formation direc-tor and the young religious so that.real growth and integrity can develop. It is of paramount importance then, that the young,~religious' dreams must be found to be possible in the congregation they have chosen to enter. This is not only vitally important for the growth and development of the young religious, it is also vital for the growth and development of the congregation. The life given to this young religious by God is also a gift of life for all the members of the congregation. When such interaction is in process a certain sense of peace and purpose prevail. When it is. not present one readily begins to sense and hear bitterness, sarcasm, and resentment., Understanding the vital need of a dream in a young religious' life must therefore be one of the important areas into which a director must examine and explore. The novitiate will set up ideals that are solidly grounded in spiritual and scriptural foundations, but these ideals will not be realized except in the attempt at the actual riving out of community within, a local Working with the Young Adult / 1115 setting. It must be realized that each local community is itself struggling to unravel the full meaning and purpose of its shared life direction. Although young religious may leave the novitiate in full recognition that life is a process of growth and integration, it will only be in the experience of community that they will begin to understand the journey with their broth-ers or sisters that they have begun. Therefore, understanding the dreams and also knowing deeply the real struggles of this religious family is a task that each formation director must grasp when dealing with temporary professed. Ultimately, the focus must be turned completely on the Lord. He must remain the very purpose and intention of the young religious. Service will only .spring from the well of deep commitment to the Lord who loved all people even, unto death. More times than not, the young religious' grasp of the importance of intimacy is also wrapped up in their understanding of their dream. They do not enter religious life accepting the fact that there will be little or no intimate relationships in their lives. Obviously, religious life does afford the opportunities for a rich relational life; but that can only come through the struggle of integrating the vows in the light of each one's intimate relational needs. For young religious who must deal with this issue through the maze of the various transitional periods of growth, the very issue of intimacy can become pivotal to successful integration, and thus to peace within this chosen lifestyle. The movement towards dealing with one's~relational life also has impli-cations for community and ministerial life. In community this can expand one's depth of compassion, and in ministry it can help focus one's work beyond the notion of career to an expression of the Lord's service con-tinued through his Church. Each step of this awareness will heighten the young religious' recognition that he or she has truly been called by Another. Gradually imprinted upon the life and work of each young reli-gious is the paschal ,mystery, each one's transformation into Christ. The weathering of growth issues can therefore be the seed for a deepening of vocational understanding that is not only personal but intimate with the Lord. As young religious move closer to their thirtieth year there is to be noted a very subtle but careful evaluation taking place. Some significant issues have emerged and been confronted. The young religious also begin to recognize.that all the aspects of their dreams and aspirations may not be completely realized. They begin to feel, and not merely know, the implica-tions of being chaste and obedient. The cultural values of their society, with its push towards success, ambition, and recognition weigh on their poverty. Ultimately, as final commitment approaches, so does the trauma of the 186 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 "second calling." It is at this moment that the formation director must gently accompany~the young religious. The time for mentofing has ended. It becomes important that unconditional acceptance pervade the whole relationship, If the journey through those years of temporary vows has been honest and rich in successful and mature handling of life issues, then the response to this second calling--a permanent commitment to the Lord within this congregation--will~ be made with the totality possible to this young adult. Fundamentally, as one accompanies young adults~through their initial years of religious commitment, one quickly realizes that formation is.lrela-tional growth. The young religious come eager to respond to the Lord~. Their response has been wrapped and colored within their dreams of Ltheir future life and ministry. Novitiate naturally assists in a solid grounding and underpinning, but it°is not until there is full immersion in the daily routine of life in common and in ministry that they begin to confront and grow within their religious commitment. For the formation director the journey of this pilgrimage is one of trust and love. Ultimately, the individual must come to a sense of'personal peace. This peace is only born in the honest relational growth between each individual and the Lord, between the individual and his or her brothers or sisters, and the individual and the people they are sent to work with and serve. This peace should become the full flowering of a love that rests solidly on the motivation and direction of a life-decision made to the Lord and his people, within this special band of disciples that he or she chose for a religious family. '~ Reflectively, we can turn to Jesus as the model for the formation director who works' with young adults. Particularly is this so if we. focus upon his dealings with Peter. Here we note the care and compassion that must be evidenced by the director. For three years Jesus guided, taught and challenged Peter. These lessons werenot ~beyond the scope of correction and prodding, but they were also done in sincere and tender cbncern. And yet when the supreme :momefit for Jesus arrived, his hour of glory, Peter was still unaware of the magnitude of Jesus' mission. Much like the novice who enters first profession, Peter needed to continue to grow and ~be challenged, even in the darkness of near despair. It was not until the depth of his relationship with the Lord was securely grounded that Peter was ready to shepherd. Only then did he fully comprehend the-initial call that was repeated in the marvelous second calling at the end of John's gospel, "Do you love me? . Come, follow me!" Strangely enough in that rich relational bond between Peter and the Lord did his fondest dreams become rei~l. He no longer needed~io hold Working with the Young Adult / 187 tightly to privilege or rank. Now he no longer saw himself as solely the "rock," but rather could he challenge all that he shepherded to be "living stones," part of the "edifice" of the Lord and his Church. He understood clearly all that was needed to continue the process of growth, a journey into wholeness and holiness. For the young religious the journey is similar. The director must guide and accompany them so that the echo of the initial call of the Lord can be profoundly realized and incorporated into the very identity and dreams of these young persons. Permanent commitment becomes a full expression of a relationship that is central to their meaning and purpose. Christ the Center of Our Vowed Life by" ~Boniface Ramsey, O.P. Father Ramsey's three articles on .,the vows of religion are available as a single reprint: i - The Center of Religious Poverty ii - Christocentric Celibacy iii - Cru~ciform Obedience Price: $1.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review ~or Religious Rm 428 ~3601 Lindell Blvd. St: Louis, Missouri 63108 Commitment in a Religious Order: A Sociological View Joseph C. Doyle Dr. Doyle teaches at Seton Hall University (South Orange Ave; South Orange, Neff Jersey 07079), where he may be addressed. There is a special quality about people who are committed to something, whether it be to another person, a group, an organization, a career, or an idea. That quality can be captured by such words as "loyalty," "allegiance," or "steadfastness." For to be committed is to be involved in a relationship which has priority in one's life over alternative relationships or only one-self. This does not mean that a person's other involvements are ignored bu.t only that when push comes to shove this relationship has singular importance. Obviously, this is a key feature of religious life, for the purpose of religious orders is to foster growth in each member's commitment to Christ. In fact, it has often been assumed, both by people within and without such institutions, that this is the sole ~ocus of the members' ~om-mitments-- that they "have the faith." In the past fifteen years or so, how-ever, the large scale exodus of members from the various forms of religious life has raised serious questions in many quarters concerning this one dimensional view of religious commitment. In particular, such authors as ~Marie Augusta Neal,~ Helen Ebaugh,2 Lucinda San Giovanni,3 Richard Schoenhern and Andrew Greeley,4 and Patricia Wittberg5 have all attemp-ted to shed a social scientific light on some of these questions. This paper is meant to be a reflection on some themes developed out of this tradition. It will attempt to present the results of some findings gleaned 188 Commitment in a Religious Order / 1119 from interviews with twenty women involved in a religious order in the eastern United States. Its major interest will be the way commitment in religious life passes through different forms, forms which seem to be affected by the kinds oof structures established by religious orders and by the way their members respond to these structures. It is, of course, danger-ous to generalize from a group 6f this size. Thus, the following remarks should be read as an'effort to explore some pertinent issues in the quality of commitment rhther than to offer a definitive statement on these issues. I. Sociology and Commitment Because this paper relies upon insights developed in sociology, perhaps it would be helpful to first briefly explain some key sociological ideas concerning commitment before delving into the material from the in/er-views. Over the past thirty years or so, sociology has developed a number of concepts for dealing with the experience of commitment. By and large, these ideas are rooted in the perspective that c6mrnitment is the result of certain ,mechanisms operating in groups or organizations that mold indi-viduals into loyal members. Thus; the primary attention is on how these social factors operate to produce a committed person. One of the more prominent efforts in this field can be found in the work of Rosabeth Kanter, particularly in her book Commitment and Community.6 While the analysis that follows utilizes these insights, it also attempts to show how individual members of a religious order responded to these forces and tried to grow beyond them. Kanter views commitment in terms of three interrelated dimensions: instrumental, affe.ctive.and moral. In addition, each of these dimensions is the result of a set of factors bY which a community leads its novices into full membership. By instrumental commitment Kanter means a felt attachment to a social role that is more rewarding or less costly than the roles outside of the community. In this kind of commitment the person wants to live up to the behavioral expectations that others in the community have of him or her. This attachm~ent is achieved, according to Kanter, by having the novice undergo experiences ,whereby the individual has to invest her time and energy in doing the work of the community and to sacrifice her own possessions on behalf of the community. In this way the person finds himself or herself wanting to remain because of all that has been expended ¯ in the effort to achieve full membership. As Kanter puts it: When profits and costs are considered, participants find the cost of leaving the system would be greater than the cost of remaining; "profit," in a net psychic sense, compels continual part;_cipation.7 190/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 By affective commitment Kanter means an attachment to a set of relationships whose ties are more gratifying than the ties with .alternative relationships. To find a particular,~set of relatio, nships more gratifying than others means recognizing that set as the,primary source of. affection and support in one's life. This dimension is realized by having novice members renounc6 all previous ties of affection as being primary for them and by involving them in communal activities with members of th~eir group. In these ways the new participant comes to develop emotional ties with these others and a cohesive bond develops amongst them. Finally, by moral or normative commitment'Kanter means an alle-giance to the values and norms of the community and a willingness to obey the authority structure of the community as the ultimate interpreter of those norms and .values. However, this allegiance doesonot necessarily develop after a careful evaluation of these norms and structures. Instead, Kanter sees this dimension arising from a set of beliefs and values that have been internalized in an often irrational or unc_ritical way. In Some respects, commitment to norms and values resembles the concept of superego, which binds the evaluative components bf the self t6 norms of a system through an internalized authority.8 The moral commitment of members is achieved, Kanter notes, by techniques that encourage novices to'deny significance to their own ideas and desires and to place their trust more in the community than 'in them-selves. Thus, new members come to see the way of life of the coinmunity as more meaningful than that of competing alternatives. This sociological view of commitment may, at first sight, be rather upsetting to people who form a community in order "to ddepen their rela-~ tionship with God. '-I Would suggest that this reaction is a rather well-founded one. For what sociology has uncovered, and what many of the" religious women 1 interviewed realized after being in their order for a few years, is that there can be a very real difference between commitment to God and commitment to a religious organization. For this latter institution attempts to offer its members a way to God, but lhis "way" is embodied in historically realized rules, procedures;practices and customs that can often become ends in themselves in the minds and hearts of these members. The sociological point, of course, is that a religiouscommunity hasto empha-size these aspects if it is going to survive and so it has to foster commitment to them. Naturally, a religious institution hopes that its" members will develop spiritually by such practices, and many have done so. Nevertheless, as the' following analysis will show, the danger can also be that the corn= mitment does not get beyond these dimensions. How that can'happen and what can be done about it are the concerns of the rest of this paper. Commitment in a Religious Order / "191 II. A Sociology of Commitment in Religious Life A. Internalizing a Theme ~ The model of commitment presented by Kanter can be a useful tool for interpreting the experiences of the twenty women I interviewed. While these women all came from the same order, they varied as far as age (32-63), length of time in the order (9 years to over 40 years), and the kind of positions they held at the time of the interview (teaching, pastoral and the central administration of the order). Nevertheless, they all described their early years in religious life in ways that can b~e captured by Kanter's categories. 1: Internalizing the Instrumental Dimension One of the interesting findings of these interviews was that many of the nuns felt that the years taken up by their training were preoccupied with the proper performance of their duties, with what they called "the externals." In Kanter's terminology they were committed to the role of a religious person. She claims that it is possible for a person just to behave in a committed way, i:e., remain in the group but not necessarily care about the ideals or values of that group.9 While she'herself did not think that this was a full commitment, she did seeit as a possibility. When the nrns were asked about significant changes in their lives, one of the events frequently brought up was when they recognized that they had been caught up in the mere activity of being a nun. For example: when I came to religious hfe I switched to the externals because that is what I thought I was supposed to do and that was what was always talked about., how you dressed, how you performed this and how you did your chores, but I wasn't co~mfortable with that. When we first entered, the activities were important as you grow into being a member of the community. I think at some point you get caught up in the reception of the habit., that is a big day in your life., and you try to act like the pdrfect nun and" that sort of thing. ~ In addition to acting out the role of a reli~gious woman, many of the respondents reported recognizing, a period in their lives when their minis-try, or more pr.ecisel3~, their work, was mrre important to them than any other dimension. Years ago, I guess I was work-oriented and it was the thing that people saw. And the thing I could let go of was my prayer life because no one ever saw that and I wasn't accountable for it. I cou.ld go to confession and say I didn't haeditate that week and that wruld t~ike care of the guilt part. But I never made ~ny cofinectionJwith the rest of iny life. 192 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 As these quotes indicate, the focus on minist.ry and on the proper fulfillment of the "externals" of the religious role were the dimensions to which most of these women became initially committed. ,And, for some of these sisters, the ministry remained central for them well beyond the period of their training. However, while this was a key feature of religious life for many of these women, they eventually began to question the validity of this preoccupa-tion, and for some this orientation is no longer dominant in their lives. 2. Internalizing the Affective Dimension Kanter's second type of commitment was also evident at an early stage of the nun's training. For some of these women, this. involvement in community life coincided with their involvement in ministry. What did you think you were committing yourself to at that~time? I thought I was committing myself to ministry and to community life but not to a deep personal prayer life. I was still struggling with thaIt t.r.i.e. d to take time for it but more often than not, that got pushed aside. What was there about ministry and community life that made you want to commit yourself?. I just" saw goo~d in it. I saw myself functioning very well in it, being comfortable in it, not having any kind of desire not to be there. Some of the other nuns, however, found that a focus on community followed, in time, a commitment to ministry, and sometimes the tension between ministry and community would be resolved in favor of community¯ , ¯. I consider myselfa community-minded person; for whatever reason, ~ prefer working within the community., like coming to the infirmary and working right here with our sisters. I was more than happy todo that. I didn't find myself looking to go really outside of the community. (I. Why was that~ Well, I guess in that it's doing for my own sisters, primarily, rather than people on the outside¯ You are doing the same kind of thing but for whatever reason my preference would be my sisters first. Thus, while ministry may be seen as rewarding, by itself it does not suffice. For this woman and for others, it was and still is a matter of the emotional bond one has with the group with whom she rhinisters that is crucial. Where ministry can be judged in terms of rewards and costs, more non-rational considerations have to be used to judge the relationships one has with others. However, ~s was seen in the discussion of instrumental commitment, this affective dimension did not r6main as dominant for all the nuns. As the following quote suggests, this orientation is no longer as crucial as it once was. Commitment in a Religious Order / 1~ ¯ I really don't know how we remained faithful then. I'm sure if it was another type of community, I don't know, maybe it's because we're more of a family, you know, we feel for one another, um, and that was always our sister, and if you didn't hang in there because your superiors were no good, you'd hang in there because your friends were there. Your commitment to them kind of seemed important to you. 3. Internalizing the Normative Dimension Finally, the third of Kanter's types of commitment was also a focus of allegiance for most of the women during their training. This is particularly obvious in the way many of them had accepted the authority of their superiors during that period. ¯. 1 never felt pressured or stepped on or however people fed. I never felt that. I guess as I entered community it was something I wanted to do. or the Lord called me to do, so I did what I was supposed to do . However, while there were nuns who were very compliant, some found themselves questioning the purpose behind some of the orders. For them, willing obedience was built on an obedience motivated by a fear of being dismissed. Were there people in your class who questioned a lot? Yes, they are no longer here. In novitiate I was very docile. I was probably stupid. If they told me tO do it, I did it because if you didn't do it, they were going to send you home. ~. So you did it out of fear more than anything else. Yes. Yet I liked the days of formation and everything else, but if they said do it, I did it; and when we did it and thought it was crazy, we Used to laugh about it, but we still did it.°, there was no heart in it or anything like that, but we did it to shut them up and get them off our backs. Whether this emphasis on atithority and obedience was complied with willingly or out of fear, it had a dual effect in the training period: it seemed to focus attention on role conformity or the "externals," as was seen before, and it created a sense of dependency on the leadership of the community in many of these women. But in the minds of some Of the nuns, this would often translate into valuing obedience to the rules 'over the needs encountered in one's ministry. Let's say the mother of one of the children was pregnant and her husband had just kicked her in the stomach and kicked her downstairs, and she came to me after ~chool, as did happen once, and when I tried to share with her and show her a little sympathy, I got in trouble because I stayed over in school even though it was that type of thing. I didn't mind getting into trouble, but ! just couldn't understand that whole thing. And in those 1~ / Review for Religious, March-ApriL 1986 days, if she came again, I would probably say "I can't see you," thinking that obedience was the greater thing at that time~ While some of the evidence suggests that many of the nuns interpreted this dependency on authority as something they have left'behind, this is not so for all of them. Even with the much publicized changes in convent life, with the "loosening up of the structures," the importance of the normative dimension of commitment still comes through for many of them. As this following quote demonstrates, however, it is internalized dependency: The change that has been significant has been in the individual being responsible for he~'self. We still have in our community superiors in our local convents. However~ the emphasis has been on individuals being responsible for themselves, for the cbmmitment that they have made, for' living according to the rules and the constitution, for keeping the vows . B. l/ariations on a Theme . ~ Hopefully, the preceding exploration has shown that the women I interviewed responded to the demands made upon them in their formation years in the convent .in ways that the order wanted them to respond. In effect, they internalized the theme of religious life espoused by their order. This, of course, is not to pass judgment on the sincerity of intention of any of these women or on the integrity of those tesponsible~for their training. It is instead to recognize what most of these sisters have realized and what Kanter's model of commitment can help us to see: religious commitment is more than simply doing religious things. When attention is concentrated on the activity of being religious without an ~ffort at helpi~ng the novice to discern the place of these activities in an overall lifestyle, then the only result will be religious conformity and a commitment to the means established to realize a life in Christ rather than to that life itself. However, as many of the above quotes intimated, the story of the commitments of these women does not end in mere conformity. Most of the nuns found that by the time of their final vows or in the five years or so after final profession, t.hey had begun the process of perso~nalizing many of the practices they had learned. This effort at personalization took one of two forms: varying the order's style of religious life to meet o~ne's own personality and characteristics, or creating a style of religious life that was in keeping with the core values of that lii~ but no longer was solely modeled on their order's particular historical interpretation of those values. I would now like to explore the first of the~e responses which I will call "variant commitments." In the third pai't of this paper, I will examine the second form.- The term "variant commitment", refers to a more reflective response to 'Commitment in a Religious Order the demands of convent life than the conformist response did. The idea for it comes from another sociologist named Robert Merton.~0 Writing in a different context (but, nevertheless, in one that is still applicable to our purposes), Merton referred to people who were sensitive to the demands of their institutions but were willing to test some of the limits of those demands. He had in mind men of science like Pasteur or Einstein who were committed to the goals of science but who engaged in the kind of research that resulted in new ways of conceiving the world around us. In a similar way, many of the nuns I interviewed were very much committed t9 the goals of their order, but they were also involved in efforts to alter its style of religious living. Where their training had taught them to exhibit routine adaptations to the expectations of the order, they later became more willing to modify these demands while still remaining within the normative character of the community. By briefly looking at some examples of these variant responses in the light of Kanter's model, it will. be possible to show concretely the kind of changes that took place in these women, 1. Variations on the Instrumental Theme It will be recalled that in this dimension of commitment members involved themselves in the performance of those activities that hdped maintain the community as an ongoing entity. In religious life, one of the more important of these role expectations was a faithful participation in the liturgy. For sisters in training the ordinary round of prayer activities became part of the behavior of the "ideal" nun. By the time of final vows, these activities had become second nature to them. Following the Second Vatican Council, however, the order began to loosen its rather rigid structure, and local convents wer9 allowed to establish their own format for commu.nal prayers. This usually involved a group decision concerning the times to be set aside, as well as the particular style the prayer activities would take. In addition, there was also the expectation that individual sisters would develop their own schedul~ and forms for their personal prayer life. Thus, new regulations were made which allowed for more decentralized variation and individual freedom in fulfillment of the order's goal to develop prayerful sisters. The result of these reforms appears to be a more conscious involvement on the part of most of the nuns in this dimension of their lives: The .emphasis, I think, in the younger days was not on my personal religious or spiritual development, as much as it is now., the job is important but the prayer part of it is more important. Ifa decision was to be made that I would have to give up my prayer life to be an 1~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 administrator, I think I would give up the administrator part. I'm sure years ago I couldn't have said that. I'm going into my fifth year here, and I was very nervous coming here because I had heard about their prayer life~ But it's really been good. It's more spontaneous than at other places. Like we do the reading of the day, and then we share with each other what they are saying to us or one of us will give a homily. As these quotes indicate, within the overall values of communal and personal prayer, the nuns have sought to fashion attitudes and practices that reflect a more conscious appreciation for these features than was true in their earlier days. This consciousness in some cases was an attitudinal shift, such as the rededication of oneself to a life of prayer;'or in other instances, it was a greater willingness to participate in a variation of public prayer that had not been tried before. In'both examples though, a shift to a more reflective response is evident, and this allows for personal and local variations of a communal expectation. 2. Variations on the Affective Theme The second area of religious life to which most of the nuns can be said to have been reflectively responding is the communal dimension. On both a formal and an informal basis, it is expected that the members will participate in the affairs and functions of the community and that this group will be primary in each person's life. In the period before the Vatican Council, these expectations usually meant a high degree of uniformity among the order's members. In the years following the Council, they frequently have involved rather innovative attempts to develop a greater sense of camaraderie among local community members. This can be seen in the following instances which suggest a changing vision of the meaning of community and a willingness to put into actual practice what some have only been able to dream about. What is your vision of community? I would like it more personal, um, with small groups where there is sharing not only of your work but of your basic spirituality, your vision, and maybe with people that you could work it out with so that your vision could: become a reality. I think the great disillusionment with religious life is that your vision remains a vision and there's not too many to share that vision. We were pioneers. My first year in grad school and after that we lived in a convent and commuted to school. We used to pray together and just try to share our lives. We could do creative things like alternative prayer styles and a lot of sharing about community and about the Lord. Commitment in a Religious Order Of course, not all the women in the group were as originally so enthusiastic about this new style, as the above excerpts may suggest. Nevertheless, those who have tried it have overcome their initial restraint and now see it'as a more beneficial way of living than the older style. Once again, a relaxation of rather rigid structures has allowed for a greater amount of reflective expression and thus for the introduction of alternative approaches to a goal of the order. 3. l/'ariations on the Normative Theme The final dimension that exhibits the effects of a more reflective response to religious life concerns the commitment to the norms and values of the community. According to Kanter this commitment is demonstrated in the supportive attitudes members have toward those in authority and toward the ideology of the group. One of the areas in convent life where an important shift in this dimension has occurred is in the vow of obedience. In the days when the nuns I interviewed first entered and until quite recently, obedience to the "Will of God" meant, in fact, concrete submis-sion to what the s,uperiors interpreted what that "Will" was. Today, this submissiveness, while still expected on a daily practical level, is somewhat tempered by the recognition, in their order's rule, that all the sisters share a genuine responsibility for th6 goals of the community. This basically seems to mean that the individu~il sisters are left alone to freely do what is expected of them rather than have a local superior enforcing each of the rules. Naturally, such a situ~ttion leaves room for individual variation, both attitudinally ahd behaviorally. I guess my attitude is that this is not somebody or something imposing on me, or the constitution saying I have to do it, or I feel that my superior is going to say that you are not doing this or that. There are days, for exahaple, when I don't spend much time in prayer at all for one reason ~or another, because it's ministry, or I'm getting in at midnight and I can't function the next day. But ifI don't do it for a couple of days, I know it and I really.have to say, I have todo it tonight regardless of what else turns up, so that it becomes a priority. I think it puts more responsibility on the individuals for their own lives. Ten years ago the superior was saying no, you may not go. I think it places more responsibility on the individual not to maybe abuse missing prayers or Mass or house meetings or meals . . . there is a little more freedom and people are more relaxed . , . to be more responsible for themselves. As these quotes indicate, members are freer to interpret when a particu-lar rule should be obeyed and when it should not. Of course, this does not i911 ] Review for Religious, March.April, 1986 mean that they can or would do whatever they please with no sense of normative .obligation, Thus, the conscious choice on the part ~of~the member is to decide when there are legitimate exceptions to a given rule and toact on those exceptions. In the long run, however, the orientation of the nuns is to the normative expectations of the order. - ~ C. Creating a Theme Hopefully, the previous section has shown that the story of the com-mitments of the twenty women I interviewed took a new turn in the years after their final vows. Because of the changes in the formal structures of the order, these nuns were able to move from a rather conformist-oriented appioach to religio.us life to an approach that reflected more of each individual's perso~nality and needs. However, while this newer style was more personalistic than before, it still was within the definition of religious life as formulated by the order. Thus, it is still possible for members to be committed to the instrumental, affective, and moral dimensions of their community (albeit, in their contemporary forms) rather than to the com-munity's underlying purpose, i.e., to one's life in Christ. Of course, as I indicated earlier, this is not necessarily in all instances what has happened. Instead, it is to point out a continual danger in community life, a d[inger that some of the nuns themselves have recognized: structured behavior and attitudes, even when they are loosened up, can become a substitute for personal responsibility for the purpose of those structures. This danger and a potential way to avoid it can be captured more clearly by examining the second type of reflective response that the women I interviewed exhibited. Nine of the twenty nuns responded to the ques-tions I raised in a way that was somewhat different from the others. I have called this type of response "creative commitment." By this I mean a commitment to a notion of religious life that reflected the women's struggle with an appropriation of a set of ideals and interpretations that trans-cended the institutionalized approach in which they found themselves. This did not mean an outright rejection of their community. Rather, it was an attempt to combine themes learned from sources outside the order with the basic values learned from the community into a more personal style of sisterhood than the one in which they had been trained. Their involvement in the community, is now no longer predicated on the constraints the institution can bring to bear on them. Instead, since their commitment is to a vision~of what religious life can be, they have relativized the role that the community has in their lives. This rather abstract definition can be made more.concre[e by compar-ing some of the "variant responses" some of the nuns made to the questions Commitment in a Religious Order / 199 I asked with the "creative responses" nine of the women mad~ to the same questions. As before, these responses can be presented in terms of the model developed by Kanter. I. Relativizing Instrumental Commitment The first dimension of concern will be the attitudes of the nuns toward the role of a sister. In order to ascertain the overall quality of a member's role involvement in the order, I asked what perception each one had of herself as a sister. As the following quote exemplifies, many of the~s.e women have adopted the role of a nun as traditionally defined, ~that is, as one who is supposed to represent in a special way the presence of the sacred in human life. To be sure, they do not appear to be caught up with the prestige symbols of the role--the habit, the title, the little signs of respect. But they dowish to see themselves perceived as religious women, as part of a religio, us organization, and in this sense, the institutional role is important to them. How do you see yourself as a sister? That's hard to answer. I guess. I am living out what I think I am called to be, but I am not just living it for me. but for other people~ Do you mean what effect you have on people? ¯. Yes, like when people ask me to pray for them or for members of their families. I'm not just some fixture or some teacher. Do I convey the o message of Christ to people? Do I carry the name of (order's name) well, and what that community is about, or do I downgrade the community? In comparison with this perception, the following nun appears to dis-tinguish herself and her role as. a sister. While being a nun is important to her, it is not her whole self. This type of perception cropped up °quite often in discussions with these nine women. In effect, the role has been redefined from being a place in an overall organization to being a vehicle for allowing a more personal style of religious life to be expressed. What that,style is depends upon the individual and how she understands herself; but in general, it seems to encompass an effort to live out the central values of Christianity as these are being interpreted by contemporary thinkers. This woman's notion that "sisterhood" includes her relationships with whom-ever she meets is an indication of this redefining process. when I first came to the community, I saw a sister as functional, whereas now I see sister as a relationship that is not only to the people that I work with but it is. much more universal in a sense. It is me as I relate to whoever it may be . It's much more a sense of I am who I am and a good part of who I am happens to be a sister and what lproject is all of me, the totality of life. 200/ Review for Religious, March,April, 1986 2. Relativizing Affective Commitment The second area of discussion deals with the emotional ties members develop toward the relationships they have in the order and toward the order as a whole. The quality of these ties can be captured by the reaction of members to questions concerning the possibility of the order disbanding. While this is an admittedly hypothetical situation, the reactions of the sisters revealed their attitudes towards the community as a whole. For example, as the following citation suggests, many of the sisters see their well-being as tied up with the well-being of the order.~ Because they tend to seetheir lives as coextensive With the life of the community, these women can be said to~ have Committed themselves to the institution. What would happen if your community died? I would be very sad. As a person I think it would be devastating. I guess the charisma of the (order's name) community is important to me. I chose to belong to a group, and this group meant something to me. for whatever reason they became important. I chose to make final vows, and I chose to make it something permanent in my life. When this response is compared with the following one, however, a different understanding of this relationship is revealed. According to this woman, the institution exists to serve a need; and if it no longer can do this, then the nuns should disband and find other communities. This willingness to let go of what must be a home for this woman suggests a degree of autonomy that was also present in the other more innovative nuns. But this autonomy should not be interpreted as a cold independence from the order for-it seems to rest, for each of these women, on a distinction they have made between tbeir particular order and their understanding of religious life in general. In their interpretation of the order, it exists as a means to realize their religious ideals. Thus, religious life is always broader than the order's way of approaching it and for them it is their approach to that life that counts. I don't know exactly. I don't know if I would; then I would look and see if another group would like to get together to form something else, or if I would join another group. I don't think I would be upset. I wouldn't feel that my whole life has gone because I think what this community has done UP to this point has been very good and very worthwhile, and if it is not necessary, it's not necessary. I don't feel any urge to prolong somethin~g that is no longer necessary, so that would not bother me. Another indicator of the relativization of the order in the lives of these women is their willingness to look beyond it for sources of emotional support. While they.were in training, the community encouraged them to develop their personal relationships with their fellow members by severely Commitment in a Religious Order limiting outside contacts, even with members of their own families. Although these nine women still have deep personal ties within their order, they have also consciously developed friendships with others outside of that community, including laypeople. A couple of them have also become part ofqocal communities that are made up of nuns from bther orders instead of the more traditional, homogeneous units. Most of my really close friends have left the community., but it's not quite as dramatic as it sounds because I do have a couple of very good friends who have been very supporting, one who is married who has always supported me. Then. one who I'm even closer to who was in the community who has left. She continues to be one of the most supportive people in my life. It's fine with her that I am here; ~nd it's fine with me that she is there. How many friends do you have outside the community? I'd say that it's probably about fifty-fifty between people within the com-munity and people outside that I really consider myself close to. Four of us broke off from that larger grou.p because we are for'a simpler lifestyle, and we are now living in a house., the three of us from our order, one happens to. be the school person, and two of us who are in .other ministries and then the fourth sister who is from (another order) who is also in another ministry. That's working out pretty well now. 3.' Relativizing Normative Commitment ~ The third area deals with the willingness on the part of members to allow the community to control their lives. Over the past fifteen years or so, the order has loosened up its authority structure somewhat so that now the nuns are encouraged to speak their minds more so than they were in ~he past. Nevertheless, the ultimate expectations for many of the women is .that it is their duty to obey the wish of the superior. As this example demon-. strates, the notion that "the voice of the superior is the voice of God" dies hard. My attitude towards religious life, I don't think, has basically changed in the sense that I still fed that my superiors, those who are in charge, whatever they would ask I would accept it in the same wa~y I did years ago. I would question now, not saying that I wouldn't.do what they asked, but I would question it now. While the above quote demonstrates an attitude toward obedience that can be characterized as superior-oriented, the next citation reveals another approach to this subject. Instead of first looking to what the superior wants, this nun believes that one should first be obedient to oneself. The distinction is crucial for it places the sister on a par with her superior.and 902/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 enables her to exercise genuine responsibility for her own life. This is probably the most important characteristic of the innovative nuns because it seems to be that which distinguishes them most clearly from the others. Although these others often spoke about the necessity of being self-respon-sible, their 6rientation very frequently was to the community and their superiors. On the other hand~ the innovative nuns more frequently were willing to look beyond the institution for grappling with the issues of religious life and to examine any ideas in terms of where they might fit into their own lives, I believe in obedience to the Lord in tune with what is going on with my own inner' feelings, as contrasted to what I may believe in terms of the' voice 6f the superior although I don't deny that. I think you have to listen ¯. but I would say I would be more in tune with obedience to God; I would say that it's a little more,obedience to myself than I would say obedience to the vow or to the superior. Interestingly enough, one of the ways in which these women have sought to take responsibility for themselves is precisely in the area of the vows. One of the features that comes across very clearly is their desire to distinguish their understanding of the vows from the institutionalized ver-sion. This does not seem to mean an idiosyncratic interpretation of them that is divorced from what other approaches, even institutionalized ones, may offer. Instead, it seems to involve an effort to formulate a conception of the vows that takes into consideration what others,may say; but at the same time, ~it-attempts to create out of ,them an understanding that responds to the personal needs and goals of the individual herself. It should be pointed out that by the term "other interpretations" is meant sources of meaning outside the order, including the general culture, contemporary sourcbs' within the order, as well as the more traditional interpretations, whether they come from formal or informal sources. What seems to be crucial, .in any event, is the consciousness of these sisters of the difference between saying what others have understood what the vows mean and saying ,what they personally think they mean. I took these vows, but I thought. I'm doing my job, I'm praying, so don't b~ther me about the vows . !~ow looking back, I probably detached the vows from the life, or I said I have to take these vows in order to live this religious community life that I want to live. Now what's it like? ~ Now it's thinking about it and reflecting on it and saying there is some-thing more to this and I don't know what it is yet . I could tell you what ~ so and so says and what the books say, but personally., what do I think, Commitment in a R~ligious Order that's what I'm coming to. When you started to reexamine the vows, did you find yourself coming to a personal interpretation of them, or did you sifnply accept the given interpretation? Oh no! I made my own interpretation, and whether that's right or wrong, it's something l'm going to have to live with. No, I think it's my own personal thing . I have been attempting to distinguish creative responses to institutional demands from variant responses to these same demands. Hopefully, this has clarified the difference between the two. If 1 have been interpreting this material accurately, then a commitment can be said to be creative when the individual personally recognizes the primacy of her relationship with God in her life. That happens, it seems, as the individual assumes greater and greater responsibility for that relationship and the role of the order becomes more secondary as far as that relationship is concerned. In other words, the institution becomes a vehicle whereby a person can live out a way of life that she has created. As the following sistei~ asserted in ~ rather straightforward fashion, the order has become a means to an end hot arl end in itself. I say I commit myself to the Lord through this institution and I never expect that I will break that commitment to t~he Lord. I am not .always saying that 1 make a commitment to an institution: (I. Why no~t~ R. It's just the medium for me. Conclusions I ~began this paper by remarking that religious 9ommitment is often understood in a one dimensional way, as simply a commitment to Christ. Utilizing the insights of sociology, however, it is now possible.to see that religious commitment is a multi-dimensional affair which can often inter-fere with the fuller realization of a Christocentric lifestyle. For instead of a single focus on the proper spiritual characteristics of being a religious woman, this analysis found that members of an order can become more concerned about the instrumental, communal and normative dimensions of sisterhood. The result of this is a preoccupation with the means of religious life rather than its ends. Because this was a sociological analysis, it highlighted the fact that this preoccupation was, in part at least, the result of the order's necessary concern with its self-preservation. This does not mean, however, that such a preoccupation is inevitable. As the information concerning the more creative women has shown, it is also possible to relativize the impact of the " 2011 ] Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 social requirements of communal living and to begin to achieve the under-lying purpose of religious life. But to do this requires an effort on the part of the order to become sensitive to the effects its structures have on the spiritual journey of each of its members and an effort on the part of each member to be radically honest with himself or herself about the real con-cerns which occupy one's life in a religious setting. NOTES ~Marie Augusta Neal, "The Relation Between Religious Belief and Structural Change in Religiiaus Orders: Developing an Effective Measurement," Review of Religious Research 12, 1 (Fall, 1970), pp. 2-16. 2Helen Ebaugh, Out of the Cloister (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1977.). 3Lucinda San Giovanni, Ex-Nuns (Ables, Norwood, New Jersey, 1978). 4Rich~ard Schoenherno and Andrew Greeley, "Role Commitment Processes and the American Catholic Priesthood," American Sociological Review 39 (1974) pp. 417-426. ~Patricia Wittberg, "Transformations in Religious Commitment" REVIEW FOR RELI- ~31OtJS, Vol. 42 No. 2 (1985), pp. 161-170. 6Rosabeth Kanter, Commitment and Community (Harvard University Press, Cam-bridge, 1972). 7Ibid, p. 69: 8lbid, p. 69. 91bid, p. 67. ~ORobert Merton, ~Social Conformity, Deviation, and Opportunity Structures: A Comment on the Contributions of Dubin and Cloward," American Sociological Review 24 (1959), pp. 177-188. Two Forms of Consecrated Life: Religious and Secular Institutes David E O'Connor, S. T. Father O'Connor holds the chair of the Department of Church Law at Washington Theological Union and resides at Holy Trinity Mission Seminary (9001 New Hampshire Avenue; Silver Spring, Maryland 20910). His previous article in these pages was "Lay Associate Programs: Some Canonical and Practical Considerations," which appeared in last year's March/April issue. Th~ 1983 Revised Code of Canon Law in, canons 573-730 designates both religious and secular institutes as Institutes of the Consecrated Life. This is a new classification in church law, In its simplicity, it is open to some misunderstanding as a juridical oversimplification because, in fact, both types of institutes are very different. This may just be another exam-ple of the limitations of all canonical categories which are not capable of fully expressing the charisms and gifts of the Spirit to the Church. While the members of both forms of~the consecrated life do profess the evangeli-cal counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience, their lifestyles manifest two rather divergent forms of ecclesial dedication. The intention of this brief article is to explore some of the similarities and real differences between these two types of consecrated lives and to promote a better appreciation of the distinctiveness,~ the identity and the place each one has in the Church. Let it be stated at the outset that neither form of ecclesial dedication is presented as better or superior tO the other. While canonical religious life has been a recognized and important part of Church life for centuries, it has taken a variety of shapes and forms. Secular institutes, canonically and historically, have received ecclesial recognition only within the last fifty years and are still in the process of trying to have their uniqueness under- 205 906 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 .stood and appreciated. The new Code of Canon Law is a welcome and innovative move in this direction. It is a positive step forward in giving secular institutes the canon-ical identity and ecclesial status which they deserve. In canon 710, the new code describes a secular institute as one in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for perfection in charity and work for the sanctifi-cation of the world, especially from within. Canon 607, §2 describes a religious institute as one in which the members, according to proper law, pronounce public vows, either.perpetual or temporary, which are to be renewed when they have lapsed, and live in common as brothers or sisters. A quick perusal of these canonical descriptions makes apparent some of the. differences between these two types of institutes. The members of secular institutes are to "live in the world" and work for its sanctification "especially from within." On the other hand, religious are to live "in com-mon as brothers or sisters" and profess "public" vows. These and other distinctive features of both forms of ecclesial dedication need to be more closely examined and elaborated upon in order to manifest the special style of consecration lived by the members of the different institutes. In order to facilitate this examination, a comparison of these two types of consecrated life has been organized under the following five headings: Secularity, Community Life, Apostolic Activity, Evangelical Counsels and Canonical Status. There will be, necessarily, some repetition involved because it is impossible to treat the distinctiveness of each institute without there being some overlapping of ideas. For example, it is not possible to consider the evangelical counsels as lived in religious institutes without considering them in the context of common life. Nor is it possible, to con-sider adequately the evangelical counsels as lived by members of secular institutes without examining them in the context of the secularity which is essential to the life of the members. I ask the reader to be patient in this matter as efforts are made to emphasize the genuine distinctiveness and special characteristics of each form of the consecrated life. Se~.ulariff. The primarY and foremost characteristic of secular institutes is that they are secular. This has been repeatedly emphasized in all the ecclesiasti-cal documents which address the nature and role of these institutes, from Provida Mater Ecclesia (February 2, 1947) and the Motu Proprio, Primo Feliciter (March 12, 1947), through the documents of Vatican II (1962-1965), especially ,Perfectae Caritatis,, 11, to the 1983 Code of Canon Law. It is "secularity" which totally colors the way oof life of the members and is the most significant characteristic of their consecrated way of life. Two Forms of Consecrated Ltfe/ 207 The members remain lay people or secular priests. They are not reli-gious ~nor are they expected to live in any manner which approximates or imitates the religious life.~ In every, sense of the term, they are to cultivate their consecrated secularity as ordinary people; living "in-the world and, as it were, from the world. "~ They should be involved in the social milieu and professional life proper to each member in the concrete circumstances of that member's place, time and culture. Indeed, members are to have a secular outlook and acknowledge themselves as "part" of the world and committed to sanctifying it from within) Hehce, the style of life of the lay members of a secular.,institu~te is that~ of a consecrated person living a rather inconspicuous and ordinary life, holding down a job or involved in a profession, while living alone or wi[h family or friends. Externally they will not appear to be different from any other lay person in a similar situation. Indeed, Pope John Paul II has encouraged them to develop their professional life and to be, at the level of Knowledge and experience, really competent in their specific field of endeavor.4 Religious, on the other hand, are required and expected by/heir own consecrated way of life to have a certain "separation from the world prpper to the character and purpose of each institute.'~ Obviously, this is expressed very differently by monastic communities and by apostolic reli-gious. Members of apostolic religious institutes frequent~ly find themselves immers~ed in the world with similar demands made upon them to have the professional competence required in their particular formJ of apostolate or ministry. Yet, at the same time, they may be more likely to think of themselves, while at the service of people and the Church,.as "being in the world, but not of it." Indeed, they are often readily identifiable as "Church-people" even if they are not wearing a habit or clerical garb. Furthermore, they often live in houses or convents associated with their ir~titutional apostolate which helps identify them as Church-workers. Thus their com-munity lifestyle and their corporate apostolate or form of ministry, in one sense, sets them apart and "separates" them from" the ordinary lifestyle of lay people. There are incarnational and eschatological dimensions" to the life of every Christian. However, it appears that the Church considers thai the incarnational should be especially clear in the Christian life of the dedicated laity and that the eschatological or transcendental should be-particularly manifested through the dedicated life of members of religious institutes. One form of the consecrated life the secular institute emphasizes the goodness of the world and of all God's creation (Gn l:3,1); the Other the religious institute emphasizes the radical discipleship of Jesus which involves some separation from or renunciation of the world (Jn 15:19). 901t / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 Community Life Some form of life in common or community life has been a part of religious life from timeqmmemorial. It is a clear requirement of the new Code of Canon Law.6 Members of a religious community are to live in a house-of their own institute with their brothers or sisters and under the autl~ority of a religious superior.7 This is the place where they conduct their day-to-day life and offer their companionship and support to one another. It is the place where they gather about the eucharistic table and pray together. It is from there that apostolic religious reach out to others in a variety of ministries and dedicated ecclesial service. Therefore, some form of commu~nity life has been a perennial dimension of religious~ life and presented as an ecclesial witness of Christian love. The common life of religious does differ somewhat fro~a community to community, and is radically different for: monastic and apostolic religious. However, it is a necessary dimension of religious life and one of its special characteristics. Common life is not a part °of the consecrated life of members of secular institutes. While some institutes may have, as part of their particular tradi-tion, residences which belong to the institute, community life is not an expectation, requirement or characteristic of secular institutes in general. In fact, it has often been positively discouraged as contrary to a truly secular style of life and an unfortunate move toward the imitation of a life approp-riate to a religious institute. ~ The secular quality does not permit of community life on the part of mem-o ~rs, even as an option. It is too easy to slip from the notion of a "group" life to that of a "com.mon" life inconsistent with the personl liberty and the vari-ety of commitments which the ideal of presence in the world entails.8 The new 9od,e does not require the administrators or leaders of a secular institute to have their own residence, nor is it necessary to have a house where formation programs can be conducted.9 Members of secular i~stitutes are expected to live as ordinary lay people, either alone or with their families, or in a group as brothers and sisters.~0 Diocesan priests, who are members of a secular institute, likewise, are expected to live as the other priests in the diocese. That is, they are to live in the rectory to which they haye been assigned by their bishop. There is to be nothing unusual or exter-nally distinctive in their style of life in the world. However, as canon 716 of the code states, the members of a secular institute are urged to share actively in the institute according to their own proper law. They are to maintain a certain "communion" among them-selves arid carefully foster a unity of ~pirit and genuine relationships as brothers and sisters. The constitutions and statutes of each institute should specify how this is to be done, but should not imply that cohabitation or Two Forms of Consecrated Life / 209 any form of common life similar to that of religious is expected. It is the obligation of leaders and moderators in the institute to promo.te this spirit of unity and an active participation of the members)~ Apostolic Activity The new Code of Canon Law succinctly expresses the manner in which apostoli~ activity is to be exercised by the members o

Issue 43.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1984. ; Volume 43, Number REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOI~S (ISSN 0034-.639X). published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. REVIEW EOg REI.IGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis, MO. © 1984 by REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOI,~S. Composed. printed and manufactm:ed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage), For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW VOlt RELIGIOI~S: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor May/June, 1984 Volume 43 Number 3 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence wilh the editor should be sen! 1o REVIEW rolt 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 University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from Rt.'vlt:w !'on RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Ou! of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from Universiiy Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. -A Revealing. Light to the Gentiles John Paul H At the beginning of February of this year, Pope John Paul invited religious throughout the world to join him in spirit at a special celebration for religious of the Jubilee Year of Redemption. The celebration was concluded by a liturgy held at St. Peter's Basilica on February 2, in which 25,000 religious participated. During the Mass, the pope delivered this h~omily, inviting the participants o to renew their religious profession. Today, dear brothers and sisters, 1 want to borrow these words of the old man Simeon in order together with you to adore the Light: Christ the Light of the World! We are gathered in St. Peter's Basilica in the Year of the Redemption, in the year of the extraordinary Jubilee. We are meeting in that great and multiform community which you all make up, brothers and sisters, from so many religious orders, congregatio.ns and institutes: Individuals and com-munities that are consecrated to God! This meeting brings together the representatives of the religious families who live in Rome and, at the same time, extends to all those fellow brothers and sisters with whom the oneness and the identity of your vocation unites you. Through this same oneness and identity you are also bound together by a specialunion of mission in the Church--a mission in the midst of the People of God in every country and on every continent, to the ends of the earth. Today, in this great, universal community, you join the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter to proclaim, in the spirit of today's liturgy: A revealing light to the Gentiles! The light is Christ, the Light and Glo~:y of the People of God throughout the world! It is with this proclamation that you desire to respond to the meaning of tile liturgy on this feast of Candlemas, and at the same time you want to give expression to that which constitutes the interior mystery of each and every one of you. In fact, by reason of your vocation; you walk in this Light which is 321 322 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 Christ in a special way, and you bear witness to it also in a special way. Today this is made evident by the lighted candles which in a short time you will be holding in your hands. Each of these candles recalls, above all else, the Sacrament of Baptism, through which Christ began to illuminate your life with the light of the Gospel and with the light of his Redemption--Christ, whom you received through faith within the community of the Church; Christ, handed on to you from day to day in the Christian life of your family, your surroundings and your school. The full flowering of baptism is the Eucharist; and at the same time, the constant renewal of its purifying power is the Sacrament of Penance and Reconcilation. These candles that you hold, then, remind you, in the context, of today's feast, of the moment of your consecration, your religious profession, your choice of this way of life that is based on the evangelical .counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. The ligh~t of Christ shone at that moment with an especially brilliant flame. The.Oarries of fait.h and hope joined the vivid flame of charity and focused on the Heart of your divine Spouse, which at the same time itself opened wide because of this focusing--just as this divine Heart opens widely in the mystery of our redemption which, as we know, is universal, embracing everyone and everything. " Depth and universality: these ar~ the two characteristics of the religious vocation which attest to its being ro0tedqn the mystery of the Redemption and in the light of Christ. Today's liturgy, on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, leads you toward this light. So you may enter the temple, just as Mary and Joseph once did when they took Jesus to JeruSalem to offer him to the Lord (see Lk 2:22). The law of the Old Testament provided that every first-born son be consecrated to the Lord (see Lk 2:23), and this consecration Was accompanied by a sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. Today, beloved 'brothers and sisters, you enter this temple to renew, in the light of Christ's Presentation, your' own offering to God in Jesus Christ, your own consecration to be his exclusive property. F~:om the depths of the mystery of consecration springs this particular way of belonging to God himself--a belonging of which only the person, the knoWing and free subject, is capable. This belonging has the nature of gift. It responds to"a gift and at the same time gives expression to a gift. In the light ~of Christ, each one of you perceives with penetraiing clarity that all creation is a gift. You perceive in creation the special gift of your own humanity. And with the gift of this entire and indivisible humanity, you desire to respond ~to the gift of your Creator, of your Redeemer, of your Spouse. In this way,' there is inscribed in the huma0 "I" of each one of you a special bond of communion with Christ ahd, in him, with the Most Holy Trin!ty:~ the Father, the Son, find the Holy Spi.rit. Revealing I~ght to the Genliles / 323 Entering~the temple,, th~en, along with Mary and Joseph--where the rite of the Presentation of Jesus provided for by the law is to take place--we encounter two persons, Simeon and Anna, who are wholly consecrated to God, dedicated to the expectation of Israel, or rather, to, mankind's greatest hope of all time. Simeon, having been inspired by the Holy Spirit,~had gone to the temple (see Lk 2:27). Does this not perhaps bring to minda similar "inspiration" with which you were once moved., itself an inspiration of the Spirit? Yes, for the Holy Spirit, in the power of Christ's Redemption, is the author of all sanctity. So.is he also.author of that~ special call on the way to sanctity that is contained in the religious vocation. Today, when you renew your profession, in your hearts, remember that interior "inspiration" of the Spirit which was at the beginning of your path. Remember how this "inspiration" began, how it grew stronger, how it may perhaps have returned again after a period of time.until finally you recognized in it the clear voice of God, and the power of the nuptial love of the Lord who was calling you. Remember this today in order to give thanks with a renewed heart, in order to profess "the marvels of God" (Ac 2:ll). This inspiration from the Spirit cannot be extinguished. It must endure and mature, along with your r~ligious vocation, throughout your entire lives. You can nev.er separate yourselves from this salvific "inspiration from the Spirit," caring for it in the interior temple that each of you is! How eloquent are the words concerning the Prophetess Anna in today's Gospel: She was constantly in the temple, worshiping,day and night in fasting and prayer. Coming on the scene at this moment, she gave thanks to God and talked about the child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem (Lk 2:37-38). Simeon leans over the child and utters prophetic words: This child is destined to be the downfall a~d the rise of many in Israel, a sign that will be opposed so that the thoughts of many flearts may be laid bare (Lk 2:34). He addresses these words to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and addS: "And you yourself shall be pierced with a sword" (Lk 2:35). A strange prophecy! And yet perhaps it is at once the most concise and the most comPlete synthesis of all Christology and of all soteriol0gy. Dear brothers and sisters! May this prophecy reach your souls t6day with new strength. Welcome Christ, who is the ligh't of the world: Christ in whom God ~"has prepared his salvation in the presence of all peoples" (~see Lk 2:31). Welcome Christ, who is also a "sign that will be opposed." This "opposition" is engraved into your vocation. Do not try to remove it or to erase it. This "opposition" has salvific significance. The salvation of the world is achieved precisely along the path of this opposition that is offered by Christ. And so you, by welcoming Christ~ are also a manifestation of this 324/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 salvific opposition. It cannot be otherwise: It is precisely in 'the name of this saving opposition that there is engraved upon your Christian and religious "I" the profession you have made of poverty, chastity and obedience. The world needs the authentic "opposition" of religious consecration as a constant leaven of salvific renewal. You will be carrying in your hands the lighted candles of today's liturgy. They say that Christ is the Light which enlightens every man who comes into the world. They are the testimony of your entire dedication to Christ and to God; they are the testimony of your consecration. These candles also illuminate the meaning of human life, the life of each one of us. As the candle gradually burns, the wax melts and the candle is consumed. May your lives burn in ~the light of Christ! May yours be lives of total nuptial dedication to his service! May the life-giving current of the mystery of our redemption pass through this life, reaching the world and man and directing all our human existence toward~ the eternal light: the light of vision and glory. Simeon said to Mary, Mother of Jesus: "And you yourself shall be pierced with a sword!" Dear brothers and sisters, receive Christ from the hands of Mary. May the mystery of your redemption reach you through her soul. May all the salvific plans of consecrated hearts always be manifest before the heart of the Mother! Be united with her, with your glance focused on her. In her is there a special resemblance to Christ who is the Spouse of your souls. Formula for the Renewal of Vows This formula was used by the Holy Father on February 2, during the liturgy in which the religious addressed by him renewed their vows. Dear Brothers and Sisters: in answering the call of the Lord, you have risen with him and have died to.sin. Through your baptism and your perpetual commitment you have been consecrated to him. Do you wish to reaffirm your desire to follow Christ chaste, poor, and obedient, in imitation of his Holy Virgin Mother? R. Yes, l do. Do you wish to persevere in your commitment to'follow the Gospel of Jesus, and to observe the rule of your religious family in order to live in evangelical comm~union with God and with your brothers and sisters? R. Yes, I do. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, do you wish to dedicate your whole life to the service of the Peopli~ of God, and above all, tO the very poor? R. Yes, l do. May God, who has begun this good work in you, bring it to completion until the day of the Lord Jesus. R. Amen. Amen. Amen. On Choosing Religious Life Today Sallie Latkovich, C.S.J. Sister Latkovich is presently nearing the completion of her noviceship in Cleveland. Sister may be addressed at St. Joseph Convent; 3430 Rocky River Drive; Cleveland. OH 44111. ~ ~klong with the obvious aspects of the renewal of religious life, in local living situations, in diversity of ministries, and in community structure and govern-ment, there has also been renewal in initial formation. To be sure, there is a newness about those who enter religious life, a newness about their very choice to live in community, and a newness in'the process of initiation into existing community structures and traditions. AS one new member, I'd like to share my reflections on coming to com-munity: at age thirty, degreed in education and theology, having been a teacher and department chairperson in a Diocesan high school, and a pastoral associate in aparish. ' About one year ago, I participated in a federation event for novices of the Sisters of St. Joseph. The meetings were held at De Mattias Hall on the campus of St. Louis Univ.ersity, where th~ sister-student~ shared their dormitory, dining room, and meeting area. I rode the elevator with bne of the resident sisters, a Golden Jubilarian, who asked how the meetings for the novices were going. After my enthusiastic reply, the sister touched my arm warmly, assuming that l was one of the directors, and said: "This is so good for the~young ones." I chuckled and responded to my dear and special elevator companion: "I am one of the young ones!" This incident challenges us all to take a good look at the new realities which have emerged past some of the old stereotypes, including the age and life-experiences of new members, the process of initiation into-and bonding with community, and the preparation for vowed commitment. There undoubtedly is something shared by all individuals who discern 325 326 [ Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 religious vocation and respond to the mysterious call from God. The very choice, however, takes on different dimensions today from the time when the choice was made by young people of high school age who came to community from their parents' homes. In my perception, the women who choose to enter religious life today are fairly self-identified, at age 25, 30, or 40 years old; they come with education, credentials, work experience, achievements, and "street smarts" that come from self-support; they have had the experience of adult human relationships, and an important growing relationship with the Lord. Thus, for the new member to community today, the adjustment involves several major changes: from single living to community living, taking seriously and publicly the values and lifestyle of the vows, and sharing their life's journey with one person as director during the time of initial formation. In the past, a person entered religious life, and the entrance carried with it obvious signs and restrictions. This is a source of some confusion today, both for the new member and for family and friends. Looking and acting the same after entrance as before leaves one hard put to describe the inner transformation that is happening in surrendering one's life to the Lord and in bonding with community. Those who entered at a young age grew into adulthood as religious; many who enter today face the conversion of integrating their adult identity with religious identity. For most who come to community today, the single life has been a life of their choice, and seemingly, of their control. There has been the responsibility and enjoyment of a home, furnished according to taste and budget. One's budget has been determined by one's employment and salary, and has included the management of credit cards, checking, and savings accounts. Regarding employment, one's functioning and achievement on the job have likely been very significant, as our society places so much emphasis on the work/productivity ethic. One has probably owned a car, thought of as a "freedom-mobile" as one gives up that ownership. Though most who choose community are highly principled and have made decisions based on good valiaes,,there has been no accountability aside from self and God for schedule, activities, involvements, for decision-making in general. When persons actually enter community, they appeal to be the same as before; and yet, not. one part of each new member's life remains the same. Living poverty leads one to relinquish ownership of possessions, Some held dear. Though the anticipation of that was much worse than the reality for me, I was surprised to discover how attached I was to my own wondeff~ul doub.l~ bed! There is a real adjustment as one begins to rely on a relatively small monthly allowance for one's personal needs; and to rely on the community for other more major expenses. The importance of my self-sufficiency was very striking the first time Ihad to present my dental bill to the community treasurer, having paid those bills myself for the last ten years. These obvious, external changes seem fairly easy by comparison ~o the less obvious, internal transformation. For a .single woman to survive and to On Choosing Religious Life Today /327 succeed in this culture, she needs to compete in the male system, which demands independence and control of every aspect and detail of herqife; and thus, to be recognized as a responsible adult.'There is a great and sometimes awe-full experience of poverty in rei:ognizing the falseness, the illusion of all that, in coming to the truth of our own gifts, but also our limitations and weaknesses. Recognizing ourselves as responsible adults.involves faith that God is the One who is in control, and our dependence is on him. One then begins ~to experience the Gospel truth: "in .weakness, power reaches perfection." Options have been open for relationship for the single woman in today's world. Being atti'active to others and being attracted by them is a dynamic which doesn't change with community membership. Soon after 1 moved into community, I attended a surprise birthday party for someone I had dated and with whom I had remained friends. When his new dating relationship came in the door, 1 was surprised:~at my jealous reaction. A sister,with whom I lived answered my own questioning with: "Welcome to the human race." Indeed, I was and am human. What does change upon entering religious life is one's availability to pursue exclusive relationships. Of course, intimacy in human relationships remains an important value; but, the expression of intimacy may undergo some change or redirection as one approaches the vow of .celibacy. Living in a homogenous community of women is a drastic change for one who has led an active life in a heterogenous setting. Families and friends have had experience in how to celebrate and live with one's marriage commitment; they fumble a bit at understanding, much less celebrating and living with one's celibate religious commitment. Obedience is difficult for one Who has made decisions singly, privately, and well for a number of adult years. Sharing discernment and decision-making is fundamental and necessary to community life, but it can feel like regressing to an earlier parent-child situation--the last~experience of consulting with an authority. That very feeling of regression was the source of my own difficulty with simply sharing with my director the Choices or plans I had made; and learning to distinguish between decisions that warranted discussion and those that did not. Along with this sharing of .significant decisions, following the proper channels and the time it takes to do so may seem very long and unnecessary as compared to spontaneous choices made .previously. Thus, beginning to live obedience demands patience and focus on integrating one's life and choices with the very life and direction of the community. ~ In communities today, there is usually one person designated as director of the new members. Perhaps this responsibility is handled in a team approach. What an important position this is, ,both for the individual new member and for the whole larger community. 1 think, however, that'in light of the role, the title "Director" is a misnomer, as the directio.n of the phase of initial formation is a joint effort as opposed to "director" and "direction-taker." 321~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 In my experience, this person has been one who has shared a precious space of my life's journey; she has been mentor, counselor, and most importantly, model. Though she necessarily becomes the new member's primary contact person, she is representative of every other member ~of community who have individual responsibility to welcome the new member in the bonding/belonging .process. The new member's relationship with the director is unparalleled and unprecedented in previous adult life. Mention mtist be made, too,.of the other professed members who live with those in formation. °Their presence in local community only enhances the bonding/belonging process. Their own lives, ministries, and stories of com-munity history are a significant contribution to the new member. Occasionally, one becomes aware of an unconscious, unintended stigma attached to the "formation process" which looks backto the days when the present professed community were in formation themselves; the time when new members were young and inexperienced, not allowed to speak with professed, much less participate in community affairs, or even ,be present for chapter proceedings. The ghosts of those times come out of the closet when new members today are welcomed with rhetoric but subtly held at a distance from the professed community, not actually excluded but neither included, or not taken seriously because of a "hangover attitudi~" that they are just novices. It is especially difficult when a new member feels or experiences a separation, one that is hard to articulate or explain, from professed members of community who may be the same age, have common interests, or like experiences. To be truly welcomed is the beginning of bonding and encouraging of self-investment. The choice for religirus life in community is just that: the choice to invest. oneself in response to a call from the Lord, to join together" with others for the sake of the kingdom. The choice is full of hope, expectation, and celebration. Like the Gospel grain of wheat, there is death, there is loss. We mourn every loss, and experience pain in that; pain that deserves to be named in order to be a source of growth, of resurrection to new life. Just so, the grain of wheat produces much fruit. The dynamic of community life is like being planted in good, rich soil, which nourishes that growth: in the sharing of life and prayer, in gathering around the eucharistic table and the supper table, and in mutual support and challenge. In conclusion, one might look at the numbers of people who are entering religious life today, and despair that so many fewer are choosing community than did some years ago. On the other hand, there can be. i~ause for great rejoicing that people are attentive to the Lord's call, seek to respond, and so choose--in many cases, a choice that is clearer and freer than in previous times because there is an understanding and experience of options and of life. When we take stock of the renewal that has taken place and continues in religious communities, let us include the new experience of those who come. What Is a Novitiate For? DonaM Macdonald, S.M.M. Father Macdonald has been a frequent contributor to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, He has served his congregation as master of novices while in India. Presently Father Macdonald resides at 'St. Joseph's; Wellington Road: Todmorden: Lancashire 0114 5HP: England Roberi Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons. a young man called Richard asks "Thomas More for a job. "Employ me" he says, "I would be steadfast." To this °Mo~:e replies: "Richard, you couldn't answer for yrurself even so far as tonight."~ These proved unhappily propheti6 words, as Richard was to perjure himself later at the trial of the saint. All generalizations are false to a degree, but More's comment is true of ~o many today under the age of thirty. There is good will and idealism in ,~arying degrees, but little internal cohesion. Too many are too soft centered. One cannot take too. seriously, therefore, much of what such people say or do. Equipped though tohey may possibly be for ~a short run, one would be ill-ad~; ised to bet on their stamina over a longer distance. If on(~ takes Bophoeffer's de's~riptior;~ of maturi.ty as an acceptable criterion the maiure per'son is one 'whrse center of gravity is always where he or, she actually is2--then clearly many ~n this age group are immature. The a'doleffcent, by definition, has n6 central reference point, in some cases starting each day with a clean slate. The commitments of yesterday ark behind him or forgotten. He is, after all, trying' tO form an independent character. Considered in law to be adult at eighteen or so, by any other criterion he might not be so viewed. Quite often he is an emotional mess moving in a world where so much is relative and little seems meant to last. Entering into adult commitments with the mores Of an adolescent, the miracle is that so many make i,.t in view of the numbers who do not.ln the contemporary jargon, young people are today subject to so marly presstires. One pressure notable by its absence, is the need to accept 330,/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 personal responsibility for decisions taken. There is no c~iiter of gravity in the present moment. The effects of this paradox of persons being legally adult and emotionally adolescent, are seen in every walk of life, not least in their seeming inability to fbim a permanent commitment. So harmful are the general ~effects of this in marriage, for example, that it is now being seriously canvassed whether there is such a thing as an automatic right to marry. As society has to pick up so much of the failure and casualities, has it not the right to take out preventative inSurance? , All of this is relevant to religious life find to the admission and formation of young candidates. "Am I dealing with an adult or an adolescent?" is an ever-present question for anyone working in formation. The pattern sketched earlier is valid for the young religious and young priest as well as the young married. One °has had similar conversations, hearing an uncannily uniform vocabulary, with all three categories of young people facing difficulties over their commitments. ~ Whether speaking~to married, priest or religious among the young, one so often hears "The magic has gone. ~.," "It does nothing for me . "':l've reached a dead-end . .," 'Tm too young for responsibility~:.," "Surely God doesn't want this.!" Against the wider canvas of feeling that the world owes them a living--or at least that it should play fair--the underlying thread seems to be that since the commitment made to marriage, priesthood or religious life no longer does anything for me, I owe it to myself to get out from under this yoke. Less often does one hear: "! gave myself to this commit/hen! expecting it to demand the best f, rom me; here, then, is my center of gravity. I Stand, thbyefore, on this gift of myself. What, then, is to be done within this situation?" 'The Church is coming to see this. Increasingly, dioceses are ,sl~eqif~,ing s~x-months' ~otice, with genuine preparation, for a.nyone° wishing to be married in a Catholic Church. Students for the priesthood are invited to take ,t~eir prepaEation more seriously, and encouraged to live and work for a while away from ~he 'tmmed~' a~te support of a seminary or °religibu~s dommunit~,.3 Yo~ng~people today often come to seminaries and religious houses to work odi" the problems of adolescence. Are they, then, in the wrong place for wrong reasons? Is this the point of religious initiation? Quite~genuinely, a ni~vitiate may have to decide wheth~r to offer an a~olescent formation pr~ogram, or an adult course for approaching God in community. Individual no,vices may have different needs,.so it is a very. difficult questipn to answer. But the results of our failure to resolve itare all about us. Immature Formation : An implicit d~cision in favor' of adolescence is sgmetimes taken in an attempt to offer Ypung can, didates a congenial environment for,~their early What-~4s a Novitiate For? / 33"1 formative years. They are kept-very much with their peers. Tho~e guiding formatioffare chosen because of their alleged ability to mik with yogng peol~le. Older religious either fight shy of their company or~are carefully screened or shepherded away from them. With such mentors one _sometimes observes in formation the pooling of insecurity. The adolescent candidate is reflected in his guide, with the formation community sharing the ethos of a studi~nt hostel. One has been at prayer in such company with their leaders, and heard the spontaneous reflections of a ,young religious ono~the,Pau, line view that '~those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh With its passions and desires" (Ga 5~.2.4), virtually reduging it to t!~ezlevel.of occasionally doing without sugar in one's ~.tea. The sense of the prayer me.eting seemed to second this interpretatio.n, and the lifestyle of th~ young religi.o~u~.did nothing to challenge it. Similarly, listening to a lunchtime discussion on,where a religious ought to I~b buried whefi he digs, .of several pos_sibilities, argued over. no one suggested. even as a debating point, t.hat, as" religious are p.o0r, the question ought scarcely arise; poor people have'no choice. Time spent with novices, young Yeligious and their gu!des, reinforces this impression, all the more revealing because it is patently unconscious. Nov~ unless some adult shows them otherwise, they~will spend their early formative years in at,least a lower.middle~class lifestyle, in the free association character-istic, ofa comfortable student.hostel and develop~such patterns of thought and behavior in the name'of the~Go.spel and of the~ charism of their founder. In one sense they have it m~de. Yet sooner or~later a price has io be paid:~ One cannot keep playing guitar in a.student group forever: T~here is a, ,big, wide,world out there whic.h .will .not accept their premises. Nor will the GospeL.It is better to glimpse this sooner rather than.later. Ultimately.one,has to choose fgr one, self and take the consequences. A formauon program should,at least enco.ur~ge this.~ - ~ .~ ¯ Challenge the Candidate~ _ . ~ There is here an interesting contrast with the armed forces when they advertise for officer recruits. Appealing to the same age group as do religious, the individual is aske~l, for e.xample, "Did you. spend three years at university to spend twenty years sitting.behind a desk"?. The armed forces have .much to offer but.the individual must choose, and-this to~ an~ age group readycfo_r a~job. but not always for a career. Having taken a decision to inv~estigatefurther, it is~- never suggested that they are being offered a soft option The be~;t.thing about initial basic training, oit is said, is when it, stops.AL will be physically and intellectually demanding but not pointless. The emphasis is on demanding the best to enable the recruits to receive the best that can be given the.re. "We will use qualities you do not know you have" says the Navy. Responsibility will be real and given early. "Earn the right to wear these wings" is part of the al~peal of the air force. Pilots wings are not given lightly. They are something we value and you have to earn. Once you do that. they are yours by right. The army 332/ Revie~wfor Religious; May-J.unel 1984 explains t'hat, it can:pick and choose--and it does. It .d0es'not want just anybody. !t wants the best; particularly men and women who really want it. You may ,not' be good ~enough, but if yomthink you~a~e, please apply for an interview.~You may fail the interview as many do, b~t we can promise you that any subsequent interview .you take Will be easier. All advertising is partial and selective but the. overall pattern here may be worth considering;by those working in formatio'n. Do we believe that we have much'to offer? Can people glimpse this inwhat we do and who we are? Do we ask the best of young people? ~ The initial dynamic of religious founders isnot in.question. Their appeal is clear-cut. But in ~ost cases they are dead. They "live"at second hand, through us. Their once sharp insightfinto the Gospel may well have died the death of a thousand qualifications, blurred and out of focus as~ pres6nted in chaptersl constitutions and'personal living. This,iS inevitable and need cSause no surpris& After all, even theGospel,was dilutedwith'the call of the first apostle. What is to be done? Personally Responsible - lfthe candidate' is 16oking for short term canonization material in those he ,meets he will. in .the main, be dis~ppointed~ He~might:filso reflect that such company ffould probab~ly exclude him. Rather is the".novitihte Best used by someone Who can tak~ a dec'isioh and st~, with thecons~qu~nces, able to give himself to something c~ther than himself:The program th~n" is basically one of self-developmen~t, .u~ing whatever physical, emotional,, intellectual, spiritual qualities are there. The individual has't6 do it himself, and the progi'am should allowhim scope: To be.effective, the no"vice has to give himself to whatever he is doing, trying always to k¯eep it simple. Part of himself, for part.of thetime, will produce a hybrid character unable to identify with what he is doing. .Spontaneity is usually at its best when underpinned.by assiduous practice. The sportsman~who shirks training is usually, found wanting on the day of the. competition:~ qs this not unrealistic if not plain silly? An earlier generation spoke ofa "second conversiori" in religious life. One made profession, but to the degree that one W;,s~faithful to.that initial commitment. God might well-extend the invitation one tiay'to~move out of Second gear, to go de~per. Can one, ~therefore, ~a.sonably ask of the novice what may not be found in his guide? Further, young people today are from an environment where commitments to marriage, priesthood and religious life are not kept for all manner of reasons. Th'ere are of course marvelous instances of fidelity, but found alongside a very strong contrary'c,urrent. But is there any choice? Thomas More's daughter Margaret~ in Bolt s play, begs him as a skilled lawyer to find a form of words to Save himsi~lf from igrison and death. More answers her: "When a man takes an oath. Meg, he's-holding his own self in his own hands like water. And if he ope6s his fingers then--he needn't hope to find himself again. Some men What Is a Novitiate .For?/333 dren't,capable o£thi,s, but I'd be loathe to think your fathe~r~ one of them" (Act 2). This may not be the point of arrival of someone com, in~ .to a novi.tiate, bot surely it points the direction in which he must'travel? How else could he:say yes or no to anything? How form a permanent relationship with anything e!se?, "Freedom from the contemporary" is one of the rarest freed0ms0today. A novitiate could offer that; in-the exercise of personal, responsibility. ~ .l,n practice, this needs littl~e theoretical discussio.n. The can.didate,is urged to do_whatev.er ought to be done. Living this way in'the present moment,,it, has the added value, of helping the noOice come!to :terms, with ,boredom, routine and drudgery, without which he will make little-of permanent c6mmitment. "It's~boring" iS a universal escape clatise from responsibility in the age group we are considering, Living like this, he. may or ~ay not fifid thi~t theJife is for him--but at least he has a hope of a genuine ans,.wer to a question he really asked. A Minimal Frameworl~ The novice should be awa~ of a minimal framework in which the bench marks lie in his observed approach to God and thec6mmunity.~As far as God is concerned, worship may well have to be taught today in the western world, where there is little innate .reverence or sense of wonder before ~the holy. A tabernacle, set in.a corner alcove over a radiator beside a window, where an earlier generation might :have put a statue, will hardly foster worship in a novitiate chapel: The young person who is rarely seen in ~chapel other than at a community celebration, who never genuflects or bows before° the Blessed Sacrament, but immedi,ately sits down in a relaxed, leisurely position, might be indicating limitations in his awareness of God which Isaiah 6 might usefully help. The assumption that "that was a lovely Mass" indicates an objective value may have to be examined. According to his capacity, the novice may be introduced to Scripture and some of the. classical Christian writings. There is a clarity, warmth and centr.a!ity, about them that can scarcely be foun~t in contemporary spiritual writing, some of which is both popular and effeminate, neither~one thing nor the other. Self-evidently the God of'.the mys.tics may not be well,known, but novices could with pr,.ofit b.e- given a glimpse of what those closest to God in the Jewish, Christian and oth~er-'traditions have felt. This can both encourage him to widen'his horizons, and unsettle any complacen~y,.realizing perhaps that no one can program God .into any personal equation. ¯ The novice may simply be challenged by :a library. He is not asked to assimilate much, just spen~l some time~ in the.company of men and women who knew God as perhaps he never will. Is there any need to claim more for a novitiate than its offer 6f an initial thrust towards God and community living? It is for his guide :to give basic instruction on basic truth, whether the novice reads a page or not. Almost certainly at the beginning of a novitiate, novice. and mature guide Will not live in the same Church in any real sense. 3~1~1 / Revikw for Religious, °May-June, 1984 Living in the-Eresent will be equally'reflected in the novice's obse~e~t relationship'with th6Se amoi~g Whom he'lives. Again the accent is best placed on where he finds himself. Anxiety over poor water supply in a Third World ,village, while good in'itself if expressing genuine concern, rings hollow in the person~hnwilling t6 use w~te~r available to' him to wash the community ~tishes. Unlike the .man whose one acknowledgment to democracy waTs to ride in the same car as fiis chauffeur, young religiohs (or would-be religious) are not to be too choosy about the~c~)mpany they k~eep. They should'~htti~mpt to" build community with what is"given~. ,The moody young person is better elsewhere. Good manners and politeness, sometimeg ridiculed as outworn con~,entions, can at base be a genfiine regard for~ th~ feelings ~of others, particularly those outside on6's own group. They are a ,protection for the shy and the weak. Imagination is necegsary to see that one cannot live within one's pee? group forever. Ultimately, the novice should reflect trust. This is the one thing he can really give to his community. He cannot speak for anybffe else', but he can for himself: "You can trust mb." If there is.someone in the house unable to trust him, this should concern him. He tries to be honest. One °has been present at liturgies and pra~ers'in the age group we are considering, and heard sentiments expressed and gestures made that'would have made 1 Corinthians 13 read like a'chiid'sessay,'while feeling one-~ould be more at home with Bogart, Cagney, and0Edward G. Robinson. With them; you knew where you were: you did not turn your back. Young ,people may be mesmerized by words, mood and music. Truth is not ,that important for some. Again, this'may not be'a starting point, but it points the direction the novice should travel. Unless Someone Show.Me oo ~ Of ~ourse, if this i~ expected! in the candidate, it must be seen in his guide. Integrity is caught and taught, which is why, ideally, young people need to mix with adults~ There is no point in expecting honegty, if, in one's company, people feel that the~, should begin c0unting the spoons. To expect to r6ceive a confidence one should be seen to respect a ~onfidence'. Or~e wins respect and trust. Responsibility must not be a burden for the candidate and an option for his guide. Without trust one cannot build.~ A base like thfit, though~ ca~ support an encouraging amount of human weakness in the guide: ~ In earlier times novitiates were found at the end,of.long driveways or behind high wallsin buildings where the,windows were often°opaque. This cut off novices and their mentors from everyday life, and °more particularly, from their families. Yet the unpretentious pdrents of many ainovice or'guide made a more successful:job of integrating life and God than .did their sons or daughters in religioUs congregations. Yet it was made difficult f6r them to visit ~their children. Soa formation was attempted with often~no real roots in human nature and familylife. What Iso, a Novitiate~For? /~ 335 I am simplifying but not, I think, falsifying a Process which,produced many excellent religious but also. by common observ~atibn, left numbers of ,religious and their guides floundering in a no-man's,land. They could not, synthesize God and life: they often lacked human warmth and,commonsense:~' unlike many of their parents. We may make the same mistake today, unlesswe~ test the lecturer's idea against ttie lived experience of the genuinely Christian. man or ~woman. ~, .~, Maturityocan show something of human nature and off, God. Even,if.the ink is dry on the diploma, the guide may still be wet behind the ears. because what :is wanted in a guide is wisdom: knowledge asiimilated, not just knowledge acquir~'d. The availability of lecturers iniseveral disciplines for the formation team is excellent, but the mature novice needs more. What he wahts is God in the present, and the gift' of wisdom alone cambest direct him.oA university, for '~xample could give him all the knowledge her-.is capables.of receiving regarding the text of the Sermon on the Mount. but some,xriight agree with Bonhoeffer when he set up his seminary Lha_t the univ.ersity could never provide the context for living it.~ In the last anal~,sis. ~vhile properly emphasizing that formation is chiefly based on self-development, equally:,~fov the Christian, it must reflect wholly the ideal of Christ. Under The Influence of an Idi~hl Ul"timately what is off~ered in religious life? A candidate is offering himself or herself to a community of men or, women at whose hea'rt is one who has sa o, am the bread of life; he who comes to me shali not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst" (Jn 6:35). Whaiever th~ young perso~ wants from life is to be found in Christ. the Lord 9f ihe community. To be really,alive is to be really Christian, drawing life from Christ as the body does fr~om food. Whatever their capacity for love and so for giving,~all that is deep~;t ih candidates can be met in (~hrist. T.hey shall never thirst in his company is his claim. He above all can use qualities they do not know they have. The young person's thirst for life and love can be satisfied and more°i~'they ~ome- to Christ in faith. In the fourth gospel we are told, faith is used some ninety eighi times-- always as a verb. never a noun. Thus it indicates a personality, trusting, believing in, relying on, wh'olly given to God in Christ. The verb in the text~e have q uoted,is particularly strong. "To believe" means.io hold on to, like a .~ice or cla~p, and never let go. The Christ of the °i~ommunity a.[one can make demands like that. and his words will take flesh oi~l~.,t,,o, the degree that'ihe candidate has such~faith. This contrast between the promises of our Lord and the lives of some of his religious will pose questions for the youngcandidate. Evidently, the novices' guides are tobe seen as men and women of. genui.ne faith. Again it is a world only for the mature. The fourth gospel is a marvelously practical place to explore the implica- 33~ /~ Review for ~Religious~ ~lay-June, 1984 tions 0f formation in, Christ, but.the merest sketch can be "given here. The gospel.'s earlier chal~te~S can be seen a.s signs illustrating what was promised to our Lord's first followers in chapter one: "You will see heaven opened and the :~ngels~of God a~_cending and descending on the Son of Man"-(Jn 1:51). In Christ's company they~wiil see God present and active among them "angels oof~God ascending and descending"---as Jacob once understood from his dream to his. utter astonishment. The subsequent challenge of the gospel is to re'~ognize this. and s6 be given "power to become children of~God" (1:12). ¯ .The sixth ~chapt'er, from which we took our original text, is really an extended plea for faith in Christ to the exclusion of all else. Despite pitiful res,our~es "whaVare they among so many?"(6:9) Christ fed thousands, and so won their allegiance to .the point of their wishing to make him King, "because you ate ,your~ fill of the loaves" (6:26): Since they thus misread the sign, "Jesus'°withdrex:v again to .the mountain by himself" (6:15) a,n enigmatic and-~far from'obvious figure. He is insistent that they look deeper: "Do not labor for, the food, tha_t perishes, but~ for the food which endures to eternal life which the Sbfi .of Man will give~ you" (6:27). With all the Old Testament overtones of the God-given. manna feeding Israel. our Lord is inyiting them a~nd us to see this in himself, and so "believe in him whom he [God] has sent" (6:29). This is extraordinary language on the lips of someone from nondescript Nazaret.h in Galilee. Persons are to cling to Christ as to food from God. This insight is progressively and shockingly deepened until, for many, it was]ust too much:. "'This is a hard saying and who can listen to it?. After this many of his disciples'drew back and no longer went about with him" (6:60, 66). ThOse who stayed perhaps saw bettei" men and women than themselves ¯ walk away from ChriSt.°Thry, too. possibly, were in the position of a marginal minority. But they must take a personal decision: "Do you also wish to go away?" (6:67). Others have voted with their feet: What will they do? They decided: "Lord to whom shall we go?., woe have b~lieved and have come to know . .~ " (6:68-69). In accepting what Peter says on the disciple's behalf, Cl~rist's words seem to cut like a slap in the face: "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" (6:70). He is of ~ourse speaking of the one who "was to betray him" (6:7.1). This tension runs throughout the gospel our Lord rubbing shoulders with his offn yet so unlike them. They think they at last underst~.nd him only for him to escape their grasp yet again. Undeniably attractive. Christ has'drawn human nature~ at its finest: generous, trusting, ~ivingTand at ~he'sarfi~imel tirash, fearful, faithless. No one's faith in Christ is ab~blute, but must'ever~ynature as the disriples found in the crucifixion and death of their Lord wheri,they had lost all reason to ho pc. But in the.situation, its low~est point outsi~l~ of an empty grave when there was not ever/a dead body,?to~clifig to with its past remembered hopes, they once again hear tllemselves pesonally addresseff by Christ: "Mary . ""Thomas . ""Peter . " Signs which gave glimpses of God in Christ in their frrmative years are now eclipsed in the wonder of fiis resurrection presence.oHaving practically despaired What Is a Novitiate For? / 337 of life and its meaning as centered on Christ, they are now men arid women reborn. They now know :frorfi experience, that. no one need ev~e.r-hunger and thirst coming to Christ. But to attain that belief they had t0 loseMrt.uall)~ every rational indi~tion that made such a belief credible.~.They, too, died with Christ. ¯ This experieni:e is enshrined in the fourth.gospel, which, while taking the reader to the heights in God, will no less really.take him to the depths of human experience. The adolescent's faith can mature in such company or he will hurriedly leave it. It is so fearfully honest: "One of you is a devil . Do you also w~sh to go away? . Is not this the man whom. they seek to kill?. So they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus.hid himself . I lay down my life " . Let us go that we may die with him . If anyone knewwhere he was, he should let them know, so that they might'arrest him., . He knew who was to betray him . The cock will not crow till you have denied me three times . Standing by the cross, of Jesus [was] his mother . It is finished; and he bowed :his head and gave up his spirit." All o~" this takes place in the presen.ce of God among real and, for the most part, ostensibly good people.,The signs have to be read in circumstances of everyday life and an adult response given: These are the signs of faith to which the novice's guide must point, and both of them must follow, the whole illumined by the gloriously effective sign. of the crucifixion, death and resurrection of their' Lord. "It isoa fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God~' says Hebrews (10z31), but, realistically, where else can one live? Faith will mature nowhere else. Beyond All Meaning ,, ., Itis for this reason, surely, that the contemplative side of a religious vocation must be stressed. Here truly lies the specific difference in our way of life. One may debate religious life as being primarily .a group of people trying to live the gospel under one roof, and expressing this in the outreach of an apostolate; or perhaps seeing community chiefly as an effective tool, stripped down to whatever best serves human need; but underlying it all, there has to be a hunger and thirst for God. Genuinely-chaste, poor and obedient living may seem simply odd otherwise. However imperfectly it is lived, this is what is seen. Marginal men and women living at odds with, what makes life livable for most people will need "guts," courage and conviction to keep faith with their commitment. It will all take place first and foremost within the individual man or woman. Following the gospel pattern it may mean at times looking for the living among the dead, heartbroke ~n and terrified, ofitside an empty grave. The logic of the gospel is not naturally~ours. Under GOd, only those closest to him in the contemplative tradition in every walk of life can guide us through it. To be introduced to this (or to continue in it) the novice and young religious need to be shown an uncluttered lifestyle. It is surprising .how little is needed if one's eye is kept on the one thing necessary. God and human warmth are needed in formation but little else. ~31~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 Humor is~a marvelous teaching and growing mediumoable, to-both humanize and divinize. The vows are meant to free the human personality, to admit the love of God and so make one fully alive. For any of this to have an effect it will need to be. made part of oneself. If conversion to God in Christ is to happen it must be in the human heart. This is why silence, both external and internal, is necessary. One has, therefore, to be trained to be still and to listen, or one will,continue to live by external stimuli, equating immediate satisfaction from what is there with authenticity. Though young people today may sing of the gentleness of silence, few find it so. Yet an introduction to it during formation can offer' still another priceless "freedom from the contemporary." How, in fact, one can mature and hope to hear God in daily life without an understanding of silence, I do not know. In this context, a relatively recent, urgent recommendation from the Congregation for Catholic Education to those in charge of seminaries, is of particular value to persons charged with initial religious formation. Students, the Congregation maintains, "must receive an experience of interior silence. They must acquire a genuine sense of it. They must become capable of communicating it to others . [The] main task of those responsible for the running of the seminary is the formation of the students in interior silence. They must make continual and concerted efforts in this undertaking,ns This article has attempted to pursuebut one thread in the complexfield of initial religious formation--the exercise of personal responsibility in both novice and guide. Those who know something of what interior silence is are best placed to exercise responsibility in freedom, and respond in faith to wherever God will take them. NOTES ~R. Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (l~ondon: 1960), Act I. ?D. Bonhdeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (London: 1971), p. 233. a'Experience shows that a period of'preparation for the seminary, given over exclusively to spiritu~.l formation, is n.gt only not superfluous but can bring surprising results., is welcomed by the students., insist., that th!.s suggestion be tried" (Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education: Circular Letter[Rome: !980. CBCI, New Delhi], p. 24.) *"God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the. dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by GOd, by others and by himself . When his ideal .picture is destroyed, he sees the,community going to smash. So he becomes. ~ an accuser of his brethren., of God. of himself'(D~ Bonhoeffer, Ltfe Together [London: 1970], p. 16. ~E~ Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (London: 1970), p. 334. 6Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, op. tit., pp. II, 14. The Charism of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati John~ Miriam Jones, S.C. Sister Jones is Assistant Provost at the University of Notre Dame. Regarding the topic of her article, Sister wrotei "Whilethere is a uniqueness about each charism, there is also a universalitY recognized by. many wom~n religious." Originally a talk delivered to her own sisters, Sister Jones intended as well to address this universality of value and goal. She may be addressed at: Office of the Provost; The University of Notre Dame; Notre Dame, IN 46556. We Sisters of Charity are called to be faith-filled women of the Church (Charism of the 'Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati). This simple, short sentence has four pieces that describe most of what is so central to our lives: Sisters of Charity, women,faith, and .Church. By God's grace we live out our womanhood as Sisters of Charity, and so these two pieces of the statement describe the essence of our very being, containing as well our vocation from the Lord. The other two pieces of that statement call us t~pfaith, lived out as part of the Church--and so they describe our relationship with our God and with his People. This paper is an attempt to touch upon that core experience, to fan its fire and thus cause it to burn more brightly. The' Charism of the Sisters of Charity 'Our consideration together of a part of our ~harism launches congrega-tion- wide four-year emphasis on our newly crafted charism statement. Our ability to put .words to ~hat charism comes at the end of a lengthy road. We have traveled that road now for nea.rly twenty years at the bidding of Vatican II. In the early 60s we were asked, as women religious, to discover again the spirit of our foundress and to adapt that spirit to the times in which we live: The council's document, Perfectae Caritatis, told us in 1965: 339 340 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 It serves the best interest of the Church for communities'to hax~e, their, own .special, character and purpose. Therefore loyal recognition and safeguarding should be. accorded to the spirit of founders. Over these years we have strugigled with that first,mandate: recognition of the speciai character and purpose of the Sisters of Charity. If your memory of that struggle matches mine, you will agree that in the beginning our effort to give words to the spirit that drove us seemed to be a rather frustrating one because initially it seemed to reveal more the commonalities of religious life than the uniqueness of our congregation as compared with any other. We went through a time when there seemed to be an almost interchangeability to the self-definitions of the Sisters of Charity or Of the Sisters of Mercy or of the Sisters of Loretto. But within the last few ~,ears our special character has indeed come into focus as we prayed over it and talked about it in an effort to express what it is that makes us unique. Finally in the Chapter of 1983, we as a congregation could, at long last, put into just four sentences what we believe to be our lifeblood. Thus, our coming to a recognition of that lifeblood has been for us all a long, but very rich discovery process--o~- perhaps better, a rediscovery process. Secbndly, Perfectae Caritatis ~dmonished"us to :,~afeguard our charism. That is what we are about in today's Church. But if the word "safeguard" seems a bit static, put it another way. We protect a treasure for the Church in our living out the graced vision of Elizabeth Ann Seton. Father John Futrell has defined charism as "simply a graced way of seeing and following Jesus for the service of the whole Church . "1 Elizabeth Seton saw Jesus, and she followed him; so the grace, the vision was initially .hers. It was her vocation, her mode of participation in the mystery of God. But at some historical moment over the years, each of us has received the same gift. Mother Margaret Cecilia George and many others before us have treasured it and lived it. And now it is ours to protect. The.word charism, as you know, comes from the Greek ~'ord for.gift. "Gift" not only means something freely given--that is, a grace--but "gift" .can also mean a special ability, as a gift for art~ or music, or dance, or numbers. Such a gift is recognizable in a person. In our case the gift is to be recognizabl~ not only in each of us, but in the corporate person, the Sisters of Charity 6f Cincinnati. But as with any gift, musical or otherwise, it will thrive only if it is used. And that is our challenge. A few years ago in an article in REVIEW FOR-RELIGIOUS,2 Norman Brockman, in dealing with some of the aspects 6f"charism, indicated that charism is khe very reason for a congregation's existence. The group has been given a particular graced vision for the sake of the Chiarch, and as'its member~ gather to follow their foun.d.ress anew, there comes a point where they incarnate this gi]'t, they express it, in new ways andin new forms of life. The group prays the gift, ponders'ii, witnesses it, comes to a communal realization of the charism. The Charity of the Sisters of Charity .' Our identity then as "faith-filled women of the Church" is indeed our treasure; As, with any treasure it surely needs active attention. The remaining three.sentences of our charism statement tell us somelhing of what that active attention ought to be so as to nourish the very marrow of our life with our God. But my current focus is on "faith-filled women of the Church" and will consider each of its three components: the aspect of our gift attribute to our being women; a consideration of what it means to be faith-filled women; and our call to be women of the Church. Gift We Offe.r as Women It is only in ihe last fifteen or twenty.years that we might be tempted to focus on the gift we offer to the Church as women,,to suggest that the nature of womanhood might be of specia! significance to the Church. We have ,no evidence that in 1809 Elizabeth in. Emmitslsurg; or in 1852 Margaret in Cincinnati, had an~, such realization. But the gift was there. Both those. women, those giants who preceded us, had qualities that could have been developed only in the best of women. While I doubt that either of them sensed that reality, all the years of our history give ample evidence of the qualitiesand contributions which women uniquely bring. What is it about womanhood that can be of such basic significance to the Church? At the very root of it all is something quite fundamental. God is so entire that his creation can~reflect.only bits and pieces of his goodness and his wonder: The best qualities of humans are, indeed, those piecemeal reflections. There is a great variety of these: kindness, consideration, gentleness, strength, truthfulness, honesty, all somehow reflecting in bits and pieces the wholeness of God. But consider this: there is a whole set of human qualities best reflected through .the feminine mode Of, humanity. If this is true, then inversely there mustbe another whole set of qualities that is reflected by the masculine mode. Ideally, then, it takes both those sets to come anywhere near reflecting the whole . Because historically the institutional Church is predominantly masculine and patriarchial, there has been scant opportunity in some arenas for one whole set of values to be operative. There is an increasing agreement today that the Church, as with most of society, needs to complement such male traits as rationality, aggressiveness, competitiveness, and control with a female approach that is intuitive, collaborative, egalitarian, holistic, integrative. Lest there be misunderstanding, let.it be recorded that neither approach has a monopoly on these qualities. It would be faulty reasoning indeed to suggest that women religious alone bear the burden of.bringing a feminine .counterbalance to the Church. All women of the Church are called to that. Also let .it be said that God need not be limited by structures. All of us know many a layman, priest, bishop who has a gentle, caring, contemplative side. through which those aspects of God have been reflected and taught to others. We also know .many women, through ~142 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 history and personally, who have brought the feminine to bear in Church matters--in ministry of every sort, and in the daily living out of their faith. While it is true that women religious are a very small part of the feminine side of the Church I want to suggest that because of our opportunities we bear a disproportionate obligation for feminine influence and for public representation of those facets of God which we perhaps have special capacity to understand. Daniel O'Hanlon, a Jesuit from Berkele3~, suggests that a Western world and Church suffer from the lack of the feminine.3 He calls on women to portray--and the Church to acknowledge and relate to--traits of God which he describes as feminine. They are lovely traits and we khow them, tro. He names God's compassionate, unconditional love for us; his nourishing and life-giving care for us; his presence in mystery to be found not by "rational effort but through loving contemplation; he names God's gentleness and .his sensitivity toward our every need; he describes God as an~intimate friend and companion, much more than a Master and a Lord. And capping his list, he describes God's unyielding fidelity. Those. insights invite us to contemplate God anew, to search more deeply to understand this magnificent Person. Ought we not then talk to one another about him? Help one another as sisters to plumb his depths? What an adventure is in store for those who, perhaps through us, experience those lovely feminine aspects of their God and thus know new energy and completeness in the Church. What a source of gratitude if, perhaps because of us, people's needs are served with the tender, empathic, patient touch that is especially present in women. ,~ " Faith-filled Women What does it mean to be faith-filled women? That is a powerful phrase, a phrase without which Elizabeth Seton would remain undescribed. It desi:ribes not an attitude, but an interaction that took place between God and a woman. That interaction was an integral, inseparable part of her fabric. She spoke of it as, "My blessed faith: all that 1 possess., so dear to me." It is obvious that faith was her driving force. From very early days, for her to live meant to be faith-filled. As she matured in faith it came to be synonymous with her very being, Consider the time frame. Her journey in the Catholic faith was less than twenty years, as a religious, about a dozen, but that faith journey was intense and profound.~, It pervaded the very marrow of her bones. I have chosen to dwell on three remarkable manifestations of Elizabeth Seton's faith°: her attention to the presence of the Lord, her surrender to his Providence, and the place of sorrow in her maturation in faith. Among her words are these: "The. daily lesson: to keep., quietly in his presence, trying to turn every action on his Will . "This was a lesson she offered freely, often, and to many. Again, expressed not in her words, but in a phrase from our 1979 Mission Statement, this was an experience of the "active The Charity of the Sisters of Charity / 343 presence" of an initiative-taking Lord. For her, God was the reality in life. Her awareness of him was unfailingly demonstrated in her words, whether they were written or spoken, in her daily actions, in her propulsion toward eternity. It was clear that she experienced God and that her experience was personal, intimate, confident, consuming. ~ That was one hundred and fifty years ago, when life was less hectic. And so we need to ask whether that kind of experience is affected by the passage of time, by a change in the pace of life? Is being that faith-filled a possibility in the twentieth century? The answer is visible in our midst. The manifestations, the circumstances may differ from those of Elizabeth, but if you look around at those for whom God is real, you will find women whose consciousness of their God is a twenty-four-hour-a-day affair. We constantly rub shoulders with our own sisters who bear the spark of God in their lives. We converse with' these women whose lives are fueled by a realization of God and of his loving initiative toward them. All of us need to talk more with each other about such a wonder so that we will become increasingly filled with faith in the God we love but cannot see. The second manifestation of Elizabeth's faith was in her surrefider to his providence, to God' loving arrangements in her life, to a~ God whom she personified as "The Will." Remember her zest for life, her affection for dear and' loved ones, her tendency to hope and to 0ptimism. Contrast that with the untimely deaths of William, Annina, Rebecca, Cecilia, Harriet, many of the early sisters of Charity, with her early struggles over conversion, with rebuff fro~ the Seton family, with misunderstandings from Church representatiyes, her' uncertainty about the future and the welfare of her children, her own ill health. And then hear her say, "As Sisters of Charity we should fear nothing . You must, must leave Jail] to the dearest, kindest, best of Fathers." And again, "His dear, adored; blessed Will be done! I have none, and if he but continues to give himself, 1 am blind tO everything else." In all of this, there was struggle and pain, but she surrendered to such evidence of his "active presence;" not in fatalism,~but as Jesus did, as part of the mystery of love. For her it was all or nothing. 'There is no painless path to God. She taught us the truth~ of what Kierkegaard wrote: "When God calls me,' he bids me come and die." Kierkegaard spoke of love as "passion for God" and for him an intrinsic part of that passion was obedience. In such passion there can be .no effort to control the rdationship. In his book When the Well Runs Dry, Thomas Green, in speaking of total response to the love of God, said: "It's not so much to do something a.s to allow something to be done to us.'~ In the bool~'s context that statement is describing prayer--but living in surrender to Providence is very much a lived prayer. In the third place Elizabeth Se~on matured in faith througti the place of sorrrw in her life. And sorrows there were. There was a spate of illness:death, financial struggle, two sons unresponsive to her example and urgings, ~1~14 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 complications created by her clerical superiors. All of those were accepted with graciousness and with unwavering love, but at greatcost. Her surrender became a transforming~force. In a few years she moved from an uncertain groping toward faith to an absolute spiritual mastery. At the time of Annina's death she described her anguish as a "grief of the heart--never a grief of the soul." That composure no doubt resulted from her manifestation of faith through surrendering to God's will. But with no less surrender at a later point she came to kno~w what grief of the soul meant. In her writings one can detect the presence of a dark night, a great dryness of spirit. In discovering that she suffered from such dryness w,e ought to take great solace because that is a sorrow which all of us share. Few of us know, or will know, any equal to her personal hardships. We find her endurance and equanimity marvelous and are tempted~otO think those characteristics more within the grasp of a saint than of ourselves. Nor are we very anxious to be tested. But all of us who have come beyond the earliest stages of our journey toward God know something about darkness and dryness. So here is an experience that we do share with Elizabeth. Do you recall in .your formative years in the Community any instructions on the meaning or purpose of. darkness or how to handle it? 1 don't. Yet that pattern comprises a large part of our prayer life. Elizabeth wrote about it: "This sadness of mine ~I cherish as a grace." Precisely! When we common folk can come to recognize our' darkness and dryness in prayer as God's choice for the present moment, and to surrender to that choice, we too can know the grace of transformation. That isa humbling experience and a thrilling one. Father Green says that the major part of the work of transformation in the life of a pray-er isaccomplished by surrendering to this dryness, this darkness.S The darkness is a grace. It calls us to.yield our very selves, and to be acted upon by a loying God. As prayer appears fruitless and we learn the lessons regarding .this new way to pray, we have to let go of control, words, formulae, comfort. We must learn simply to attend and yield to God. That is what prayer is all about. It can bring us to love even as we speak we desire to love: Surrendering to what ~is.happening to us in prayer can result in surrendering our whole life. Understanding this experience of apparent distance from God as proof of his very presence and of his wanting to strip and transform us, allows the experience to ready us for eternity, and allows us to yearn for him with realism. Here. indeed, We are,,one with our foundress, who matured in faith through sorrow and surrender. Lest emphasizing those three facets of Elizabeth's faith obscures the whole, let us look at the woman whom faith ~brought Elizabeth Seton to become, the whole woman, and examine her as described by Joseph Dirvin.6 Toward the end of her twelve years in religious life, Dirvin says of her, "Elizabeth had balance, a superior c, ommon sense--divine and human that puts everything in its place,unerringly, tidily." Dirvin speaks of her spirituality a.s "wide, warm, 7he Charity of the Sisters of Charity / 345 sunny, practical, generous, informal, American." He describes her as "romantic, poetic, tender," yet a realist; efficient in her work, simple, down-to-earth, a "woman of hope and unconquerable optimism."? Who: wouldn't appreciate being so described? One concludes that the faith that filled and drove her, brought her to wholeness, holiness, at its loveliest, its feminine loveliest. Women of the Church Finally, we are called to be Women of the Church. This realist whom we emulate spoke deathbed words which have clearly echoed in Charity hearts for more than one hundred sixty ybars: "My Sisters, be daughters of the Church; be daughters of the Church." It was always with great affection that she spoke of "our Church in America" and believed in its future greatness. She whose entry into that Church was such a struggle became an intimate part of a young American Church, saw its strength and dreamed its dreams--including a role for her Sisters of Charity. She also saw its unsteady side, the fragility of its human component. She herself was a victim of that weakness. It seems safe to claim that the pronouncement of Vatican II concerning the Church a century and a half later, and the thrust that the Council initiated would have delighted Elizabeth Seton and would have been in tune with her understanding of what she called "the mystery of the Church." Vatican II called it that also. The dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, described the Church as a kind of sacrament of salvation, the way to ultimate union with the God of our faith. The Council Fathers took pains to show two aspects of that sacrament: the one--institutional, structural; the other--the Church as ~ gathering of a messianic people, of God's people. Lumen Gentium begins, not with the treatment of structures and government, but with the aspect of the people of God. It views his people in terms of dignity, witness, .ministry, and relationships to one another. When the Council Fathers develop the concept of the institutional Church, they do so in terms of service to God's people, never domination. They identify the aim of the structure to nurture, to contribute to the growth of God's people, to serve the human family through the various functions of authority, teaching, governing, sanctifying. But the Council Fathers also make clear that both aspects of the Church are made up of frail and sinful people who are in constant need of forgiveness and renewal. In that post-Vatican Church Elizabeth Seton would feel very much at home. She grasped its mystery, on the one hand with great affection, service, loyalty, respect; on the other, with a sympathy for human frailty and at times, with loving criticism. She complained to Church authority when she saw decisions impeding the good that she felt God intended, or interfering with freedom of conscience--the conscience of others, never her own. Archbishop Carroll received many a letter from her bemoaning decisions made by Sulpician superiors, asking him to adjudicate their propriety. However, the content of those letters always testifies to her understanding of authority, and to her loyalty. As Dirvin says, "She knew when to fight and when to submit."7 3t16 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 Struggling for that kind of balance is a lesson for her twentieth-century daughters in a time which Jesuit Avery Dulles described as the "century of the Church.TM We as women of that Church must breathe its air, think in its terms, identify with its people, be involved in its struggles, fine tune the voice of God's Spirit, so that our convictions and subsequent struggles are devoid of self-interest or personal causes. True women of the Church are first faith-filled women in love with their God. Only from that perspective can we be genuine leaven in ~society, agents of transformation. Whatever else it is, the Church to which our foundress commended us is charged with the revelation of God's mystery. It is to be the agent of our meeting God, of bringing him to men and women, and of bringing men and women to him. Our Church is a universal church. In today's world communi-cation, transportation, international attitudes join people in every segment of the globe. All peoples deserve our prayers, our concern and some of our service, but our compelling charism is to be women of the American Church, just as it was Elizabeth's in her brief time. Elizabeth Ann Seton had a particular understanding of that American Church which grew out, of her understanding of both American Protestantism and Italian Catholicism. Long before its time, she seemed to understand both aspects of Vatican ll--the mystery of the Church as God's people in their journey toward him, and the structured Church, the various levels of which she dealt with in a very personal way during the twelve years she gave life to the Sisters of Charity. Her hope for our Church and her fidelity to it was not blind. She knew human frailty--her own, her sisters, the clergy; she experienced a lack of understanding personally and on behalf of the congregation. If justice were impeded or good thwarted she spoke and wrote with conviction and with a marvelous mix of humility~ courage, frankness and reverence. Regardless of our point of view, I daresay that each of us is troubled in some way about today's Church. We may have misgivings about the place of American women religious, about official or semiofficial positions takeri or not taken, or about the expectations of the hierarchical Church vis-a-vis our renewal experience of the last twenty years. Sixteen decades after she asked us to be women of this Church, what would be Elizabeth Seton's advice to us today? With no claim that 1 have heard her accurately I do want to share with you what 1 believe 1 heard. I believe that her advice would be voiced with enthusiasm for post-Vatican life in the Church and in religious life; that with us she would find these times of change and uncertainty rich, growthful, challenging. I think her advice would go something like this~three categories, three points under each: Advice for the Head I. Keep recalling the nature of the Church. Have sympathy and patience with the human element, with the need toaddress diversity and to learn The Charity of the Sisters of Charity 34"/ 2~ from it. When there are differences, know, always that there are two sides to the issue. Appreciate the good will of those who judge the position differently, and think very long thoughts about its being God's Church and about the ultimate direction being in his hands. As women with gifts in their heads, continue to probe and to learn. Having limited vision makes us part of the problem. The total truth resides in no one human being, but the more of that truth which we possess the more we bring God's mind to the task. Recognize the importance of bridgebuiiding for effectiveness. If one spans a spectrum, no "we/they" division becomes possible. Advice for the Heart i. Foster positive emotions so as to outweigh negative ones. Our love for God's people should tip the balance against any cynicism about the institution. Our gratitude for mystery should outstrip any impatience with human limits. Our hope for the Goff of our faith is more powerful than any kind of discouragement. There are all sorts of wisdom afloat about what can be accomplished by light hearts as opposed to heavy ones. 2. Let your hearts be governed by your experience of the Lord. Yearn for him and his kingdom as the very framework for your life in the Church. That kind of perspective enables "living with" a great deal which we may find frustrating. 3. Stretch toward an unyielding, full-hearted commitment. Expect to pay the price to accomplish that good. Elizabeth Seton taught us that. Jesus Christ taught us that! If things go smoothly, it might just be because they are going our way. Advice for the Person I. Elizabeth Seton anticipated that Sister-of-Charity presence would effect good in the Church. We, as individuals and as a congregation, should make decisions about our service on the basis of contributing toward a stronger, healthier American church. In a time of lessening numbers, it is critical that we target strategic areas of service with special concern for the ne~ds of the poor, whether that poverty be of body, of mind, or of heart. 2. The gifts of our women are our greatest resource. Developing those gifts, preparing for ministry and choosing that ministry become the joint responsibility of congregation and sister. 3. We represent and participate in both aspects of Church. We are part of the People of Ggd; we are, as women religious, some part of the structure of the Church. We therefore have two kinds of loyalty, two kinds of understanding, we must strive to balance those two parts of the Church as she did. 1 believe that Elizabeth might hope for us to do so 34~1 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 with the feminine traits we have. learned from our God: compassion, gentleness, patient fidelity, the urge to give life. We will make a real difference among Grd's peopl~ and ifi the institutional Church, and therefore in the to~tal, Church, only if weare deeply of God. Only as ]'aith-filled will we be impelled to be women of the Church. And so, as was stated in the beginning, "We Sisters of Charity are called to be faith-filled women of the Church." It is our heritage and vocation. It is a mark by which we are to be recognized. It is our gift, the treasure we keep alive, for those who also will come to be Sisters of Charity. NOTES ~John Carroll Futrell, S.JL "Some Reflections on the Religious Life," Review for Religious, 28, pp. 705-718. 2Norbei-t Brockman. S.M., ~The Shadow Side of Charism," Review for Religious, 35, pp. 229-231. -~Catholic Theological Society of America's convention, reported in National Catholic Reporter, July 15. 1983. 4Thomas H. Green, S.J., When the Well Runs Dry (Ave Maria Press, 1979). Slbid. 6Joseph I. Dirvin, C.M., Mrs. Seton (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979). 71bid. ~Avery Dulles, S.J. "Introduction to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church," in" The Documents of Vatican 11 (Guild Press, 1966). Marriage and Continence Complement Each Other Jesus did not say that marriage was inferior to celibacy in itsel£ He recommended celibacy only for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The two forms of life are complementary. The Christian community witnesses to the eschatological dimension of the kingdom through celibacy for its sake. Married love must be marked with the fidelity and total self-giving that are the basis of religious and priestly celibacy; and continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven must lead to parenthood of a spiritual kind (John Paul ll, General Audience, 19 April, 1982; L'Osservatore Romano, 19 April, 1982). Bonding Together for Mission Melinda Roper, M.M. Sister Melinda Roper has been president of the Maryknoll Sisters since 1978. This article is based On an addres~ given by her to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cleveland in preparation for their Chapter of November, 1983. Sister Melinda may be addressed at: Maryknoll Sisters; Maryknoll, NY 10545. ~am happy to be able to share with you some of my reflections and experience on mission. I would like to talk about how mission is a source of energy and commitment in community and how commfinity is a source of energy and commitment in mission. Where we begin to discuss such a theme is important. My starting point is the recognition of a fundamental tension which permeates both mission and community. This tension is described by the following phrases ih John's gospel: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,"(Jn 17:16), and "As thou didst send me into,.the world, so I have sent them into the world," (Jn 17:18). The everlasting kindness and faithfulness of God's love for the world is condemned and crucified by that same world: "And the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as | am not of the world," (Jn 17:14). Why does this happen? Why must it happen? Is there any way for Christians, the Church and religious communities to evade conflict and confrontation with the world? Today, as in the histo~'y of the Church, there are two principal routes of escape: isolation and aloofness from the world is one; the other is through compromise with the world. Each route is paved with fear whose source is self-interest, be it "eternal" self-interest, or the temporary security of power and comfort. If we opt for one of these routes, there are many scenic side paths along the way which subtly distract us from the isolation or compromise we may have chosen. We thus elude this fundamental energy and tension in the life and person of Jesus to which John refers. 350 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 As we read the letters of Paul to the early Christian communities, we can trace these same tendencies to escape the radical implications of.believing in Jesus Christ: Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory (I Co 2:6-8). As I look at many groups within the Church in the United States today, I perceive that we have moved from a spirituality of flight from the world into the arena of public issues to a degree that had not been part of oi]r recent past. We have moved into the world. As we continue to become involved in public issues, especially those which deal with economic and political policies and structures, we must be keenly aware of the radical differences between the wisdom and tactics, strategies and ideologies of the world and the wisdom of God in Jesus Christ. Our temptation today may be to seek change by compromising the wisdom of God with that of the "rulers of this age." Most Christian communities today have given much time, effort and prayer to social justice, solidarity with the poor and world peace. Our intention and motivation are in harmony with our great biblical tradition. Yet, how frequently do we find ourselves co-opted by the ways of the world when it comes to action toward a future world of peace with justice. It seems that there are at least five considerations we must address if we are not to be coerced and co-opted by the world: ~ 1. The Christian community dreams of and envisions, the reign of God together. How do we concretize our vision of the kingdom or reign of God today? Each culture and society will descri6e the fullness of life or the reign of God with different images. The biblical images with which we are familiar range from a land flowing with milk and honey, where no one is in need, to the heavenly Jerusalem coming out of heaven, with God dwelling among us and wiping away all tears, death, rriourning and pain. The quality of our relation-ships will flow from a superabundance of love and understanding; there will be no inequality among nations,, races, men and women, rich and poor. Today, what are the concrete images tliat we in a technological culture visualize for ourselves and our sisters and brothers around 'the world as we move in hope towards the reign of God? How much does the "great American dream" of our ancestors--freedom, liberty and justice for all--influence our vision of the reign of God? Perhaps we have increasingly greater difficulty concretizing our ~,ision of the fullness of life for all peoples. I believe this is also one of the greatest challenges for us rdigious today regarding community, living. What are the concrete images and vision~ we have of community in terms of thee reign of God? It 'seems tO me that the twff Bonding Together for Mission / 351 are intimately and intrinsically ,bound up in each other. Our religious communities can only exist for and within the reign of God, not for themselves. What is our vision? It is not sufficient for individuals to articulate a vision. Communities of believers must share a vision. 1 believe that shared reflection moves us more deeply into the wisdom of God. As our ability to listen,becomes more sensitive, we enter into the harmony and paradox of our world and of~our God. We will become communities Of contemplation; From this contemplation together will flow a vision for tomorrow. The most concrete question I can put before you is: Do we take the time? 2. The Christian community discerns and selects together those ministries which will move it toward its vision. How do we move from where we are today towards our vision? This question is a bit easier to comment on because we can deal directly with where and how we expend our time and energy. We do make choices and organize our lives and communities in order to effect change in our world. For most of us, our ministries or apostolic works are key indicators .as to how we see the reign of God coming about, and this is also where we can easily slip into the coercion~of the world of which John and Paul wrote so much. Iwill use one example of this coercion which I judge to be very subtle in our society, culture and Church, namely: professionalism. It is a two-edged sword because, on the one hand, the skills and knowledge we can acquire in order to better serve others in the spirit of the Gospel are extremely useful. On the other hand, the systems, institutions and values within which a profession is learned and exercised are frequently fundamentally opposed to the Gospel. Perhaps the old American dream was envisioned as coming about through competence and hard work, but that is not sufficient for the coming of the reign of God. Some of the mechanisms which keep our systems going are: competition, prestige and achievement rewarded by salary, benefits and promotion to positions of greater control and management. We become immersed in bureaucracy instead of in the life of the world. Once,we begin to take all these on as signs of success and even as sources of our identity, we are being co-opted by the world, and, before we know it, we begin to accommodate ourselves, our institutions and the Gospel to the standards and values of the world. Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. Forit is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again: "The Lord knows that th~ thoughts of the wise are futile" (I Co 3:18-20). I believe thav'0ne of thekey functions of the religious commu.nity today in the United States is to reflect and discern together those ministries and works which ate most in tune with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time, we challenge each other and our ihstitutions to a keen awareness of the great possibilities of being coerced and co-opted by those values and standards 352 / Review for. Religious, May-June, 1984 which demand that the Gospel be accommodated. What procedures and criteria do we use in order to set directions or priorities in ministry? 3. The Christian community chooses a lifestyle which contradicts those values in a c~lture which undermine the Gospel There is a ,.fundamental tension in most religious communities today regarding lifestyle, especially concerning material goods. In most .of the great religious traditions, including the Christian tradition, there is a stream of asceticism and spirituality which advocates simple or austere living .in the pursuit of truth. There is also the fact that most organized religions, at one time or another 'in their history, have become wealthy and powerful according to worldly values. In terms of their purpose, this is frequently evaluated as a time of decadence. The Catholic Church in the United States has moved from being a Church of the poor immigrant to one having social acceptability and even prestige. We religious have moved right along with this change. Our expectations of material comfort, from health care to diet and entertainment, have blended pretty well with those of our society. In one sense, this may not be so bad in that we are no longer traveling an escape route of isolation and aloofness. In another sense, though, it is time to examine the invasion of materialism and consumerism into our values and understanding of the Gospel. To the degree that our economic structures, which both support and export materialism, undermine our vision of the reign of God, we who form Christian communities must be a living sign of contradiction. We must remember, however, that we, as Jesus, are sent into the world, not away from it. We will be tempted to compromise. Living community today means that we can both affirm and challenge each other to become living signs of contradiction to our unjust, materialistic society. ,, 4. The patterns o~f relationship in the Christian community contradict the fear and defensiveness in United States society. Again, ~we must look at the reality of our society and culture .and .be sensitive and insightful in order to clearly distinguish that which is of the world and that which is of the Gospel. Examples abound--and I will select just one for comment: our system of defense in the name of national security. Any defense system is based more on attitudes and values than on dollars and weapons. First of all, it requires an enemy and a threat. It necessitates sufficient fear in order to mobilize resources to destroy the enemy, in this case, communism. Aititudes of defensiveness and fear permeate our society to such a degree that "an eye for an eye"is not even held up as an acceptable basis for action. Through fear, we have created an enemy who is ,so monstrous that the only acceptable posture of defense is the capability and willingness to totally destroy it. Followers of Jesus are sent into this world to live according to radically different attitudes and values: love your enemies, forgive those who offend Bonding Together for Mission / 353 you, pray for those who persecute you. These teachings are not meant solely for isolated communities of believers. They are meant to be announced and lived in the market places, court rooms, Congresses and White Houses of the world. Paul gives a lot of advice to the early Christian communities. To the community in Corinth, he writes: "When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become and are now, as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things" (I Co 4:12-13). As we attempt to move toward our vision of the reign of God, we will, without doubt, be slandered, persecuted and ridiculed. This will happen because, according to the defensiveness and fear of our woi-ld, we have nothing to defend and nothing to fear. We have a source of hope and truth which makes us free. This freedom is perceived as subversive and as a threat by those who control and operate within the psychological, political, economic and cultural structures and systems of defensiveness and fear. It is neither easy nor simple to be sent into the world with these values. The Christian community and, therefore, the religious community must become a place that is radically different from the world. Our communities challenge the hostility of our society with hospitality, welcoming the refugee and the outcast. We will become a source of courage for each other and for the world. We will also become a sign of contradiction to the world. 5. The Christian community lives and celebrates a universal Eucharist. When we gather in table friendship with the poor, the sinners, the refugees and the outcasts of our society and of our world, we do so in memory of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. As a community of faith, we share his body and blood in forgiveness and in hope of the fullness of life for all peoples. As Eucharist becomes the strength of our unity, it also becomes the energy of our mission. We know that worship without justice is blasphemous; we must come to understand that there is no justice without worship. As communities in mission, we pursue truth and justice with forgiving hearts. As fear disappears from our lives, we become the living memory of Jesus. We celebrate salvation in harmony with all of creation, and in communion with all peoples. 1 have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so 1 have sent them into the world (Jn 17:14-18). This is Jesus' prayer for us. He not only prayed for us, but he himself experienced what he prayed. He calls and sends us into the world to be the living memory of that prayer "God so loved the world . , May our communities move freely into the world to announce and live the Good News of the reign of God. Mission as Communication: A Marginal Note Anthony J. Gittins, C.S.Sp. Father Gittins, who has had "mission experience" in the conventionally accepted sense of the term, is now a member of London's The Missionary Institute and resides at the Chaplain's Residence; 34 Adolphus Road; London N4 2PP; Engl.and. Contraries and Contradictories The Church is missionary by nature; we are coming to the end of missionary work. Missionaries are special people who go overseas to preach the Gospel," you can be a missionary from a hospital bed. Every Christian is a missionary; we can't all be missionaries. A few people have a special missionary charism; if you are not a missionary, you are not a Christian. Today is the age of mission on six continents; today we must have a moratorium on missionary activity. "I work in a London parish, but I'm a missionary," . I'm not really a missionary, but l~n working here in Tanzania for a few years." "This is a comfortable, urban parish--it badly needs a missionary; . This middle class, comfortable parish is not for me--l'm a missionary." One could easily multiply these antithetical and seemingly contradictory statements, all of which are easy to elicit these days. I list them only as a reminder that the notions "mission" and "missionary" are still emotive terms and not amenable to a simple, acceptable definition. If we were to look at the usage of the word "pastoral," we would find similar problems of definition and clarification; and any discussion which tries to contrast the notions "missionary" and "pastoral," and to reach satisfactory and agreed conclusions on the distinctive and common features of each, is almost certainly bound to end in an impasse. Each of those opening statements contains some truth, indeed some important truth; but each too contains either some gross oversimplification or 354 Mission as Communication [ 355 some very dangerous implication. Could we not simply reach a careful and common definition of mission, and solve the ambiguities? In the following pages 1 will consider the question: "how can one be a missionary?" and avoid the questions: "what is mission?" and "what is a missionary?", since to attempt to do the latter would be to fall into the trap of defining mission and missionary, which is impossible; the words "define" and "definition" contain the notions of "limits" or "limitations," and derive from the Latin verb "to set bounds to." Yet the word mission comes from the verb "to send," and in some sense at least, the missionary is someone who is sent without limit, to the ends of the earth if necessary. So let us not define mission; let us not set bounds to the ends of the earth. Identifies and Differences If there is no useful reason to attempt an etymological definition of mission, and no theological reason either, why, we may ask, is it so fashionable to try to define the concept? And why has so much ink been recently spilled, on this issue? Do missionaries need to define themselves? I suggest that there is, and has been for some time, a tendency, inhibiting and unhealthy--a tendency both in conversation and in print, and illustrated in part by some of the statements with which I started--to overanalyze the concept of mission, to the point where missionaries have become self-conscious and apologetic or aggressive. Do missionaries need to prove that they are different from everyone else, somehow special? Do they need to be assured like James and John, that they will sit by the side of Christ in his glory (Mk 10:35-37), or to be told that they are the greatest (Mk 9:33-34), even though they should be very familiar with the mind of Christ on these matters? Do the professional missionaries, whose identity was once unquestioned and unchallenged, now feel peeved that they have borne the burden and heat of the day only to find latecomers equally acknowledged and rewarded (Mr 20:1 !-i6)? Is this not what Christ warned us against? When you have done all you have been told to do, say "We are merely servants: we have done no more than our duty" (Lk 17:10). So long as any missionary is basically insecure and needs to be accepted as "special," he or she simply cannot fulfill the missionary and Christian vocation. What is needed is a strong sense of identity and self acceptance, certainly: a sense of purpose and a sense of vocation. But if the identity of the missionary vocatipn is unclear, how is the individual missionary to cope? And if missionaries cannot cope with themselves, how can they cope with others? A strong self-image and self acceptance are prerequisites for authentic service, and need to be nurtured through parents and family or through other forms of community. Religious or apostolic communities are, theoretically, ideally constituted to provide affirmation, solidarity and support, yet many such communities are notoriously poor at reinforcing and encouraging their members, whether 3[i6 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 through rivalries within or uncertainty and disagreement about the nature of their apostolate and lifestyle. Anyone with an underdeveloped sense of identity or selfworth, is hardly going to be able to affirm others, because such a one feels threatened; and anyone without a conviction about the nature of mission, is not going to be able to challenge or share with others. While some individuals search for their vocation anew, and institutes try to rediscover their charisms as though they were some pot at the end of the rainbow, many missionary institutes settle unhappily or unknowingly into a terminal stage of their existence, and other individuals agonize over their loyalties to their communities and their own integrity. And all the while, "mission" remains an imperative of the Church, generous souls seek an authentic experience of this reality, and new shoots are to be seen tentatively pushing through the earth's mantle into another spring. Exclusion and Inclusion The different Christian denominations have moved increasingly--on the individual and community level--towards identifying and exploiting what they have in common rather than isolating themselves in their differences. But whilst there has been undoubted progress and marked goodwill among the denominations, there remains much work to be done within them. I can and will speak only of the Catholic Church when I say we have sometimes seemed to overemphasize the difference between us, on an individual, parish or religious-institution basis. And, admittedly justifiably on occasion, we have made a virtue out of pluralism and variety, where a greater virtue might have been discovered in exploiting areas of similarity and examining possibilities for collaboration. Why should we make lines of demarcation and distinction unless we are certain they are necessary? Why foster an exclusive mentality when an inclusive invitation is central to the Gospel? Why distinguish what is pastoral from what is missionary, unless to do so is to discover a great truth? What is devalued if we say that all pastoral activity must be missionary, and that all missionary activity must be pastoral? We can argue that there is a real distinction to be carved out between what is pastoral and what is missionary,I but less and less is there any justification for defining them in exclusive terms, as either/or. Far more important than a terminological issue is a psychological issue? how can we make mission work more pastoral and pastoral work more missionary: to put it another way, how can the universal Church be localized, and the local Church be universalized? And how can we break away from a narrow parochialism of ecclesiastical structures if our minds, however putatively missionary, are parochial? If the pastoral and missionary dimensions of the Church cannot be dynamically interrelated, it is difficult to understand how the outcome of apostolically oriented undertakings can build up the body of Christ which is the Church. To say that everyone is called to take some part in the mission of the Mission as Communication / 357 Church, is surely not so much to devalue mission as to value each Christian; it is to challenge the secure ahd the complacent, and to encourage the fainthearted and timid; it is to see the call of Christ as inclusive rather than exclusive. So what is this call of Christ? It is something so powerful that a matter of an hour or two after having borrowed the boat of a fisherman and preached from it, Jesus had Peter, a bluff fisherman, agreeing to fish where he had spent a fruitless night, and with his partners James and John turning his back on the security of his fisherman's business, leaving everything he had, and following the stranger. That is the call: as stark and unqualified as: "come, follow me." This, essentially, is what characterizes the Christian; essentially it is what characterizes the missionary: the response to the call of Jesus, wherever that call may lead. Jesus himself did not go far from his home, but his mission was from his Father to the whole of humankind. Our participation in that mission is more important than any location, and it is as possible to be missionary on one's doorstep, as it is to fail to be missionary ten thousand miles from home. Our only objective should be to be included in the Mission of Christ, not so much by where we are as by who we are. Apostles and Apostils An apostle is someone who is sent out with a mandate; an apostil is something in the margin, an e×empIification. Just as the Son of Man was not called to be served but to serve (Mt 20:28), and as the servant is not above the master (Jn 13:14-15), so we are called to serve (Lk 22:26). So the Christian, being a missionary, is sent out with a mandate, and the mandate is "to serve." The one who serves is a server or a servant, an.d the word servant comes from the Latin for a slave--a person legally owned by another: one with no freedom of action or the right to property, or, in a very accommodated sense, one who works in very harsh conditions for very little remuneration. Jesus came to serve (Mt 20:28), and of his own lifestyle he remarked: Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head (Mt 8:20). So what are we called to, if we follow Jesus? Though it is rapidly becoming a clich6 that it is more important for us to be than to do, I would like to reflect on the truth therein and say further that for missionaries it is more important to be than to go; if we solve thefirst problem or rise to the first challenge, the second will not frighten or confuse us. What we are called to do is to become marginalized; otherwise we cannot follow Jesus, since he went to the "lost sheep" of the house of Israel. He was himself sent to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free (Lk 4:18). But the point is not so much what he did, as who he was, and in looking at 35~1/ Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 what he did, we see what he was: pushed to the margins of society. There is little point in one's going to a foreign country if one cannot communicate. I may go to France or Germany with no French or German, and provided there is someone who is linguistically competent in my language, we can communicate. And we have been reminded a thousand times of the necessity of language-learning for missionaries; I am not going to repeat that reminder. But if one is to go to the margins of society--to the poor, the prisoners, the blind, the downtrodden and dispossessed--how is one to communicate? Since by definition they are not able to communicate in terms of the rich, the free, the sighted, the emancipated and the privileged, there is only one way. If they are like French or Germans who speak no English and cannot hope to, then the English must learn French or German. And if we are to be missionaries in the spirit of Jesus, we must not only realize that we must become marginalized; nor is it sufficient to want to become marginalized; we must learn to become marginalized. Some missionaries certainly realize that they must become marginalized, and of those, some certainly want to. But how many really learn to become marginalized, and how many don't see the problem? It is not for me to point the finger or to make judgments; I am having enough of a problem recognizing the issue. It is not possible to be an apostle without being an apostil: out on the margin--an example. Missions and Margins One of the popular definitions of mission is the following: "a group of people sent by a religious body, especially a Christian Church, to a foreign country to do religious and social work." It is the "foreign country" that characterizes this definition, and many people would accept this without demur. It may be argued that this is a necessary element; but it is certainly not a sufficient one. The missionary must in some sense be on the margin of society. But how can one accept a marginalized status (surely this is a "cross-cultural" dimension of mission?) if one cares overmuch about defining oneself as special? And if a person does not have a strong sense of identity, belonging, and self acceptance, how is it possible to embrace others at the margin of society and not be crushed and destroyed? We need to be trained to be marginalized since most of us have no idea what it is like. We are secure, fed, housed, privileged; we need to be "conscientized" before it is too late and we react with incredulity to the burning accusation: I was hungry and you never gave me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink; 1 was a stranger and you never made me welcome; naked and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me (Mt 26:41-44). If we are not trained we will make dreadful and culpable mistakes, for goodwill is not enough. Without training we will not be able to localize the Mission as Communication / 359 Church--make it relevant to the people of God. And how can the local Church localize, unless we marginalize? Otherwise we are perpetuating an unwholesome and stifling universalism. Without training we will try to perpetuate a Church "always and everywhere the same," with no idea of the forces of social change and the real problems of real people. Without training we will not be walking with the poor and the disenfranchised and the marginalized--we will be walking by them, and maybe even on them. The real meeting to be effected is not, 1 suggest, between us--English, American, Italian--and them--African, Latin American, Hispanic: us and therh in this context are almost totally other, almost alien to each other. That kind of meeting would be like the meeting between tourists on a round-the-world trip, and the Mud-men. of Papua New Guinea or the dancers of Bali. No, the real meeting, the model for which is Jesus (see Lk 7:22-23), is between the marginalized: the 1--by choice not quite part of the value system of a dominant culture, wherever it may be, and the Thou--by necessity not quite part of the value-system of a dominant culture. Whether at home or abroad, the apostle with the true missionary spirit, will become inculturated at all levels, not only by learning the language and culture but by taking the mission of Jesus seriously (Lk 4:18), to the point of insecurity, unpredictability, discomfort, and the rest--not because these things are good, but because they are the burden of the children of God, and that burden has to be lifted by strong hands lest it crush the weak. Only when we share the burden can we begin to walk together--otherwise we exploit or patronize those we are sent to serve. It does not really matter how we are described on our passport or on immigration papers; it doesn't matter very much what actual job we do. But it matters a great deal who we are and who we are becoming. Not everyone can be as visibly marginalized as everyone else, but we can all be detached from things and attached to people. A simpler lifestyle is mandatory, otherwise we are guilty of injustice; and the cultivation of a "marginalized mentality" would seem to be demanded. Whoever is not this much marginalized is not missionary. And whoever is not missionary is not yet fully Christian. Communication and Context The first letter of Peters provides a context of hope and an eschatological dimension for our reflections. Christians are urged to animate society by the witness of good works and their general lifestyle (1 P 2:12, 14; 4:!9), not in order to proselytize but to communicate to the people the promise of God, to receive his glory (I P 4:7-11). They are to be involved(I P 2:11-35: 5:5-8), and to be filled with hope. The letter develops a theology of vocation, and in our own day we surely need to continue, in our programs of formation and beyond, to tease out a theology and praxis for communicating the Good News in an appropriate context--not from ivory towers or groves of academe alone. 360 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 Communication is only possible when there are interlocutors who have not simply a code in common but find the context in which that code can be transmitted and received with minimum interference. First there has to be a meeting; then reciprocity; and finally comprehensibility. Only if we are trained, only if we learn the code and are prepared to listen as well as speak, can we hope to have any communication. But at least the marginalized can begin to talk to the marginalized; they do speak the same language. NOTES ~Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church, n. 6, in The Documents of I/atican IL W. Abbott (Chapman, 1967), p. 592. 2A helpful article for further reading is: B. A. Joinet, "Integrating the Mission Societies into the Local Church," esp. pp. 271-272, in Mission in Dialogue, edited by Motte and Lang (Orbis Books, 1982), pp. 264-281. 3For this section I have referred to D. Senior and C. Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations of Mission (SCM, 1983), pp. 300-302. Theology and the Magisterium ¯. be faithful to your faith, without falling into the dangerous illusion of separating Christ from his Church, or the Church from her magisterium. "Love for the concrete Church includes fidelity to the testimony of faith and the ecclesiastical magisterium and does not alienate the theologian from his proper task nor deprive it of its irrenounceable consistency. Magistcrium and theology have different functions. Therefore, one cannot be reduced to the other" (Discourse to Theologi-ans of Germany. Alt6tting. Nov. 18, 1980. n. 2: cited in John Paul I1: Address to Theologians ~f Spain. November I. 1982. n. 5). On Being an Ex-Superior Roland J. Faley, T.O.R. Father Faley served as Vicar General (1971-1977) and as Superior General (1977-1983) of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis. During his earlier term, he wrote "Generalates and Social Justice," which appeared in the issue of May, 1976. Currently he is an associate pastor at St. Michael Parish; 3713 Harwood Road, Bedford, TX 76021. ~n the post-conciliar Church considerable attention has been given to the continuing formation of almost all segments of religious life. Little has been said, however, of the lot of the ex-superior. The term is used here in the sense of the major superior in a religious order or congregation. The person who is called to leadership in a religious community today is faced with many difficulties which are unlike those of former times. Authority is called to be more dialogic which can be psychologically draining and certainly more time absorbing. There are new "crises" with which he or she is faced: diminishing vocations, overworked religious, new directions in the community's apostolic thrust, not to speak of the personal problems, brought about by the winds of change, faced by religious of the institute. Major superiors in most communities have a limited term of office. An initial three or four year term is the usual minimum which in many instances leads to reelection. This means a mandate of service of six to eight years. A superior general may very well serve double that length of time. Since there is not usually an apprenticeghip for this type of service (at least prudence would seem to dictate the contrary!), this means that the initial adjustment can be, if not traumatic, at least very demanding. During the length of the term of office it is very difficult for the major superior to meet the need for her or his continuing education, at least over any extended period of time, because of the weighty responsibilities inherent in the office. Vacation time is usually kept to a minimum. Moreover a great deal of mobility is required with superiors dividing their time between the central office and the various houses and 361 362 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 missions of the institute. It is probably safe to say that even the most insensitive religious today, who may have all sorts of difficulties with authority, is forced to admit that this is a service to the community which exacts a very high price. Today men and women are called to leadership roles within an institute at an increasingly earlier age. This of course brings vitality and thrust to the office, but it also means that these religious finish their term of office with a consider-able life span still ahead of them. This is not so in the case of many other eccle-siastical officeholders who hold a position until retirement, at which time they are physically and psychologically at a point of decline. How is the ex-major superior to deal with the future? How is she/he prepared to deal with it? The issue needs to be addressed. The necessity of showing special concern for the psychic health and well-being of religious is today much to the fore and this demand is placed squarely on the shoulders of major superiors. Yet how much attention is given to the superiors' own spiritual, intellectual and psychological needs? Many religious presume that all goes well at the top and never take the time to verify their conclusion. It should be noted that affirmation is not solely a felt need of the people in the ranks. The simple fact is that there is little attention given the major superior, who is presumed to be self-assured, full of confidence and capable of operating somewhat as a robot. Such is not the case. His or her needs are no different from those of others. While seeking to avoid overstatement, one need only reflect on the number of times the major superior becomes the automatic.target for all the ills of the community. More than one person in a leadership role has been subjected to a heated diatribe simply because of the position he or she holds. Moreover their peer group within the institute (other major superiors) are usually far removed geographically and not readily available for consultation and support. It is true that they receive valuable assistance from other major superiors who belong to the national conference of superiors. However, this is often limited to the time of annual meetings or other such gatherings. It is not available on a continuing basis. In recent times much has been done to afford local superiors the chance to meet together regularly. This is becoming increasingly common within institutes today and is helpful in many ways, not the least of which is the decree of peer support which it affords. However, it should be remembered that major superiors do not usually enjoy that same possibility. Members of a provincial or general council can offer a certain measure of support. For this reason it is important that at least some members of the council live in community with the major superior. This affords the major superior someone with whom he or she can share concerns and be assured of confidentiality. But even then it should be noted that people are often elected to the council (and not ordinarily selected by the major superior) for a variety of reasons. Ability and expertise are front and center; compatability with the major superior is not always one of the criteria. In fact, in more than one instance it is sorely lacking. While allowing for exceptions and inevitable variations on the theme, it On Being an Ex-Superior / 36~1 can be said that those called to religious leadership are called to a life of considerable loneliness. They carry much of the burden of their office alone, and, of course, theirs is always the relatively ultimate responsibility. It might well be argued that such isolation should not be the case. Experience however, shows that such does occur and often to the spiritual and human detriment of the person. It should be noted that the office of superior is not that of a professional person who works a nine-to-five day. Many people in society cope with their problems on the basis of the compartmentalization of their life. The hours and locale of work and rest are clearly separated and delineated. In religious life, the role of leadership demands an almost constant availability, the heroics of continuous performance. The needs of religious do not follow the horarium of an ordinary work day. This writer was once told by a former provincial, that after his term of office ended, even the sound of a telephone during the night meant the loss of an entire night's sleep. The crises of night calls had sunk deep into his psyche. State of Mind In what state of mind do superiors reach the end of their mandate? Admittedly for some the transition to a new way of life presents no noticeable difficulty. They move into new assignments with no apparent stress. There are others who evidence no exterior dramatic change but internally suffer a great deal. Still others, after the initial sigh of relief, begin to experience very evident psychological problems. If it can be reasonably posited that most major religious superiors finish their term of office well in advance of retirement age, how are they to address their own future? "Burnout" has become an "in" expression and points to a reality that has become all too common. Many a major superior finishes the term of office in such a state. These persons feel that they have no more to give; they suffer from a pronounced weariness and are psychologically, if not spiritually, drained. The whole experience has proved to be too much. Very often their "wind-down" begins a year before their term ends, during which time the mach!nery of office, for all practical purposes, grinds to a halt. Important decisions, as well as some which are less important, are left to "my successor." There is a pattern of withdrawal from all except essential duties; the only thing anticipated is a "smooth transition." This is a sad picture. It is even sadder when one stops to think of the youth and vigor with which the incumbent began office and then compare it with the signs of age and exhaustion which have come to the fore as the "twilight~ approaches. No new ideas are being generated. The only desire is to leave the office and extend a heartful word of congratulations to the next incumbent. It should be noted well that such a state of "burnout" can have serious spiritual repercussions, even in virtuous and stalwart souls. On the other end of the spectrum are those per,dons who at the end of their ~!64 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1984 term of office still have a very high level of effectiveness. They are so psycho-logically geared to decision making, to generating ideas, and to the overall role of government that they have trouble bringing themselves to the inevitable "slow down." The adrenalin is still running high. A swift transition to a position wherein there is drastic deescalation in authority almost overnight can produce seriously adverse effects. It is not a question of being hungry for power. It is simply that the sustained level of operation to which the person had become accustomed has suddenly ceased, and this in many instances at a relatively early age. Such a person has specific needs to be addressed which are different, but no less pronounced, than those of the person suffering from "burnout." The Period After Leadership It is the writer's conviction based on experience that an extended period of time should be given an outgoing major superior for spiritual and intellectual renewal before any new assignment is made. It is a principle which is valid quite independent of one's character or personality. For legitimate reasons the person has a need for time and space for readjustment and reentry. A sabbatical year is not in any way excessive. This affords a relaxed atmosphere in which the ex-superior is being revitalized and is not called upon to revitalize others. The interests of individuals certainly will vary. Some ex-superiors may feel strongly the need for spiritual renewal; others may see the need for a return to studies in theology or perhaps the discipline which was pursued prior to major superiorship. Still others will sense a need for pastoral "retooling." In all of this a person should be given as much latitude as needed, with as little external pressure as possible. Not infrequently this period of renewal will be pursued away from the houses of the institute. This can be salutary and whol

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