Suchergebnisse

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

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

Issue 42.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1983. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty mem.bers 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. REV|EW FOR RELIGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus,.St. Louis, MO. © 1983 by REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOrdS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year; $17.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW Fort RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Sept./Oct., 1983 Volume 42 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Bivd'.; 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 EOn Rt.~LIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Letters of Gratitude-- II Robert F. Morneau The issue of September/October, 1982, carried the beginning of an experimental series of "Letters of Gratitude" addressed to various authors who have been important to Bishop Morneau's own spiritual development. Reader response has encouraged a continuance of this series. Bishop Morneau may still be addressed at Ministory to Priests Program; 1016 N. Broadway; De Pere, WI 54115. This series of letters of gratitude continues the purpose of an earlier series, i.e. to express my appreciation to certain authors who have enriched my life and to encourage the readers of these letters to read the primary sources of these authors. These Letters of Gratitude are written to Augustine of Hippo, Ra~'ssa Maritain and Dag Hammarskfi~id. Augustine (354-430) shares his innermost life with us in his famous Confessions. This masterpiece speaks to all ages and articulates movements of the inner life. that are universal No one can read this classic without being changed. Raissa Maritain (1883-1960). the wife of Jacques Maritain, has left us two precious treasures in her Raissa's Journal and We Have Been. Friends Together. The first of these works records the daily experiences of a deeply sensitive and spiritual woman; the second work narrates the story of key people who .influenced her own life as well as her husband's. The third letter of gratitude is addressed to a former secretary general of the United Nations. Dag HammarskjSld (1905-1961) was a distinguished statesman and advocate of international cooperation. In his famous Markings, HammarskjSld, candidly and with consummate skill, shared his journey. The depth of his spiritual life and the range of his concern are moving indeed "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . "so the poet Robert Frost tells us. We cannot travel many roads personally but we can vicariously. And it is on the road that we share many hours of dialogue and rich experience. The 641 642 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 companionship of Augustine, Ra~'ssa Maritain and Dag HammarskjOM is well worth having, if only for a few minutes or a few hours'.; Augustine Hippo, North Africa Dear Augustine, I write in gratitude for the candid and direct sharing of your journey in the Lord. How many hearts have been touched through your confession of sin, confession of God's goodness, confession of deep struggle will probably never be known. But I write you to say that I am one who has been moved and challenged by your story; your conversion has led to my own. ¯ Where to begin? With the people who were instruments of the Lord, with the historical context of time and place, with the struggle toward freedom that drove you from darkness to light? Perhaps the last point presents a pattern that helps to explain the whole. You share well how you were held in the bonds of slavery on various levels. First of all, the slavery of sensuality! Passionate by nature and living in an environment that would activate the seeds of license, you were held fast by the desires of the body. In this darkness. you struggled for so many years and, even after the grace of conversion, continued to struggle violently with concupiscence. In this weakness you found your strength because, in the frustrating powerlessness of it all, you were forced to turn to the Lord for true liberty. God's mercy helped you not to become discouraged in the fight for purity and light. A second slavery, much more binding than the first because so much closer to the heart .of your person, was the hold that your intelligence had on you. If your finite mind could not reason to something, then that something had no value, indeed no existence. Your reason reigned supreme, thus your inability over many years to read Scripture. Not conforming to your rigid laws of logic, you lacked the simplicity to comprehend spiritual reality which was immaterial. These chains held you fast and, once again, only through the working of grace, teachers and certain philosophies were you able to be set free and to allow faith to give go. vernance to your rationality. Here we see that your strength became your greatest weakness, keeping you from Truth. The Lord in his own timing drew you into the embrace of love, and there you also found truth and purity. The two slaveries that held you captive, sensuality and rationality, also are the forces that sweep through our times, incarcerating our spirits and our lands. These forces have also moved through every age and thus your autobiography is for every season because it touches so deeply our experience. Letters of Gratitude / 64~1 Your modeling is so important because it reveals that order and peace can be had, that slavery excludes true happiness, that victory can be achieved with effort and grace. ¯ Just as you have touched many lives, likewise many people had a powerful hand in shaping your mind and heart. I think of your mother, Monica, loving, praying and pursuing you in great fidelity. God rewarded her and you with that powerful experience at Ostia--sheer grace. I think of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, whose fatherly tare and keen sensitivity helped you to work through your intellectual crisis. I think of the life of St. Anthony whose example of deep asceticism and total commitment caused your heart to burn for action. I think of Adeodatus, your brilliant son, whose death caused your heart such deep. grief. I think of your concubine and her deep love and fidelity toward you, severed from you by the dictates of culture--whatever did happen to her? I think of Alypius, your dear friend, with whom you shared so deeply and who later became bishop of Tagaste, your home town. I think of St. Paul whose writings helped to finalize your conversion. This awesome compahy made their mark; your receptive spirit eagerly took in their gracious gifts. Several incidents in your life are symbolic of deep patterns. The stealing of pears, relatively insignificant in and of itself, reveals the mysterious realm of motivation--to steal not because of the fruits but because of peer pressure. In narrating this event, you manifest a profound grasp of human psychology, a deep grasp of self-knowledge. You teach us here to go beyond our actions and thoughts .and to discern the deeper recesses of our,behavior: moving from the "what" to the "why," which in turn reveals our true values. Then you share that powerful mystical experience, communal in nature, that you and Monica had shortly before her death. Together in conversation you entered deeply into discussing and experiencing the dwelling place of God, already tasting in this life what was to be forever. How you must have treasured that moment throughout the rest of-y.our life, a touchstone experience against which to judge your many future dec~slons. Then you speak of reading Cicero's Hortensius, a work that inflamed your soul in its search for wisdom. Herein we see the importance of a single book in our lives, able to set us in a direction never before pondered. You tell further of Alypius' compulsion in regard to gladiatorial shows; how this otherwise kind and learned man was held captive by a game. In this you were taught a lasting lesson, one that touched the core of your person: freedom is a precious gift that must be carefully tended or it is lost. Given all these circumstances and people, the most compelling reality in your life was the ever present hunger you had for God--more accurately, God's hunger for you. Your sensual and intellectual passions and avarice could not be satiated; always you came away empty and unfulfilled. It was your spirit that ached for meaning and presence, the meaning and presence of a Person. Only God could fill you but the sensuality and rationality had to accept that radical poverty of spirit that makes room for God. The charting of your 644/ Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 journey, with the carefully described anguish and pain that necessarily accompany growth, is a helpful log for all of us, your fellow pilgrims. Your legacy has been prodigious." ~)61~mbs of comprehensive theology, vas~ and subtle philosophical reflection, powerful exegesis on the word of God, stirring exhortations, a model for community living, moral discourses of a challenging nature. But for me your greatest legacy is your humanness. Within the genius of cognitive excellence, we find a human heart that is torn and twisted by the winds of human experience. Your confessions are free from pretense, from the too common masking that infects most of our lives. For this the centuries are in your debt. You tell us that it is possible to reach the heights of holiness within the maze of failure and trial, within the morass of sin and slavery. You brought all of your life, n° part being excluded, to the Lord, and he healed and blessed you. It was your heart and not your head that became the portal for divine encounter. Your desire and passion for love was, at bottom, the key to your life. The only regret that I sensed came from your late loving. As long as history lasts, these words will touch the human heart: Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved you! Behold, you were within me, while I was outside: it was there that 1 sought you, and, a deformed creature, rushed headlong upon these things of beauty which you have made. You were with me, but I was not with you. They kept me far from you, those fair things which, if they were not in you, would not exist at all. You have called to me, and have cried out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light, and have shone upon me, and you have put my blindness to fligh!! You have sent forth fragrance, and 1 have drawn in my breath, and I pant after you. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst after you. You have touched me, and I have burned for your peace. (254-255) Your fond admirer, RFM Death language My heart was made dark by sorrow, and whatever 1 looked upon was dea-th.~ My native place was a torment to me, and my father's house was a strange unhappiness. Whatsoever I had done together with him was, apart from him, turned into a cruel torture. My eyes sought for him on every side, and he was not given to them. 1 hated all things, because they no longer held him. Nor could they now say to me, "here he comes," as they did in his absence from when he lived. To myself I became a riddle, and 1 questioned my soul as to why it was sad and why it afflicted me so grievously, and it could answer me nothing. If I said to it, "Hope in God," it did right not to obey me, for the man, that most dear one whom she had lost, was more real and more good to her than the fantasy in which she was bade to hope. Only weeping was sweet to me, and it succeeded to my friend in my soul's delights. (98) 1 had learned from you that nothing should be held true merely because it is eloquently expressed, nor false because its signs sound From The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated and annotated by J. G. Pilkington, M.S., by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved, 1943. Letters of Gratitude / 845 Prelense Fear Anger Disposition Integration Friendship harsh upon the lips. Again, 1 learned that a thing is not true because rudely uttered, nor is it false because its utterance is splendid. I learned that wisdom is like wholesome food and folly like unwholesome food: they can be set forth in language ornate or plain, just as both kinds of food can be served on rich dishes or on peasant ware. (119:120) That man of God (Ambrose) received me in fatherly fashion, and as an exemplary bishop he welcomed my pilgrimage. I began to love him, at first not as a teacher of truth, which 1 utterly despaired of fir~ding in your Church, but as a man who was kindly disposed towards me. (130) But as often happens, just as a man who has had trouble with a poor physician fears to entrust himself even to a good one, so it was with my soul's health. (138) What another man would take as an occasion for anger at me, this sincere young man took as a reason for becoming angry at himself and for loving me more ardently. Long ago you had said and had inserted it into your books, "Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you." (143) From experience, 1 knew it is no strange thing that the bread that pleases a healthy appetite is offensive to one that is not healthy, and that light is hateful to sick eyes, but welcome to the well. (174) It is one thing to behold from a wooded m~untain peak the l~nd of peace, but to find no way to it, and to strive in vain towards it by unpassable ways, ambushed and beset by fugitives and deserters, under their leader, the lion and the dragon. It is a different thing to keep to the way that leads to that land, guarded by the protection of the heavenly commander, where not deserters from the heavenly army lie in wait like bandits. They shun that way, like a torture. In a wondrous way all these things penetrated my very vitals, when I read the words of that least of your apostles, and meditated upon your works, and trembled at them. (180) Let a brother's mind do this, not a stranger's mind . Let it be that brotherly mind which, when it approves me, rejoices over me, and when it disapproves of me, is saddened over me, for the reason that, whether it approves or disapproves, it loves me. To such men will I reveal myself. (23 I) II Ra~'ssa Maritain France Dear Ra~sa, I write in gratitude for the insights and sensitive reflections that are contained in your journal and autobiographical writings. I have read them with excited interest and deep admiration. My only hesitancy in picking up 646 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 your journal was my concern as to whether or not you really wanted it read; your husband Jacques and your friends decided after much thought to publish it. Though questioning the principle behind their decision, I in no way question the advantages that flow from such intimate conversation. A most powerful pattern expressed in your journal revolved around the .experience of suffering. I refer both to its intensity and pervasiveness. Not having had such experiences, 1 doubt that I comprehend its full import or the depth of such pain. What seemed to be central to such a way of life is your ability to accept, in grace, that suffering as part of God's plan and, in some way, to be able to identify with the Lord in the tasting of the pain. Otherwise the result could well have been deep resentment and hostile anger. You have taken a universal human experience and dealt with it in a healthy way. Such modeling is important in an age that tends to flee from all suffering at any cost. I have tasted and now savor your response to this path of pain; your courage throughout the ordeal is inspiring. I reflect, too, on your sister who lived with you and your husband. Unheralded, without great talent, fulfilling the role of servant, she represents an entire core of people in higtory who, through their quiet dedication and humble service, have made it possible for others to be creative and productive. Your sister was fortunate in being appreciated for who she was and what she did, an uncommon fate for many like her. These unsung heroes and heroines whisper of the many flowers that are "born to blush unseen." How did you come to integrate your personal relationships so well? Did it involve a painful struggle? In reading your journal it becomes obvious that God had priority in your life; he was indeed the ground of your being; all of life's meaning came from your deep faith. Yet, from other reflections you have shared, your husband Jacques and other individuals were extremely close to you as you were all friends together. Theoretically this is no problem: love for God and our fellow creatures is certainly not exclusive. Yet on the practical level, given the reality of making choices that necessarily exclude other options, such balance in our lives is not easy to come by. Perhaps you could send me further reflection on this. Two incidents from your life impressed me deeply. One was the time you and Jacques were studying at the university in Paris and in your searching were unable to find sufficient meaning for life. So intense was the search that you both opted for suicide, if you could not find meaning. Such was the seriousness of your endeavor and such was the grace given by God that you discovered Thomistic thought. Cpming out of this rich theologic and philoso-phic loam you were to find a perspective sufficiently sustaining that suicide no longer remained an option. Our own age stands in need of meaning-systems to provide us with a reason to live, a reason to die. The great metaphysical and cosmological questions continue to haunt the human mind and heart, prodding us until some type of resolution is found. Too often suicide becomes a "viable" option. Recently I heard of several people who had picked up some Letters of Gratitude of Jacques' works. He has become an instrument for passing on a wealthy tradition enabling the human spirit to deal with movements towards insight and hope. Your personal contributions to the poetic world have served the same purpose. The second incident that sounded a chord in me was the remark that Bergson made to you: "Always follow your inspiration." What a challenging statement, one not free from danger as he realized when sometime later he commented that he could not say that to just anyone. Your interpretation of the advice was to always act freely so that your true self could emerge. What wisdom when we are in touch with our deepest selves; what danger when, on some superficial levels, our personality seeks expression regardless of the effect on ourselves or others. At bottom, in a faith context, our inspiration is not really ours but the Lord's. Without knowing it, Bergson became an instrument of God calling you to foster and nourish a discerning heart, a core element in the development of the spiritual life. Inspiration is a fact, a part of everyone's experience; how it is interpreted and whether or not it is responded to depends upon the disposition of each person. You responded well to the movements of God's Spirit. Simplicity, as a virtue and way of life, was a constant call for you. What simplicity as well as its sister, purity, mean, boggles my mind. Certainly they are inseparable but they contain such mystery and are so grace-laden that it is hard to describe their essences. To will one thing, to be transparent, to possess unmixed motivation and a sense of detachment--all of these are hints and clues. Only experience allows their meaning to enter the heart. By contrast, complexity disrupts our !onging for the simple as compromise discolors the pure stream of love. Testing the reverse side of the coin draws us painfully into the poverty of our lives. Your writings are expressions of deep honesty. You state what you feel and think, not what others might expect you tO say. In going before God, you bring your real self, warts and all. In dryness of spirit you bring your emptiness and nothingness before the Lord. In the joy of friendship, you recognize its source with gratitude. All these reflections center on one thing: truth. Again the confidence that truth can be comprehended; certitude is possible. With the truth comes freedom from moral, psychological, and spiritual paralysis. Time and again the hunger and thirst for truth, which at bottom is that infinite desire for God, emerges and demands constant bnergy. You, your husband and friends were searchers; your find has been graciously shared with us. Three loves helped to shape your life: theology, philosophy and poetry. Many individuals helped give you insight into these three loves: Thomas Aquinas, Plotinus, Augustine, Pascal, Bergson. My heart rejoices to find the formative influence of poetry in your journey: It brings the soaring and majestic flights of theological insight and philosophical reflections back to the concrete and specific. This happy triumvirate makes for a well-rounded disciple of the Lord. 641~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 You were a part of an exciting movement within the Church. The goal was a quality spiritual life based on strong principle and dedicated service. One senses the importance of community and friends in such an adventure. Herein is a lesson for our times: spiritual growth happens through deep participation with and among a community of believers. The search is painful but the joys are deep. Your contribution has not been forgotten; more, it continues to touch many hearts. Deep peace always, RFM Ego Virtue God Envy God Peace Truth Experience The ego is an obstacle to vision and possession. (28) Yesterday 1 had a good morning. Once again when I recollect myself, 1 again find the same simple demands of God: gentleness, humility, charity, interior simplicity; nothing else is asked of me. And suddenly I saw clearly why these virtues are demanded, because through them the soul becomes habitable for God and for one's neighbor in an intimate and permanent way. They make a pleasant cell of it. Hardness and pride repel, complexity disquiets. But humility and gentleness welcome, and simplicity reassures. These "passive" virtues have an eminently social character. (71) I get nowhere by looking at myself; I merely get discouraged. So I am making the resolution to abandon myself entirely to God, to look only at him, to leave all the care of myself to him, to practice only one thing, confidence; my extreme wretchedness, my natural cowardice leaving me no other way open to go to God and to advance in good. (83) A proud man envies the superiority which surpasses him. A humble one, on the contrary, loves good wherever he finds it, and by this love, in some sense appropriates it to himself. I enter into the presence of God with all my load of misery and troubles. And he takes me just as I am and makes me to be alone with him. (225) Sources of peace: God and trees. (328) But before all else, I had to make sure of the essential thing: the possession of the truth about God, about myself, and about the world. It was, I knew, the necessary foundation for my life; 1 could not, without letting the ground be washed away from under me, give up the pursuit of its discovery. Such was my deep instinct. And by assiduous work must I prepare myself to receive the hard secrets of the spirit. All the rest, 1 thought, would follow, would come in its time--music, the sweetness of the world, the happiness of life. (3 I) 1 began to read Plotinus outside class with great joy. Of this reading one single dazzling memory stands out for me, and throws all the rest into shadow. One summer day in the country, I was reading the Enneads. I was sitting on my bed with the book on my knees; reaching Citations from Ra~'ssa "s Journal are reproduced by permission of the publishers, Magi Books, Inc. Letters of Gratitude / 649 lnspiratibn Honesty Fa~h Suffering one of those numerous passages where Plotinus speaks of the soul and of God, as much in the character of a mystic as in that of a metaphysician--a passage I did not think of marking then and which I have not looked for since--a wave of enthusiasm flooded my heart. The next moment I was on my knees before the book, covering the passage I had just read with passionate kisses, and my heart burning with love. (96-97) One day, trembling all over, I went to Bergson to ask his advice about my studies, and even more, no doubt, about my life. It was the first time 1 had ever done anything of this kind. A few words of what he said to me are forever engraved in my memory. "Always follow your inspiration." Was this not to say, "Be yourself, always act freely'?. Much later, when I reminded him of this advice, which 1 had set about following indeed, Bergson, smiling at his imprudence, said kindly: "That was not advice I could have given to many people . "(97) Bloy appeared to us as the contrary of other men, who hide grave failings in the things of the spirit and so many invisible crimes under a carefully maintained whitewash of the virtues of sociability. Instead of being a whited sepulchre, like the Pharisees of every time, he was a firestained and blackened cathedral. The whiteness was within, in the depth of the tabernacle. (I 19) 1 think now that faith--a weak faith, impossible to formulate consciously--already existed in the most hidden depths of our souls. But we did not know this. It was the Sacrament which revealed it to ¯ us, and it was sanctifying grace which strengthened it in us. (178) This question of suffering in Beatitude, and of suffering in God himself, had already been raised by Bloy in Le Salutpar les Juifs. This conjunction of suffering and Beatitude is allowed neither by theology nor by Aristotle. Beatitude means absolute fullness, and suffering is the cry of that which is wounded. But our God is a crucified God: the Beatitude of which he cannot be deprived did not prevent him from fearing or mourning,~or from sweating blood in the unimaginable Agony, or from passing through the throes of death on the Cross, or from feeling abandoned. "Every imaginable violation of what one is accustomed to call Reason can be accepted from a suffering God," says Bloy in Le Salut. (189) III Dag HammarskfiSM c/o United Nations Building, New York Dear Secretary General, I write in gratitude for the markings of your life which you so carefully ¯ noted in your now famous diary. While busy with the affairs of the/world, while leading the United Nations in its struggle for an elusive pea(e, while 650 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 interacting socially and professionally with thousands of people, you took time to trace the movements of your spirit. Did any of your knowledgeable associates suspect the depth (or even existence) of your spiritual life? Was there anyone sensitive enough to feel the pulsating rhythm of your mind and heart? Perhaps their blindness and your own reticence kept too well hidden your dialogue with God and with life. And, as often happens, only after death is life fully manifest! We have the blessing of your journal which tells the story, a story that both inspires and challenges. So many themes! So many movements! The struggle with self and against self not being the least. Enslavement to pride and vainglory that so strongly contended with the haunting desire for self-surrender. Given your giftedness and international recognition, the self found humility no easy virtue. Yet you were able to name the struggle, you were able to admit your intrinsic weaknesses toward egoism and this already provided impetus to new freedoms. What a powerful instrument your journal must have been in this whole process. By it you kept in touch with the truth and that very truth was the gateway to authentic liberation. And even more deeply, within that whole struggle with self, was your relationship with God and your deep faith. Slavery to self was not broken through mere human discipline and strength. At the core of your religious life was the desire for purity and its most noted effect, transparency. No admixture of foreign elements into one's nature, thought or behavior. God was pure; he was love which is the essence of purity and permits transparency. You sought this God in faith, knowing that constant contact with him would bring about a personal renewal. Nor was all this a rugged individualism: all action is social, all holiness involves the well-being of other:s, all are part of a large symbiotic existence. As a youngster, I recall hearing in the dead of night the haunting whistle of the freight train cutting through the darkness with its small beacon of light. So, too, in reading your markings, I sensed the loneliness that is part of the lot of those chosen to lead. Genius and responsibility remove the engine from the rest of the cars and cause a perception among the masses that fails to take into account the real inner self. That loneliness finds expression in your reflections and these reflections come from the silence of the night. Whatever the pain, silence and loneliness are elements in the atomic formula that spell a rich imeriority. Without these qualities superficiality and mediocrity predominate. Every so often we come across vast visions contained in a nutshell; multiple truths captured by an adage; diverse beauty gently painted in a masterpiece. Your prayer is a rich theological gold mine: Give us A pure heart That we may see Thee, A humble heart That we may hear Thee, A heart of love That we may serve Thee, Letters of Gratitude / 651 A heart of faith That we may live Thee. (214) The emphasis is not on the mind or action but on the heart. Herein lies the wellspring of human life: what happens in the heart determines our fate. Thus we truly see when our hearts are pure; we hear for the first time when our hearts are humble; we serve well under the condition that our heart has made room for love; we live in God's piesence if in our heart there dwells the gift of faith. How simple! How profound! How challenging! And all of this is gift: "give us"! Not a selfish prayer made only for one's own growth, but a collective prayer asking for all peoples these gifts of single-mindedness, rich obedience, deep affectivity and spiritual vision. Only so blessed can peace come to the world; all politics must be grounded in spirituality, if any meaning at all is to be had. Resistance is for many of us a way of life. We resist our limitations, we feel hostile to the unknown, we are non-accepting of those things that do not fit into our plans. So much time and energy are consumed through the negative force of resistance that there is little, if any, left over to live a positive life. We shout a continual no to life and wonder why we are not happy. You related how one day you stopped this pattern in your life and shouted (or whispered) your yes. (205) In that moment of surrender all was different, all was new. However ambiguous and undefined this religious experience was--you were not clear as to who even put the question--that leap into affirmative acceptance was the point of conversion. A new person was born that day and with it came the precious gifts of meaning and freedom. What would, be your response to the condition of world government as it exists today? Was all your work worthwhile? Despite the powerlessness of the United Nations, despite the wars that go on daily and the fragile peace in the non-military sections of the planet, despite the narrow supercilious nationalisms causing incredible blindness, your work was not in vain. Your expertise, dedication and world consciousness have made their mark and furthered the cause of peace that is absolutely crucial for the family of man. The ideal has been kept alive and your contributions to the common good are inestimable. Hopefully, others will follow who will carry on this ministry to world peace and justice. The ultimate meaning in life which emerged time and again from your journal is love. Beyond obedience, beyond fear, beyond openness to life is this great force and power of radical care. Without it, division and alienation rage; with it, there comes the joy and peace of those who touch and have been touched by God. The beauty of life is that love found expression in action which you see as "the road to holiness" for our times. You walked it well; may we be but a step behind. With gratitude, RFM 652 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 Friendship Lislening Love HMmor Love Growth Within-hess Purity Holiness Obedience Instrumentality Fa#h Hum~ Every deed and every relationship is surrounded by an atmosphere of silence. Friendship needs no words--it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness. (8) The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak. Is this the starting point of the road towards the union of your two dreams--to be allowed in clarity of mind to mirror life and in purity of heart to mold it? (13) Perhaps a great love is never returned. Had it been given warmth and shelter by its counterpart in the Other, perhaps it would have been hindered from ever growing to maturity. It "gives" us nothing. But in its world of loneliness it leads us up to summits with wide vistas--of insight. (42) A grace to pray for--that our self-interest, which is inescapable, shall never cripple our sense of humor, that fully conscious self-scrutiny. which alone can save us. (43) Our love becomes impoverished if we lack the courage to sacrifice its object. (56) If only 1 may grow: firmer, simpler--quieter, warmer. (93) To be able to see, hear, and attend to that within us which is there in the darkness and the silence. (97) To be pure in heart means, among other things, to have freed yourself from all such half-measures: from a tone of voice which places you in the limelight, a furtive acceptance of some desire of the flesh which ignores the desire of the spirit, a self-righteous reaction to others in their moments of weakness. (109) In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action. (122) Beyond obedience, its attention fixed on the goal--freedom from fear. Beyond fear--openness to live and beyond that--love. (129) Rejoice if you feel that what you did was "necessary," but remember, even so, that you were simply the instrument by means of which He added one tiny grain to the Universe He has created for His own purposes. (143) We act in faith--and miracles occur. In consequence, we are tempted to make the miracles the ground for our faith. The cost of such weakness is that we lose the confidence of faith. Faith is, faith creates, faith carries. It is not derived from, nor created, nor carried by anything except its own reality. (145) Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It is--is nothing, yet at the same time one with everything. It is in this sense that humility is absolute self-effacement. (174) From Markings, by Dag HammarskjiSld, translated by Leif Sjoberg and W. H. Auden, by pernaission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. All rights reserved, 1964. Crisis in Personal Prayer: Reflections of Pope Paul VI J. Michael Miller, C.S.B. Father Miller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology of the University of St. Thomas, where he may be addressed: 3812 Montrose Blvd.; Houston, TX 77006. Shortly after his election to the papacy twenty years ago, Pope Paul VI confided to his friend Jean Guitton, "Montini has disappeared, Peter has replaced him."~ Of his interior life, consequently, we know very little: no Journal of a Soul, no published diaries, few unedited notes. The silence that had always surrounded his own life of prayer became absolute after he was elected pope. Nothing undoubtedly would have embarrassed this shy, inward man more than the revelation after his death that he often wore a hair shirt under his white cassock3 The fascinating spiritual biography of the pope who led the Church in its most tumultuous days since the Reformation remains to be written. Can nothing then be said about his prayer life? its difficulties? its structure? its emergence from a soul steeped in the anguish of the twentieth century's alienation and loneliness? Not a buoyant optimist as was John XXIII, Paul VI disappointed those who desired a charismatic, powerful personality to lead the Church in the wake of his popular predecessor. Especially in the last years of his pontificate, his tired and stilted movements (caused by painful arthritis) inspired little optimism. He was accused of being indecisive, lackluster, too progressive and too reactionary. Sharply aware of the "formidable burden" of his office and of his "apparent incommunicability," Pope Paul was thus no stranger to humani-ty's doubts and anxieties. Despite his reticence and his quasi-mystical assump tion of the ministry of Peter, Paul VI has nonetheless left us some reflections on the contemporary crisis in the practice of personal prayer--instructions which he shared with the people of God over the course of fifteen years of catechesis, exhortation, and homily. We can glean from these talks, which he 653 654 / Review for Religious, Sept,-Oct., 1983 wrote himself, some understanding of his own prayer life of which they are an echo. His remarks on prayer spring from a soul enmeshed in this "sad, dra-matic, and magnificent earth," as he described human existence in his last will and testament. The pope was a sensitive and compassionate man whose life of prayer was filled with a serenity and hope which belie those who thought him to be crushed by his own sense of responsibility and the suffering of both the Church and the world. While Pope Paul elaborated no systematic doctrine on prayer or the spiri-tual life, he consistently exhorted the faithful to pray and dedicated numerous discourses to the specific theme of personal prayer. On occasion he set aside for the topic two, three, or even four discourses in succession--as in August 1969, Eastertide 1970, or after Pentecost in 1976. The Holy Year of 1975--its preparation, realization, and aftermath--also stimulated his reflections on prayer. Nonetheless, Paul VI never presented a long and sustained theology on this theme such as that which John Paul II delivered in 1980 on marriage and sexuality in the opening chapters of Genesis. For this article, then, I have organized thematically material drawn from disparate talks over Paul's fifteen-year pontificate (1963-1978). At every point my primary interest is to allow the penetrating insights, concise and chiseled language, and ever-present serenity of Paul VI to speak for themselves: they reveal the contemporary person before personal prayer, the difficulties it entails, and its fundamental conversational structure. Is There a Crisis in Personal Prayer? Not infrequently Pope Paul lamented the declining practice of prayer in the modern world. He noted "with regret that personal prayer is diminishing'~ and that "unfortunately today many people no longer pray, do not pray at all. ,,4 In several discourses on prayer he mentions this decline and uses it as his point of departure: "A simple enquiry on the religious habits of the people of our time would yield sad findings on the complete, or almost complete, absence of personal prayer in a very large number of persons, now alien to, and alienated from, all expressions of inner religious feeling.'~ The crisis reaches "even those who are consecrated to the Lord [who] pray less than was once usual.TM Yet, despite, this grim evaluation of the contemporary situation, Paul VI did not take refuge in complaint. Instead he observed attentively in order to discover the reasons for the decline and, finding the reasons, to encourage hopeful signs wherever they appeared. More the pastor than the judge, he wanted to draw Christians, especially the young, to return to per-sonal prayer. Because Paul VI did not divorce his ministry from service to the world, he sought to reawaken humanity's thirst for the interior life by leading it to dis-cover in its own sterile experience of the world the foundation for prayer. He therefore tried to explain why modern men and women find it so difficult, so joyless to pray. Again and again he returns to his own straightforward ques- Crisis in Personal Prayer / 655 tion: "Why js interior life, that is the life of prayer, less intense and less easy for people of our time, for ourselves?''~ His assessment spurred him to try to ac-count for this unfortunate situation and thereby turn it to pastoral advantage. Reasons for the Crisis While Pope Paul never neatly outlined all the reasons for the contempo-rary crisis in prayer, his many discourses, however, reveal at least five explana-tions which touch the heart of the matter: Exteriorization. According to Paul VI, "we are brought up and educated to live exterior lives.TM A concentration on the marvelous and exciting things of this world has so displaced "equal training in the interior life" that few know its laws and satisfactions. The decline in practice is less a matter of man's deliber-ate unwillingness to pray than of his preference for more gratifying diversions. The ~'fascinating" media of film and television, for example, militate against the cultivation of a prayer life. If these media are watched "assiduously or obsessively," he says, they can "take the place of speculative thought, fill the mind with empty fantasies (see Ws 4:12), and urge it on to what it has seen." The human mind is reduced to the sensory world alone and "exteriorized." Given this situation, Paul goes on to ask, "Where is there any room for spiritual life, prayer, dependence on that prime principle which is God, when the consciousness is habitually crowded with these intruding and often futile and harmful images?"~ This first point is simple: a mind and heart filled with vain images leaves neither room nor interest for prayer. Materialism. A "deluded consideration that reality, the whole of reality, is that of the sense order, that of temporal and material experience" increases humanity's obliviousness to its spiritual depths. Crushed by work, study, and absorption in worldly affairs, we are in danger of closing ourselves to the transcendent, to the call to prayer. When knowledge is reduced to physical and quantitative laws, and God is "excluded as the transcendent Principle of the universe, and therefore also of every free and wise intervention in the world of our experience," Pope Paul then asks, "how could man address a word to the unknown God, try to dialogue with him, invoke his loving Providenc.6?" Whenever nothingness is proclaimed at the summit of the universe, he con-tinues, then people are "made incapable of prayer." Instead they are forced to strengthen the "mystification of self-sufficiency."0 Materialism and secularism lead to "putting prayer out of public life and private habit.TM Scientism. The frequently vaunted capacity of science to explain everything without reference to a transcendent cause calls into question the value of imploring a provident and personal God. Paul VI often follows the Thomistic .nodel of first outlining and then answering objections squarely. He comments, ~or example, that we have "to keep in mind the classic and usual objection nowadays, about the uselessness of prayer for us modern men, who by means of scientific progress have a knowledge of. the cosmos and human life ~hich makes it useless to have recourse to God to intervene in the scheme of causal- 656 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 ity, over which we ourselves either have control or know its fatality." After thus fairly presenting the objection, he answers that science "does not deem the influence of divine action superfluous in the play of natural causes, but recog-nizes it and to a certain extent., postulates it, invokes it, prays to it with increased understanding of divine and human things."~2 Paul VI refused to concede that science and technology could provide a satisfactory excuse for not praying. Rather, he insisted that scientists should not curtail the metaphys-ical and: mystical possibilities raised by the depth and precision of their disci-plines. If honestly undertaken their study should lead them not to silence but to dialogue with their Creator. Lack of a Religious Sense. Coupled with the exteriorization of the human mind, secularism, and scientism is a decline in humanity's "basic religious sense." Without this sense a personal spiritual life is impossible. Even before a person consciously prays, the person must have "that perhaps vague, but deep, mysterious and stimulating sense of God which is the basis of prayer."Is Because this religious sense is the atmosphere from which our thin voices can be raised in prayer, Pope Paul admonishes everyone to "try to find the routes leading to the religious sense, to the mystery of God, and then to colloquy and union with God.TM A world which excludes the mystery and beauty of God sweeps away the foundation of the interior life. Social Activism. Another Pauline explanation for the declining practice of prayer is the false emphasis some Catholics place on social conct~rns. The pope of Populorum progressio (1967) and Octogesima adveniens ( 1971) warned that social activism threatens to displace the interior life of prayer. Those who maintain that charity towards one's neighbor is enough are tempted to regard prayer as an obstacle to action, "as if they were competing for time, now scarce." Quite simply, according to Paul, prayer is "an indispensable coefficient of apostolic action."15 Without prayer, loving communion with Jesus Christ, the Church is unable "to contest a society in which everything is staked on apparent efficiency."~6 Without prayer, the Church would be "some kind of philanthropic humanism, or some sort of purely temporal sociological organi-zation,"~ 7 but it would not be the Body of Christ which worships the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Signs of Hope Despite the "formidable, but false" reasons why many people neither want to pray nor know how to pray nor do pray, the Church remains a "prayer association." It is in and through the Church, according to the pope, that humanity "has found the authentic way of praying, through Christ the sole high priest, that is, the way of speaking to God, of talking with God, of speaking about God."~8 Anchored deeply in the life of the Church and aware of her spiritual fiches, Paul VI was nevertheless able to discern within contem-porary secular experience an opening to prayer that many others brushed aside as irrelevant or unredeemable. Not satisfied with a mere description of the Crisis in Personal Prayer crisis, he always tried to dig deeper, to unravel, to make explicit the implicit, to reveal the hidden. The key to his theological and pastoral method was his indefatigable desire to "rescue" the potential of every twentieth-century philo-sophical and cultural movement--to unearth its latent possibilities. What many perceived as weakness or indecisiveness was really the pope's ability to grasp the multi-sided complexity of the modern world and his seeking to read the "signs of the times." In his discourses on prayer he applied his own method: to bring into focus the ways in which contemporary experience, especially that of the young, has within itself the capacity to promote a loving dialogue with God rather than a monologue with nothingness. Paradoxically, then, the modern spirit contains the seeds of its possible redemption. During the Holy Year, Pope Paul commented on the plausibility of a reaction setting in among young people which would turn them once again to the practice of personal prayer. Spontaneously alienated by the empti-ness of denying God, "these young people come forward, sad and tormented by the need of a real religion, which will make it possible still to talk to God, to pray to him, to know that he is accessible and close, provident and loving."19 Rather than despair at their denial of God and of the possibility and power of prayer, Paul VI chose to encourage them to reach deeper into their own experience and acknowledge their inner thirst for God. At a Wednesday audience two years before his death he said: Is there not, perhaps, at the bottom of the contesting bitterness of so many young people today a state of mind that is lamentation, poetry, invocation, which it seems permissible to classify under the sign of prayer, a sign that has survived the hurricanes of modern disillusionment? Yes, the temple of prayer opens its doors to the men of our time, and they, most certainly, feel that it would be wonderful to go in again. But they are hesitant: how dare they? And how to pray?--they think. It is worthwhile accompanying them and inviting them again to pray with us30 Ever anxious to accompany and encourage, Pope Paul perceived that "a need, an orientation, a sympathy for some form of prayer is being born again in the heart of the present generation.'~ From the experience of alienation can emerge a rekindled interest and thirst for the Living God. Such sentiments are certainly those of a man confident that truth will eventually prevail. In a moving description of the desperation of the young and their world, Paul VI strives to discern in their pleas an unacknowledged but real prayer raised to God. He recognizes in those who "hear no other call but that of a wasteland, on which they have fallen in an attitude of listless sadness to testify to the unhappy emptiness of their existence . a kind of existential moan of their innate desire to live, to survive." He does not hesitate to call this "a prayer; yes, a prayer conscious only of the desperate devaluation of every magnified modern experience, a kind of De profundis, to the atrocious inner torment." Like the Athenians who did not recognize the objective orientation of their longing (see Ac 17:23), so today the young do not often recognize in 65~1 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 their alienation their "innate, anguished need of Life, transcendent, rising again, divine." From out of the depths of this human anguish, according tO the pope, the possibility arises of encountering "a mysterious wayfarer, exhausted under a cross, who repeats his paradoxical but fascinating invitation: 'Come to me! And I will give you rest'" (Mt 11:28).22 In the very cry of those seemingly without God is revealed the first fashioning of prayer. Always intent on reaching to the crux of the matter and belie.ving that the human person "remains radically religious, essentially oriented towards the quest for God, towards a relationship with him, and therefore eager for, and capable of, personal prayer," Paul VI regards the spontaneous cries of the heart as the beginning of authentic prayer, the ''prayer-spark" which "bursts forth from the soul" in an "almost explosive" manner. Even for those untrained in religious conversation such a cry is a minimal, sometimes unno-ticed, expression of the soul's conversation with God.23 In this way, Paul seems to suggest the presence of a kind of"anonymous prayer" in the soul of many of his contemporaries. According to him, the drama of twentieth-century thought leads either to the failure of desolate skepticism or to "a science of God, which cannot remain just inert and passive, but experiences the logic, the vital urge to express a word; a word addressed to God: a call? praise? an attempt at dialogue? In any case, a prayer.'~4 If people would but open their eyes and their mind, they would discover in their own groans the beginning of prayer. Prayer as "Intoxicating Dialogue" Though Paul VI neither provided a manual on the practice of prayer nor described its dynamics in any detail, he frequently recalled the fundamental structure of personal prayer as God's call and an individual's response. The pope often reminds his listeners that even before a word is on our tongue, God himself is within us in "that mysterious and indescribable appointment which God, the one and threefold God, deigns to make with us, for filial and over-flowing conversation within our very selves."25 God reveals himself to us from within; he is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Paul never tired of calling to mind the mystery of the divine indwelling as the condition which makes all praying possible. Everyone needs to learn to pray inside oneself and by oneself, because God is with us inviting and beckoning us to interior.persona! p.m_ y~er. Despite our laziness, our being "slow and restive interlocutors," as the pope says, it is God who precedes and loves and goes in search of us first.26 Paul Vl's emphasis on personal, private prayer stems from his keen awareness that "the essentia! crossroads at which there is a meeting with the religious mystery, with God, is within us, in the interior room of our spirit and in that personal activity we call prayer.'~7 Liturgical prayer can never replace internal awareness and dialogue with the God who encounters us from within. Both God's sending of his Son in the Incarnation and of his Spirit at Pentecost provoke a "listening" in the heart of the believer. After listening to God's invitation, the pope said, "we cannot remain silent and inert" but must Crisis in Personal Prayer / 659 seek to respond.2s Paul VI was fond of referring to prayer as "conversation" or "dialogue"---terms dear to his theological method as it emerges, for example, in his first encyclical, Ecclesiam suam (1964). The simplest raising of the heart to God is already prayer when the mysterious Other is addressed, however inarticulately, as "thou." Nor is the individual disappointed "with the new joy of an intoxicating reply: Ecce adsum; here I am."~9 Prompted by the Spirit to recognize God within, and then to address him, the person is comforted with a reply. God listens. Dialogue unfolds "through filial conversation and concen-trated silence with him."~0 Prayer, then, is simple, austere and loving conversa-tion, an "intoxicating dialogue.TM In an address directed to rekindling the religious sense among men and women of today, Paul describes the dialogue which follows upon a person's awareness of God: Prayer is conversation: a conversation carried on by our personalities with the invisible companion, of whose presence we have become aware: the holy Living One, who fills us with awe and love, the indescribable Godhead, whom Christ (see Mt 11:27) taught us to call Father through his priceless gift of revelation)2 With his customary care to answer objections anticipated in the minds of his listeners, Pope Paul insists that prayer is authentic only when coupled with trust. The fear that our words are "a voice in the darkness" or merely "despair-ing poetry" is real. But once we remember that prayer begins with God and is established by Christ, it cannot be a monologue. Our very response is necessar-ily a dialogue.33 The "essential pattern of prayer" is that of a "conversation between God and the person,"a conversation which arises from a bilateral and beneficial relationship anchored in God's graciousness and an individual's trust.~ This model of prayer is readily accessible to contemporary human experience; it needs only to be'unlocked and directed to the God who waits. Conclusion Thus spoke Paul VI on prayer. To paraphrase St. John (20:30), there are many other things which Pope Paul said about prayer, but they are not ~ecorded in this article: his unceasing encouragement of liturgical prayer as the outflow of personal prayer, his esteem for the practice of simple vocal prayer, his promotion of Marian prayer. All these themes, and many more, together make up the rich legacy ori prayer which the pope bequeathed to the Church. Though not always highly original in his instruction, he taught assiduously the value and need for prayer if contemporary humanity is to survive. Paul VI restated traditional doctrine with a vigor and finesse attuned to our contem-porary self-understanding. More than all else, however, his calm and confi-dence that God is working through our barrenness to invite us to prayer is an encouraging testimony that from the very poverty of our existence might emerge the riches of loving dialogue with the Triune God. 660 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 NOTES ~Jean Guitton, Paul VI secret (Paris, 1979), p. 12. 2Ibid., p. 15. 3The Teachings of Pope Paul VI, vol. 3 (Vatican City, 1971), p. 145 (22 April 1970). All subsequent references are to the collected works published in ~e Teachings of Pope Paul VL I I vols. (Vatican City, 1969-1979, also reprinted by the USCC). The date of the original papal discourse follows in parentheses. 4Teachings 8, p. 86 (30 July 1975). ~Teachings 7, p. 14 (23 January 1974). 6Teachings 2, p. 219 (13 August 1969). 7Teachings 2, p. 220 (13 August 1969). STeachings 2, p. 220 (13 August 1969). 9Teachings 2, p. 228 (27 August 1969). ~°Teachings 8, pp. 8687 (30 July 1975). ~ Teachings 2, p. 223 (21 August 1969). ~2Teachings 7, p. 147 (23 October 1974). ~3Teachings 2, p. 226 (27 August 1969). ~4Teachings 2, p. 228 (27 August 1969). ~Teachings 9, pp. 105-106 (8 September 1976). ~rTeachings 8, p. 415 (12 November 1975). ~TTeachings 3, p. 144 (22 April 1970). ~STeachings 3, p. 143 (22 April 1970). ~gTeachings 8, p. 87 (30 July 1975). ~°Teachings 9, p. 67 (9 June 1976). ~ Teachings 7, p. 19 (30 January 1974). 2~Teachings 7, pp. 145-146 (23 October 1974). 2aTeachings 7, pp. 14-15 (23 January 1974). ~4Teachings 9, p. 66 (9 June 1976). ~STeachings 3, p. 145 (22 April 1970). 26 Teachings 7, p. 15 (23 January 1974). :T Teachings 2, p. 221 (13 August 1969). 28Teachings 7, p. 17 (30 January 1974). ~gTeachings 2, p. 221 (13 August 1969). ~°Teachings 2, p. 225 (21 August 1969). ~ Teachings 8, p. 63 (2 June 1976). J~Teachings 2, p. 226 (27 August 1969). J~Teachings 7, p. 19 (30 January 1974). ~Teachings 9, p. 68 (16 June 1976). The "Active-Contemplative" Problem in Religious Life by David M. Knight Price: $.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63106 Jungian Types and Forms of Prayer Thomas E. Clarke, S.J. Father Clarke, theologian, writer and lecturer, is well known for his work with renewal efforts in a variety of communities. He now resides in a small pastoral community where he may be addressed: 126 West 17th St.; New York, NY 10011. It is well known that Jungian spirituality--approaches to human and Christian development which draw on the insights of Carl Jung--is experi-encing a high point of interest and influence.~ More specifically, the Jungian psychological types are attracting many, especially as these types are identified by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a preference measurement perfected over several decades by the late Isabel Briggs Myers.2 More particularly still, there is considerable interest in describing forms of prayer which correspond to the categories of the Jungian typology.3 In this context the present article seeks to identify and reflect on ways of praying which correspond to the functions and attitudes of the Jungian schema; it will also offer some suggestions and cautions towards the further exploration of such correspondences. It is written not only for those who are already acquainted with their MBTI types, but also for those seeking a basic explanation of this instrument in its usefulness for prayer. These observations are based on a dozen retreat/workshop experiences of six days which have sought to aid Christian growth by correlating Jungian type-categories with Gospel themes and Christian practices. They are also meant to supplement what has been said in a recent book transposing the retreat/workshop into print.4 The scope of this article is quite limited. First, it does not profess to know how people or groups belonging to any one of the sixteen types actually prefer to pray or, still less, ought to pray. Secondly, it does not seek to correlate each of the sixteen types with one or more forms of prayer. The basis of the correlations here suggested will be the four functions, with some consideration of the attitudes of introversion and extraversion. 661 66~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 The article does, however, go beyond the previously mentioned literature in three ways. First, it will speak not only of the prayer of individuals but also, though less in detail, of prayer in groups and in liturgical assemblies. Secondly, it will raise the question of prayer as a form of leisure, hence as a time for making friends with the shadow side of one's personality. And thirdly, it will raise the question of forms of prayer for individuals at different stages of life's journey. A Preliminary Observation One final preliminary re~ark needs to be made, on the method of correlation followed in our retreat/workshop, in the chapters of From Image to Likeness, and in the present article. Jungian theory and the Christian Gospel are two quite distinct and heterogeneous interpretations of what it means to be human. The properly behavioral and the properly religious dimensions of life are irreducible one to the other. Even where common terms, drawn from either sector, are used, we must be wary of assuming a univocal sense. Carl Jung presented himself principally as pursuing the science of the soul. Jesus Christ is God's Word of salvation, the founder of the faith community which bears his name. Nevertheless there are between the insights of Jung and the teachings of Jesus significant affinities, likenesses, analogies. As in the case of Plato and Aristotle, Darwin and Marx, penetrating Jungian insights into the human condition can meet, and be met by, facets of the Gospel. The method employed here, then, is one which centers on such resemblances. My impression is that much of the energy generated within Jungian spirituality today derives from the exciting discovery that these two basic perceptions of our humanity often converge in remarkable ways. The convergence on which we will focus here is that which obtains between the characteristics of each of the Jungian functions and different forms of Christian prayer. The Jungian Types My guess is that most readers of this article have already been introduced to the Jungian types either directly or through some such instrument as the MBTI. But a brief summary may be helpful, at least to those not acquainted with the types. Carl Jung's clinical experience acquainted him with the fact that while we all engage in common forms of behavior we also differ notably from one another in our behavioral preferences, and hence in the way in which we grow humanly. He used two generic terms, perceiving and judging, to designate the alternating rhythm, present in each person, of a) taking in reality, being shaped by it, and b) shaping reality, responding to it. Each of these two postures was specified, Jung postulated, in two contrasting functions. Perceiving (P) was specified as either sensing (S), the Jungian Types and Forms of Prayer / 663 function through which, with the help of the five senses, we perceive reality in its particularity, concreteness, presentness; or as intuiting (N), the function through which, in dependence on the unconscious and with the help of imagination, we perceive reality in its wholeness, its essence, its future potential. Judging (J) was also specified, in either thinking (T), by which we come to conclusions and make decisions on the basis of truth, logic, and right order; or in feeling (F), which prompts conclusions and decisions attuned to our subjective values and sensitive to the benefit or harm to persons--ourselves or others--which may result from our behavior. All four of these functions, Jung affirmed, can be exercised by way of extraversion or by way of introversion. He invented this now celebrated distinction to describe the flow of psychic energy inlany given instance of behavior. In extraverted behavior the flow of energy is from the subject towards the object of perception or judgment. In introverted behavior, the flow of energy is in the opposite direction, that is, from the object towards the subject. What makes the difference is not precisely whether the target of our perception or judgment is something outside ourselves or within ourselves, but which way the energy is flowing. Rather commonly, the impulse to share one's perception or judgment immediately with others or at least to give it bodily expression, signals the presence of extraversion (E); while a tendency to gather the perceiving or judging behavior and to deal with it within oneself marks introversion (I). Working independently of Jung, and on theoretical foundations previously explored by her mother, Isabel Briggs Myers developed an instrument which, on the basis of a preference questionnaire, indicated how the respondent prefers to behave in given situations. The typology is based on four sets of polar opposites: extraversion/introversion; sensing/intuiting; thinking/feeling; judging/perceiving. In tabular form: E-I S-N T-F J-P The four pairs of opposites in varying combinations yield sixteen types, each of which is identified with its code e.g. ESTJ; ISFP; ENFJ. In the process of decoding, which we cannot describe in detail here, one arrives at the order of preference of the four functions (described as dominant, auxiliary, third, and inferior), as well as the attitude (introversion or extraversion) of the dominant function. Thus one person's most preferred behavior will be extraverted feeling, another's introverted intuiting, and so forth. Also worth noting is that when the dominant function is a perceiving function (sensing or intuiting), the auxiliary function will be one of the two judging functions (thinking or feeling), the third function will be the other judging function, and the inferior function will be the perceiving function opposite to the dominant 664 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 function. A corresponding pattern will obtain where the dominant function is a judging function. This is one way in which Jung's view of"compensation," or the tendency of the psyche towards balance, is verified. Extensive research and testing, especially with respect to the professions chosen by people of various types, enabled Isabel Myers to construct profiles of the sixteen types. These in turn have won for the M BTI an extensive use in the fields of career guidance, personnel policy, and the dynamics of groups and organizations. The key psychological insight on which the MBTI capitalizes is that people's behavior, development, and relationships are strongly affected by their preferences in perceiving and judging, as well as by the extraverted or introverted character of the respective preferences. If one makes the assumption that persons are capable of enlightenment and growth through free exercise towards more human ways of living, this psychometric tool then becomes a vehicle of human development. Such is the conviction which has sparked enormous interest in the MBTI in recent years. Out of the work of these two American women has emerged the Association for Psychological Type, whose membership has reached 1500, and which has sponsored five biennial conferences for discussing numerous aspects of the typology. One of the interest areas provided for in APT covers religious education, spiritual growth, prayer styles, missionary service, and similar themes.5 With this brief outline of the various functions and the two attitudes which qualify human behavior, we now turn to correlating each of the four functions with forms of Christian prayer. In the case of each of the functions we will ask: What are some of the forms of prayer--individual, group, and liturgical-- which correspond to this function? Sensing Forms of Prayer Forms of prayer corresponding to the sensing function will be, in general, those ways of praying in which we pay attention to present reality in a focused way, whether with the help of the five external senses or through a simple perception of interior reality. Here are some examples of what we may call sensing prayer. l) Vocalprayer, such as the recitation of the psalms or the rosary, will be sensing prayer when the posture of the one praying is characterized by simple attentiveness, a certain contentment with each passing phrase, and an eschewing of rational thought, imaginative scenarios, and strong emotional investment. Sensing prayer tends for the most part to be simple, quiet, undramatic, contemplative, and down to earth. Vocal prayer, whether the words are recited aloud, gently murmured, or just expressed within, are apt vehicles for exercising this side of our personality. 2) The "prayer of simple regard" is a traditional term used to describe a kind of prayer which, I would suggest, has ~he characteristics of sensing prayer. It consists in just "being there," present to present reality, especially to God within the mystery of divine presence. It needs no words (except perhaps to Jungian Types and Forms of Prayer / 665 recall one from distraction) and does not involve strong y~arnings of the heart, but in simplicity accepts the "sacrament of the present moment." 3) The prayerful "application of the senses" may also be an exercise of sensing prayer. But here I understand this term as referring to the use of the five exterior senses, or any one of them, on their appropriate objects. The first part of Fr. Anthony de Mello's widely ready book Sadhana contains many such exercises which he lists under "Awareness.TM The sense of touch, for example, may be prayerfully exercised just by letting myself become aware of bodily sensation, beginning perhaps with the shoulders and working down to the soles of the feet. Touch is also exercised when I attend to how, in breathing, I feel the air as it enters and leaves the nostrils. Listening to sounds in a quiet posture of receptivity and enjoyment is another instance of sensing prayer. Provided I have entered this exercise with faith, I do not need to have recourse to the thought of God or to any devout feelings, even though, as Ft. de Mello suggests, a variation of this exercise might consist in hearing the sounds as God sounding in all the sounds made by nature and humans. Thus the chatter of voices, the purr of a motor in the basement, or the thunder of a ride on the New York subway, can be grist for the mill of sensing prayer. Something similar may be said for gazing as a form of sensing prayer. I may look at objects of devotion, at pictures in a book or album, at faces in a crowd, at the beauties of nature. Even taste and smell can be vehicles of prayer for a person exercising faith with a heightened consciousness. 4) Sensing prayer can also draw upon the interior sense, our capacity for paying attention to what is going on within us. Focusing on our breathing or our heartbeat can be a point of entry. Then we may choose simply to attend to what is happening in inner consciousness, to the words, images, or feelings which spontaneously bubble up from the unconscious. Sometimes this kind of exercise can induce a gradual slowing or cessation of inner chatter, and we can for a while just listen to the silence within. We may even come to a happy interior verification of the Quaker motto, "Don't speak until you can improve on silence." Sometimes people ask with regard ,to such exercises, "Is it really prayer?" Even if it were not, it would not be a bad way of disposing ourselves for prayer. But when it is situated within a life of faith and for the purpose of expressing and deepening our faith, it can be prayer---excellent prayer---even though we do not name God, converse with God, or experience any devout surge of the heart. Sensing Prayer in Groups So far I have been suggesting sensing forms of prayer for the individual. But groups can also pray with an accent on sensing. Various kinds of vocal prayer such as litanies or the Office in common, especially when they are engaged in with simplicity and even with a certain routine, enable the members 666 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 of a group to meet God and one another through the sensing function. It is also possible to create prayer services in which each of the five senses has its place, as, for example, by listening to the tinkle of a bell or to a guitar quietly strumming; by devoutly kissing a crucifix or extending a handclasp of peace; by smelling incense or flowers; by tasting a sip of wine; by focusing on the lighting of a candle. Sensing prayer in common leaves aside what is highly cognitive or interpersonal or imaginative. It calls the group to be together with a great deal of simplicity and quiet awareness of God, one another, and the environment. Sensing in IJturgical Prayer There are times when people come together in larger groups to pray, and particularly to participate in the official or public prayer of the Church. When we celebrate the Eucharist and other sacraments and the divine Office in large assemblies, prayer takes on what I would call a societal character, in contrast to the interpersonal character of prayer shared in small groups.7 The general thesis which I would propose is that a well-celebrated liturgy needs to attend to all four functions. Ideally, each participant and the congregation as a whole should have the opportunity to exercise both sensing and intuiting, thinking and feeling, in extraverted and introverted ways. In the present aspect, sensing prayer, liturgical celebration will meet our humanity when it evokes the exercise of the five senses in a congruous way by inviting the participants to look, listen, touch, taste, and smell, all in a fashion which nourishes their faith and deepens their solidarity. There is no need here to detail how apt the celebration of the sacraments in the Christian and Catholic tradition is for meeting this need of human personality. My impression is that consequent upon Vatican II the effort to break out of liturgical straitjackets sometimes brought an "angelism" insensitive to the importance of the senses in good eucharistic celebration. Heightened attention to the homily tended to move celebration excessively towards the cognitive, to the neglect of the sensate, elements of good celebration. To some degree we are today recovering the importance of the life of the senses in liturgy. This Jungian approach to societal prayer can assist in that recovery. Intuiting Prayer Intuiting prayer may be described as contemplative prayer drawing upon fantasy and imagination, as well as what might be called the prayer of emptiness or the "prayer of the vacant stare. The Jungian tradition uses the term "active imagination" to designate those behaviors in which we let images and symbols freely emerge from the unconscious and flow in consciousness. The term "active" could be misleading, if taken with a connotation of control or shaping reality. There is a sense in which this use of imagination is not active but passive, as the person's posture is one of receptivity. The orientation of such prayer is to what might be, to futuresdreamed of rather than planned. As Jungian Types and Forms of Prayer / 667 the five senses and the interior sense are the vehicles of sensing prayer, so the gift of imagination is what carries intuiting prayer. But, in my opinion, the intuiting function can be at work in prayer even when images are not freely flowing. The vacant stare into space aptly symbolizes a contemplative posture in prayer which is aptly subsumed under intuiting prayer. In such prayer the mind is not occupied with thoughts, the imagination is not delivering images or symbols, and the heart is not strongly surging toward the good. Such prayer of emptiness appears to differ sharply from the prayer of a simple regard, even though both forms are characterized by an absence of thoughts, images, and strong feelings. The difference consists in the focused or unfocused character of the gaze. To use a playful distinction which I once heard Brother David Rast employ, in the prayer of simple regard we are now/here, fully present to the present actuality of life, whereas in what I call the prayer of the vacant stare we are no/where (recall that the Greek term for nowhere is Utopia). Centering Prayer In this context it is worth asking just where "centering prayer" as developed by Fr. Basil Pennington is best situated from the standpoint of the four Jungian functions.8 My own inclination is to view it as a form of intuiting prayer. It is true that centering prayer makes use of a word in the journey to the center; and, as we shall see, the word in prayer belongs primarily to the thinking function. But here the word is functioning not as a mediator of rational meaning but as a carrier of the spirit to the beyond. Centering prayer .has a predominantly unfocused character and brings us to a certain emptiness. Hence I would put it with intuiting prayer. All of this having been said, here are some examples of intuiting prayer for the individual. 1) We have just discussed a first form, centering prayer in the proper sense. 2) The familiar "contemplations" of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are appropriately listed under intuiting prayer. But it needs to be noted that these contemplations of the mysteries of the life of Jesus belong also to feeling prayer, as we will see. The imagination is exercised with freedom, but with a view to drawing the heart in love. It is the feeling function, we shall se~, which relates to the past through reminiscence. Perhaps a large part of the power of the Ignatian contemplations consists in the fact that both the dreaming imagination and the heart are drawn on to energize the retreatant engaged in the process of "election." Something similar may be said of the contemplation of the mysteries of the rosary. The imagination freely recreates a scene which contains in symbolic form deep Christian values. 3) Various kinds of fantasy in prayer have an intuitive character. Anthony de Mello's book here again contains some interesting exercises, Christian and non-Christian, under the general heading of "Fantasy." Some which might appear at first to be quite macabre can be a source of intense joy and peace: 661~ / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 attending your own funeral, or the "fantasy on the corpse" which Fr. de Mellow borrowed from the Buddhist series of "reality meditations." 4) Ira Progoff's "Intensive Journal," both in the sections devoted to dealing with dreams and in the various kinds of dialogues, offers an abundance of forms of intuiting prayer. The dialogues may be said to combine intuiting and thinking prayer, the latter because of the dialogue form of the prayer. 5) Praying with the help of symbols engages the intuitive function in a way that can energize us greatly. The journey, the cave, the house, the tree, the Cross, the City--these are just a few of the symbolic possibilities of intuitive prayer. Books of the Bible such as the Fourth Gospel and the Book of Revelation are a source of abundant Christian symbols which can be explored in prayer. 6) Finally, one may prayerfully explore God's call by asking the question, "What would it be like if . " envisaging oneself in alternative human situations, dreaming of new ways of one's pilgrimage. Intuiting Prayer for Groups Many of the approaches to intuiting prayer just described for the individual can be adapted for groups which are praying or prayerfully reflecting together. For example, a community which has gone off to the country or to the shore for some time together might have a very meaningful time of common prayer by having each member bring back some nature-object which symbolizes something important for that person. In planning for the year ahead, a community might put to itself the question, "What would it be like if . "making sure not to become too quickly pragmatic and sensible in dealing with the dreams of particular members for life in common. Another exercise of intuiting prayer in common might be to invite each member to select a Scripture passage which is symbolic of some aspect of the community's life, and to share the passages, taking care to be contemplative, without the need for discussion or response. Intuiting in Liturgical Prayer Lyrics from two well-known religious songs aptly characterize the intuitive element which ought to be present in any liturgical celebration. "Take us beyond the vision of this moment." and "Look beyond the bread you eat . "This note of "beyond," or (in Hopkins' poem, "The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo") "yonder," corresponds to the eschatological quality of Christian faith. In sacramental celebration, it is the complexus of ritual gestures and of symbols which principally contains the invitation to dream, to be open to a limitless future which is God. Psychologically, this facet of good liturgy is effectively present when the congregation as a whole shares, in joyful hope, this unfocused contemplative expectation of future blessing. Though it may find verbal expression, for example within the readings of the celebration, its primary vehicle will be symbol, inviting to the "vacant stare.~ Jungian Types and Forms of Prayer / 669 Feeling Prayer Forms of prayer which correspond to the feeling function are rather easily described. They will be exercises of prayer characterized by affection, intimacy, and the devout movement of the heart. More specifically, feeling prayer takes place when the exercise of memory in gratitude or compunction brings us back to the roots whence our values are derived, when we come back home, so to speak, in the mysteries of the Gospel, the origins of a particular religious heritage, or the sources in our own personal life through which the gift of faith came to us. The third section of de Mello's Sadhana contains an abundance of such exercises of prayer. Here is a briefer listing of some forms: l) Any form of prayer in which affective dialogue takes place, with God, with Jesus or Mary or any of the saints, or with those who have been important in our personal life, verifies this kind of prayer. In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the contemplation of the mysteries leads to such affectionate "colloquy," in which the grace being sought includes a growth in intimate love. 2) Aspirations, when they are repeated with a view to stirring the heart, are a second way of exercising feeling prayer. The "Jesus prayer" of the Eastern tradition, when said with a view to engaging the affections, is a major example. 3) One can also wander "down memory lane" in one's own life, recalling the persons, the experiences, the behaviors, which have had great influence on one's growth. Such prayer of the heart can often be combined with the exercise of imagination, as we recreate a scene of childhood, for example, or tender moments later in life which make us grateful. Gratitude and compunction are the two distinctive graces of such kinds of prayer. For each one of us, the past contains both the gifts of God, especially in the form of the goodness of persons, and our failure to respond trustingly and generously to those gifts. 4) All of us have favorite hymns and songs, and sometimes in solitary prayer our hearts can be deeply mox~ed by singing them quietly, or letting their melodies flow through our inner consciousness. 7he Feeling Function in Group Prayer When groups pray together with some regularity, it can help occasionally if the prayer is directed toward the heart. This calls for discretion, of course, for even when the members know each other well there will remain considerable differences in the ability and desire to manifest emotion in common prayer. But experience will show just what is possible and desirable. Music and song is an easy vehicle, usually unembarrassing. The group might listen to an endearing hymn, or to some instrumental music which appeals to the heart. Story telling, the sharing of personal history about a theme important for the faith life of the group, is another simple and easy way of being together in an affectionate way. 671) / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 Spontaneous prayer, in which people are free to pray aloud and from the heart, can also deepen the bonds of affection within a community, and strengthen the common commitment to shared values. This is an appropriate place to mention the relationship of spiritual direction. At least in a broad sense it is part of the prayer life of both the director and the one being directed. It calls for the engagement of all four of the functions. But, inasmuch as it is an intimate relationship of two persons of faith and aimed at the fostering of Gospel values in the life of the person being directed, it calls particularly for the exercise of the feeling function. This is not the place to discuss the question of friendship within this relationship of spiritual direction, apart from observing that there are contrary views on the subject. But, whatever discretion may be called for to preserve the character of the dialogue as one of spiritual, direction, it remains a situation where the feeling function is expressed interpersonally. Feeling in Public Prayer From'what has already been said readers will be able to describe for themselves the aspects of liturgical prayer and other forms of public prayer which correspond to the feeling function. There is significant difference, of course, between the face-to-face prayer of a small group and the largely anonymous quality of public prayer in large assemblages. There will be corresponding differences, therefore, in the ways in which this side of our humanity finds expression. In my opinion, one of the imbalances of recent years with regard to our expectations of liturgy is that we have often expected it to nourish intimacy in ways beyond its power. Concomitantly, we have tended to lose contact with the deep enrichment which can come to our affective life from such experiences of faith. However one may be personally disposed toward the large gatherings of charismatics which have become such an important part of public prayer and worship, it needs to be said that the charismatic movement is more effectively in touch with this facet of our humanity than most people are. Some of the scenes in which John Paul II has been involved in his worldwide travels provide a further illustration of the energy which flows from religious values through societal prayer and worship. In particular, hymns sung by thousands of voices can be memorable in their impact, as anyone who has been to Lourdes or Rome can testify. The Thinking Function in Prayer I have left the thinking function till last for a few reasons. One is that I find it to be neglected and even, at times, disparaged. Why this is the case is understandable in relationship to the rediscovery of the life of feeling which has taken place in Roman Catholic circles in recent decades. Prayer had, in many respects, become too "cognitized," partly through a reduction of the Ignatian tradition to what was conceived as the Ignatian method of prayer as Jungian Types and Forms of Prayer / 671 exemplified in the well-known schema of a nineteenth-century Jesuit general, John-Baptist Roothan. In any case the thinking function in prayer has a rather poor press nowadays. Even Anthony de Mello writes, A word about getting out of your head: The head is not a very good place for prayer. It is not a bad place for starting your prayer. But if your prayer stays there too long and doesn't move into the heart it will gradually dry up and prove tiresome and frustrating. You must learn to move out of the area of thinking and talking and move into the area of feeling, sensing, loving, intuiting? Ft. de Mello is faithful to this conviction, for his book is divided into three parts, corresponding more or less to the sensing, intuiting, and feeling functions. There is no section on thinking prayer. Doesn't something more positive need to be said about our capability of meeting God through the rational mind? Surely it is no less important a part of God's image in us than the life of sense, feeling, and imagination. And, within the unity of the person, it is intimately linked in its workings with the operations of these other facets of our humanity. But instead of arguing theoretically for a place for thinking in prayer, let me offer some examples of how one may pray with the rational mind. l) A clear instance of thinking prayer for the individual is the famous "First Principle and Foundation" of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. I can ponder it during a period of prayer and, first, try to appreciate its simple logic in the linkage of purpose, means, and attitude. After savoring its truth I can then examine my life to see where there is order and-where there is disorder, and just what area calls for the struggle to be free from inordinate affections. Knowing that I cannot free myself, I can turn to ask God's help. Then I can make a few practical resolutions touching some steps on the road to freedom. Such highly cognitive activities in prayer are really prayer, and not merely preliminaries to prayer. 2) Prayer may also take the form of setting down a personal charter or set of basic principles by which I wish to live, e.g., "Every human being I meet is worthy of my respect." Periodically I can review this set of principles in order to evaluate and improve my fidelity. 3) I may choose also to draw up for myself a plan of life, which would include a daily or weekly schedule of prayer, reading, provisions for work and leisure, practice with respect to money, and so forth. 4) From time to time I may wish to take a book of the Bible, and, with the help of a good commentary, carefully and systematically over a period of some weeks seek a deeper grasp of God's word, attending to the structure of the work, its cultural setting, the precise meaning of terms, and so forth. I may wish to write my own paraphrase of the book, or use the text as the basis of my own reflections. Most of us are accustomed to contrast prayer and study. But when study of God's word takes place within a life of faith and for the purpose of fostering faith, I believe that it lacks nothing of the reality of prayer itself. 679 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 Thinking Prayer in Groups Not all group prayer needs to be self-revelatory and strongly interpersonal in its character. The common recitation of the Office or prayer of the Church is a good example of communal thinking prayer. Such prayer is characterized by clear structure, orderly procedure, and the absence of strong emotions. While it would be untrue to say that affectivity is absent, what prevails is a sense of meaning and purpose. Especially when such prayer includes reading a passage from Scripture or from some other source, the mind's desire for meaning is being fed. Spiritual reading, which is another form of thinking prayer for individuals which might have been mentioned, can also take place within a group united in faith. Thinking in Liturgical Prayer Liturgical celebration, especially when it occurs in larger assemblies of people, takes on a societal or public character. The very term liturgy conveys this, of course. Inasmuch as the movement from the private to the public in all dimensions of our life involves a significant shift of behavioral attitudes, it brings to the fore the thinking side of our personality. As we begin to relate to people outside the circle of intimacy, it becomes necessary to create conven-tions, etiquettes, structures, which provide us with supports and safeguards as we relate to larger and more anonymous gatherings of people. It is for such reasons that our liturgical celebrations contain a good deal of structure and ritual gesture, and tend to be less highly personal than informal prayer in small groups. More of the thinking side of our humanity needs to be engaged when we celebrate the Eucharist and other ceremonies on a large scale. Similarly to what was said previously about sensing prayer in public worship, I think that we can be helped to understand both the tensions and the failures which have characterized our experience of liturgical worship during the past few decades if we bring to bear on them an understanding of personality types. At the risk of being simplistic one might say that the Tridentine liturgy had become ossified and institutionalistic in its absolutizing of the thinking mode of public worship. This made it understandable that, in the swing of the pendulum in recent decades, we experienced some loss of the basic sense of structure, decorum, and ritual which needs to preside over our public prayer. Some (not all) of the negative reactions to the kiss of peace probably stem from an uneasiness lest the distinction of private and public worship be overlooked. The present juncture, I would say, is a time when we need to recapture, without returning to rigorism and institutionalism, the rich energies of a thinking kind contained in our sacramental and liturgical traditions. We will pray much better in public if we prize this aspect of our .humanity and of our Christian prayer. Jungian Types and Forms of Prayer Further Considerations Up to now this article has offered principally a correlation of forms of prayer, chiefly individual but also interpersonal and societal, with the four functions of the Jungian personality types. As has already been said, we should be wary of too easy identification of any of the sixteen types with one or other preferred way of praying. It is not one's type alone but a variety of factors which affect our attractions in prayer. Two of these factors will now be discussed briefly. They concern 1) prayer as an exercise of leisure; 2) prayer in the stages of human development. Prayer and Leisure One plausible theory which one hears voiced in Jungian circles would have it that, when we turn from the areas of work and profession to the exercise of leisure, there is a spontaneous inclination in the psyche to move from a more preferred to a less preferred side of our personality. In terms of the functions this would mean, for example, that a person whose work or ministry calls for a great deal of extraverted intuiting--being with people in situations which call for a good deal of creative imagination--will spontaneously seek relaxation after labor by some quiet exercise of sensing: baking a cake with careful attention to measurements, or working at one's stamp collection, or hooking a rug according to a given pattern. Similarly, someone whose work is highly analytical and impersonal, let us say in dealing with a computer, might want to relax by sharing a Tchaikovsky concert or a TV sitcom with a few friends. Such a suggestion makes a good deal of sense, especially in view of the natural mechanisms of compensation which seem to be built into our psychic life. If one then adds the similarly plausible suggestion that prayer is or ought to be an exercise of leisure, then we would appear to have a useful criterion for evaluating our forms of prayer, and for suggesting new approaches to prayer, particularly when we seem to be getting nowhere. In such a view, we might profitably ask ourselves from time to time whether our behavior in prayer does not tend to be too much a compulsive continuation of the kind of behavior which we prefer in our work or ministry. And we might, if such is the case, deliberately seek ways of praying which helped to disengage us from such compulsive patterns. Someone whose primary gift, for example, is introverted intuiting, and who spends a good deal of time in the course of the day exercising that gift, might deliberately choose some extraverted sensing forms of prayer, for example, praying the rosary with simple attention to the words, the touch of the beads, and so forth. Or someone whose ministry makes heavy emotional demands---caring for the senile or the retarded, or counselling disturbed people, for example--might find some interior exercise of thinking prayer to be balancing and eventually attractive. One small suggestion regarding this experiencing of leisu're in prayer. It should take place, like all prayer, not by violence but by attrai:tion. It might well be that, though one appreciates the value of shifting gears when one 674 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 approaches prayer, it is not so easy to disengage from one's favored behavior. One might have to make an entry through the preferred function, especially an auxiliary function, before learning to exercise a less preferred function, especially the inferior function, in prayer. This use of the auxiliary function to wean us away from too exclusive a reliance on the dominant function is part of a Jungian strategy of individuation. It would seem to be applicable to strategies in prayer. For example, if thinking is my dominant function and I exercise it abundantly in my work, I may find myself attached to it even when I come to prayer. Instead of directly trying to rouse myself to feeling prayer, I might begin by letting my auxiliary sensing direct my gaze to particular objects, interior or exterior, which in turn and in due time may stir my heart to affective prayer. The philosophy of non-violence has an important area of application in prayer. Prayer and Development Numerous are the theories which, in the present century, have sought to plot the course of human development, in its cognitive, affective, social and ethical aspects. The well-known names of Piaget, Maslow, Erikson, Fowler, and others have provided rich insights into the various facets of growth. One characteristic of a Jungian perspective on development is that, in the light of the diversity of personality types, it will be wary of imposing a monOlithic pattern on the wide variety of human preferences. When prayer is viewed in this light, there are some salutary cautions and perhaps some qualifications of long-standing assumptions .about progress in prayer. Dr. W. Harold Grant has, for some years, been investigating the hypothesis of our ~pe.riods of differentiated human development, starting at age six and ending at fifty, with major switching points taking place at twelve, twenty, and thirty-five. In each of the four periods, according to the hypothesis, the person would be developing one of the four functions: the dominant in childhood, the auxiliary in adolescence, the third function in early adulthood, and, from the age of thirty-five on, the inferior function. The hypothesis includes also an alternation of introversion and extraversion in the successive periods. Prior to age six and subsequent to age fifty development would be taking place more randomly, and not selectively, as in the four periods between six and fifty. If one accepts this as a plausible hypothesis, some implications for forms of prayer at the differe.nt stages of life would seem to be present. First, one would be open to the possibility that the spontaneous employ of sense, imagination, reason, and affection in prayer may not be uniform for all persons or types. Any such prevailing assumption that growth in prayer takes place first by the use of reason and imagination and then, in a darknight experience, by their cessation, might have to yield to a view which acknowledges more diversity in the way in which the attachment/detachment phenomenon takes place in different types of personalities. Jungian Types and Forms of Prayer / 675 Secondly, the hypothesis may help to throw light on crisis periods in people's prayer lives, by suggesting that the emergence of a new function-- especially of the inferior function about the age of thirty-fiv~e--may be signaled through the decline or collapse of previously fruitful ways of praying. It might also suggest that the person involved in such a crisis might do well to explore some alternative ways of praying, ways which would be in keeping with whatever function was seeking to find its place in consciousness. Let us think, for example, of persons in whom feeling is dominant, experiencing something of a crisis in prayer around mid-life. They might do well, with the help of a. director, to exercise their thinking side in prayer, for example, by keeping a journal in which reflection on the meaning of what they are experiencing, or meditation on the meaning of some scriptural passages, was cultivated. It should be obvious that these two factors, touching the question of leisure and the question of diversity in human development, do not exhaust the sources which make for different experiences in prayer. Factors stemming from each person's unique personal history will be at least as important in deciding what course we wish to chart in prayer. And ultimately, as has already been said, it is the attraction of the Spirit of God at every juncture of life which is the primary determinant of how we choose to pray. Conclusion But if it all comes down at last to attraction, why bother consulting the Jungian types for help in praying? For two principal reasons. First, such a consultation will make us wary of being misled by stereotypes of prayer and of progress in prayer, and particularly of the monolithic character of many descriptions of growth in prayer, even among the great classics. And secondly, when persons are in a time of crisis or barrenness in prayer, they may be helped in dealing with the situation if they have had some practice in a variety of ways of praying, and if they realize the affinity between these various ways and the different functions within the Jungian personality types. With the reservations we have indicated in this article, acquaintance with one's type through the MBTI can help foster better praying. NOTES ~See, for example, Morton Kelsey, The Other Side of Silence, (New York: Paulist, 1976); idem, Transcend: A Guide to the Spiritual Quest, (New York: Crossroad, 1981); John Sanford, Healing and Wholeness, (New York: Paulist, 1977); idem, The Invisible Partners, New York: Paulist, 1980); Wallace B. Clift, Jung and Christianity: The Challenge of Reconcilation, (New York: Crossroad, 1982); John Welch, Spiritual t~'lgrims: Carl Jung and Teresa of Avila, (New York: Paulist, 1982); Robert Doran, "Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality," P~vtEw FOr RELtatot/s 38 (1979), pp. 497-510; 742-52; 857-66. 2See Isabel Briggs Myers, Gifts Differing, (Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1980). 676 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 3See Christopher Bryant, Heart in Pilgrimage: Christian Guidelines for the Human Journey, (New York: Seabury, 1980), pp. 182-195; Robert Repicky, "Jungian Typology and Christian Spirituality," REVtEW FOR REMGtOVS, 40 (1981) pp. 422-435. 4See W. Harold Grant, Mary Magdala Thompson, Thomas E. Clarke, From Image to likeness: A Jungian Path in the Gospel Journey, (New York: Paulist, 1983). SAPT publishes a newsletter, MBTI News, for its membership, and is based at 414 S.W. 7th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32601. 6See Anthony de Mello, Sadhana: A Way to God, (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1979). 7See Thomas E. Clarke, "Toward Wholeness in Prayer," in: William R. Callahan & Francine Cardman, 7he Wind ls Rising: Prayer Ways for Active People (Hyattsville, MD: Quixote Center, 1978), pp. 18-20. sSee Thomas Keating, M. Basil Pennington, Thomas E. Clarke, Finding Grace at the Center, (Still River, MA: St. Bede Publications, 1978). 9De Mello, p. 13. The Time for Figs There twinges in my heart A pity for that fig tree--barren-- Caught up within the eyes of Christ, Cursed by his lips. There echo in my soul Defenses for the tree's unburdened limbs Held light against the sky-- Perhaps because it's I who am the fig tree, content to wait the seasons out. But now is the time for figs-- Season or not-- IX, e looked for the sun too long, Yearned for the rain to come and comfort me, The earth to gather and to nourish. It is the time for figs-- The hungry and the weak pass by And the blossoms are an empty, bitter food. It is the time for bearing. Oh, Jesus. look again on me And cause in me such heaviness of fruit That it shall fall unreached for round your foot. The season is ripe: It is the time for figs. Sister Ann Maureen. I.H.M. 11201 Academy Road Philadelphia, PA 19154 Prayer of the Paschal Mystery: Sorrow in the Risen Lord's Company David Hassel, S.J. In this article Father Hassel continues to explore the subject of Radical Prayer (also the title of his recent book). His last article for us, "The Prayer of Daily Decisioning: Hungering for God's Will," appeared in the issue of May/June, 1983. He continues to live and teach at Loyola University, where he may be addressed: Jesuit Community; Loyola University of Chicago; 6525 North Sheridan Road; Chicago, 1L 60626. Prayer, taken radically, is a deep attitude towards life, a basic way of living in the world with God and with others. Thus prayer of reminiscence is characterized by an attitude of thankfulness; prayer of Christ's memories (Gospel prayer), by a deep wanting to companion Christ; prayer of listening-waiting., by a strong trusting in God's graciousness; prayer of contemplation; by an aCtitude of welcome to God and his worldJ How, then, would one characterize the attitude behind the life and prayer of the Paschal Mys~ery.'~ . One of the presumed grand masters of the spiritual life, Ignatius Loyola, 3 . challenges, even shocks, us when he describes the life of the Paschal Mystery and thereby implies the type of prayerful attitude of humility which, he thinks, animates this life: The most perfect kind of humility [its third stage] consists in this . Whenever the praise and glory of the Divine Majesty would be equally served, in order to imitate and be in reality more like Christ our Lord, I desire and choose poverty with Christ poor, rather than riches; insults with Christ loaded with them, rather than honors; I desire to be accounted as worthless and a fool for Christ, rather than to be esteemed as wise and prudent in this world. So Christ was treated before me.3 At first sight, this third stage of humility, i.e., this prayerful attitude of Paschal- Mystery life, appears to be incredibly negative. It is seemingly a rejection of contemporary incarnation theology which so strongly emphasizes creativity and the resurrection. In Ignatius' description of the Paschal-Mystery life, the 677 6711 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 crucified Christ seems alone to occupy one's vision, and the good Christian appears to ambition nothing more than poverty, ignominy, and degradation. In such a pessimistic, if not inhumane, way of life and prayer, Christ's resurrection and the Christian's consequent joyful creativity would seem to have little place. The shock increases when it dawns on the person praying within the Spiritual Exercises that Ignatius considered this third stage of humility the very heart of the Gospels for all Christians and not simply the storm center of life for his Jesuit sons.4 Could, then, this third stage be accurately describing the prayerful attitude and life of the Paschal Mystery? Is it possible that, in grappling with Ignatius' description, we could come to understand more satisfactorily this mystery of Christ's death and resurrection occurring within us? If such wrestling is to be worth our time, then our first effort should be to deal with those initial distracting fears and angers surfacing against the challenge of this third stage of humility. Having thus somewhat freed our hearts and minds, we could then more fairly check out whether or not Ignatius' third stage of humility expresses truly, though only partially, the Paschal Mystery of the Gospels. If it should do so, then we are ready to catch, within our experience, the four scriptural pulse-beats which may define our attitudinal prayer of the Paschal Mystery. Following this, we could seek out the signs of 'he Paschal Mystery felt within our prayer experience and later describe some imple ways of deepening this prayer within us. Here it is notable how Paschal- Mystery prayer may well be a basic attitude towards all of life even amid acute suffering. Could it possibly turn out to be a strengthening joy (the risen Christ himself?.) within our demanding apostolic endeavors? Fears Diverting Us from Praying the Third Stage of Humility On first hearing Ignatius' third stage of humility proposed, most of us experience deep fears. These quickly smother any attempts at considering, luch more praying over, this terrible challenge to our sensibility and to our .ationality. Consequently, before even trying to understand the third stage of aumility as an expression of the Paschal-Mystery life, we must face these powerful fears.5 One initial fear is that my educated skills will be lost in the muddle of becoming poor with Christ poor. My education is a richness not appreciated by the uneducated poor and not supportable in impoverished circumstances. Ask the U.S.-educated Filipino physician or Indian technician returned to his native city if this is not the case. This means that I will rarely get the time or have the equipment to pursue my art or music or sociology or psychology or computer mathematics or history or engineering~ My talents will lie dormant and later atrophied; my personality will be impoverished and made dull; my angry frustration, like a corrosive agent, will burn me out. Indeed, identification with the poor Christ would eventually strip away all prize possessions like my car; stereophonic tape and recording deck, modish Prayer of the Paschal Mystery / 679 clothes, well-stocked refrigerator, the social rounds with close friends, regular opportunities for vacations, long-distance telephone calls, comfortable bank-account, and a few other precious items. For, when one identifies with the poor in their work, neighborhood, and life-style, one inevitably assumes their ways no matter how skilled, talented or comfortably endowed one may be. A second source of fear is the call to identify with Christ dishonored. If my~ skills, talents and perquisites are enfeebled, I will certainly become less effective' in my work, perhaps, too, in my human relationships. Where once before I was respected for my skillful intelligence, artistic finesse, and guaranteed delivery of promised products; now; I am seen as the bumbler. This, in turn, could well involve a distancing from my friends, not simply because I no longer look good to them but more because our times together will be fewer, our interests different, and our cultural neighborhoods far apart. In other words, like Christ's poor, I will be gradually reduced to being a marginal person whose voice is no longer heard in the councils of the great or small. I will be lost in the masses. This last statement reveals the root-source of all ~my fears concerning the third stage of humility: self-annihilation. The fear of death, the most powerful dread of my life, repels me from the embrace of the third stage. I do not want to be the grain of wheat dying to produce a further harvest. I do not want to lose control of my life, my developing personality, my destiny. The third stage seems to demand a total trust--something which I am willing to award only to myself. Living the third stage of humility appears to be slow suicide. Historical examples abound to let me know that my fears are well grounded. Damien of Molakai identified only too well with his sick lepers and was rewarded with government disdain. Many founders of religious orders have discovered themselves made marginal within their own communities when they identified too fully with the maligned Christ; for example, Francis of Assisi, Madeline Sophie Barat, Cornelia Connelly, and Guillaume Chami-nade. 6 Teilhard de Chardin, a man all his life hidden in Christ, was considered a dangerous fool by the superorthodox Christians and a silly fool by those appreciative of his writings and paleontological competence but not compre-hending of his obedience to Church authorities.7 More recently in El Salvador, Archbishop Romero and Rutilio Grande were hated, disparaged, and then assassinated in the same way as their despised campesino friends with whom they identified,s In response to these fears stimulated by the third stage of humility, one may say that those living this stage can die to one career and then rise to a new one far more fruitful for the Church. Note how Mother Teresa of Calcutta moved out of the classroom and her congregation to dedicate her life to those literally dying in the streets of Calcutta and to the founding of a new worldwide congregation. One can also point out that those living the third stage develop new talents and skills to their own great surprise as when one priest of my acquaintance, being ordered under obedience to do spiritual 6111} / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 direction with some difficult personalities, discovered a new ability for counseling and a fresh realism of judgment which made him much more effective in classroom and pulpit, his first interest. As a third instance of victory coming out of defeat, notice how voices, suppressed or muffled with dishonor before the Second Vatican Council, now echo more strongly than ever within and outside the Church. I speak of Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, and John Courtney Murray. Their sufferings, undergone in silent loyalty to the Church, have validated their insights and given new life to the Church. Just as the missionary letters of that long-dead "failure," Francis Xavier, populated the sixteenth-century novitiates and lured thousands to the missions; so, the lives of these contemporary heroes for Christ raise hope and ambition in countless Christians to serve the Church and her anawim (the marginal and powerless people). The above responses to fears of the third stage are unfortunately only slight glimpses into that Paschal-Mystery attitude which Ignatius' third stage of humility attempts to express. Their inadequacy is painful. Yet they indicate how greatly faith and trust enter into the living of the Paschal Mystery. This does demand of us a remarkable willingness to entrust our priceless skills, talents, possessions, reputation, friends, and hopes into the hands of the poor, dishonored, and unappreciated Christ. The great temptation is to refuse this ultimate trust lest one lose all comfort, much respect from others, and a satisfying career, when actually this "death" through trust may be the final and fullest growth of person in the Christian. The Third Stage of Humility and the Paschal Mystery If living the third stage of humility should turn out to be a deep living of the Paschal Mystery and therefore to be at the heart of the Gospel, then evidently one could never totally comprehend this third stage any more than one could exhaustively understand the Paschal Mystery. But at least one can attempt to remove some of the blinding misunderstandings of the third stage which keep people from appreciating and from living the Paschal Mystery. In other words, the best one can do here is to remove exterior obstacles for the one wishing to pray and to live the third stage of humility. Then, as this person enters into the Paschal Mystery, his or her life will be illumined and directed by a new wisdom--a wisdom which slowly dawns within any person attempting to identify more and more with Christ poor and dishonored. First of all, a frequent charge against the third stage of humility is that it is anti-creationist. This would be true if its expression of the heart of the Gospels did not fit well the first two chapters of Genesis, the first four chapters of the Letter to the Ephesians, and the first chapter of the Letter to the Colossians, where man and woman are to complete God's creation by mastering and developing it. Therefore, the third stage, if it be validly Christian, must mean that identification with Christ poor and dishonored is a creative act. It cannot be, even implicitly, a depreciation or suppression of those human skills, talents, Prayer of the Paschal Mystery / 611"1 and opportunities which make woman, man, and the universe more beautiful and more joyful. Otherwise the third stage as an attempted expression of the Paschal Mystery is inhumane and is to be regarded as unchristian. Consequently, it is vicious to interpret the third stage as insisting that we ask for and directly seek out sickness, business failure, loss of friendship, defeat, the misery of poverty, and the humiliation of dishonor in order to become closer to Christ. This would be to make the third stage a depraved description of the Paschal Life--as though it were requiring that we pursue evil in order to be more perfect Christians. Such a. style of life would not only destroy its pursuants but seriously injure all the people whom the pursuants are trying to serve and companion. Such spiritual athleticism based on a totally negative theology of the cross exemplifies more a gross pride than a Christlike humility. Man has been given a free and inventive nature so that he can cooperate with a free and inventive God to make the world more beautifully humane. In this way, man and woman attain full manhood and womanhood, that is, they become more like the risen Christ. Indeed, the Lord has promised his close followers that they will receive a hundredfold "houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land--not without persecutions--now in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life" (Mk 10:29-30; Mt 19:27-30; Lk 18:31-33- Jerusalem Bible). It is precisely those living the third stage who are more eligible, amid persecutions, for this hundredfold of creative joy based on interpersonal relationships. Secondly, this hundredfold is guaranteed by the Christ of today, the risen Christ, who is the present Lord of the universe and the future culmination of all history. Nevertheless this Christ, under the Father, has freely chosen, even preferred, for himself and for his followers, to win his kingdom through suffering as well as joy, through defeat as well as victory. For the risen Christ is also the Christ of the passion and death; he carries the wounds in his risen body. But because he is the resurrected, immortal Lord, no Christian's suffering or defeat will be without the joy of his strengthening presence. For this rea.son, underneath the sufferings described in the third stage of humility, there must be a strong and perduring joy, namely the strength by which the suffering Christian perdures without bitterness. This is, of course, the Paschal Mystery working itself out, as simultaneous crucifixion and resurrection, in the life of every true Christian. More specifically, this joy would be union with Christ and oneness with his Church. There is a third reason for suspecting that a joyful creativity strengthens the living of the third stage: God's every action in the universe is meant to make all the human participants more human. After all, God's glory, as extrinsic to his own being, is precisely and more fully the wholesomeness of humankind, the fuller womanhood and manhood of each person. The paradox occurs when the Christian is asked to trust that a particular suffering or sorrow will not end in a diminishment, but rather in an enhancing of his or her person, so long as 6112 / Review for Religious, Sept.-Oct., 1983 the pain is borne trustingly in and with Christ suffering. To look back twenty. years and to reflect with Christ upon a particular calamity is, often enough, to discover in oneself an important growth-period. But even if an objector to the third stage of humility were to agree that underlying this state would be a strengthening joy and peace, he could still accuse the third stage of encouraging individualism, simply a "me and Jesus suffering" type of piety. This forces us to clarify what is meant when the third stage urges us "to choose poverty with Christ poor, rather than riches; insults with Christ loaded with them, rather than honors." The question is: "Who is this Christ?" Is he only the historical Christ of Nazareth or is he also the mystical Christ which is the Church and which is unified by the one presence of the risen historical Christ? Because the Ignatian Exercises are aimed at enabling the retreatant to make decisions which will expand the kingdom of Christ according to Christ's standard, the Christ of the third stage must be also the Mystical Christ, the Church. Thus, the third stage of humility is basically other-centered. It makes little sense unless it represents a deeper loyalty to the historical risen Christ and to his people. Its inner dynamic is, then, to put the retreatant in contact with the poor, the abandoned, the lonely, the twisted, the sick, the unhappy of Matthew's famous last-judgment scene (25:31-46): "whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me." The third stage of humility, then, as an expression of the Paschal Mystery has a powerful apostolic thrust because it not only rises out of the deepest personal loyalty to the risen historical Christ of Nazareth but reaches out in wholehearted social loyalty to the Mystical Christ, the Church. Naturally, if the Christian lives deeply with these poor and dishonored of Christ, he will become marked with their characteristics. Let a priest or layman work closely with the homosexual community and he will be labeled a homosexual and treated accordingly. Let a laywoman or a nun work in a woman's rights organization and she will be labeled fanatic, abortion-minded, man-hating. The psychiatrist spending long hours with the mentally disturbed risks not only his own mental health but also the stigma of being considered "a mere shrink." It is literally dangerous to live the third stage and to identify with Christ's poor and dishonored. Thus this basic attitude of the third stage is no mere mental fiction--for example, a mental trick to be used for giving one balance against the inclina-tions of Original Sin towards the easier way of life. It is, on the contrary, a real preference to be with Christ's suffering people, a definite mind-set and heart-set which enable the Christian to do pioneer work wherever people are hurting most from neglect and weakness. Such an attitude also enables the sick person to accept his or her illness positively as an opportunity for knowing Christ better and for contributing in some hidden way to the good of Christ's people. It enables, too, the South American labor-organizer to risk his life in order to rescue his people from economic slavery and psychological degradation. Prayer of the Paschal Mystery / 15113 All this takes for granted that suffering and sorrow can be creative moments in the Christian's life. Not that suffering and sorrow of themselves are creative; they are destructive in themselves--unless good is drawn out of their evil. But the person living the third stage of humility as an expression of the Paschal Mystery is convinced in faith that God the Father intends to draw good out of the evils spawned by personal sin and by original sin. Further, he is sure that Christ the Son has preferred to achieve the liberation of man through suffering, and that the Holy Spirit prefers to achieve the unification of the Church and of mankind through human historical sufferings as he completes the universe. This is the central mystery of life, that God would want the world to reach its destiny through suffering and defeat as much as through joy and victorious accomplishment. Somehow, t.hrough suffering and sorrow, a depth of wisdom, patience and loyalty is reached, which in this present world is not available to those enjoying the easier life. Under the illumination of.Christ's resurrected life, this vital mystery of earthly suffering and joy is seen to be the Paschal Mystery of resurrection amid death, i.e., of creative power amid galling limitations and sharp agonies. This is why one can speak of creative suffering when dealing with the third stage of humility. In contrast to the stifling self-pity which arises in one who sees no reason for personal suffering except bad luck, the person of the third stage is aware that God does not waste a moment of human suffering. Instead, every twinge of pain, every throb of sorrow, every burning moment of fair and unfair humiliation, every blasted hope, can somehow, by God's providence, contribute to the final cooperative triumph of humanity and God: that Great Community of the Great Today and Tomorrow called the Communion of Saints. Man, however, must allow his sufferings and sorrows to become creative by identifying them with the risen Christ's passion and death. In this way a person wastes nothing. All his or her skills, talents, capacity to love, and opportunities to build a better world are focused positively on others and are not paralyzed by bitter self-pity. Indeed, this pers

Issue 38.5 of the Review for Religious, 1979. ; REVIEW FOR RE~.~(;~OUS (ISSN (~)34-639X). published bi-monthly (every two months), is edited in collaboration with faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis. MO 63108. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute: St. Louis. Missouri. © 1979 By REVIEW FOR RE~.~;~OUS. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. Missouri. Single copies: $2.0(I. Subscription U.S.A.: $8.00 a year: $15.00 for two years. Other countries: $9.00 a year. $17.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write REv,~-:w VOR RE~.~;~OtJS: P.O. Box 6070: Duluth. Minnesota 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor September, 1979 Volume 38 Number 5 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to R~:v~v:w r'on Rv:~Ac,~oos; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues ahd articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Detachment in the Ascent of( Mount Carmel'. an Appreciation Judson Mather Dr. Mather, father of a large family and active in Catholic life Jn campus, is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities of Michigan State Universitty. His address: 547 Charles St.; East Lansing, M148823. [ Whatever its actual content and overt interest, W.H. Auden said, every poem is rooted in imaginative awe. This is a dictum, worth keeping in mind in approaching St. John of the Cross. For John of the Cross was a contempla-tive, a poet, and a mystical theologian--in that order. His poetry flowed from his lived experience as a man of prayer and was the most immediate ex-pression of that experience. The Ascent of Mo~unt Carmel and the other works of mystical theology which he wrote are all c~ast as commentaries on his poetry. The books, of course, reveal other sides ~f his remarkable gifts: his sharp, systematic mind, for instance, and the exte~nt to which he was steeped in the Scriptures. But behind this always stands tt .~ imaginative awe commu-nicated in the poetry. The whole of the Ascent, adeed' is the exposition of one brief stanza: In the midst of a dark night, Yearnihg, and with love alight -- Ah, sheer fortune's fill! -- 1 went out hidden from all si ;ht, At last my dwelling being still. ¯ Author's translation. Prose passages quoted in the following pages are the E. Allison Pee~ translation: St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1958). 641 649 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 Book One of the Ascent surveys this stanza as a whole; Books Two and Three concentrate in great detail on the "dark night" spoken of in the first line. He expounds the dark night of faith, which entails a. darkening of knowledge; the dark night of hope, which is accompanied byan obscuring 6f the memory; and the dark night of love which brings with it the dark night of the will. The poetic touchstone of the Ascent is important because throughout the book John is using the central metaphore of his poem -- a dark night-- as the symbol of his central theme: detachment. If we lose sight of the imagina-tive link here, we are also apt to miss his central insight that detachment is the gift of grace -- "sheer fortune" -- and not an accomplishment. The problem is not that the theme of detachment is obscured or buried in the text of the book. On the contrary, John seems to go at the dark night of detachment with a thoroughness, a grim relish, that could strike us as being masochistic. We find him, for example, telling us to "strive always to prefer" the most difficult rather than the easiest, the most unpleasant rather than the delectable, the wearisome rather than the restful, the worst of temporal things rather than the best. "Let the soul strive to work in its own despite, and desire all to do so" (Iil 3/6.,9). No one would urge that detachment is an easy matter. But wh~t is missing from passages such as these (and there are quite a few) is the sense of imagi-native awe communicated in the poetry. Where this sense of awe is lacking, there seems to be a suggestion that detachment is some kind of self-improve-ment project. This can hardly be the case. Self-preoccupation certainly was "~/ not something John wanted to instill in his re'~-~-d~:s; least ~-f-~]"would he re(-'. ommend the warped and twisted spiritual pride of masochism. Quite the con-trary, the whole issue he addresses in treating detachment is the issue of how God goes about cracking the hard shell of our egotism, so that the light of Christ can shine within. Much of therproblem I suspect, is the gulf between the culture in which we live and the culture within which -- and for which -- John wrote. John's way of discussing detachment was imbued with the rough-and-tumble individual-ism of six~teenth-century Spain. It was the world of the conquistadores and Don Qui, xote (who may have been mad but was not cowardly). It was what the anthropologists call a "courage culture," where one's very sense of being someone was apt to be tied up with his demonstrated bravery. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, for example, was a soldier in the days before his conversion. His leg was smashed by a cannonball. He had it broken and reset- twice, without anesthetic- so that he could once again cut a good figure in the hose stockings that gentlemen of the day wore. Nor did John of the Cross himself lead a sheltered life. There was a great struggle going on between the Caiced and the Reformed Carmelites; John had left the Calced Carmelites and joined the Reformed. Twice he was kidnapped by the Calceds. The second time he was imprisoned in a six-by-ten-foot windowless Detachment in the Ascent of Mount Carmel / 64:3 room; three times a week he was taken out-and beaten in the refectory for his stubborn refusal to renounce his Reformed vows. Only after a year and a half or so of :this treatment was he able to escape and return to the Reformed order~ Because John was writing in and for this kind of world, it is not surprising that he said tough-minded things in a tough-minded way. But detachment, not."assertiveness training," was his concern. We need not get bogged down in the individualistic, courage-culture way he talked about detachment. There are other traditions of detachment in the Church we can turn to for guidance in these matters. The much older Rule of St. Benedict, for example, treats the root and fruit of discipline as social rather than individual. That is, the touch-stone of detachment is not a matter of preferring the worst or the best or something in between. It is .living in a kindly and generous way with those rub shoulders with all the time. This may be less spectacular than preferringrr the worst, but it's not necessarily less demanding. The "dark night" of which John speaks begins with what we would prob-ably call a "difficulty in mental prayer." The difficulty emerges as a sense of deprivation. Prayer dries up. One loses, as it were, the capacity to think and pray at the same time. With this loss comes a loss of relish for prayer, the loss of a capacity to enjoy it, One seems to be losing hold of what he has most deeply desired. With this, not surprisingly, there also comes a sense of losing the way. One doesn't know where he's going. '.'~Progress" seems to have come up against a brick wail. Beneath all this, there's a loss of the sense of who God is -- and more directly who Godis in relation to one's self. Is faith itself evaporating away? This experience is probably fairly widespread, and can and does lead to giving up the whole business -- faith, prayer and the rest of it -- as a bad job. We can come to think of it all as a delusion -- and indeed there may well be a sense of relief that comes of thinking of it in this way. But the relief is bitter-sweet. Even Sartre, the atheist-existentialist, says that the world without God is a forlorn world, John goes beyond a perception of forlornness. He points out that what makes this darknes~ so paradoxical and so painful is that the dark night d6scends at the same time as one is "yearning, and with love alight." The sense of the loss of God's presence is accompanied by a deep longing for God. If this paradoxical and painful state is endured, John says, something happens. He calls it "sheer fortune." Now sheer fortune isn't something we do. It's something that "happens," unexpectedly. Such a happening, I want to stress, is not what we would normally call an experience. It only becomes an experience in retrospect--where we can look back on it and say, "Yes. That happened." What happens is described by. John in the second half of the stanza. "I went out hidden from all sight / At last my dwelling being still." In the midst 644 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 of obscurity and darkness, paradox and pain, while we were not observing it--indeed precisely because we were not observing it m we were drawn forth from ourselve.s_:__T_~e_.gi~ft of self-forgetfulness was somehow bestowed on the °lS~'~tered ego. ~,n"n'-d--~we ~-~ r--~-o-~, ~-l~rely, that this was indeed "sheer fortune." It was what down deep we really wanted all along anyway, while we were looking elsewhere for some other kind of answer. This, I believe, is the context for John's strong emphasis on detachment in Book One. Rightly used, detachment is a way of coming to grips with reali-ty- of getting our desires into order with reality instead of with illusion. Such an ordering is important to the contemplative prayer John describes be-cause the reality we are facing here is the reality of darkness. What we need is not a change of scene or the return of old feelings. We need the grace of en-durance. And that, of course, is what God is providing. John puts the point in a powerful metaphor: the Israelites, he says, "failed to find in the manna all the sweetness and strength they could wish, not because it was not con-tained in the manna, but because they desired some other thing" 0/5/4). There's a whole commentary of life in this sentence. It's easy to become so preoccupied with what God is not providing that we neglect to notice what he is providing. This is not to say that the grace of endurance will be experienced as some-thing noble and admirable. It's more likely to be a matter of stumbling on, we know not how. We wonder if we really should have meant to offer our-selves to God, and if he isn't asking of us more than we are able to give. This shouldn't be surprising. Our sense of an inability to cope on our own strength is an education in humility -- which is a good part of what we are up to in the first place. Of course, we'd prefer some other sort of education. We'd rather learn humility without humiliation. But that's not usually the way in which reality works. The point here also can be put in a more positive way. Detachment is important to contemplative prayer because contemplative prayer is a being called forth by reality-- the Reality, God himself. It's an adventure with all the danger as well as all the challenge that adventure implies. Because God is the Reality, he is so vast and awesome, so intimate and penetrating, that there is little if anything in our previous experience that corresponds to what has come upon us. So the expectation of the unknown, the surprising, the fright-ening conforms to the reality of the situation in which we find ourselves. Detachment is crucial to dealing with this because in the darkness we must continually be sorting things out. We need to sort the things that matter more from the things that matter less as we go along this unknown way. There are two further points to make about contemplative detachment. First, contemplative detachment is not passivity. It's an active wanting of what God wants in the particular, concrete circumstances in which we stand. It means not sitting back, but responding, to the particular moment, with all its opportunities and all its limitations. Second, contemplative detachment is Detachment in the Ascent of Mount Carmel / 645 not a cold, independent, isolated thing. Rather it's a matter of freely giving up as a part of freely giving. It is a willingness to take the risk of being shat-tered, of abiding in a shattered state--and of abiding with others in their shattered state as well. There is no other contemplative way. The shattered state is where the "sheer fortune of going out hidden from all sight" occurs. As we move from Book One to Book Two, it becomes apparent that de-tachment is central in contemplative prayer, and not just a preparation for it. That is, we don't let go of material things in order to grasp and possess spirit-ual things. The crux of contemplative prayer is a deep spiritual detachment. There is a reason for this. If the term, "spiritual growth" means any-thing, it means a growth "into Christ" m a being called forth into deeper union with him. And here the Christ of the Gospel confronts us with the uni-ty of his teaching and his deeds. When he said, "he who would save his life will lose it, and he who will lose his life for my sake will find it," he was giv-ing a commentary on what he himself was in the midst of doing in relation to his Father. He did not do o]ae thing so that we could do something else. He did one thing so we could do the same thing. He did not say "Take up your cross and go your own way," but "Take up your cross and follow me." The theological pivot of Book Two of the Ascent is Chapter Seven. Here John turns to a central paradox and mystery of the faith: Christ's utter deso-lation at the transformative moment of redemption on the Cro~s. There, out of annihilation, flows fullness of life. This is to say (among other things) that the wellspring of faith in Christ is the faith of Christ: his utter faith in his Father's goodness and triumphant strength. The issue here is not just theory, but practice as well. The story of the Garden oi' Eden--whatever else it means- is a story about the practical doubt of huhaankind in God's complete and trustworthy goodness. The story is universal because this doubt has had practical ramifications throughout history and throughout each one's life. It is universal, but not final. The Good News of Christ addresses the practical doubt of Eden. It proclaims that in Christ doubt is mended by its re~,ersal: Christ's practical trust in his Father's goodness to and beyond the point of death itself. As we are drawn toward union with Christ, we come to the faith that darkens our knowledge and supplants our reason. There grows on us a deep sense of the inadequacy and inoperativeness of our knowledge when it comes face to face with these issues which matter most of all. The theological sense of the~Unity of desolation and fruitfulness in Christ's saving work is no longer just an object of our knowledge. It overshadows us and lays hold of us direct-ly. John describes this transformative darkening in terms of the nearness of God -- it is like, he says, the nearness of fire to a burning log. A more human analogy of nearness may be more to the point for us. Humanly speaking, the full richness of faith is not so much belief in certain facts as a matter of loyal- 6415 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 ty and trust directed toward a person. Now, up to a certain point we can say why we trust a person. But the explanation of that trust is not the substance of it. The substance of it is the trust itself. Indeed, there is a kind of propor-tionality operating here. The more we need reasons, the less there is of trust; the more the trust, the more peripheral and inadequate the reasons seem. As trust grows, we find it bec.oming more mysterious.--going (as John would say) to what we know not by a way we know not. We can~su.spect that com-plete trust would have no need of reasons: it simply is. In prayer, the supplanting of reason and knowledge by the dark night of faith explains why meditation dries up. This is as it should be." Meditation is an exercise of the imagination, and as John says, "although a man imagines palaces of pearls and mountains of gold, because he has seen gold and pearls, all this is in truth less than~ the essence of a little gold or a single pearl" (II/12/4). The greatest imaginary thing is less than the least of the real. And what is being offered in the prayer of the dark night is a touch of the real. To try to hang onto the imaginary under such circumstances is to thwart the working of reality. It is desiring some other thing. This is important, because whfit is experienced in contemplative prayer -- certainly at first and probably for a long time--is more the loss than the gain. John speaks of the "prayer of loving attention." But this does not mean that we're likely to feel loving and attentive. Rather it's a matter of somehow trusting God's love and attentiveness. Much of John's exposition in Book Two is directed toward showing why it's right that this should be so. Here as so often, he goes directly to the root of the matter. He points out that theologically there is a finality about God's word when the Word himself became flesh and dwelt among us. Christ's life and teaching, as remembered and recorded by the faithful community, is full, c6mplete, and adequate. We need nothing more. Thus any qtlest for or reliance upon special signs or revelation or experience in prayer is wrong. Such prayer.-.experience either confirms what is already there -- in which case it is basically superfluous -- or else it is different from what is already there. In that case it is positively misleading. And in either case it reveals a certhin lack of faith -- a doubt that the full glory of God has already been revealed in Christ. Indeed, Jol{n sa3is that even if special experience in prayer were a good thing, it~is less of a good .thing than the pure dark night of faith. For it's only in this night that faith is maintained, noui'ished and increased. So we come upon one of the central paradoxes of contemplative prayer. It can genuinely seem--feel--lower and lesser. It canseem like a waste of timg, nothing at all. This is so because'its substance is simply that of a~tively willing whatever it is that God wants. This is a choice, and a choice that has to be continually remade. But it is not a matter of looking for or asking for something special for our own unique case: it is an intent toward trust. It is wanting to pra} without setting qualifications or conditions on what we ex-pect God to do with our offering of prayer. Detachment in the Ascent of Mount Carmel / 64Z In the Third Book of the Ascent,~ John moves on to discuss the dark nights of hope and love. For it is, John says, not just our knowledge but our memory and will as well that are overshadowed in the dark night of contem-plation. Here again, as in the dark night of faith, John's exposition aims at show-ing why this seeming loss is in fact the onset of a new and deeper freedom. That darkness attends hope is built into the very nature of hope itself. For hope, by definition, is for what we do not possess. The more specific hope is, the narrower its boundaries. The "purer" hope is, the less qualified and structured it is -- the more completely open to God. And the more complete the hope, the greater the darkness and mystery. Memoi'y provides the images by which we structure and limit experience. As we go by a way we know not to a place we know not, memory becomes in-creasingly useless as a guide and judge. For we more clearly recognize memo-ry for what it is: our distorted images and pictures, not the reality we seek. And yet we do not know, in having to let go of the help memory once brought, whether we are letting' go of everything J of our very self, ,It's an emptying even more searching than the dark night of faith. Yet such darkness is the right way. If God is in the process of making all things new- of t'ransforming us- we don't want to set boundaries to his activity. Qur business is to "let go." Of course, this is not to say that we can will such letting go and make it happen. Even if that were possible, it would just be possessiveness operatin~ on a deeper and more subtle level. The gift we await can only arrive on the o~her side of the memories we control and possess: arrive as a happy chance. The dark night of love J and its accompanying night of the will -- is the mo~t searching and awesome darkness of ~ill. It is also the most crucial. For without this final darkness and detachment, all that has gone before goes for fiau~ht. This is so because the° love of God is what the whole human enterprise of living and praying is about in the first place. And the ultimate calling of God's love is to a letting go of all the barriers we have to receiving and giving. It is arriving at a point where w.e have nothing to protect from God's own searching and limitless openness t6 giving and r~ceiving. Tl~e experience of this, however, is far more apt to be like falling com-pletely through the bottom--into complete loss, into nothingness. John links the dark night of the will with {he prayer of Gethsemahe which stands at the heart of the Lord's prayer: "Thy will, not mine, be~done.'' There is no other way. Practically speaking, wanting to love God most of all is a matter of wanting to w~int what God wants most of all, whatever that is. The cost is real. John puts his finger on this when he characterizes the dark night of the will as a le'ttin~g go of joy--joy remembered, joy experi-enced, joy hoped for. Darkness indeed, f6r how can we experience the letting go qfjoy as something other than the letting go of love itself? But it's not the letting go of love; "it's the letting go of control. Falling 648 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 through the bottom can be a fall into an unsuspected world of freedom, a new recognition of a capacity for joy. William Blake epitomized it in "Eternity:" He who bends to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise. We come to recognize that possession is not God's business. We can talk, I suppose, about being "possessed by the devil." But we aren't possessed by God; we're loved by him, with all the freedom and mutuality that love im-plies. Our freedom lies in the recognition that he will enable us to respond in kind. In the dark night of love the need to possess and hang on have somehow been swallowed up. As John says, we can begin to enjoy things and persons and God "according to their truth," and not just according to their meaning and worth for us (III/20/2-3). When the need to control goes, the real joy of freedom arrives. All this may help to indicate why John makes detachment the central focus of the beginning stages of contemplative prayer. It also may indicate that the word "beginning" covers a good deal of ground. As both Dom John Chapman and Thomas Merton remark, in the spiritual life we're lucky if the beginnings last only twenty years or so. Indeed, there's a way in which the contemplative life is always a matter of new beginnings. Such alife (as one of the Zen masters says) is an invitation and quest to discover more fully the gift of a "beginner's mind"--a mind that is open and compassionate, with many possibilities rather than a few. Thus although the Ascent is the introductory work in the body of John's mystical writings, it deals with substantive spirituality, not with approaches or fringes. The Ascent is elementary in the sense of being basic rather than in the sense of being a prologue to be gotten through quickly. Nor is ~he Ascent just a technical handbook on prayer. Starting from the rather narrow base of a "difficulty in mental prayer," John suggests a broad-er panorama. He paints a picture of a way of living, of coping with reality, that is both distinctive and profound. From the standpoint of a biblical theology, his emphasis is like that of the Fourth Gospel rather than like that of St. Paul and the synoptic gospels. That is, he understands the moments of humiliation and glorification as primarily simultaneous, not primarily sequential. The Cross is, to him, the way of life, not just the way to life. This theological point has a practical bearing Qn both one's personal out-look and one's pastoral perspective. How are we to understand the trouble and the darkness that we and others pass through? Is it mainly a punishment or a testing? Or is it basically a calling into deeper union with the whole range Detachment in the Ascent of Mount Carmel /649 of the human condition, and a calling into the whole realm of human and divine caring that the human condition invites? John of the Cross furnishes the theological and spiritual basis for this lat-ter understanding of the burdensomeness of life: for seeing it as an invitation to deeper union, more caring. This is not (it should be said) a popular out-look, for it runs counter to some deep cultural trends in our society--the cult of self-awareness, self-expression, self-fulfillment, and all the other cults of narcissism. Against all such cults John sets the possibility of a better way: a hard but simple happening, rooted in God's generosity and our imaginative awe: In the midst of a dark night, Yearning, and with love alight -- Ah, sheer fortune's fill! -- I went out hidden from all sight, At last my dwelling being still. Now dies the sun under the cross-- I pity, Mary, thy fair face. And thy tears as downward they trace. Now dies the sun under the cross-- I pity, Mary, thy son and thy loss. Denver Sasser Morrill Hall 205 Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 74074 (A translation-adaptation of an anonymous English lyric of the 13th Century.) Mission and Commitment A ngelo M. Caligiuri Father Caligiuri is Vicar for Religious in the Diocese of Buffalo. His last article in these pages, entitled "Spirituality and Ordinary Human Experience," appeared in the issue of May, 1978. He may be addressed at the Office of the Vicar for Religious; 100 S. Elmwood Ave.; Buffalo, NY 14202. One of the faith-categories which post conciliar writings have opened up for us in an enlivening and challenging way is that of mission. Since the Council, theological and spiritual writings have unpacked more of the mean-ing of this word and have brought us to a deeper level of understanding, an understanding of mission as a defining characteristic of what it means to be Christian. In this radical sense, mission refers to an essential dimension of the way of life of anyone who has heard the good news and in faith responds to the Lord's invitation to share his life and further his kingdom (see, for example, John Paul II, RedemptorHominis, 9, 10, II, 12, 18, 19; Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 6, 13, 59, 60). While mission can be spoken of in rather general and broad terms, any consideration of the full phenomenon of mission will necessarily involve one in a consideration of three persons: the one who sends; the one who is sent; and the one to whom he is sent. To put it in more direct language, we could say that mission means: someone saying. to someone "Go to someone." 650 Mission and Commitment / 65"1 The Mission of Jesus As Jesus was aware of his being sent by the Father to make his message of love known to the world, so does he send his disciples into the world to con-tinue his mission of revealing the Father's love (see, e.g. John 17). Or in more direct language we might say that: as the Father said to Jesus "Go to my people." and tell them of my love for them and of the love that they should have for one another, so does Jesus say io his followers (the church) "Go to my people (the world)." and tell them of my Father's love for them and of'the love they should have for one another. This mission which Jesus received from his Father, he transmitted to the c~ommunity of believers drawn together by his Sp!ri~, i.e. to the Church, We who are the Church, then insofar as we are church, i.e. insofar as God's Spirit leads us to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and as the revelation of the Father's love, share in the very mission of Jesus. himself. For it is to his Church, i.e. to those who believe in him, that hesays, go to the world and tell it of my Father's love and of the love humans should have for one another. Ecclesial Dimension of Mission To speak of mission, there, within tile Christian community, at whatever level, is also necessarily to spea~k of the Father, Son, Spirit, and Church. Hence the authentication of one's particular mission as Christian, that is, as continuous with the mission of the Son, will be rooted within the Church. Or, to say this in other words, there is an essential ecclesial dimension to all Christian mission. Mission as an Interpersohal R~ality In what was perhal~s.the last document signed by ~he late Pope Paul VI, a document entitled "Directives for the Mutual Relations Between Bishops and Religious in the Church,'_' we read the following. The mission of the people of God is one. In a certain sense it constitutes the heart of the entire ecclesial mystery . thus the Church, throughout her history, 'is by her very nature missionary' (LG, no. 17), in Christ and in virtue of the Spirit. All--pastors, -laymen, and religious, each according to his specific vocation--are called to be apostolically committed. This commitment arises from the love of the Father; the Holy Spirit, then nourishes it, "giving life to ecclesiastical structures, being as it were their soul, and inspiring in the hearts of the faithful the same spirit of mission which impelled Christ himself" (lAG 4], n. 15). 652 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 And the very next paragraph continues: Mission, which begins with the Father, requires that those who are sent exercise their awareness of love in the dialogue of prayer. Therefore, in these times of apostolic re-newal, as always in every form of missionary engagement, a privileged place is given to the contemplation of God to meditation on his plan of salvation, and to reflection on the signs of the times in the light of the gospel, so that prayer may be nourished and grow in quality and frequency (n. 16). As is clearly indicated in these passages, there is a radical personal level which the reality of mission reaches, a level which is more fundamental even than its corporate expression. It is to this more fundamental level that I would like to move in these reflections. It is at this level that mission is a faith-value that finds its ultimate ground in a person's presence to God, for it is at this level that mission does or does not become an existential reality, that is, an energizing and enlivening influence in the life of each follower of Christ. It is here that mission becomes part of the motivational structure of each religious. When we move to this level, we encounter mission as an interpersonal reality. For ultimately, mission is grounded in the reality of our relationships, our relationship with .the person who sends us and with the person(s) to whom we are sent. The strength and depth of our sense of mission then will depend upon the strength and depth of our relationship to the one who sends us. In other words, mission is intimately related to commitment. Mission and Commitment At the level of etymology, this interrelationship is clear. Both "mission" and "commitment" are radically from the Latin word, mittere, "to send." But it is at the level of our personal lives, as individuals responding to the Father's invitation to share his life and further his kingdom, that the truly in-timate relationship between mission and commitment becomes clear. The depth of our commitment to mission will depend upon the depth of our com-mitment to the One who sends us. When we speak about commitment, we are speaking about a reality that seems to be, at one and the same time, most personal, yet one which we can speak about rather impersonally. The very word commitment conjures up in our minds a feeling of security, a once-in-a-lifetime thing, a word that seems to "say it all"; and yet it also brings with it an unknown element, that dimen-sion of the cemmitted life that is revealed to us only in the living out of our lives. Commitment as Experienced The reality of commitment is best understood in terms of our personal ex-perience of it, in the context of our living of it. Indeed commitment is, and has been, a real dimension of our religious lives for however long we have been in religion. Mission and Commitment/ 653 If we ask ourselves just how it has been, and is now, a dimension of our lives, our first response might be to refer to that public act that we celebrated before the Church at the time of our final profession, one, ten, fifty years ago. Upon reflection, though I feel sure that we would not want to imply that this public act of commitment totally encompassed for us the full reality behind the words we uttered. That act, made once and renewed formally peri-odically, was, and is, simply an external sign, an outward expression of a deeper reality taking place in our hearts, at the level of our person. Commitment, then, has to do fundamentally with our person, with our presence to ourselves, with our awareness of ourselves. If commitment is to be more than an external act, it must flow from the ability each of us has to give ourselves not only in external acts but at the level of our awareness of who we are and who we are becoming; an awareness that is ours most clearly during those graced moments when we are frighteningly present to ourselves as we are before God, in naked truth and honesty. Commitment, then, has everything to do with ourselves, with our growing understanding of ourselves, a growth that takes place every day of our lives till the day we die, if we let it. Life itself is characterized by growth and change. Although this is quite obviously true with regard to our physical life, it is just as true, although not as immediately evident, in our lives as persons, as spiritual beings. It is in and through our lived experiences, that we grow in our understand-ing and acceptance of ourselves, that we grow as persons, a growth that has to influence the reality of the commitment we have made. It is our very per-son that we commit, that we give, ourperson that is alive and growing. And as we continue to experience life, as we grow in our self-understanding, we cannot help but come to a greater appreciation of what commitment means in our personal lives. The word "commitment," which, to an extent, remains impersonal, likb a skeleton, takes on flesh, begins to become incarnate in our real lives. Commitment and Spiritual Growth Just as our continued growth as persons influences our understanding of our commitment, so also is the opposite true. Where there is no personal 'growth, where an individual 'stagnates in his growth as a person, so also does his commitment become l~ss and less personal and more and more abstract. When this happens, his commitment runs the risk of becoming a cold and static reality, something that he begins to refer to in order to justify his com-placency and indifference towards his growth, as a justification for his lack of response to the ever present challenges of life, and as a justification for isolating himself more and more from his community, from the world. Under the false security of having "once and for all" committed himself, he can retire more and more into his own little world, becoming less and less sen-sitive to the life of the Spirit in the world, in the Church and in his fellow re- 654 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 ligious. Instead of commitment calling him to a greater giving of himself in the real-life situations of todaY,, instead of it calling him to a greater sense of mission, it becomes a needed excuse for seeing things only in terms that he finds personally acceptable, so that he becomes narrow-minded, unable to tolerate others. And because commitment ~ has become depersonalized and divorced from life,, it becomes, for him, something that must be expressed in the same way by all. ~ Commitment then has everything to do with our growth as persons, a growth that results more from.oiar attitudinal stance, than from our chrono-logical age. As a result, commitment can.be a truly influential and motivating force in our lives only to the extent that we are continually open to the life-giving Spirit who breathes where he will, to the Spirit who calls us to. deepen our relationship with Christ in the light of our growing understanding of our-selves. Commitment and Mission: the Person Who Is Sent Mission then is rooted in relationships. And the full reality of mission, which essentially involves the person who is sent, the person who sends and the person to whom he is sent, can well be described in interpersonal', rela-tional terms. First of all there is the relationship of the person~who-is-sent to the person:who-sends. At this personal level mission arid commitment are very intimately related, so ~that the depth and validity of our sense of mission will necessarily be related to the depth of our relationship to the person who sends us. Or, in 6ther words, our sense of mission is intimately related to our sense of commitment, a reality which has everything to do with our continual growth as persons. Ultimately, our personal sense of mission will depend upon the depth of the commitment of our person to the person of Jesus Christ in our lives. Now if our sense of mission is intimately related to our personal commit-ment to the one who sends us, then a fuller understanding of mission must necessarily include a more complete consideration of the commitment rela-tionship itself. And what surfaces in such a consideration is that the commitment rela-tionship is essentially bipolar, that is, one that necessarily includes not~ only we who give ourselves and who are sent, but also the person to whom we give ourselves, the person who sends. Commitment and Mission: the Person Who Sends Most religious and priests, if asked to express just who or what it is that they have committed themselves to, would probably answer in one of the fol-lowing ways: "I committed myself to God.-- to Jesus; I committed myself to serve God's people, to a particular way of life or' to a specific apostolate." Now while all of these responses are meaningful in themselves and are legiti- Mission and Commitment / 655 mate values to which we can commit ourselves, not all of them have the abili-ty to call forth from us a radical level of commitment that proceeds from our very person. Not all warrant a response from us or challenge us at the level of our person. In fact, there are certain things we commit ourselves to that never in themselves require more than a functional response on our part. However, when we think about our religious commitment, we are think-ing about a reality that does reach us at the level of our person. We are con, sidering Something that r.eally influences us not primarily at the level of what we do, but rather at the level of who we are, and of the kind of person we are becoming. The only reality we can commit ourselves to in such a way that it will reach us as persons, is the reality of another person. To be sure, we can and do commit ourselves to do things, to perform certain actions and rituals, and to.provide certain services. But these activities can be out of harmony with our basic personal commitment and instead of being expressions of our basic personal commitment and being a means of incarnating that commit-ment moreand more in our living situations, these activities can become ends in themselves and as a matter of fact, they can introduce into our lives a real dichotomy between what we do and who we really are. When this kind of situation arises, we begin to absolutize our activities. When speaking about commitment, we find ourselves always speaking about commitment to certain apostolates and activities, a type of commitment which is only a second-level commitment, since these activities of themselves do not necessarily reach us at the level of our person. When commitment has become primarily this kind of second-level commitment to functions and ac-tivities, no matter how good they are in themselves, commitment becomes an impersonal and static reality that no longer challenges to growth and to life. Rather, it becomes a reality which is continually threatened by persons who do things differently, or who do different things. Then, in the name of com-mitment, we can find ourselves becoming rather defensiv.e, distrustful and suspicious, becoming ever. more' cl.osed in on ourselves, more isolated, and hence with an ,ever narrowing sense of mission. To be sure, because mission is an e,ssential part of the call to follow Christ, Christian and religious commitment must o~bvigusly lead to doing things and to activity. The point is. that when w~ totally identify our Christian or religious commitment.wi.th ceriain activities or apostolates, then that com-mitment can become a hindrance .to our true personal growth in Christ, it can become an obstacle in.the way of what the Lord's love wants to do in our lives at the level of our hearts. Commitment to the Person Who Sends: Jesus Christ Now, while it is possible that commitment to things or activities can get in the way of our continued personal growth in the Lord's life, a sense of com-mitment is primarily a very positive influence in our spiritual life. However, it is this only to the degree that our commitment is to the person of God as he 656 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 reveais himself to us in his Son Jesus Christ. It is to the extent that it is to Jesus and to his life-giving word that we give ourselves, only to this extent does our commitment become radically personal and continually challenging at the level of the persons we are becoming and can become. When we become more and more personally aware of the fact that our primary commitment as religious is to the person of Jesus Christ who makes his love for us felt in the people and situations of our lives, we also become less hesitant to respond to new situations creatively, then we become less hesi-tant to act upon new insights both in our personal and communal lives. We are able to carry out our mission in an effective and creative way. Since it is to the living Lord that we have given ourselves and who missions us, it is to be expected that he will inspire us and continually lead us to new understandings of ourselves and of our deepening relationship with him, and both of these will of necessity have to find expression in the apostolic activities of our life. If we really believe that it is the Lord who is giving us this new under-standing, then we will have little hesitation oi" fear in allowing that new understanding to lead us to new activities, to new ways of doing things. The mere newness of these ways and activities will in no way cause us to feel that we are being unfaithful to our past or that what we did in the past was wrong or less than our best effort. The Lord normally calls us to grow in his life gradually, and it is only in the context of past experience and action that cer-tain new insights into the Lord's ways become possible. "Only if the seed die, will it bring forth new life." And only if we are free enough to let go of what we are, can we become what the Lord wants us to become. The more personally aware we become of the fact that our primary com-mitment is to the person of Jesus Christ, the less will we identify our religious selves with just activities and functions, the less will our sense of mission be limited to specific activities which must necessarily reflect the historical moment and culture in which they developed. Real life situations will always be changing, whether We like it or not. Unless we want to remove ourselves from life and begin to live in our own lit-tle world, a world that is real only in our own lives, we must as the Council has reminded us so strongly, continually read the signs of the times. However, although the situations in which we carry out our missions are going to be ever new, there is also a constant dimension in them. That con-stant dimension is our personal commitment to the person of Christ. Although we can't do much about most of our life situations, we can do quite a bit about the depth and sincerity of our commitment. And this is the kind of thing we do in prayer and in celebrating our faith life with those who share and experience the same love of God in their lives. As we grow in our awareness of the fact that our religious life is identified with this personal commitment to Christ and not with particular apostolates, practices and activities, then we can begin to allow our commitment to lead us to actions and attitudes that will make our Christian values just a little Mission and Commitment / 657 more incarnate in our changing life situations. Our commitment will give rise to and deepen our sense of mission. As we free ourselves from the slavery of our prejudices and preconceived ideas, we will be able to see more and more clearly what it is that the Lord wants us to do. We will begin to see that he really means it when he says that the heart of his message is love of God and love of neighbor. We will begin to appreciate that he really wants his fol-lowers to become one, to grow in true communion with others, and our sense of mission will become deepened and directed. Commitment, then, grounds our mission, and the depth of our personal commitment to the person of Christ, who sends us to tell all of the Father's love, will determine the depth of our sense of being sent and our willingness to be sent. Commitment and Mission: the Person(s) to Whom We Are Sent Having considered the person who is sent and the person who sends, in order to complete our reflection on the reality of mission, we must now turn to a consideration of the person or persons to whom we are sent. In a rather simplistic way, I would like to say that we are sent by Christ both to ourselves and to others. In saying this, I think that I have said an awful lot -- and have also left a lot unsaid. Sent to Ourselves In saying that we are sent to ourselves, I am not engaging in double-talk, nor stating a reality that is so obvious that it need not be mentioned. Rather what I am trying to describe is the fact that the good news of the Father's love which we are sent to communicate, is good news not only for others but also, and even primarily, for ourselves. Wecannot communicate the good news of the Father's love for all unless we have ourselves heard the good news and ac- .cepted it. As mentioned earlier, we are not sent in an impersonal way, after the fashion of mechanical instruments, but rather we are sent as the unique persons we are and are becoming. It is as persons loved into being by the Father and responding to that love in our own unrepeatable way, that we are sent to bring others the good news of the Father's love. And so before we bring the good news to others, we must hear and accept it ourselves. Through prayer and reflection we must constantly strive to be present to the promptings of God's life-giving Spirit as he tries to lead us ever more profoundly into union with the Father. The good news of the Father's love must continually confront us and challenge us to keep on dying to our old self, so that the new creature that the Lord would have us become might be born and mature. In a more traditional terminology we might say that we must be concerned about saving our own soul. The good news that we are sent to bring to others, then, is also, and first of all, good news for us personally. This is the sense in which we say that we are first of all sent to ourselves. 658 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 Sent to Others However, and perhaps more obviously, we are also sent to others. In Mt 28:18-20 we read: Jesus came forward and addressed them in these words: "Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you and know that I am with you always till the end of the world" (confer also Lk 24:46-48; and Ac 1:8). ~ Clearly then, because it is in and through Christ that we have come to know the Father's love and have accepted the Father's invitation to share his life in faith, we also share in the mission he gave Christ, to witness to his love before all men. Because of our personal commitment to the person of Christ, we also share in his mission to the world. The "How. of Our Mission An obvious and legitimate question can be raised at this point in our re-flections, as to just how we carry out our mission .to others. How do we wit-ness to others of the love of the Father for them, and of the call they have to love each other? Of course this is the question that ultimately each of us must answer for ourselves in the light of our own personal salvation history andin the light of the real time and place in history where we are responding to the promptings of God's Spirit in out lives. , Even as we.acknowledge this radically personal dimension of the answer to this question of "how," we can also make some more general observations about this "how:" ¯ The first is that, if we are going to be true to the mission of Christ and not be sidetracked at some other level, we must, inall the different concrete situa-tions which make up the context of our lives, strive to witness to the reality of God's love among us. I know that this sounds trite, and that we have said it already. But yet we must really allow these familiar words to become opera-tive in our own evaluating of our daily life situations. Success or failur~ in our services or activities must ultimately be judged not so much according to whether or not we succeeded in doing what we set out to do, but rather in whether or not in our attempt to be of service we witnessed to the presence of God's love among us. Secondly, our ability to witness to the Father's love in the situations of our daily life, be they classrooms, hospital rooms, courtrooms, community rooms or wherever, will be dependent upon our own growing acceptance of the Father's love in our lives. No one can give what he doesn't have. And unless we are, in our own personal lives, secure in the Father's love, confident of our life in him and present to ourselves as we continually grow into the person God's Spirit wants us to be, we will not be able to respond creatively Mission and Commitment / 659 to the situations of our daily life in which we are called to witness to the Father's love, and the mission of Christ will be circumscribed by our limited perspectives. I guess what I am trying to say here is that there are two dimensions to our personal liveL One is the dimension of ourselves which we can call the core of our being, the "within," the person that we are and are becoming through our intimate involvement with God's life-giving Spirit. This is our ongoing attempt to ~become ever more present to ourselves, ever more in touch with the profound mystery of God's creative love which sustains each of us in our unique being. But if there is a "within," there is also a "without." There is also a very public dimension to our person. In fact, our very being as persons is "to-be-with." This is one of the mysterious realities of the spiritual life. While at first glance the person who gives himself over to a contemplative life-style seems to be isolating himself from others, in reality the more he becomes present to the real core of his being, the more he encounters the overpowering love of God in himself and the more he is aware of and present to that same love of God in others. As he gets more in touch with the core of his being, he discovers that "to-be" is really "to-be-with." There is,,then, a public dimension to our personal existence, and, as a re-sult, as persons we are necessarily called to give public witness to God's love. But in this sense,, our public witness is not something apart from our personal acceptance of the Father's love. Rather it is a necessary concomitant of it, since as persons, we are necessarily social, we are necessarily with others. Although we usually think of ourselves as witnessing to God's love, as carrying out our mission in terms of others who are not part of our immedi-ate, everyday surroundings, since as persons, we are necessarily "with others," by the sincerity and authenticity of our own personal growth in the Lord, we witness first of all to. those who are closest to us, to our brothers and sisters with whom we live in community, to our family, to those who, all too often, we take for granted because we are so frequently physically present to each other. Besides this. public dimension of our personal witness, there is also a pub-lic witness to the Father's love which comes in a communal way. The Church itself, as the body of Christ in time and space, and all the various structures which in the course of the ages have arisen as a means to help us to grow in the Lord, give a communal witness to the Father's love at work among us. Mission and Religious Congregations It appears that it is precisely this area of public communal witness, the area of corporate witness, that is giving rise today to rather serious and searching reflections in many religious congregations as they consider their institutional apostolates and discern their future commitment to them. As communities have begun to rewrite their constitutions, many are reflecting 660 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 upon their experience with "self-placement," and other attempts to involve individuals in a discerning process regarding their mission to specific aposto-lates. In this process, they have become aware of the need to acknowledge and identify, as clearly as possible, the ecclesial and corporate dimensions of mission as significant factors to be consciously brought into such a discerning. process. Indeed, without such conscious inclusion, the wide variety of activities and apostolates in which a community or an individual may engage, while good and productive in themselves, may be "de-spirited," that is, not enliv-ened by the inspired dynamic at work in the Church's carrying out of its mis-sion from Jesus its Lord, To be sure, in our rapidly changing world, in which religious in a special way have been asked to read and respond to the signs of the times, it is not a simple matter to discern which apostolates are legitimate extensions and ex-pressions of Jesus's mission at a particular time in history. For while the traditional apostolates are still very valid, we also know that new needs are arising that call for creative reponses in order to carry out the mission of Jesus in the world of today and tomorrow. Historically, the Spirit has en-riched the Church with religious communities which have been able to trans-late the mission mandate of Christ into ministries and apostolates that responded to the reality of particular ages, be it by redeeming slaves, by teaching the children of Catholic immigrants in the context of a pluralistic so-ciety, by providing medical care in underdeveloped countries, or by lobbying for issues of social justice. However, precisely because such a discerning process, reflecting as it does one's ecclesiology and understanding of the vows (especially obedience), is necessarily not a simple matter, congregations must resist the temptation to expedite and simplify the process either by not providing clear and challeng-ing ecclesial and congregational input to a person's discerning process, or by not taking a person's discerning process seriously. Persons, on the other hand, must search out this congregational and ecclesial input, and allow it to be a very significant dimension in their own discerning process. The current efforts being made by religious congregations to deal with the implications of their ecclesial reality for their congregational sense of mis-sion, are most encouraging. As congregations continue to address this area with greater intensity, they will find some direction and encouragement from the above mentioned document, "Directives for the Mutual Relations Be-tween Bishops and Religious in the Church," jointly issued by the Sacred Congregation for Keligious and Secular Institutes and the Sacred Congrega-tion for Bishops (see Chapter I I I, 10-12 and especially Chapter IV, 15-23). The entire second part of this document presents some directives and norms that deal with the practical aspects of such mutual relations. To get a sense of how this document could contribute to a congregation's discerning process, it might be helpful to cite a few of the directives. Mission and Commitment / 661 38. Major superiors will take great care not only to have a knowledge of the talents and possibilities of their religious btit also of the apostolic needs of the dioceses where their institute is called to work. Wherefore it is desirable that a concrete and global dialog be carried on between the bishop and the superiors of the various institutes present in the diocese, so that, especially in view of certain precarious situations and the persistent vo-cational crisis, religious personnel can be more evenly and fruitfully distributed. 40 . Bishops, in dialog with religious superiors and with all who work in the pastoral sector of the diocese, should try to discern what the Spirit wills and should study ways to provide new apostolic presences, so as to be able to deal with the difficulties which have arisen within the diocese. The search, however, for this renewal must not in the least lead to a depreciation of the still actually valid forms of apostolate, which are properly traditional, such as that of the.school (see S. Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School March 19, 1977), of the missions, of effective presence in hospitals, social services, etc. All of these traditional forms, moreover, must be, without delay, suitably updated according to the norms and guidelines of the Council and the needs of the times. 41. Apostolic innovations, which are later to be undertaken, should be planned with careful study. On the one hand, it is the duty of the bishops through their office not in-debd to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to what is good (see l Th 5, 12 and 19-21; LG 12), in such a way however, "that the spontaneous zeal of those who engage in this work may be safeguarded and fostered" (.4G 30); religious superiors on their part, should cooperate actively and dialog with the bishops in seeking solutions, in arranging the programming of choices made, in launching experiments, even com-pletely new ones, always acting in view of the most urgent needs of the Church and in , conformity with the norms and directives Of the Magisterium and according to the nature of their institute. Together with such guidelines, congregations must themselves, through their own reflective processes, arrive at clarity and consistency regarding their own understanding and usage of those potentially confusing phrases that often surface when a congregation considers how "mission" finds expression in its corporate life. I am referring here to phrases like, "corporate mission," "corporate witness," "corporate ministry," "institutional commitment," all of which perhaps need to be "unpacked" and reflected upon in the light of the congregation's own understanding of its charism and ecclesial reality. The necessity of institutions for the carrying out of certain, apostolates is obvious. However, given the changes in the society to which we are missioned to proclaim and witness to the Father's love, it might be necessary at least to raise the question as to whether or not institutions as such have become ends in themselves, institutions, that is, whose continued existence is justified more and more from their own intrinsic merits and strengths than from their relationship to the furthering of the mission of Christ. Honest struggling with these questions should help congregations to clari-fy, identify, and own just which dimensions of their institutional apostolates do incarnate their public communal witness to the Father's love and, in doing so, give the congregation some significant input for whatever process they 662 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 engage in, in trying to digcern l~he missioning of the congregation's personnel and the expediture of its financial resources. However even at this level of concern for a congregation's public com-munal witness, I think it is important to remember that since the community consists simply of persons coming together in the Spirit to share with and live out their common faith-vision, the vitality of a congregation,s public com-munal witness will also necessarily reflect the quality of the personal witness of the members of the community. Conclusion The thrust of these reflections has been to surface the essential inter-personal and relational dimensions of the reality of mission. For it is this di-mension which to a great extent grounds the ability of mission to be a truly enlivening reality of our Christian living. Because the phenomenon of mis-sion involves three persons, the person who is sent, the person who sends and person to whom he is sent, one's sense of mission and willingness to be sent will be very much rooted in his relationship to the person who sends. In other words mission is very intimately related to commitment, so that the quality of our Christian mission will be dependent upon the quality of our commitment to the person of Je'stis Christ who shares his mission with us. As a result, when religious, both personally and communally, enter a pro-cess to discern where and how they should carry out the mission that Christ shares with them, their process of discernment must include a very real sensi-tivity to the input of the Church -- especially the local church -- where alone one's mission is actually carried out. And it is this ecclesial input that will help r~ligious avoid the subtle dangers of becoming more concerned with self-perpetuation than with proclaiming and witnessing to the kingdom. And, correspondingly, it is a serious responsibility of the Church -- especially the local church -- to create and foster those structures that will enable it to sur-face and articulate its pastoral needs in a realistic and credible way. But, even more fundamentally, before religio6s, either personally or com-munally, can engage in such a legitimate process of discernment, one that'is aimed at discerning the will of the Father, they must already be in a loving and living prayerful relationship 'with the Lord. They must have already com-mitted their very selves to the person of Jesus. As' followers of Christ, we are necessarily on mission. While for religious this mission does receive some definite specifications in the light of congrega-tional charisms, still, the full reality of their mission must ~lso, necessarily, flow from and reflect its ecclesial, Christic and Trinitarian roots. Which is to say that ultimately for religious, as for 'all Christians, the quality of our sense of mission and our willingness to be sent, are very inti-mately tied up with our personal relationship with and commitment to the person who sends us, the person of Jesus Christ. For, like the Trinity itself, our mission is'rooted ultimately in relationships. Three Questions for the Spiritual Journey Joel Gia//anza, C.S.C. Brother Giallanza has contributed to these pages previously. His article, "The Counsels of John of the Cross Revisted," appeared in our January, 1978 issue~ He continues to reside at Holy Cross Novitiate; Bennington, VT 05201. Asking a question implies searching for an answer; also it implies a desire for the knowledge and valfie inherent in the answer. As expressions of a commitment to the spiritual journey, questions can be effective channels for.discovering ways in which the Lord has been and is operative in each one's life. Most of the great mystics do not use questions as a structural basis for their writings. However; they do seem to be addressing a query that could be formulated thus: "What is your experience of God in your own life?" Within this experiential context, mystical writers offer the reader profound glimpses into their relationships with God. Admittedly this is not the only query that shapes the writings of these authors. Other, more specific, questions emerge as they articulate their understanding of the spiritual life. Questions pertaining to each one's own spiritual journey should be neither accidental nor random. Haphazard questioning can have a significant impact on the direction that one takes; it can result in one's losing sight of the journey's end--union with the Lord. Questions for the journey rather should facilitate choices which have to be made, should be a guide along the road, should offer the support and the challenge necessary to continue faithfully even when the road is dark. Where can such questions be found? The spiritual journey is a move- 663 664 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 ment toward union with the Lord. Our questions, then, should come from the Lord himself. He alone gives the gi'ace to discern choices, to find support along the road, and to bring light to the darkness. This reflection will focus on three questions which come from the Lord and which seem to be of special importance for the spiritual journey. Identifying the Lord The first question is itself posed in the context of a journey: specifically, Jesus and his disciples are entering the district of Caesarea Philippi. First Jesus asks his disciples who others believe him to be; then, after a variety of responses, he asks the disciples themselves: "But who do you say that I am?" (Mr 16:13-15 and parallels). The question is a crucial one, an identi-fying one; the response to it immediately identifies each one's faith in, and relationship with, Jesus of Nazareth. This identification is fundamental to the spiritual life. It specifies the end point toward which the spiritual journey tends. Above all, it is a statement of faith. Faith is a lived reality. Its core is made visible by the whole of one's life, through one's attitudes, decisions, commitments, relationships. Contem-porary Christians, just as the disciples, must also confront this question, in faith, for it is ever-present. "Who do you say that I am?" Clearly, it is present as one prays, either individually or in a worshiping community. It is present in everyday decisions and encounters, as well as in those which have an impact on one's life beyond a single day, week, month, or year. In short, it is present throughout the spiritual journey. All of life responds, in some way, to it. The movement of the text in which this question appears is from general ("who do others say. ?") to particular ("who do you say. ?"). The disciples, doubtless, had been influenced by what others were saying about Jesus; hence, their answers to the generalized question. The challenge of the more particular question, however, is to respond personally on the basis of their own experience. So too, for contemporary Christians, the influence of others has some bearing on the development of personal faith; eventu-ally, however, the question must be addressed on the. basis of one's own faith and experience. The spiritual life, as a personal relationship with God, must contain a response to Jesus on a personal level. Finally, the identification of '~who Jesus is" in and for one's life is inseparable from the Paschal Mystery. "From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised" (Mt 16:21 and parallels). To identify Jesus, in the words of Peter, as "the Christ, the Son of the Living God" is to accept the cross-and-resurrection. The Lordship of Jesus and his accomplishment of the Father's will by dying and rising are one. And so, the spiritual journey begins. One's vision of its end and of the road to be taken is focused sharply in each one's response to the question of Jesus: "But who do you say that I am?" Three Questions for the Spiritual Journey / 665 Acknowledging the Lord The first question, the identifying question, is not asked in a vacuum. It leads to, and is supported by, another question: "Do you know what I have done to you?" (Jn 13:12). The immediate scriptural context of this question" is the Last Supper, after Jesus had washed the disciples' feet. In this simple action, he gives them an example of how they are to serve others. For the spiritual journey, the response to this question is the acknowl-edgment and recognition of what the Lord has done in one's life; it is the recognition of specific graces that are given to each one throughout his life. This acknowledgment and recognition flow from, and support, what has gone before. To acknowledge the graces one has been given implies some identification of the Giver; to recognize those graces strengthens one's faith in Jesus as Lord. The gospel itself affirms this interdependence of the two questions; immediately after asking this second question, Jesus states: "You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am" (Jn 13: 13). Beyond its appearance in the context of the Last Supper, this question can refer to Jesus' entire life. In a sense, he is asking an all-pervasive question: "Do you know what I have done to you?" since you have been with me and I with you~uring all that has happened (will happen) to us since the beginning of my ministry? In this larger context the disciples must reflect on all that has taken place. They must begin to. see Jesus' life and ministry as a single incarnate expression of the Father's love. Jesus is the Exemplar (Jn 13:15), the one to whom.all Christian lives must point. This question, too, must be particularized. The Lord's actions surely have affected all people, but each in a unique way. The acknowledgment of that unique way in which the Lord has been operative in one's life shapes the response to this question. This is to know what the Lord has done. The second question appears very near the end of Jesus' life; thus, it, too, points to the cross-and-resurrection. The graces which one receives throughout life are intrinsically bound to the drama of Salvation History. Indeed, the gifts which the Lord bestows upon his people--individually and collectively~raw their power from his passion, death, and glorification. And so, the spiritual journey continues. Complete dependence on the Lord, by acknowledging his gifts, is highlighted in response to the simple, yet pervasive, question: "Do you I~now what 1 have done to you?" Seeking the Lord Jesus' first two questions are a type of prelude to his third. To identify Jesus in one's life, and to acknowledge his gifts, are the means of respond-ing to a final question: "Whom do you seek?" (Jn 18:4). This is asked by Jesus in the garden just prior to his arrest; his boldness stuns those who seek him, and so Jesus repeats himself. This question must remain a constant traveling companion on the spiri-tual journey. It must be answered again and again, at every fork in the road, as the spiritual life progresses. Its purpose, clearly, is to keep one's sight 666 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 fixed on the Lord alone. Thus, it is the raison d'etre for the entire spiritual ¯ journey. At any point .along the way, regardless of what one is doing, the manner in which his life is lived a.ctually proclaims his response to the 'question: "Whom do you seek?" That night, those who were seeking Jesus (to arrest him) were caught up in their movement as a crowd. It would have been~interesting to go through that crowd and ask each, indiviOually, whom he was seeking. Some may not have really known. Judas did, but he did not search alone. As odd as it may seem, a parallel can be drawn for the spiritual journey. Faith and gifts from the Lord can be. taken for granted, and so one can easily be caught up in merely doing what everyone else is doing. Then Jesus' question really has not been heard. Like the previous questions, this one ~must be particu-larized. To fix one's sight on the Lord alone clarifies the response; the alternatives are confusion and uncertainty. It is not to be inferred that confusion and uncertainty are never to be experienced in the spiritual life. Rather, the point here is that one's basic response is stable. From its context in the Gospel of John, it is obvious that this question leads to the cross-and-resurrection. To seek the Lord is to accept all that the Paschal Mystery e[atails. In a prophetic waY, Sirach emphasized this some two centuries before: My son, if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials" (2: I). To seek the Lord leads to life, but it is a life that is born through death (Jn 12:24-25). And so the spiritual journey continues. At any moment and every moment, the Christian must know the road being traveled; constancy must be the hallmark of each one's response to the questibn: "Whom do you seek?" In Response Every Christian must respond in some way to these three questions of the spiritual journey. The ways in which each identifies, acknowledges, and seeks the Lord will be unique, based on personality, talents, experience, life-situation. Nevertheless, a common thread does run through all re-sponses. In the opening lines of his first letter, St. John makes a statement that addresses effectively all three questions. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life--the life was mb.de manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us--that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you. so that you may have fellowship with us;and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son; Jesus Christ (1:1-3). Consider each question, and then read this text as a response. Jesus is identified as "the word of life"; he is acknowledged as the sour~:e of all that Three Questions for the Spiritual Journey / 667 has been received; and, he is the end toward which the proclamation points. Jesus is the common thread. It is beyond the scope of this brief reflection to explore this text in any depth; but one point in particular is worthy of note. Tactility and sensibility are emphatic elements of this text. The one about whom these things are written is known through experience: "heard," "seen," "looked upon," and "touched." These elements strengthen the testimony that is given. From his own experience, St. John proclaims "'the word of life," and invites others to "fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." Responding to these questions throughout one's own spiritual journey must be the fruit of experience; it cannot be the result of academic gymnas-tics. These questions warrant a commitment, a fidelity to the spiritual journey. Only then does one's life--testimony, proclamation--identify Jesus as Lord, acknowledge his gifts, and seek him alone. Conclusion Three simple questions, Simple, yet interdependent. Simple, yet for the spiritual life they can be viewed as the most significant questions in the New Testament. To identify Jesus in one's life, to acknowledge what he has done and is doing, and to seek him above all else these constitute the spiritual journey. And, as always, the roads along which the journey pro-gresses are paved with the cross,and-resurrection. The spiritual journey requires onlyfidelity. That fidelity is incarnated through the Christian's lived response to the Lord's questions: "But who do you say that I am?" "Do y9u know what I have done to you?W .h.om do you seek?" Write a Gospel John Navone, S.J. Father Navone has written previously for REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. He continues to teach theology atthe Gregorian University; Piazza della Pilotta, 3; 00187 Roma, Italy. The Church employs the gospels as means for communicating and cultivat-ing its foundational experience of the love of God in Jesus Christ and in his Spirit given to us. A gospel is not an end in itself; it is meant to be used for fosteripg that gift of God's love which is the life of the Church. A gospel is written to serve the purpose of the grace and demand of God's transcendent love in Jesus Christ and his Church; it articulates and objectifies the meaning and value and demands of this love for us, both as individuals and as a com-munity. It symbolizes the call of a transcendent love empowering and sum-moning individuals to transcend themselves by accepting its grace and de-mand for life within the Christian community. Similarly, it symbolizes God's transcendent love summoning the Christian community to transcend itself in communicating its foundational experience to the world in iis distinctive ser-vice of the world. In a series of conferences given at the Gregorian University, in December 1978, Carlo Martini, S.J., sustained the working hypothesis that the four Gospels function as four manuals which correspond to the needs of four dis-tinct moments in the formation of the Christian. Adapting this hypothesis to the realm of God's self-investing love which the New Testament witness sym-bolizes, I suggest that Mark serves as the Christian community's manual for introducing the catechumen to the mystery of God's self-investing love in Jesus Christ. Matthew functions as the catechist's manual for helping the newly baptized to live according to the exigences of this self-investing love within the Church. Luke-Acts is the two-volume manual for learning how to bear witness to the meaning and value of this love for the world. John is Write a Gospel / 669 employed as .the manual for the grand synthesis of the mature Christian who has lived out the demands of this self-investing love in following Jesus and his (~hurch in the service of the world and now asks what is at the heart of his Christian experience. The self-investing dynamic of God's love is understood to be the origin and ground and destiny of the Jesus story, the Church story, and the world story. Not to have grasped this is to have missed the point of the dynamic which constitutes their ultimate meaning and value. Commu-nion with God implies a participation in the dynamic of his self-investing love on a level prior to that on which doctrinal systems and organized institutions arise. The Gospels symbolize the realm of God's unrestricted love to which humankind is constitutively oriented by presenting Jesus as God's self-revela-tion, or Word. They summon us to follow Jesus in his fundamental self-others- world-Mystery relationship for the authentic fulfillment of our humanity. The authenticity of our response to Jesus' injunction to love God above all else finds its measure in the deeds by which we follow his way to human authenticity through self-investing love for the neighbor. Writing a gospel is one way of learning to use a gospel for discovering the quality of our relationship to the transcendent love of God in Jesus Christ, in his Church, and in his world. Jesus symbolizes the meaning and value of this love, what it does and what it does not. The way we tell his story implies the way we comprehend the purpose of God's love in ourselves, others, and the world. The storyteller is in his storytelling. The gospel writer tells us about himself in telling us his story of Jesus. At the beginning of a course I teach on the spirituality of the gospels, I have had my students write a gospel in order to come to some experiential un-derstanding of what it means to be the author of a gospel. For an appropriate psychological state, they were to imagine that all the New Testaments throughout the world had been destroyed and that theirs would be the one and only written link with the original four gospels. They were to write their own synoptic gospel, using only the words of the four actual gospels. The ti-tle of the gospel would be "The Gospel According to (Student's Name)." Not more than two thousand words were allowed for telling the Good News. Each gospel was to have an architectonic unity, at least one parable, one mir~acle, one saying of Jesus. Between a fourth and a fifth of the gospel had to treat of the passion and death of Jesus. When the gospels had been written, they were exchanged. Each student wrote a commentary on the gospel that was given to him aimed at discerning (1) the portrait of Jesus and (2) the portrait of the author. What is the mean-ing and value of Jesus for the writer of this gospel? At what levels of con-sciousness does Jesus speak to the author? What does the author expect of Jesus? At ~what level of personal need does Jesus encounter the author? What is the author's particular interest in Jesus? What is his particular feeling toward Jesus? General questions for a critical reading of these gospels -- to help discern 670 / Review for R'eligious, Volume 38, 1979/5 the portrait of Jesus and of the author -- are the following, 1. Make a list of all the verbs which describe the agency of Jesus. What Jesus does in the gospel implies what he does for the author of the gospel. The author implies that Jesus will do this also for the reader of his gospel. 2. What does Jesus say in this gospel? This is what the author h~ears Jesu.s saying and, therefore, implicitly expects his reader to hear the same Jesus ad-dressing him with the same words. 3. Is the Risen Christ active in this .gospel? Does the gospel end with Jesus' resurrection from.the dead? ~ 4.How does the author see Jesus' basic self-others-world-God r~lationships? Is Jesus regarded as more solitary than social? As more receptive than active? As more suffering than joyful? As more among women than among men? As more among friends than among adversaries? As more a speaker than a doer? As more often rebuking than encouraging? As more often criticizing than approving? As more demanding than accepting? As more comprehen-sibly human than mysteriously divine? As more courageously confronting difficult situations than being welcomed by admiring followers? The original evangelists do not exclude one or the other of these elements in creating their balanced portrait of Jesus as both their crucified and risen Lord, illuminating the mystery which defines every human life. On the one hand, Jesus symbolizes the grace of God's love accepting persons wherever they are; on the other hand, he symbolizes the summons of that gracious love to transcend what we are in becoming sons of God. Some students wrote a gospel in which the third person prevails, creating the perspective of a detached spectator. Their avoidance of the second person suggests th~ absence of a personal relationship with the crucified and risen Jesus. It suggests that ~hey do not h~ar him speaking to them today. Luke's gospel, in contrast, underscores the ever-present grace and demand of God's love: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you listen" (4:21); "To-day I must stay at your home" (19:5); "Today salvation has come to this house" (19:9); "Today you shall be with me in Paradise" (23:43). Luke's use of the second person, his use of such words as "today" and "now," implies that the transcendent realm of God's love, symbolized by the entire story of Jesus, is ever-present and summoning us. Its reality and goodness actually touch Luke's existence as an individual within the community of Christian faith, inspiring him to write a gospel about it for others. His gospel thema-tizes the immediacy of an understanding beyond words, his religious cgnver-sion, the love which he has received and accepted as the integrating center of his life. , The exercise of writing a gospel helps the writer to discover those areas of life that are most affected by the meaning and value of God's love in Jesus Christ. The writer should treasure whatever dimension of the Good News that especially moves or interests him. This is its special value for him. This is the particular sector of his consciousness where the mystery of God's love Write a Gospel / 671 finds itsl point of entry into his life; consequently, it must be cultivated with care so as to become frtlitful. Its fruitfulness will vary with the cultivation it receives. The radicalism of the New Testament message is an ideal towards which growth will always be slow and often uncertain. Inasmuch as our ac-tion must always be within the 'limits of possibility, a rigorism that would challenge us beyond our powers is counterproductive. Discouragement is the temptation of temptations. One person'~s effective freedom is limited to such a way that he cannot' achieve what many others find feasible. The focus of the gospel-summons is on the use, rather than measure, of our effective freedom. It challenges us to stretch the limits of our freedom, but not to the breaking-point. It manifests a readiness to meet us wherever we happen.to be and to lead us on from there. As William ~V. Dych notes: "What must I do to gain eternal life," Jesus is asked in the Gospel story. What I must do might be quite different from what somebody else,must do, and I am the one who has to discover it in the particular configuration of concrete circumstances which make up my life and existence. There is no antecedent blueprint~ in a book somewhere simply to be Copied or imitated. In fact, when "living by the book" makes me miss the very concrete realities rigl~t there before my eyes, then "the letter kills," as St. Paul says.' The most severe threats of the Gospel are for those who do not want to be led at all, those committed to the illusion of self-sufficiency: But alas for you who are rich: you are having your consolation now: Alas for you who have your fill now: you shall go hungry. Alas for you who laugh now: you shall mourn and weep. Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets (Lk 6:24-26). The gospels are rich in pedagogical resources for cultivating the gift of God's love at the 'many different levels where we had become conscious of its presence and summons. No situation of human life is too extreme to bein-cluded within the scope of its redemptive purpose. It implicitly invites every-one to write his own ,gospel within the effective limits of our freedom for responding to the gift of God's love in our basic :self-others-world-God rela-tionships. It invites us to witness to its reality and goodness. The exercise of writing a gospel, using only the words of the four evange-lists, has the advantage of not taxing the creative resources of individuals. The gospels provide a basic lingua franca which we may employ to describe our relationship to the mystery which defines our lives. The use of this lingua francarespects the privacy of the writer, who might not wish to publicize the events of his interior life; at the same time, it permits the individuality of the writer's perspective to emerge in the selection of material. The writer does not have to invent a religious language, or a set of religious symbols. The number of words is arbitrary; however, the fewer permitted, the more radical the 'William V. Dych, "The Logic of Faith,'" America 140 (March 19, 1979), p. 219. 672 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 selectivity and the clearer the manifestation of the writer's perspective. Students writing a gospel are generally unaware of how self-revealing their gospels are. The experience of becoming a synoptic writer of a gospel creates a context for a meaningful discussion of the process that brought the first four gospels into existence, and of the relation of this process to the reli-gious conversion which occurs in the immediacy of the subject's conscious-ness, in a supraconceptual, existential experience beyond words. Only when religiously transformed subjectivity begins to mediate itself through mean-ing, myth, narrative, stories of God and the like can religious community take rise. This mediation of conversion through the objectification of its meaning provides the context for the Church's use of the New Testament. Writing our own parables is an exercise related to that of becoming con-temporary synoptic gospel writers. In this exercise, however, students were not expected to use the texts of the New Testament. They were to compose a story, based on their own personal experience, to communicate one dimen-sion of their lived understanding of what it means to receive and share the gift of God's love. Creating our own parables is doing what Jesus did; in some respects, it can express a greater fidelity to the Gospel truth than the merely mechanical repetition of Jesus' parables. John Drury relates that the poet Edwin Muir in his autobiography saw his own life as a narrative on the two levels of individual difference and shared mystery, calling them story and fable.~ Story refers to a man's biography where fact is linked to fact: birth and parents, changes of address, marriage and jobs. It marks him off from other people. It is his alone. But the fable is always impinging on it. This is chain of images and archetypes which we do not entirely understand and which only become clear in dreams, visions and myths: the country of innocence, the fall, the journey and transfiguration. Thus story tells us that when the poet was a boy, the Muir family moved from a good farm on the Orkneys to a bad one, and then to Glasgow. But what is happening in the realm of fable is a fall from innocence into experience and alienation. It is in the realm of fable that we have our deepest connections with one another. In biography we are distinct. It must be to the fable that his Wife Willa refers when she says that "he never ceased to believe that his expe-rience resembled the experience of everyone else living on earth.''3 The quality of our experience ultimately determines the shape of our autobiographies, biographies, histories, novels, parables, stories of God, the-ologies. We express in these manifold ways what can be found within our conscious experience on successive, related, but qualitatively different levels: the empirical on which level we sense, perceive, imagine, feel, speak, move; the intellectual level on which we inquire, come to understand, express what we have understood, work out the implications and presuppositions of our 2John Drury, Angels and Dirt (London: Dhrton, Longman & Todd, i972) p. 50. Write a Gospel / 673 expressions; the rational level, on which we reflect, marshal the evidence, judge the truth or falsity, certainty or probability, of a statement; the respon-sible level on which we are concerned with ourselves, our own operations, our goals, and so ddiberate about possible courses of action, evaluate them, de-cide and carry out our decisions.' Our manifold ways of storytelling, of phi-losophizing and of theologizing, are indices of what is going on at the four levels of our consciousness and inten.tionality; they are objectifications of our conscious intending of the true and the real, of the good and the worthwhile, as unique individuals with a unique history. As such, they are objectifications which are not deduced from abstract laws about human nature in general; rather, they derive from the concrete life-stories of individuals in search of true meaning and value. The authenticity of our lives grounds the authentici-ty of the manifold ways in which we objectify our search. 'Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972), p. 9. See also T. Patrick Burke, "The Theologian as Storyteller and Philosopher," Horizons 4/2 (1977), p. 207. Response to Psalm 137 How sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land? With muted voice probably, With tear-stained cheek most likely, With" breaking heart no doubt. But the Lord lives. So sing, then! Take your harp from the aspen tree! Sing not for your captors. Sing to the Lord who loves, Sing to the Lord who listens! Brother Franklin Cullen, C.S.C. Moreau High School 27170 Mission Blvd. Hayward, CA 94544 Jesus Christ, the Mediator of Catholic Charismatic Life Frederick J. Deters, S.J. Father Deters is an assistant professor of theology at Loyola University (Chicago). He resides in the Jesuit community there, 6525 North Sheridan Rd.; Chicago, IL 60626. Periodically there have appeared through Church history numerous men and women, individually and in groups, claiming to be filled with the Holy Spirit but all the while separating themselves from the unity of that Spirit as he was working in God's People. Most of us have heard of the Montan-ists, the Albigensians and the Joachimites--to cite only a few. Such knowledge of the past should dispose us to careful discernment when it comes' to accepting the inspirations oF yet others today who also claim to be Spirit-filled. But we must remember that spiritual discernment is not a form of natural cynicism. Those whom the Gospel calls to the shrewdness of serpents, are also summoned to the simplicity of doves and the openness of children. The point I am making here is that we can do without phony enthusiasm or false mysticism, but we cannot do without the Holy Spirit and his ,gifts. Vatican 1I was explicit in reaffirming the giftedness of all God's chil-dren. There, Catholic pastors were encouraged to see that the people were in fact led by the Spirit of God and that the charisms of each Christian be recognized and readily employed for the upbuilding of Christ's Body. Catholic life is charismatic life. In the true meaning of the words, the Catholic Church has been, and will continue to be. charismatic--or it will cease to be the Church of Christ on pilgrimage to the Father. Though in the past the various charisms have. in theologizing within Roman Catholicism, 674 Jesus Christ, the Mediator of Catholic Charismatic Life / 675 been.chiefly linked with both religious orders and ecclesial offices, there has never been lacking individual persons recognized for possessing the gifts of the Spirit. In such individuals, however, the genuineness of the gifts was ever attested by the loyalty and obedience with which they submitted to the guidance and direction of their communities and pastors. Given the: tension that must ever prevail between certain charisms and the exercise of, ecclesial offices, what, if anything, can theology point to as a touchstone for understanding their mutual harmony' and interaction? I am convinced that the answer to this question can be nothing or no one other than Jesus Christ, our One Lord and Mediator. In the following pages I propose a new look at both the Lordship and the mediatorial activity of Jesus Christ. As Jesus acts through the charismatic life of his people, he reveals the true character of his Lordship. At the same time, his authentic sovereignty manifests his mediation of life in charismatic activity. ~ What Does the Lordship o~ Jesus Mean? The emphasis that marks Catholic rehewal today is an ancient acclama-tion of faith: "Jesi~s is Lord!" This confession is chanted, sung and pro-claimed, not only by increasing numbers of men and women in the United States, but, ttiroughout th~ world. From early Christian times, it was the credal formula used in cofijunction with sacramental baptism. This practice was in evidence in the Roman Chur~:h. In his epistle tothe Romans, Paul writes: "For if you confess with y?ur lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your hearts that God raised~ him from the dead, you will be saved.''~ Baptism by im'mersion folloffed this professionl the descent into the water symbolizing death with Christ to a world of sin, the emergence from the pool manifesting a new walk with Christ in risen life. The washing both symbolized and celebrated the actual washing away of sin by the life-giving action of the Holy Spirit. God, the Blessed Trinity, was seen by faith to fill the" new Christian with his presence and life. Christian baptism was the authentic sign of°faith. Even so, the ,newly baptized and the com-munity gathered with him or her in celebration knew that this marked but the start ofc0mmunion with God's life. The ceremony brought with'it, a call tb live as Christ had lived, and, as the gra'ced opportunity was given, to die as he had died; to suffer death, that is, by witnessing to the hope of i:esur-rection. " ~ As the early Church lived and grew, Christians continued to know the power of ihi~ Lord's presence within them. In a true sense, there was no need for'anyone to tell these men'and women to "'know the Lord." They knew him and found a deep and salutary relationship with him in their lives. But they also knew one another through him just as they knew him through ~Ro 10:9. 676 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 one another by reason of his ongoing action in their midst. For Jesus continued to teach, direct, and sanctify through them. Their knowledge that God was interiorly within them as individuals was accompanied likewise by their awareness in faith that they were in Christ and that even the world of physical nature and material reality found its center in him. In fact, Jesus was known as Lord, not only of the visible elements of the Christian community, but of the external universe as well. He was Lord of all things, both visible and invisible. Paul voices this conviction when he speaks of the fullness of God in Christ: He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creatures. In him everything in'heaven and on earth was created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations, principalities or powers; all were created through him, and for him. He is before all else that is. In him everything continues in being. It is he who is head of the body, the Church; he who is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, so that primacy may be his in everything. It pleased God to make absolute fullness reside in him and by means of him, to reconcile everything in his person, both on earth and in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross.2 For Paul, the Lordship of Jesus is always related to Christ's humble obedience unto death. Just as the whole universe is depicted in the Epistle to the Romans as being in slavery to decadence due to sin, so the universe has, objectively speaking, been freed by Christ's death and is now in a process of renewal under his risen Lordship. But the Lordship of Jesus, whereby creation is renewed, represents a dominion won through Christ's suffering and death. This is also the theme of Philippians, Ch~apter 2, where Jesus' obedience unto death wins for him the title of Lord, the Name above every other name. Commenting on this latter passage, Robert Faricy writes: "In. his death Jesus descends into the heart of the world so that, in his resurrection, he can be the heart of the world, Lord in a true and even ontological sense, not simply appointed or named juridically, but Lord in such a way that to uproot him would be to make the world cease to exist.'''~ From this perspective Jesu~ has won his Lordship. He secured spiritual freedom from the dominion of the world of sin, death and the devil; not in the sense that he was personally held by these things; but, that vicariously he endured the Sufferings due to our sins in his own human nature in order that we might share his Lordship, his fieedom from them. So when the Christian, either of Paul~s time or our days says--"Jesus is Lord"--he professes the spiritual freedom of Christ in which his profession leads him to share. Since Jesus' Lordship is one that proclaims the reconciliatibn of every-thing, the Christian is called to a freedom that knows no base subjection to :Col 1:15-20. aFrank A. Sullivan, S.J., and Robert Faricy, S.J., lgnatian Exercises---Charismatic Renewal (Rome: Centrum lgnatianum Spirituatitatis, 1977). p. 36. Jesus Christ, the Mediator of Catholic Charismatic Life / 677 anything or anyone for their own sakes. The Christian is one who belongs to Christ himself: "All things are yours, but you are Christ's and Christ is God's!''4 So we all await that moment when at last Christ will hand over the kingdom to the Father and God will be all in all) The paradoxical converse of this, however, is that Christ's Lordship calls the Christian to spiritual freedom through the same kind of humble obedience that led Christ to surrender his very life into the Father's hands for our sake. It seems to be in this same spirit that Paul tells the Ephesians: "Defer to one another out of reverence for Christ.''6 And Peter's First Epistle calls upon Christians not only to be subject to church officials but to "every human institution" . . . "because of the Lord" for ~'such obedi-ence is the will of God." 7 Note that in all these cases subjection is rendered ¯ out of deference to Christ, who for the sake of our freedom took the form of a slave. As the Gospel account insists, Christ came not so much to be served, but to serve in the sense of giving his life as a ransom for many. To be authentic, our participation in Christ's Lordship will involve a share in his cross. Our service for each other will entail a daily crossbearing; it will ~ilso involve subjection, out of love for Christ the Lord. Jesus Provides Gifts for Service and Freedom Here we have come to the heart of Jesus' mediatorial activity for the Mystical Body. Insofar as we know the presence of Christ among us com-munally as well as within us individually, we long for the total celebration of that life in communal fellowship. It is for such a life that Christ provided by the distribution of the charisms and charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. What is a charism? It is a gift given foi service of some kind. It is a new and special way of relating to the Lord. At the same time, it is a call to serve with the power of the Holy Spirit given to fulfill that call. The word "charism," from the Greek word meaning gift, appears frequently in the Pauline writings of the New Testament. There are a number of references that we might cite; for our purposes here we will limit ourselves for the present to an examination of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians: Each of us h'as received God's grace in the measure in which Christ bestows it. Thus you find Scripture saying: "When he ascended on high, he took a host of captives and gave gifts to men." He ascended--what does this mean but that he first descended into the lower regions of the earth? He who descended is the very one who ascended high above the heavens, that he might fill all men with his gifts. Then Paul continues by telling us what some of Christ's gifts are: 41 CO 3:23. ~1 Co 15:28. 6Ep 5:21. 7See 1P 2:13-15 and 5:5. 678 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 It is [Christ]~who gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in roles of service0for the, faithful to build up the Body of Christ. till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, and form that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature,s This passage tells us that Christ mediates God's favor for the Mystical Body through his gifts. Here Paul speaks of apostles, prophets,.evangelists, pastors and teachers; and the writer cites specific roles of service for up-b, uilding the Christian community. The enumeration includes charisms or gifts of the Holy Spirit given by Christ for the Mystical ~Body. In the development of the Church ,certain of these functions, would often, though not always, come to be exercised by those who held ecclesial offices. Evidence for this is already provided by Scripture in the Pastoral epistles. Here we are told how Paul, just before his death, entrusted the care of the Church at Ephesus to Timothy and that of Crete to Titus. These two men represent the first scriptural evidence for the appearance of bishops on the Church scene. With an eye to future continuity, they, in turn, are told in these epistles to establish, other bishops and presbyters throughout their respective territories in order to continue the pastoral ministry of the Church begun by the apostles. Paul is even represented here as ordaining Timothy. So we read: "'Hence I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands."%Whatever else these epistles tell us when read together, it seems true that certain of the charismatic roles of service mentioned in the,epistle to the Ephesians were likewise authenticated by visible sacramental celebration within and for the community. Consequently, there was nothing contradictory or in-harmonious between the charismatic gifts and hierarchical ,gifts present in the early Church. Outside of Scripture the ancient document called the Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles contains this injunction: "Choose for yourselves, therefore, bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord . . . for ttiey also exercise among you the ministry of prophets, and doctors." ~0 According to Roman Catholic theology, in fact, it is through the episco-pal office of the bishop of Rome and of those who are in communion with him (hat the charism of infallible teaching authority is assured to the Church. In order that the gates of hell should not prevail against the Church, bishops continue to exercise the pastoral and teaching role once committed to Peter and the original band of Apostles. If the episcopal office in union with the pope is not assured the charism of authentic pastoral and teaching authority, then no one has the gift of teaching, no matter how "See Ep 4:7-13. ~T Tm 1:6. l°Doctrina Doudecim Apostolorum, XV. # I. in Funk. Patres Apostolicae, 1901. Vol. II. pp. 32-34. Jesus Christ, the Mediator of Catholic Charismatic Life / 679 charismatic he or she may seem to be. It was first to Peter and the apostles together with their successors in the episcopate that Christ's promise was made in a special way: "'You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."" And to this end also, Christ promises to be with them, and so with us, until the end of the world. Finally, it is to the bishops as authentic pastors of the Church that Catholics endowed with charisms must defer. Speaking of charisms, Vati-can 1I teaches that " . . judgment as to their genuineness and proper use belongs to those who preside, over the church and to whose special com-petence it belongs, not indeed to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things, and to hold fast to what is good (see 1 Th 5:12, 19-20).''~z Because Jesus is the One Lord and Mediator of gifts (hat are hierarchical as well as the strictly charismatic ones, he assures a marvelous harmony between them. Because this harmony and. unity is a real gift and an authentic mark of Christ:.s Church, it calls forth an appropriate response from every member of the Body. So Paul exhorts the Ephesians: I plead with you. then, as a prisoner for the Lord. to live a life worthy of the calling ,you have received, with perfect humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another lovingly. Make every effort to preserve the unity which has the Spirit as its origin and peace as its binding force. There is bul one body and one Spirit,just as there is but one hope given all of you by your call. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism: One God and Father of all who is over all, and works through all and is in ,,all.l:~ Disregard for Charism: and Office ~ Still it is today part of our sad inheritance that these words have not always been heeded. Heresies and schisms among Christians manifest the sin of our divisions. And this sin has been admitted and confessed in our time. Many of us are the descendants of Reformation and Counter- Reformation forebearers who themselves bore some responsibility for our presept divisions. So Vatican II officially recognizes that there were sins on both sides. BUt we today are no less .responsible than they. It is our vocation to open up our hearts to the.healing of such divisions that the Mystical Body of Christ on .earth might be made whole, and that the world might come to faith through its corporate and united witness. Some Catholic theologians today interpret the sin-sickness of Christian division as lack of openness to the presence and action of Jesus Christ in one another. From this perspective, the Reformation represents the Protes-tant rejection of the hierarchical gifts which the Catholic believes to be the ~tMt 16:18-19. ~ZDogmatic Constitution on the Church. Ch. II. "The People of God," ~ 12, in Abbot. p. 30. ~aEp 4: I-6, ~ Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 very heart of charismatic life in the Church. For the Catholic, to reject them is to reject Christ who said ".He who hears you hears me." The Catholic, Counter-Reformation era, on the other hand, manifests a certain deafness, or at least a hesitancy on the part of Catholics to attend to the charismatic voices of prophetic protest that should have been heeded sooner. Avery Dulles calls attention to the fact that within the Catholicism of the Middle Ages (the Pre-Reformation period) there was a lively and healthy tension between the prophetic and sacerdotal elements of the one charis-matic Church of Christ. It was the age of Bernard of Clair~,aux, Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena. But as time progressed, the institutional features began to assert themselves more and more. Reflecting on these facts Dulles concludes: The history of the Reformation might have been quite different if the church in the sixteenth century had been more open to searching scrutiny in light of the gospel. In post-Reformation times, the history of western Christianity is dominated by the prophetism of the Reformation churches and the sacredotalism of the Catholic tradi-tion. In a separation that ought never to have occurred, churches of the word were arrayed against churches of the sacrament?4 According to the foregoing analysis, the healing of sinful divisions and the restoration of a loving unity among separated Christians will depend on our openness to Jesus Christ, whether he comes to bring us fuller life through charismatic individuals (even those presently outside the visible structures of Roman Catholicism), or through the charismatic offices of the visible church. It seems that our closedness to either aspect of Christ life today is a tragedy that will only continue to bear bitter fruit. In summarizing some of" Karl Rahner's remarks on the charismatic element in the Church, Gerald McCool says very succinctly: The hierarchy has an indispensable role to play in the Church. Her founder has given I~gitimate authority to the pastors of his community. Nevertheless the Church's teaching and sanctifying mission has not been entrusted exclusively to her office holders and the Church must be extremely sensitive to the personal intimations of God's will and to the pastoral inspirations which have been given to charismatic individual Christians. The Church's leaders must not endeavor to manage everything in the Church "from the top down." They must rather encourage apostolic initiative "from the bottom up" on the part of charismatic individuals and charismatic pastors. The Church ideal is the harmonious cooperation of her hierarchical and charismatic elements. It should never be the absorption or the elimination of one element by the other.~5 This summary represents the position of Karl Rahner, a teaching whose basis was first enucleated in the Encyclical letter of Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, and whose substance finds expression in the teaching of Vatican II on cha~'i~m~ ~Avery Dulles. The Survival o.t'Dogma (Doubleday: 1973). p. 133. ~Gerald A. McCool, S.J., editor's introduction to the section entitled "'The Charismatic Element in the Church," in A Rahner Reader (Seabury Press, New York: 1975), p. 293. Jesus Chr&t, the Mediator of Catholic Charismatic Life / 681 The ideal harmony and unity described in this teaching is really the gift of unity St. Paul speaks of in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. It is the unity of the Spirit that can come from none other than the Lord himself. By this very fact, it is not just some obscure or impersonal unity; rather, it is the dynamic and living unity of a Body that lives from moment to moment in a surrender of agapeic love whose very center is Christ and whose goal is the Father's glory. The Vision and Faith of Authentic Charismatics Because this gift of unity speaks of love, it implies sacrifice in the form of death to any self-centeredness that would threaten authentic unity. For the charismatic individual as well as for the ecclesiastical office-holder it demands ". perfect humility, meekness and patience, bearing wil~h one another lovingly." An authentic Catholic charismatic might well be the "man for all seasons" who is willing to suffer martyrdom rather than reject the word of Christ in his legitimate pastor. And the good pastor, like a good shepherd, might be one who fulfills his charismatic office by acknowledging and encouraging Christ's activity in prophetic individuals who can further the life of the flock. An example of this might well be Paul VI, as evidenced in his Apostolic Exhortation On Evangelization in the Modern World. He wrote: It is certain that, side-by-side with the ordained ministries whereby certain people are appointed pastors and consecrate themselves in a special way to the service of the community, the church recognizes the place of non-ordained ministries which are able to offer a particular service to the Church. A glance at the origins of the Church is very illuminating, and gives the benefit of an early experience in the matter of ministries. It was an experience that was all the more valuable in that it enabled the Church to consolidate herself and to grow and spread. Attention to the sources however has to be complemented by attention to the present needs of mankind and of the Church. To drink at these ever inspiring sources without sacrificing anything of their values, and at the same time to know how to adapt oneself to the demands and needs of today-- these are the criteria that will make it possible to seek wisely and to discover the ministries which the Church needs and which many of her members will gladly embrace for the sake of ensuring greater vitality in the ecclesial community. These ministries will have a real pastoral value to the extent that they are established with absolute respect for unity and adhering to th.e directives of the pastors, who are the ones responsible for the Church's unity and the builders thereof.~a With an eye to past history, I think you will agree that this is a hearten-ing statement, one that manifests remarkable openness to the initiatives and inspirations of the Holy Spirit for our times. But the realization of such hopes for a vital, charismatic life whose fruit and goal is Catholic unity may still seem somewhat visionary. If it does, perhaps that is understandable. The authentic unity of the Church, in order to be fully realized, must await ~Paul VI. On Evangelization in the Modern World (Publications Office of the United States Catholic Conference: Washington. D.C.). p. 53. 682 / Review for Religious, Volum.e 38, 1979/5 ,the return of the Lord. Still, the degree of its realization in the time that intervenes mustdepend on our faith and expectation. So we might°conclude our remarks by asking the question that Christ himself once posed: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth'?" Or again we might ask, Is Jesus Christ Lol'd? To which we proclaim: "'Jesus Christ is Lord!" "Come, Lord Jesus!" REPRINTS FROM THE REVIEW "Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation" S.C. for Religious . 35 "Prayer of Personal Reminiscence," D. J. Hassel, S.J." . 60 "Profile of the Spirit:,A Theology of Discernment of Spirits," J. R. Sheets, S.J . 50 "Retirement or Vigil," B. Ashley, O.P. " . 30 "The 'Active-Contemplative' Problem," D. M. Knight .75 "The Contemporary Spirituality, of the Monastic Lectio," M. Neuman, O.S.B . 50 "The Four Moments.of Prayer," J. R. Sheets, S.J. . : . 50 "The Healing of Memories," F. Martin . 35 "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat," H. F. Smith, S.J . 35 Orders for'the above should be Sent to: Review for Religious Room 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63108 Please include 75¢ postage and handling charge with preopaid orders. The Proposed Canons on the Consecrated Life Explained: III Joseph F. Ga/len, S.J. This is the third article commenting on the p~:oposed new canon law dealing with the consecrated life. Father Gallen's address is: Jesuit Community at St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Chapter V: Temporal Goods and the Consecrated Life Carl. 37, § 1. Norm and Right of Institutes Concerhing Temporal Goods. Norm. The law that her~'regu,!ates institutes of consecrated life is the section of the proposed canons on church possessions, or' ecclesiastical goods, which is the universal'law of the Chhrch on this matter. Institutes are to be guided by a different or co~trfiry norm that is established elsewhere on a particular matter in common law or that l~as otherwise been approved by the Holy See. . § 2. t~ight of Owning Property. a) Temporal Goods or Property. These are goods extrinsic to man that have a value in money, for example, money, real estate, stocks, bonds, furniture, equipment, clothing, books, and so forth. The present canon is concerned only with property owned by. an institute, province, canonically, erected house, or other public juridical person of the institute, not with that owned by individual religious. Goods of the former type are called church or ecclesiastical property, since the'y are owned by a public juridical person in the Church. b) Capacity: Every institute of consecrated life, province, or canonically erected house is~ an ecclesiastical public juridical person and possesses, in vir-tue 6f can. 13, the unlimited right of acquiring, owning, and administering 683 684 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 temporal property. This canon reads: "Any juridical person, whether public or private, is a subject capable of acquiring, retaining and administering temporal goods in accordance with the law." The capacity of an institute, province or house to acquire or own property is given by canon law and is not limited by canon law. The capacity extends to all species of property, for ex-ample, to immovable and movable goods. The former consists of things which are at least considered as being unable to be moved from place to place, for example, lands, a church, chapel, school, hospital, and so forth, and rights on such property. Movable property is that which can be so moved, for example, clothing, furniture, equipment, and so forth. The same capacity extends to all rights of use and/or receiving returns on property, for example, interest, dividends, and rents. c) Exclusion or Limitation of Capacity. The present proposed canon, .as in the past, permits the particular Rule or constitutions to exclude or limit the proprietary capacity described above. Such limitations are practically never found in institutes of brothers or sisters but they are encountered in some older institutes of men and women. Mendicant institutes are either complete-ly or partially incapable of possessing property from which they have the right to certain., and stable returns (Friars Minor of the Observance, Capuchins, Discalced Carmelites, and Jesuits). An institute may prescribe that the property acquired is to be spent for works and needs and that none or only a limited amount may be retained as capital. It may be enacted that the ownership of all property is invested in the institute, not in the provinces or houses or only subordinately in these. Acquisition by inheritance may be ex-cluded absolutely or through all or some of the members. Before adopting any such limitation, an institute should make a searching investigation into its efficacy as a means of poverty and its practicality in relation to the life and work of the institute. A constant emphasis on fundamental spiritual princi-ples and those specific to poverty can very likely be a more effective means than juridical incapacities or limitations. I have encountered practically no more recent institute of simple vows that has followed any of these practices of some more ancient institutes of solemn vows. The axiom that the decline of the consecrated life is caused by a decline in poverty or prayer may in fact be the reverse, that is, poverty or prayer declines because the spiritual life in general has declined. d) Ownership of Property. Can. 14 reads: "Ownership of goods belongs, under the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff, to that legal person which legitimately acquired the same goods." Therefore, unless otherwise prescribed by the particular law, property is owned by the juridical person that acquired it. Houses, provinces, and institutes are distinct canonical per-sons; therefore, the assets and debts of one are not those of another. The Holy See holds the supreme administration of all church property in the sense that it is to be acquired, owned, and administered according to the laws and under the authority of the Church (can. 18). Civil incorporation has been ex, The Proposed Canons on the Consecrated Life: III / 685 plained under can. 9. In the proposed canons: can. 28, § 2, 2°,commands ad-ministrators of ecclesiastical property to observe canon and civil law; can. 42, § 1, commands that civil laws regarding the leasing of property should be observed; can. 44, that the provisions of civil law on contracts are also to be observed by canon law; and can. 45, § 2, that in dispositions to pious causes made by bequest, the solemnities of civil law should be observed whenever possible. e) Manner of Acquisition. A juridical person of the consecrated life may acquire property, temporal goods, in any manner that is lawful to individuals according to the natural law, for example, the fruit of one's labor, donations, purchases, inheritance, legacy, or according to the positive law of the Church or state, for example, by contracts or wills in conformity with such laws. f) Property of Institute and Province. The general funds consist of the payments of novices, the interest on dowries, and the dowry itself at the death of a sister. Donations, legacies, and inheritances, when given to either, also belong to the institute or province, as do the taxes on the houses for the general and provincial expenses. These are used for the expenses of the gener-al or provincial government, of the novitiate, juniorate, education and for-mation of the members, central infirmary, the erection of houses, the assistance of the poorer works and houses and, if possible, the establishment of a reserve fund for extraordinary expenses, and of a capital fund that will serve as a source of regular income for all or some of these purposes. g) General and Provincial Tax. The general and provincial expenses listed above are clearly necessary. They are for the good of the entire institute or province and must, at least in great part, be defrayed by contributions from the provinces and houses. Two species of taxation are found in constitutions: One-third of the Net Surplus of the Past Year. According to the Normae of 1901 (no. 294), each house was obliged to send this sum at the end of each year to the provincial or general treasury, if there were no provinces, and each province had to send the same fraction of its net surplus to the general treasury. This is still the norm of a sufficient number of institutes. The tax should be sufficient to take care of the general, and provinci.al expenses; it should not burden all or some of the provinces and houses excessively nor prevent the establishments of the institute from setting up a reserve fund for proper maintenance and development. An obvious defect of this system is that it is only a contingent payment. It depends on the fact of a surplus. The general and provincial expenses are absolute and constant; the tax should therefore be an absolute element of the house and provincial budgets. It should be condoned or lessened when a province or house simply cannot pay it. o. Determined Sum for Each Member. A more modern and preferable norm found in many constitutions more recently approved by the Holy See is that the determination of the amount of the tax is left to the general chapter, which can then increase or decrease it as the times and circumstances de- 686 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/5 mand. The chapter often determines that each house is to contribute a .fixed sum annually for each member assigned to the house. A fractional part of such a sum may then be assigned to the general funds when the institute is divided into provinces, or each pro

Issue 35.2 of the Review for Religious, 1976. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Louis Umvers~ty, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright (~) 1976 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor March 1976 Volume 35 Number 2 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. Mary, Model of the Church Paul VI December 8, 1975, marked not only the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception but also the tenth anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. This is the text of the Pope's homily in St. Peter's on that occasion.* Venerable Brothers and Beloved Sons! and all of you, special guests at this pious ceremony, Teachers, Research workers and Students of the Pontifical Roman Universities, you P~upils in our seminaries, you Members of the Ecclesiastical and Religious Colleges of the City, or associhtes of the Secular Institutes. And you, beloved Daughters in Christ, Religious, Novices, Probationers and Pupils of the Houses of formation for women in Rome. And then you, too, our Roman faithful, and you pilgrims of the Holy Year and visitors to this holy City. And finally you (we wish to gather everyone in the multiple value of the rite we are celebrating), you, we say, former members and protagonists 'of the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, convened here to commemo-rate with us the tenth anniversary, which falls today, of those great ec-clesiastical sessions! Listen to us, all of you! and let us invite you to a moment of contem-plation, spiritual and almost visual, as if the appearance of her whose ex-traordinary feast we are celebrating today were present in the background of this Basilica, as if-hovering in the unique splendour, proper to herself (even if reflected from the divine source of light); and we were to see her with the prophetic eyes of the evangelist of the Apocalypse: *Abstracted from Osservatore Romano, 12/18/75, pp. 6-7. 161 162 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Behold! "A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (Apoc 12, 1; cf. Cant 6, 4 ft.). What is it? Who is it? We are amazed and absorbed by the Bible vision; and in our dazzled astonishment we lose the sense of reality. We do not forgo expressing as best we can the value of that mysterious image; and without continuing, for the present, with the scene in the Apocalypse, we are satisfied to know the double name that has been superimposed on that heavenly figure by the masters of Holy Scripture, as if exclaiming, in an-swer to our anxious curiosity: it is Mary, it is Mary, that Woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and the mysterious crown of stars on her head! It is the Church, it is the Church! the scholars inform us, studying the secrets of the figurative and symbolical language of the world of the Apocalypse. Perhaps they are right. As for us, we are happy to honour Mary and the Church, the first the Mother of Christ in the flesh; the second the .Mother of his Mystical Body, and she herself part of that Mystical Body. All Brothers and Sons! For a moment let us fix our thought, dazzled and happy, on the first meaning of the bewildering vision; and let us say to ourselves, with the intention of celebrating the mystery of the Immaculate Conception: that is what Mary is like! Her aspect is heavenly and tri-umphal~ but if closely observed, it is that of a Woman "humble and lofty more than a creature" (Par 33, 2). So humble, in fact, that she banishes all our respectful trepidation (cf. Lk 1, 48), and almost invites us to see in her a beloved Sister. At the very moment that we dare to address to her a trusting word, no other words come to our lips than those of the Gospel: Blessed art thou! (Lk 1, 45 and 48). Yes, blessed! And for how many reasons! One among the many we are celebrating today, and we would like to put it at the peak of our devotion to Mary: her Immaculate Conception! That is, God's preferential thought for this creature of his; the intention to 'see in her again the original innocence of a being conceived "in the. image and likeness" of himself, God (Gen 1, 26-27), not disturbed, not contaminated by any stain, by any imperfection, as are all the children Of Eve, all mankind, except Christ and except her, the Blessed Virgin. An idea; a divine dream] a masterpiece of human beauty, not sought in the formal model only, but realized in the intrinsic and incomparable capacity of ex-pressing the Spirit in the flesh, the divine likenes~ in the human countenance, invisible Beauty in the physical figure. Mary, All Beauty Tota pulchra es, Maria.t You are beauty, real, pure, holy beauty, oh Mary! This should be the real and ideal image of the Blessed Virgin, re-flected, luminous and illuminating, in Our individual souls, today, oh Faith- Mary, Model o] the Church / 163 ful; as the synthesis of our admiration and devotion to the Blessed Virgin, whose feast, eminently theological and eminently ecclesial, we are celebrat-ing. Theological, because we deduce it from revelation and from the most vigilant and loving reflection, with which the most candid and virginal piety dared, certainly with her assistance, to fix an enraptured and exPloring gaze on her pure, humble face, the perfect face of sacred and human beauty~ Ecclesial, because from being a mirror of divine perfection, speculum iusti-tiae, she offers herself to us as a mirror of human perfection, in which the Church, venerating the Blessed Virgin, "joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless model (it is the Council speaking; Sacr. Cone., n. 103), that which she herself wholly desires and hopes to be"; a nuptial beauty which St. Paul, as we all remember, describes in a stupendous way: "in all its splen-dour, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph 5, 27). The Church's holiness, in its state of becoming, has its model, its "typus" in Mary, as St. Ambrose will say (in Lucam, II-7), and St. Augustine will comment: "figuram in se sanctae Ecclesiae demonstravit" (De Symbolo, I; P.L. 40, 661), Mary represented in herself the figure of the Holy Church. ¯ A model, a specimen, an ideal figure of the Church; is that enough? The theological truth goes further, and enters the frontiers of that subordinate causality, which in the divine plan of salvation inseparably associates the creature, Mary, the Handmaid of the "Fiat," with the mystery of the In-carnation, and makes her,: St. Irenaeus writes, "a cause of,this salvation for herself and for the whole of mankind" (Adv. haereses, III, 22, 4). "Mother of the Church" We will rejoice, then, to have in St. Augustine the conclusion which at the end of the III section of the Council we made our own, explicitly recog-nizing the unquestionable right of the Blessed Virgin to the title of "Mother of the Church." If, in fact, Mary is the mother of Christ in the flesh, and Christ is the head of the Church, his Mystical Body, Mary' is spiritually the Mother of this Body, to which she herself belongs, at an eminent level, as daughter and sister (cf. St. Augustine, de Sancta Virginitate, V and VI; P, L. 40, 339; and cf, H. De Lubac, Mdd. sur l'Eglise, c. IX) . To you, Teachers, Research workers and Students of our Rbman Uniz versities; to you, young Seminarian~, to you, Religious men and women, goes particularly a cry from our heart: love, invoke and imitate Mary Immaculate, the Mother of Christ and the Mother of the Ctiurch, and make good use, for the present and for future generations, of the treasure of wisdom that the second Vatican Ecumenical Council was and is. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? Thomas Dubay, S.M. Father Dubay, a frequent contributor to our journal, is engaged full time in lecturing and writing in the area of religious life. His home address is: Marist Seminary; 220 Taylor Street, N.E.; Washington, DC 20017 "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 Kgs 3:10). ¯ One need not emphasize the point that a vibrant sector of Christian life at this point of history is the sector of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The charismatic renewal has been promoting with no little success a whole life-style patterned on and growing out of a program centered in the Spirit's activity in the midst of God's people. This renewal is by no means restricted to "the release of the Spirit'? or the gift of tongues or the healing ministry. It is felt that the Holy Spirit is speaking today not only to saints but to sinners, not only to officialdom but to the lowly placed. To some considerable extent, but not with an entire coincidence with the charismatic movement, the Spirit movement' has been prominent in renewal efforts carried on in religious life. Books, articles, lectures, chapter documents often refer to the Holy Spirit, especially under the rubric of openness to Him, listening to Him. The central thrust here is not so much prayer experience, speaking in tongues or engaging in a healing ministry as it is in detecting what God is saying to us, both to the individual and to the community. This thrust toward listening to the Spirit is readily noted in the popularity of discernment methods, techniques, processes~ Although one begins to sense an incipient, weariness with discernment talk, the interest remains noteworthy. The reality surely is of crucial importance in an age struggling to find the mind of God and to read the signs of the times. If God does speak to His people--and Scripture insists that He does--it can never be unimportant to listen. 164 The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 165 An Anomalous Situation But this ."listening" is where .our problems begin, problems that press for solution. Before we can intelligently explain how one listens to the indwell-ing God, we should first understand something of how He speaks. The literature of our day, issuing both from the charismatic renewal and from religious life circles, says almost nothing on this subject. As a matter of fact, I must. candidly add that while speculative theologians often refer to the activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church, they seldom discuss how He acts and enlightens the individual through a personal contact. They do, of course, rightly point out that God speaks to His people through Scripture and through the representatives He has established in His Church: "he who hears you, hears Me" (Lk 10:16).1 But this is not the question at hand. People both in the Pentecostal movement and in religious life have in mind a personal (individual and!or communal) encounter with the Holy Spirit, and in this encounter they "listen to Him." Our situation, therefore, is odd. On the one hand many persons rou-tinely speak of "listening to the Spirit" as though He were as familiar as a friend speaking over one's right shoulder. Yet on the other hand almost no one explains how He speaks--even though we all know He does not speak in sound waves. Nor are we told how one can be so sure it is the Spirit speaking. Until we provide satisfactory answers to the question, "How does the Spirit speak?" we are left with some embarrassing problems. How can anyone be so sure he is listening to the Spirit and not to his own desires? We hardly need to debate the observation of Aldous Huxley: "The untutored egoist merely wants. Give him a religious education, and it becomes obvious to him, it becomes axiomatic, that what he wants is what God wants.'"-' Does God speak in diverse ways? If He does, how can we know the differences? What are we to think of,serious and sincere people who are convinced that they are receiving special messages from the Holy Spirit? Is good will enough to insure "listening to the Spirit"? Who Can Answer Our Questions? If it is true that the popular and theological literature on the con-temporary scene seldom discusses the title questign of this article, one may rightly wonder who can answer it? I know of two sources: Scripture and the mystics? We shall in this article explore both of these sources that we may discover on solid grounds when and how the Holy Spirit speaks in our own day. ~See also Jn 13:20; Jn 21:15-17; Lk 22:31-32; Tt 1:7; 1 Tm 3:15; 2Tin 3:14-16 and many other like texts. ~The Devils o] Loudun, p. 18. ZBy "mystics" here I do not refer to the recipients of extraordinary phenomena such as levitation or the stigmata. The word in Catholic theology indicates those men and women who have a deep experiential encounter with God. 166 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Scripture on the Experience og God ~ ~ We may acknowledge at the outset~ ~that the Lord God did speak to select representatives in biblical times~ and in :extraordinary ways (Heb l:l ). However, we shall not be primarily concerned here with the divine messages addressed to public personages, to a Moses or to a Paul. Rather we shall direct our attention to the usual, frequent, routine ways God speaks to the inner heart of anyone close to Him. Our tasks will be three: a) Introductory observations b) What does one experience when he experiences God? c) Implications of the .biblical account. When we complete our biblical study, we shall~ investigate the mystics' message. They have a great deal to say about listening to God: when and how it happens and does not happen. a) Introductory observations Just what is experience? We use the word constantly both in popular speech and in scholarly articles, but seldom does .anyone .suggest its mean-ing. The best synonym I can think of is awareness, Without awareness one cannot experience. A genuine experience is an awareness of something, even if that awareness focuses on one's self. An illusory experience is subjectively real but it has no objective correlative. Experience for human being .implies a passivity, a being affected by the object (tapioca, .coldness). In sensory experiences affectivity (pleasant, unpleasant, cold-hot, smooth-rough, sweet-sour) predominates over knowl-edge, whereas in intellectual experience the cognitive and the affective are closer to,.being equal partners because they more intimately interpenetrate each other. - Although it is obvious on ~a moment's reflection that ,19od cannot be experienced as though He were a material object somehow palpable, some seem to assume that He must be absent if.He does not manifest His pres-ence in human ways. He is God, and we should be .content to allow Him to operate in a divine manner. We may speak of an experience-of-God continuum tl~at runs from reasoned conclusions about Him (the weak. end of the continuum or spec-trum) ~,to the face'to,face vision of Him in. glory (the strong end). In be-tween we can locate the poetic, ,artistic and infused mystical experi~n(es, In this article I shall be concerned chiefly with the last, the divinely originated, mystical encounters with our God revealed in Christ. We need to emphasize that the experience of which we speak here comes from God, not from what we do or feel or will. It is not our idea which we like and and then baptize as being His idea. When God speaks, it is God who speaks. b) What does one experience when he experiences God? ~ Divine ~xperience is not one sole awareness. The reality is rich and is expressed in many ways, each of which brings out an element or emphasis found in the whole. I wiil distinguish and number these elements not to The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 167 separate them but to clarify the richness. Our usual human way of under-standing is through concepts ,and distinctions. One who is impatient with reasonable distinctions does not understand that he could not utter his sentence of objection except by distinguishing each word of it from every other word. In what follows, however, we must understand that the reality is not a series of chopped up pieces but a flowing whole of diverse strands and richness. 1) PRESENCE-AWARENESS. The experience oLGod includes an aware-ness, a sense of His divine presence. One is aware that God is with him, be-fore him, at his'right hand (Ps 16:8). The Holy Spirit is given to "be with" the disciple of the Lord (Jn 14:15-17), and Jesus' name is Emmanuel, God-with-us (Mt 1:23). He promises to be with His disciples all days, even to the end of the world (Mt 28:20). One who loves possesses an abiding presence of God within himself (I Jn 4:16). We shall see further on how the mystics elaborate on this presence-awareness. 2) ~ SPIRITUAL AWARENESS: SENSE-LIKE BUT NOT SENSE-LIKE. Because God is purest Spirit no .one can attain Him through sense knowledge. Yet Scripture is not reluctant to use sense knowing to bring out the reality and richness of a divine-human encounter. We are to taste and see for ourselves the goodness of God (Ps 23:8). Jeremiah felt an inner touch, a burning in his being (Jer 20:9). Paul speaks of the fragrance of Jesus' offering (Eph 5:2). The Song of Songs refers to the hearing of a voice (Song 2:14). The mystics repeatedly refer to the five senses to explain a deep meeting with God. St.-Augustine,~offers a classical example when in the Conjessions he brilliantly denies that a profound experience of,God is sense-like but then immediately turns around and affirms that there is a sense-likeness in it: ~' Not with doubtful but with sure knowledge do 1 love you, O Lord. By your Word you have transfixed hay heart, and I have loved you . What is it then that I love when I love you?'Not bodily beauty, and not temporal glory, 'not the clear shining light, lovely as it is to our eyes, not the sweet melodies of 0many-moded songs, not the soft smell of flowers and: ointments, and per-fumes, not manna and honey, not limbs made for the body's embrace, not these do I love when I love my God. Yet 1 do love a certain light, a certain voice, a certain odor, a certain food, a certain embrace when I love my God: a light, a voice, an odor, a food, an embrace for the man within me, where his light, which no place can contain, floods into my soul; where he utters words~that time does not speed away; where he sends forth an aroma that no wind can scatter; where he provides food that no eating can lessen; where he so clings that satiety does not sunder us. This is what I love when I love my God.4 St. John of the Cross at one time uses music to suggest how a person can "hear" God in His creation: "Creatures will be for the soul a-harmonious 4Con[essions, Ryan translation, Image edition, Bk 10, c. 6. 168 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 symphony of sublime music surpassing all concerts . She calls this music 'silent' because it is tranquil and quiet . There is in it the sweetness of music and the quietude of silence.'''~ At another~ time the saint describes the experience of God as a fragrance: "Sometimes the fragrance is so abundant that it seems to the soul she is clothed with delight and bathed in inestimable glory.'''~ While both the biblical writers and the. later mystics know well that God is infinitely beyond our realm of sensation, yet they speak in this fashion in order to bring out the reality of the experience of God and the richness of it. 3) NEW K.NOWINO, D.IVINE AND DARK. When one advances into a depth relationship with God he grows in knowing his Lord without knowing how he knows. He perceives this hidden God in darkness (Is 45:15), and yet the Son manifests Himself to the person who loves and keeps His word (Jn 14:21). The Father, says St. Paul, radiates in our minds His own glory, the glory that shines on the face of Jesus (2 Co 4:6). Angela of Foligno observed that the more the supreme Good is seen in darkness the more does one know He surpasses all goods~ Listening to the Spirit, there-fore, does not usually mean listening to a clear message. God does not dictate idle details about one's friends, family, enemies, oneself. The man or woman listening to the Holy Spirit is learning most of all about the three divine persons, darkly beautiful. 4) YEARNING FOR GOD. God often speaks a thirsting for Himself into the human person. It is a thirsting that purifies the recipient for deeper union and love, a thirsting that widens capacity and "bestows humilityi The psalmist seeks and thirsts like parched earth (Ps 63:1) or like the deer panting after the running waters (P~ 42:1-2). Isaiah longs for his Lord and keeps vigil for Him through the night (Is 26:8-9). St. Augustine sighs for God day and night,r All available evidence indicates that the Holy Spirit communicates this divine thirst far more frequently than He does concrete messages that satisfy curious eyes and itching ears. God. has nothing better to say than Himself. That is why in the incarnation the Father spoke His Word into the world of human flesh. When one listens to the Father, he hears mostly the Son. 5) PEACE AND COMFORTING. Our God is a healing God, a God who l(~ves and therefore comforts us in~ all our sorrows (2 Co 1:3-4), a God who gives a peace that surpasses understanding (Ph 4:7), a G~)d who re-freshes the wearied soul and gives rest (Jr 31 ~25-26; Mt 11:28). While our own selfishness begets conflict and factions (Ga 5:19-21), what the Spirit r'Spiritual .Canticle, Stanzas 14-15, #25; I am using here The Collected Works o[ St, John o] the Cross, translated by Kieran Kavan~augh, O.C;D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D., New York, 1964, p. 472. ~lbid., Stanza 17, #7; p. 480. rConfessions, Bk 7, c. 10. The Spirit Speaks." When and How? / 169 brings.is very different: love, peace, harmony. (Ga 5:22). The Hebrew shalom was not a mere absence of conflict. It implied a fullness, a rich integrity, something akin to our word, prosperity. God speaks peace, shalom, to his people. His word makes individuals and communities inte-gral, whole, loving. 6) INPOURED LOVE. The divine gift par excellence is love: "the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (Rm 5:5) Those who divide the community into factions, who disregard their leaders are not listening to the Spirit who brings unity (1 Co 12:12-13; Ep 4:3-6) and an obedience to those overseers whom he Himself has placed to rule the Church of God (Ac 20:28). This love is a sign of the genuine disciple, one who loves as the Lord Himself loves (Jn 13:34-35). The Spirit speaks love (Ga 5:22). 7) UNION-POSSESSION-BURNING. This love of the Holy Spirit centers especially.on the three divine persons and it grows to a point where it can overwhelm one (2 Co 5: 14). It.can make one's heart.burn: "there seemed-to be a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones," said Jeremiah. "The effort to restrain it wearied me, I could not bear it." (Jr 20:9) The disciples on the road to Emmaus felt this burning as they listened to the word of the risen Kyrios (Lk 24:32), and the mystics commonly speak of it. Augustine~could write of being set. on fire for God by the psalms and of burning to repeat them.s Further on he declared that love was his gravity: "By your gift we are enkindled, and we are borne upwards. We glow with inward fire, and we go on. We asc(nd steps within the heart, and we sing a gradual psalm. By Your fire, by. Your good fire, we glow with inward fire:'''~ St. John of the Cross could speak simply of the perfect "who burn gently in God.''1" Once again we emphasize that when God speaks it is not a narration of idle details that satisfy curious expectations. God mostly speaks love. ~ 8) BEAUTY OF GOD AND JOY IN HIM. The experience of God is a growing perception of His goodness and beauty. We are to taste and see for ourselves how good He is (Ps 34:8). The one thing, the top-priority sought by the psalmist is to°dwell in the Lord's house all the days Of his life and thus to "gaze on the beauty of the Lord" (Ps 27:4). Augustine puts this in his own inimitable language: "All things are beautiful because You made them, but You who made all things are inexpressibly more beautiful . Too late have I loved You, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved You!TM Our joy is to become so deep that it is radiant (Ps 34:5), complete (Jn 15:11), unending (Jn 16:22),.always and every- 81bid., Bk 9, c. 4. '°1bid., Bk 13, c. 9. 1°Dark Night of the Soul, Bk 2, c. 20, :~4; p. 337. 11Confessions, Bk 13, c. 20 and Bk 10, c. 27. 170 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 where (Ph 4:4), beyond description (I P 1:8). This, too, the Bishop of Hippo heard from the indwelling Lord: ",Sometimes You admit me," he said, "in my innermost being into a most extraordinary affection, mounting within me to an indescribable delight, If this is perfected in me, it will be something, I know not what, that will not belong to this slife.''r-' This'is what the Lord God especially speaks, and this is what they hear who deeply listen. 9) POWER, STRENGTH, FREEDOM. God speaks 'not only words but power itself.-It would seem correct to say that worded communications from Him are~comparatively rare, while bestowals of power and freedom . are comm.on, common that is to people who are mature in prayer. Paul came to the Corinthians not with human philosophy but with the power of God (1 Co 2:5). He explains that God,s kingdom.does not consist only of words--it~is power (1 Co 4:20). The apostle himself experiences "an overwhelming power" from the Father (2 Co 4:7). All he wants to know is Christ and the power of His resurrection (Ph 3:10). This power is a liberating dynamism: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom" (2 Co 3:|7). c) Implications of the biblical account. Perhaps the most striking note of this New Testament picture of how God speaks is that He does not ordinarily speak specifics. It is true that public persons or those closely related to them do occasionally receive particularized directions. This is true, for example, of Peter (Ac 10:9-16), Cornelius (Ac 1'0:3-6), the "Council of Jerusalem" (Ac 15:28), Paul (Ac 9:3-6: Ga 2:2; 2 Co 12:8-9), Ananias (Ac 9:10-16). In the Christic economy when specific divine messages are given, they must be submitted to human authorities. This has long been the practice of spiritual directors and it is rooted in revelation itself. Even St~ Paul sought the .approval of the "leading men" in Jerusalem for the mission he had received directly from the risen Jesus (Ga 2:2, 6, 10). The New Testament gives no. com-fort to visionaries who deem themselves exempt from any structural guidance. What God usually does speak to the ordinary person is inner trans-formation. He speaks goodness in a general manner. He speaks his pres-ence ~. spiritual awareness., divine-dark knowing of himself., yearn-ing for his presence . . . peace and comfort . . , inpoured love . . . union-possession- burning., beauty and joy . . . power and freedom. This may come as a ,surprise to devotees of private revelations~ but it does not surprise experienced spiritual directors. Those who listen to God most genuinely are not those who believe they have received many detailed messages, but rather those whose minds have been fillhd with everything true, noble, good, pure, virtuous, worthy of praise (Ph 4:8). r"Ibid,, Bk 10, c. 40. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 171 Further Development, s: St. ~Iohn of the Cross While Sacred Scripture is rich in its variegated ways of dealing with the experience of God, it does leave, us with the need to unfold the richness further. We ,may therefore ask several qi~estions. Does the Holy Spirit speak in varying degrees of intensity? If so, what are they like? Does He add His own peculiar light to our human reasonings and searchings? If so, how does this happen? Can we know when it .happens? Is it possible to be mistaken regarding a genuine communication from ,13od? Were the saints ever mistaken? What does one do if he thinks (or is even convinced) that God has enlightened him in some specific way? In looking through a considerfible amount of the literature produced on these questions rI can think of no one more competent to respond to our questions than St. John of the Cross. That this Carmelite saint experienced the deepest, most magnificent encounters with the ,living God is beyond debate. If anyone~ has known what knowledge through infused love is all about, John has. If anyone has been capable of analyzing and synthesizing the sundry, elements in the experience of God:in all their varieties and de-grees, John has. If any mere man or woman has listened to the Spirit, John has. We shall, therefore, take this theologian of mysticism as our guide. In an area in which the Spirit-structure tension in the Church occupies center stage we need a master. "' Types of Communication God does not speak to,man as man speaks to man. He speaks as God; and consequently we should be wary Of our preconceived ideas as to how the communication ought to be carried: off. Moreover, He does not speak in one way only. Nor should we assume that His speaking is always unmis-takable: The indwelling God leads us into all truth (Jn 14:26; 16:13) in diverse ways and degrees. St. John.~of the Cross discusses these ways and degrees under the caption of what he calls supernatural locutions.13 It seems to me that this expression, "supernatural ,locution," is equivalent to what we mean in saying that the Holy Spirit speaks to us. John's'"locution" is a type of "apprehension," a knowing.It is a type that is "produced in the souls of spiritual persons without the use of :the bodily senses as means."14~,These are not sensory orqmaginary visions. They are "produced," that is, received from God. One does not originate the locution. God speaks and enlightens. Man receives. The saint reduces the many ways in which God speaks to three types. There are, in order of ascending value (and using the saint's terminology), a.~See Ascent o] Mt Carmel, Bk 2, cc. 28-31. 141bid., c. 28; p. 203. 172 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 successive locutions, formal locutions and substantial locutions. I will speak of them in my own language as well as John's. a) Assisting enlightenment (successive locutions). This .first type of divine speaking always occurs when one is "recollected and attentively absorbed" in some thought process. The.,enlightenment al-ways concerns the subject on which one is meditating?~' During this time, says John, the person is united with the truth and with 'the Holy Spirit who is in every truth, and yet he is thinking, reasoning in the usual, human man-ner. The Spirit aids him in forming his concepts and judgments. There is so great a clarity and ease in this activity thatqt seems another is teaching him, as indeed is the case. In this communion with :the. indwelling Spirit about a particular matter the person goes on to "form interiorly and suc-cessively other truths.''1' John supposes that this enlightenment occurs dur-ing prayer, that is, while one "is '!recollected" and "communing with the. divine Spirit?' It seems, therefore, that this type of speaking does not usually occur in dialogue sessions but in the midst of prayerful communion. The recipient of this assisting enlightenment "is unable to believe" that it originates with himself, but he has the awareness that it derives from another. And yet the knowledge received (it cannot be. attained by personal industry) is so delicate that the natural intellect by its own activity "easily disturbs and undoes" it.lr This point is important. Even when God does speak in this manner, he does not exclude our human activities with all their limitations, preconceptions, biases, errors. Even when he enlightens, he' permits men and women to be what they as a matter of fact are, fallen men and women--redeemed, yes, but still wounded and. deficient. We may conclude that this assisting enlightenment is not merely human reason proceeding under its own steam and deriving from the Holy Spirit only in the sense that anything true and good derives from him. The divine speaking is something over and above the gift ,of native intelligence, even though in the successive locution lit works closely with that intelligence, b) Independent-ideational speaking (formal locutions). Whereas the assisting enlightment occurs only when one. is prayerfully meditative, this divine speaking can happen at any time. In the first the locution accompanies human activity, while in the second it is uttered in-dependently of what the recipient is doing: "They are received as though one person were speaking to another.'''8 One may receive this locution while he is working, conversing; playing or praying. "Sometimes these words are very explicit and at other times not. They are like ideas spoken to the l~'lbid;, c. 30, #1; p. 208. ae'lbid., c. 29, #1; p. 204. ~rlbid., c. 32, #4; p. 213. aSlbid,, c. 30, #2; p. 208. The Spirit Speaks." When and How? / 173 spirit. At times only one word is spoken, and then again more than one; . . .-19 Although the recipient is clearly aware that this locution comes from another and thus has no reasonable doubt abou~ the otherness of origin, he can only too easily be deceived aSotO who this other is. It may be God or it may be the devil,o-" and the discernment is not always easy. Of this I shall speak later. c) Dynamic-effective speaking (substantial locution). It is now well known that the Hebrew idea of word, dabar, was not a mere intellectual representation of reality but a dynamic power. Just as the rain and snows come down from the heavens and produce food, so God's word comes down and achieves its effects (Is 55:10-11)~ The divine ~ord acts; it does things. It is like fire and a hammer that sunders rocks (Jr ,23:29). It is active, alive; it judges, divides and cuts like a two-edged sword (Heb 4: 12). Yahweh's word alone caused all creation to be (Gn 1 and 2). Jesus' words are spirit and life (Jn 6:63). This dynamic-effective speaking (substantial locution) is not merely an assisting enlightenment (the first manner) nor an ideational speaking (~the second manner). It is a powerful producing-in-the-soul of what it says. St. John of the Cross calls this communication substantial because it im-presses its meaning in the very substance of the recipient's being. The word does what it says. "For example," notes the saint, "if our Lord should say formally to the soul: 'Be good,'oit would immediately be substantially good; or if He should say: 'Love Me,' it would:at once have and experience. within itself the substance of the love of God; or if He should say to a soul in great fear: 'Do not fear,, it would without delay feel ample fortitude and tranquillity.''zx These dynamic~effective communications are the most excellent for several .reasons. One is that deceit, is impossible, since the devil cannot pro-duce this .goodness within one. Another is that these locutions impart "incomparable blessings" of life and goodness to the person who receives them. There is consequently nothing to fear or to reject. The recipient need do nothing about them "because God never grants them for that purpose, but He bestows them in order to accomplish Himself what they express.'':2 Divine Message and Human Fallibility We approach now a problem whose solution is anything but apparent. As a matter of fact it appears on the surface that the union of two factual 191bid. o-°ibid., c. 30, #3-5. °-1Ibid., c. 31, #1; p. 210. °'°'Ibid., c. 31, #2; p. 210. 174 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 premises is impossible. Fact number one: God does speak to certain men and women and He speaks with unfailing truth. Fact number two: these same men and women are often (not just rarely) mistaken in what they hear or think they hear or in what ihey conclude from what they hear, We immediately wonder what the sense of fact number one would' be, given the existence of fact number two. Why would or should God speak to people who often are mistaken in what they hear? One answer to this question is obvious on a momentrs reflection. A fruitful source of error in this area is a simple mistaking of the source of the locution. People often think they are listening to the Spirit when lie is .not speaking at all--or at least He is not saying what they think He is saying. We may not hold God responsible for what He did not say. Yet a problem remains: even when God does speak, the r.ecipient may either not hear or distort what~ he did hear or conclude invalidly from it. Why, then, should God speak when this may be the likely result? One response is identical to what we would say about any human speaking to a fellow human: failure to hear or distortion of the statement or invalid conclusion are always possible. Anyone who has lectured knows this from personal experience. It is remarkable how many people do not hear what you have said (or read what you have written). Yet we do not for that reason cease :speaking or writing. God .speaks to His people for the same reason we do: many do hear, and hear rightly. A lecturer or writer admit-_ tedly takes risks in sharing his thoughts publicly. He knows some will miss the message, while others wittingly or unwittingly will twist it. Yet he also knows that others will hear rightly. God loves us so much that He 'al-lows some to distort His word so that He may communicate intimately with those who will not. There are two reasons according to St. John of the Cross why a divine communication, even when perfectly authentic, can be the occasion for the recipient to be misled regarding it. The first reason is our crude way of understanding the divine mind. Explaining why not all revelations turn out as we expect them to turn out, that is, in their literal sense, the saint notes one reason to be that "since God is immense and profound, He usually embodies in His prophecies, locutions, and revelations other ways, con-cepts and ideas remarkably different from the meaning we generally find in them. And the surer and more truthful they are, the less they seem so to us."'-'~ The saint goes on to illustrate our usual "extremely literal method" with biblical examples. In making His covenant with Abram the Lord God promised that he would give the patriarch a new land. The latter understood this literally of his own personal possession and inquired what the sign of it would be (Gn 15:7-8). However, Abram died before .his possessing the land and "~.~lbid., c. 19, #1; p. 163. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 175 so one might have supposed' the divine promise mistaken. But it is the supposition that was mistaken .because it was based on a literal under-standing. Abram was given this land in his descendants as was explained a few verses further on (vv. 18-19). When God's people read that the Messiah was to rule from sea to sea, that His foes would bow down before him and lick the dust of the earth (Ps 72:8-9), they had a true prophecy but they misunderstood His rule to be temporal, whereas it was inner and eternal. So also the disciples on the road to Emmaus were reproved by the risen Lord for being dull and slow in failing to understand what the prophets had announced concerning the Messiah (Lk 24:25). St. John of the Cross concludes~ that "evidently, then, ~even though the words and revelations be from God, we cannot find assurance in them, since in our understanding of. them we can easily be deluded, and extremely so.''24 If this could happen in biblical times with genuine divine communications, it surely can happen in our times. The Carmelite points out that in divine words "God always refers to the more important and profitable meaning,'''5 whereas we tend to see in those same words something less important,' something perhaps merely temporal, even trivial or selfish. This is why the man of the flesh, to use Pauline terminology, the worldly man, cannot (not simply, does not) understand the things of God.(1 Co 2:14). He is too materialistic, too crass, too literal to grasp the divine meaning. One must undergo a con-version, get rid of his worldliness, says Paul, in order to come to know the perfect will of God (Rm 12:2). The second reason why an authentic divine communication can be mis-applied by the recipient is that God's judgment may be~conditional, and that without the knowledge of the human person. God's word or promise may so depend on some contingent event that when that event does or does not occur, so also the divine degree does or does not take~ effect. John cites Jonah's proclamation that Nineveh shall be destroyed in forty days (Jon 3:4). Yet the city was not destroyed because the people repented and did penance: The cause of the decree, human sin, was removed by penitence and so was the decree itself. They especially who do not understand the unfathomable abysses of the divine mind easily suppose they do understand. John of the Cross, who surely experienced God as few others have, supposed otherwise: "Be-lieve me," he concluded, "a person cannot completely grasp the meaning of God's locutions and deeds, nor can he determine this by appearances without extreme error and bewilderment.~''z5 Z4lbid., c. 19, #10; p. 167. God does not necessarily prevent even a genuine mystic from being mistaken in his understanding of an authentic communication. z~Ibid., c. 19, # 12; p. 168. ~ Z~lbid., c. 20, #6; p. 171. 176 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Assisting Enlightenment and Human Fallibility What we have thus far considered regarding the divine message and human fallibility St. John of the Cross applies to visions as well as to locu-tions. We may now turn our attention specifically to what he calls suc-cessive locutions and I have termed God's assisting enlightenments. When the Holy Spirit aids us in prayerful pondering, is it likely that we can be mistaken in our conclusions? In itself the light of the Spirit can never be mistaken. He who is the tyuth can do nothing but illumine with the truth. However, the light He bestows is often so delicate and lofty that it leaves considerable room for human activity. And when we have room for human activity, we have room for error--unless there be a special divine intervention as is the case with the charism of infallibility given to the Church herself. The possibility of error is present especially in what we deduce and conclude from the divine enlightenment. The light of the Holy Spirit, says John, "is often so delicate and spiritual that the intellect does not succeed in ~being completely in-formed by it; and it is the intellect that of its own power, as we stated, forms the propositions. Consequently the statements are often false, or only apparent, or defective.'':~ This is important. Many of us seem to assume that "listening to the SpirW' means listening to neat, specific conclusions that God somehow inserts into the mind. And we further assume that if we have .an idea we think good it must be He who inserted it. Not so. That sort of neat "formu-lation- insertion" I would call an extraordinary private revelation, not a usual assisting enlightenment. In the latter case it is we who draw the conclusion, and it may be true or untrue, wise or unwise, loving or unloving. History bears out the solidity of this analysis. All through the ages there have been men and women who have expressed a profound conviction that their messages, even the most bizarre and untenable messages, have been spoken by God Himself. They seem not to suspect that they have them-selves contributed anything to their conclusions. John was able to write of this problem in terms that may startle us by their relevance: "I greatly fear what is happening in these times of ours: If any soul whatever after a bit. of meditation has in its recollection one of these locutions (succes-sive), it will immediately baptize all as coming from God and with such a supposition say, 'God told me,' 'God answered me.' Yet this is not so, but, as we pointed out, these persons themselves are more often the origin of their locution.''-~ P. de Letter is of the same mind. Remarking that even genuine charismatics can add human particulars of time and place to an authentic divine message, he notes that "they themselves are generally ~-Tlbid., c. 29, #3; p. 204. '-'Slbid., c. 29, #4; p. 204. The Spirit Speaks." When and How? / 177 unable to make a distinction between the divine and human elements."~"' A. Poulain and K. Rahner speak of the commonness of,human errors added to divine communications.:'" At this point one may ask how our intellect may be more completely informed by the light of God and thus be less subject to its proclivity to adulterate the delicate divine light with its own human shortsightedness. The answer is gospel goodness in general and the light of deep ., faith in particular. According to St. Paul the only way to attain to God's mind and know His perfect will is to put aside worldliness and.undergo conversion (Rm 12:2). The judgment of St. John of the Cross is the same: "The purer and.more refined a soul is in faith, the more infused .charity it possesses, and the more charity it has the more'the Holy Spirit illumines it and com-municates His gifts, because charity is the means by which they are com-municated,'''~' We see the truth of this in everyday life. Simple people of much love far surpass unloving intellectuals in basic wisdom. Diverse Origins of "Inner Lighls" There is yet another aspect to our problem, namely the origin of the enlightenment. Thus far we have supposed the light to come from God. Our theology of discernment of spirits speaks in the plural: spirits. St. John is of like mind. "Manifestly, then, these successive locutions can originate in the intellect from any of three causes: the divine Spirit, Who moves and illumines the intellect; the natural light of the intellect; and the devil who can speak to it through suggestion.":"-' While ~most people are willing to grant that .their own biases and preferences may suggest ideas to their minds, a goodly number may me~ely smile at the suggestion that the devil may be their origin. Even though this is not the place to adduce the ample biblical and magisterial evidences for diabolical reality and activity, it may be useful to point out that we do not pick and choose among, the data of divine revelation. Sound exegesis by all means. But nonetheless one accepts the whole Christ message or he shows that his criterion of acceptance or not is his own judgment rather than the divine word. After a review of biblical evidences, the Scripture scholar, Leopold Sabourin, concludes that "whoever reads"the New Testament with-out pr.econceptions or myth phobia should easily agree" that there is clear evidence of the existence of a personal hostile power and that this is an essential element in New Testament teaching. Sabourin also refers to e:,p. de Letter, New Catho'lic Encyclopedia, 12:446-447. .~oSee their works~ respectively Graces o[ Interior Prayer and Visions attd Prophecies. I also have touched on this point in "The Problematics of Discernment," Spiritual Li[e, Summer, 1974, pp. 135-147. .~lSt. John of the Cross, Ascent o] Mt Carmel, Bk 2, c. 29, #6; p. 205. .~-lbid., c. 29, :~ 11; p; 206. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Lyonnet's judgment regarding St. Paul's assertions on the devil: "To con-clude from these passages that Satan is for the Apostle a pure personifica-tion of the forces of evil would be to contradict as a whole the biblical and Pauline doctrine.''33 Our best theologians'write in the same vein. "The existence of angels," observes Karl Rahner, "cannot be disputed in view of the conciliar declarations (D 428, 1783). Consequently it will be firmly maintained that the existence of angels and demons is affirmed in Scripture and not merely assumed as a hypothesis which we could drop today.''34 If inner enlightenment may originate in other than divine sources, the question of discernment immediately arises. Can we know in a trustworthy manner the origin of our inner lights? Does the Spirit make Himself known? How do we detect Him? Whaf would be the signs of His activity as dis-tingnished from diabolical ,activity? Scripture, and especially the New Testa-ment, says so much about these questions that a mere article could not be adequate to report it all. Even less can a part of this article suffice. I may touch, however, only briefly on a number of considerations. Testing of the Spirits Jesus Himself leads the way to the later New Testament insistence that the spirits must be tested by the structural elements in the Chui'ch. The signal importance of this testing occurs, for example, in His prayer for Simon Peter. Significantly, this prayer centers on disturbances among the faithful caused by Satan. And the disturbances occur in the area of faith commit-ment. Jesus prays that after Peter's conversion he will strengthen his brothers and keep them firm despite satanic influences: "Simon, Simon! Remember that Satan has asked for you, to sift you all like wheat. But have prayed for you that your faith may n~ver fail. You in turn must strengthen your brothers" (Lk 22:31-32 NAB).3~ Jesus' prayer is always efficacious: what he prays for happens. Thus Peter's service in the Church is an effective faith service. While the devil does his best to disturb and dis-rupt, Peter tests him, unmasks him, overcomes him, protects the brothers and sisters in: their commitment to the Lord. It is obvious that Peter can confirm and strengthen in the faith only those who accept and listen to him. God forces no one. This is why St. Ignatius of Loyola, a leading figure in the history of discernment practice, considered the Successor of Peter the first tester of spirits and thus the last word on earth. This is why Ignatius (and other saints are of like mind) did not consider an important ~aLeopold Sabourin, "The Miracles of Jesus (II). Jesus and the Evil Powers," Biblical Theology Bulletin, June, 1974, p. 153. 34"Angels," Sacramentum Mundi, I : 32. aSSee Raymond E. Brownl Karl P. Donfried and John Reumann, editors, Peter in the New Testament, pp. 119-125. The Spirit Speaks." When and How? / 179 discernment process c.omplete until the Holy Father had approved the communal decision Ignatius and his companions had reached. St. Paul himself who received a direct commission from the risen Jesus nonetheless submitted his work to "the leading men" in Jerusalem to obtain their approval (Ga 2:2). Outer testing of the inner spirits is absolutely crucial if authentic enlight-enment is to be kept free of illuminist counterfeits and their bizarre conse-quences. o~Whatever else may be said about the illuminist, there is no doubt that no one can correct him. He is so sure of his privileged access to the mind of God that no other, not even Peter, can successfully point out to him that he is straying. Yet the very Spirit who speaks in our inner hearts has Himself established the outer structure to test the inner message. "Keep watch over yourselves," said Paul to the overseer-bishops of Ephesus, "and over the whole flock the Holy Spirit has given you to guard.' Shepherd the Church of God . . ." (Ac-20:28). The saints instinctively live this principle. St. Teresa of Avila, for example, a woman clearly led by the Spirit, strongly desired that, her works be examined and corrected and approved. Reaction Patterns It is interesting to observe the widely differing reactions people preseiat to the allegations that the Holy Spirit has spoken to someone or that He commonly enlightens from.within. We can speak of a reaction spectrum. At one end of it are those who ridicule the whole idea. They may be theists;~' but they just do not accept that God says anything particular to anyone. The objectivity of divine revelation is enough for them (though they may forget that the prophets and apostles had subjective experiences of God), .and so they look upon the charismatic renewal as a subjective enthusiasm. These people would probably pass up the present article because the title of-it indicates that the Holy Spirit does speak to men and women today. At the other end of the spectrum are those who readily believe that the Holy Spirit speaks. The~e people believe that ,He speaks often and that it is easy. to be in touch with Him. They tend to be uncritical and so are easily persuaded that their thoughts and desires and aspirations derive from God Himself. They would probably be attracted b3~ the title of this article but would tend to reject what I have said about the errors and illusions that abound in much of alleged "listening to God." Thus our subject is a touchy one. The Church's position lies somewhere in the midst of the two extremes of nothing or all. There are valid experi-ences of God and they are to be valued. He does enlighten those who are purified sufficiently to perceive His light. But there are also illusory experi-ences that are nothing more than unfounded persuasions. These can be found among people who are convinced that God is speaking to them, when as a matter of fact nothing of the sort is happening. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 Practical Suggestions Supposing then that they are sons of God who are led by the Spirit of God (Rm 8:14), and yet that all things are to, be tested (1 Th 5:19-22), we may ask what this biblical position requires in everyday life. How does one tread the path of the golden mean between two extremes? 1 ) Hard-nosed evidence. While we should value the divine interven-tions in everyday life, we should not suppose them unless the biblical con-ditions are fulfilled. We do not presume, for example, that a proud or vain person is listening to the Spirit. Jesus has made it clear that the Father does not reveal His mysteries to the conceited but only to the little ones (Lk 10:21). A competent spiritual director looks for gospel holiness before he accepts that his client is "listening to the Spirit." This is why for centuries knowledgeable priests have discounted alleged divine phenomena in proud or disobedient people. Those who reject the outer word cannot be hearing the inner word. God does not contradict Himself. 2) No finite idea expresses God adequately and "thus we ought not to cling to it. One of the most valuable contributions offered by St. John of the Cross to this question of listening to God's voice can be missed even in a careful study of his work. It is that the most important element in most di-vine communications is not the clear idea, the detailed course of action to be followed. It is the love-penetrated touch of the divine in dark faith, a touch that itself communicates humility, love, prayer, strength, peace, joy. The most valuable gift God can communiqate to anyone is Himself, and He is no thing, no idea, no pattern of action. The Love Who is God is poured out0into our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who is given to us (Rm 5:5). Once we understand this we have gone a long way in understanding .John's severity in making so little of locutions and visions. The~saint recommends that the recipient of divine communications pay little attention to them, because if he gets attached to them, he feeds on them rather than on God.36 One likewise' begins to consider himself especially favored by God and,to look down on others who, in his opinion, do not enjoy this same enlighten-ing by the Spirit. The attachment can become a stubborn refusal to listen to anyone who may disagree because "I am listening to God." Clinging .to a finite communication, this person fails "to soar to the heights of dark faith.''3~ And in pilgrimage it is only in faith that we journey to the father-land (Heb 11"13-16). 3) Little attention is to be given to inner communications. I suspect that many people are surprised if not shocked at the attitude St. John of .~6The total renunciation demanded by Jesus is applicable here: "Unless a man re-nounce all he possesses he cannot be My disciple." (Lk 14".33) Even an idea about God is not God. '~rSt. John of the Cross, Ascent o] Mt Carmel, Bk 2, c. 18, #2; p. 160. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 181 the Cross takes toward inner enlightenments. He repeatedly advises the recipient to pay little attention, even no attention to them. The saint is so strong on this point that unless one is well acquainted with his whole teaching and life, he might conclude that John scarcely believed that God does communicate with the human person. Yet the saint, deeply believed in this .communication and in his own person enjoyed the very loftiest favors. Because his teaching is surprising to many of us, it may be well to offer here"a summation of it. We may first see two examples typical of the saint's statements of rejection, and then we will consider several reasons for the advice. Speaking of imaginative visions or "other supernatural communi-cations" received by the senses and independent of one's free will, John asserts 'q affirm that at whatever time or season (in the state of perfection or one less perfect) an individual must not desire to give them admittance, even though they.come from.God.''~s Later on in the same work as he discusses successive locutions the saint again says that "we should pay no heed to them, but be . . . content with knowing the mysteries and truths in~- the simplicity and verity~ with which the Church proposes them.'':''' This advice admittedly runs counter to what most of us. would expect. We would think that if God speaks,, we should pay attention, close atten-~ tion. We would consider a rejection of.the communication an insult to the speaker of it. Why is ~John (and other saints) of this mind? The first reason is the likelihood of illusion, deception. St. John o[ the Cross would surely agree that when God speaks, we listen carefully. This is precisely why the saint clings so tenaciously to Scripture and the teaching Church. Public revelation is sure and free from illusion and so is the teach-ing of the divinely commissioned Church, pillar of truth (l Tm 3:15). Private revelation is often not sure, that is, what is commonly thought to be revealed by God is not revealed at all. St. Paul was of this mind. He told the Galatians in no uncertain terms that even if .an.angel from heaven were to teach them something contrary to what they learned from human lips, they were to reject it (Ga 1:6-9). In other words, Paul was saying that such private "~revelation" was not revelation from God at all. When one pays much attention to "communications" he leaves the sure path of faith for the unsure path of "what 1 heard, what I received, what I see." History tells a 10ng and sad tale of the illusions that abound in this second path. Secondly, p,eop.le who are much concerned with God speaking within tend to neglect clear duties without. "On judgment day," says our Carmelite guide, "God will punish the faults and sins of many with whom He com-muned familiarly here below and to whom He imparted much light and 3Slbid., c. 17, #7; p. 158.- :~.~lbid., c. 29, -#:12; p. 207. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 power. For they neglected their obligations and trusted in their converse with Him.''.'° John then illustrates his idea with. the words of Jesus, "When that day comes, many will plead with Me, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name? Have we not exorcised demons by its power? Did we not do many miracles in Your name as well?' Then I will declare to them solemnly, 'I never knew you. Out of my sight, you evildoers!' " (Mt 7:22~23). Doing the Father's will (Mt 7:21) is more important than receiving special .favors from God. St. Paul repeats this truth when he tells the Corinthians that their most marvelous charisms (including the gifts of healing, miracles, tongues) are of,no value without love (1 Co 13:1-3). The Carmelite explains how spiritual directors shouldguide people in faith, not in supposed special communications. These directors "should explain how one act done in charity is more precious in God's sight than all the visions and communications possible--since they imply n~ither m~rit nor demerit--and how many who have not received these experiences are in-comparably .more advanced than others who have had many.''~1 This last remark is both sobering and comforting. A third reason is a core reason. I have said above that the deepest value in a. divine communication does not lie in clear concepts or blueprints for future action. It lies in a deeper drinking of the divine, a drinking that is general, dark, non-ceptual, love-immersed. If a person pays much atten-tion to the clear words or ideas he has "heard" at prayer, he is absorbed in finite particulars rather than with the God who ,is infinitely beyond even the best concept. In pilgrimage we' journey to God best not in clear ideas but .in dark faith; Paying little attention to "communications" is wise, fourthly, because a subtle vanity easily seeps into persons preoccupied with "listening to the Spirit" in a self-conscious way. Like the pharisee in the parabl.e (Lk 18: 9-14) they may begin to consider themselves unlike the rest of men. Need-less to say, this attitude is not one conducive to growth in love.'~ Fifthly, giving attention to inner communications carries with it the need to discern their origin, whether they come from God, the' devil, or' one's own unrealized desires.":' While the work of discernment is. advisable for important matters, one can hardly seek out a spiritual, guide and/or engage in long prayerful study for routine everyday affairs. If one is an avid "listener to messages,", the alternatives are a preoccupation with analysis or ¯ ~Olbid., c. 22, #!5; p. 185. ~'lbid., c. 22, # 19; p. 187. ~ '~-°"They think something e~traordinary has occurred and that God his spoken, whereas in reality little more than nothing will have happened, or nothing at all, or even less than nothing. If an experience fails to engender humility, charity, mortification, holy simplicity, and silence, etc., of what value is it?" Ibid., c. 29, .#5; pp. 204-205; "albid., c. 17, #7; p. 158. ' The Spirit Speaks: When and How? an unfounded assumption that "it all comes from the Lord." Even a saint does not assume the latter. Finally, the recipient of an.authentic communication from God does not need to pay attention to it in order to derive its benefits. This many people do not realize. God produces the good effects of His communication with-out the recipient being able to prevent it. "A person," says John, "cannot hinder the goods God desires to impart, nor in fact does he do so, except by some imperfection or possessiveness.''44 By renouncing all divine communications° (and John includes visions, locutions, fragrances, pleasures, words) "a. person takes from these apprehensions only what God wants him*to take, that is, the spirit of devotion, since God gives them for no other principal reason.''4'~ The same is true of the lesser assisting enlightenment.4~ Paying little attention to inner enlightenments' is for all these reasons a sensible reaction that combines a vivid faith in the indwelling Trinity with a sober refusal to succumb to a credulous illuminism. These reasons also explain the remaining bits of practical advice. 4) Use of reason as a source ~of light. God expects us to use ordinary means~ to achieve ordinary ends. If I break a leg, he expects me to get it set by a doctor. I may pray for divine healing but not at the expense of refusing ordinary medical help. We should surely pray for divine enlightenment but not at the expense of refusing to study and consult. Where .human reason is sufficient to solve problems "usually God does not manifest such matters through visions, revelations, and locutions, because He is ever desirous that man insofar as possible take advantage of his own reasoning powers. All matters must be regulated by reason save those of faith, which though not contrary to reason transcend it.''47 This is a mystic with his feet on planet earth. 5) A divine Message needs human approval. This advice is shocking. It seems the reversal of the truth: a human message needs divine approval. A distinction is in order. When the divine message° is public, it needs no approval other than that~ required by Christ Himself. That is, it needs the acceptance of no merely human court. St. Paul explicitly declared that it made not the slightest difference to him whether any human tribunal found him worthy or not (1 Co 4:3). Yet the same apostle submits his divinely received commission from the risen Lord to the authorities in Jerusalem (Ga 2:2, 6, 10). All the more when a divine message is a private revelation must it be approved by due authority. 441bid. "t51bid., c, 17, #9; p. 159. 46"The profit produced by a successive locution will not be received from focusing one's attention on it. Through such behavior a person instead would be driving away the locution." Ibid., c. 29, #7; p. 205. ~ ~ 4"rlbid., c. 22, #13; p. 184. Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 The New Testament.consistently requires supposedly divine communi-cations to be submitted to the approval of the Lord's representatives. This we already find in the earliest,New Testament document. The gifts of the Spirit are not to be suppressed but they are to be tested (1 Th 5:1.9-22). They who want to hear Jesus must be prepared to hear~His representatives; otherwise they are rejecting Him (Lk 10:16; Jn 13:20). The heretics at the close of the first century are known to be false prophets because they refuse to listen to the leaders of the ekklesia ( 1 Jn 4: 1, 6). St. John of the Cross, therefore, is asking no more than the New Testa-ment when he teaches that one ought not to do what a locution tells him un-less he receives a human approval. The saint does not tire of insisting on this biblical point: "We must be guided humanly and visibly in all by the law of Christ the man and that of His Church and of His ministers. This is the method .of remedying our spiritual ignorances and weaknesses. One should disbelieve anything coming in a supernatural way, and believe only the teaching of Christ, the man,~as I say, and of His ministers who are men . (In the Old Testament) the people were to believe that God spoke to them through the mouth of these prophets and priests and not through their own opinion.'''s John supports his teaching from St. Paul who demanded that the Galatians set aside whatever they think an angel from heaven might say in favor of what human teachers have taught (Ga 1:6-9). In tile. work of spiritual direction I consistently find that persons who give every sign of genuine prayer development and authentic holiness in-stinctively follow this practice, The Holy Spirit gives them the inner in-clination, even a felt need to submit the apparently divine communication to a priest in whom they can confide.4'~ This inclination may be taken as a sign of a genuine communication from God, whereas its absence suggests otherwise?° This advice is, of course, consistent with all else we h~ve studied above. Christ did not establish an angelism, an invisible Church. He takes our "bodyliness". seriously. He operates now both immediately through His Holy Spirit working invisibly and mediately through His human representatives ¯ ~Slbid., c. 22, #7, 8; pp. 181-182. ~.'~"God is so content that the rule and direction of man be ihrough other men, and that a person be governed by natural reason, that He definitely does not want us to bestow entire credence upon His supernatural communications, nor be confirmed in their strength and security until they pass through this human channel of the mouth of man. As often as He reveals something to a person, He confers upon his soul a kind of inclination to manifest this to the appropriate person." Ibid., c. 22, #9; p. 1.82. .~0The saint connects this'trait with humility: "This is the trait of a humble person: he does not dare deal with God independently, nor can he be completely~ satisfied without human counsel and direction." Ibid., c. 22, :~11; p. 183. The Spirit Speaks: When and How? / 1:85 worki.ng visibly. So great is the likelihood of illusion and misinterpretation in the subjective realm that an objective evaluation is indispensable. What should be done when a competent guide is not available we consider next. 6) Competent spiritual direction. A qualified and experienced guide when faced with alleged divine communications sees them, of course, in their context. He considers the recipient's lifestyle, whether it is character-ized by love, joy, humility, detachment, obedience. The Father and the Son do not reveal themselves to the unloving and the proud (Jn 14:21; Lk 10:21). St. Paul told the Galatians that what the Spirit brings to His own is not self-indulgence or temper or fa~ctions or impurity but rather love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, self-control (Ga 5: 19-22). I find repeatedly in spiritual direction that a deep prayer life, a genuine communion with God indwelling, is invariably.accompanied by these New Testament criteria. The spiritual director usually does well not to make much of the com-munication reported to him (although he belittles neither the person nor the report). If the communication is from God, its chief good effects are already achieved. If it is not from God, the less attention paid to it the better. Religious still complain, as did St. Teresa of Avila four centuries ago, of the lack of knowledgeable spiritual directors. What should one do if he cannot find a competent guide? It is my opinion that in the area of advanc-ing prayer as also in this matter of alleged communications, no direction is preferable to probably incompetent direction. A great deal of damage can be done by well-intentioned but faulty guidance. St. John of the Cross seems to have been of the same mind. After advising that formal locutions should be manifested to "an experienced confessor or to a discreet and wise person," he adds that "if such an expert person cannot be found, it is better not to speak of these locutions to anyone, but simply pay no attention to them, for a soul can easily fall into the hands of some persons who will tear it down rather than build it up. Souls should not.discuss these locutions with just anyone, since in so serious a matter being right or wrong is of such importance.TM 7) Growth in ]aith. A pilgrimage people travels not by vison but by faith (Heb 11:13-16; 1 Co 13:12). Toward the beginning of this article we considered that when God deals with private persons (as distinguished from the publicly commissioned heralds of His revelation), He usually com-municates with them in the general know!edge of dark faith. Even when He may offer a specific message, He wants it confirmed by the appropriate human authority. The proximate means by which we are united to God is nothing finite and created. It is the adherence to God Himself revealed in His Word. The 51Ibid., c. 30, :~5; p. 209. 186 / Review lor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 stronger this clinging to Him, the more readily He communicates with the one clinging?-~ For St. Paul only the converted, the holy can detect the mind of God and know His perfect will (Rm 12:2). The more one is transformed by faith andlove the more God can pour out' additional light and love into his heart and mind. In this way we are transformed from one glory to an-other by the indwelling Spirit (2 Co 3:18). r"-"'The Holy Spirit illumines the intellect that is recollected," says John, "and He illumines it according to the mode of its recollection, and the intellect can find no better recollectt0n than in faith, and thus the Ho.ly Spirit wili not illumine it in any othei" recollection more than'in faith. The purer and more refined a soul is in faith, the more infused charity it possesses, and the more charity it has the more the Holy Spirit illumine it and communicates His gifts."lbid., c. 29, #6; p. 205. To A Benedictine Were you a dawn-rising monk in a black-robed hood Meditating in a Kansas winter wood? As you shuffled to chapel in bare, black sandals Lighting beeswax tapered candles-- Did you gaze into Christ's~bleeding eyes On His altar crucifix? And soul-long as all souls long for an unearthly Paradise As your hand touched His candlesticks? Later in your journeys all around the U.S.A.-- Did you study, thought-penetrate all people's problemed way? Did you want to reach the people when the people turned away? Did you find it very difficult sometimes to even pray? For God is ~never lost or ever far away . " But sometimes our paths seem hid and crossed, With clouds hiding tomorrowt darkening our future's way. Yet we know Redempti,on's garment must be woven By our own hands this very day, woven in Christ's design and way. Christ has a certain design, one that's yours, one that's mine, With His holy gift of time, He'll teach us to weave His way. If we don't forget to love Him, listen to what,His voice will say, He'll lift us up, overflow our cup. We'll find a brighter day. Mary Ann Putman 4422~.42nd Ave., S. West Seattle, WA 98116 Reflections on Our Congregation Sister Cecilia Murphy~ R.S.M. Sister Cecilia is Director General of the Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh. On the oc-casion of last All Souls~ Day, she reflected with her sisters on the "'many saints of our Congregation" and on the meaning of the Congregation itself. She resides at 3333 Fifth Ave.; Pittsburgh, PA 15213. We as a Congregation have some penetrating questions to answer. Among these questions are: What are we as a religious Congregation? What are we to each other? What is-our Congregational apostolic presence? What witness do we give as Sisters of Mercy? Does our life style reflect that of Christians who believe in the beatitudes and who strive, to live lives of ~simplicity? Do we feel the cost of being consecrated to God or do we dilute the suffering in our lives by compromises? Are ,we joyful people who live other-centered lives? Do we wish to grow and attracL new members? My most vital concerns about the Cqngregation center around questions like these. We must answer these questions as individuals and as a Congrega-tion. No General Director, no Council, no Policy,.Board can answer these questions. Each of us must assume the responsibility ,, to answer these ques-tions. ~ Our Decrees acknowledge the primacy of interior renewal. Are we really attentive to interior renewal? Our focus on external renewal is evident. Our external appearance,, our life style, our behavior patterns have changed greatly since 1966. What has happened to us interiorly? During the past nine years, many of us have suffered intensely from change. Through this suffering we have grown individually and as a Congregation. But, we now need to focus on some aspects~of our lives which need attention from each one of us. Personal prayer, without question, is an absolute necessity for each Sister. Never in our history .has the need for personal prayer been greater, 187 Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 and never have our distractions from prayer been greater. Prayer, as we all know, is not an obligation that we clock of[ at one-half hour periods; it is a way of life; it is a giving of ourselves to the Lord day by day despite the noises of our work and our relaxations. Why did we come to religious life? We must constantly seek to answer this question--not for some other Sister, but for ourselves. Do we as a Congregation witness to the value of prayer in our lives? Do people sense in me, an individual Sister of Mercy, that prayer is a priority? Do I ever take time for a day of retreat? Con-sidering the challenges to our life and to our spirit, these are not questions we can afford to ignore. These are questions that each of us must answer. I am firmly convinced that if we as a Congregation renew ourselves in-teriorly and face the question of personal prayer, we will not be predicting a rate of growth of one new member each year. We must be renewed in our commitment to personal prayer. Prayer presupposes some time for quiet. We live in a noisy world of TV, chatter, and many other noises, but we must remember that we need time and space for prayer. External stillness can help dispose us to God. This quiet cannot be imposed, but I ask eacfi Sister to contribute to a spirit of quiet and calm in her living situation. Thr6ugh this we can better stand before God, be ready for His word, and become more attuned to Him, more in touch with ourselves, our strengths, weaknesses, and potentialities. While we must pray alone, we must also pray together. Communal prayer t~or many Sisters is a source of concern and a disappointment. That in itself is a hopeful sign. I feel that there is a growing concern within us as a Congregation that we want and need to pray together: No one form of prayer will satisfy every Sister at all times~ But we have a right to expect communal prayer from each other. Each group of Sisters living together must continue to'be concerned and to make serious'efforts to pray together. It has been frequently said that communal prayer cannot be a forced situation, in which those who seldom communicate meet to*recite the same words. Prayer requires some union of mind and heart among its partici-pants. Thus, the need for rehewal in prayer touches on vital questions of community, of what we are to each other. By membership in the Congregation we share a bond of religious dedi-cation and a commitment to common ideals~ Sisters of our Congregation should be "special" to us even though we may not share their life Style or dress. We MUST be kind to one another. We cannot destroy each other. We must begin to 'realize that our conversations, our attitudes of hopeful-ness and joy or of complaint and negativism can cause 6thers to be strength-ened and rejoice in their vocations or to lose heart 'and wonder what re-ligious life has done for us. Our attitudes are conveyed in subtle 'ways; our words also tell others how we feel about them and what our values are. We must, if we'are to survive or deserve to survive as a Congregation, take careful account of our attitudes toward each other and toward the Congre~- Reflections on.Our Congregation / 189 gation. Catherine McAuley gave us a legacy of union and charity.Thus, we cannot spend our waking hours, our phone and table conversations gather-ing information ,about other Sisters, judging each other, and using leisure time in pettiness. There is NO time for this. We have;been called to be apostles, to spread, the "good news," to be "good news" to others. None of us, regardless of age or occupation, is exempt from this responsibility. Each of us needs to ask herself: Am I good news to others? Do Sisters consider me a strengthening factor in Congregational life? None of us has a perfect record in this regard. But let us begin again. Let us try to be more aware of our words and attitudes, more supportive of each other, not just as we do so well in times of death and sickness, but every day. Let us likewise reflect upon our attitudes to others outside the Congregation. Are we prejudiced? Are we concerned about others who lack the necessities of life? Are our values really Christian? Living religious life is not easy. It costs a great price. In the New Testa-ment we learn from Christ the cost of discipleship. He was hated, con-fronted, and crucified. He was, for all human purposes, the greatest failure the world has ever known. He did not come to bring us suffering but to teach us how to live with it. To His~ disciples He said: "Take up your cross and follow me". "Unless the seed die, it remains alone". "Un-less you deny yourself . . . " Christ did not igreach an easy message. He did not call His disciples to a life of comfort and security. He said: "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head". "the servant is not greater than his Master." It is never easy to be a disciple. It we are comfortable, satisfied and complacent, we have great cause for concern about our Con-gregation. No one who tried to fulfill the will of God did so with comfort and satisfaction. I see in our Congregation some need for each of us to reflect on the meaning of the cost of discipleship. Have I personally lost sight of who I am called to be? Have I compromised and rationalized so that I can have the best of two worlds? I cannot look at another Sister and judge what she has done. I must look at myself. When the Church abrogated the Lenten fast, she intended that we impose new personal penance upon our-selves. Do we do this? The human condition has not changed, nor has our need for self-denial. Each of us is, a sinner and the more we know of God, the more we know how sinful we are. None of us is perfect nor can we forget that we need to make conscious responses in self-denial. Catherine McAuley founded her Congregation on Calvary to serve a crucified Master. Each of us has a share in that mission by our member-ship in this Congregation. Catherine McAuley held ideals of service like: "God knows I would rather be cold and hungry than that His poor should be deprived of any consolation in our power to afford." Is this a reality in my life? Am I willing to be hungry, even occasionally, that others may eat? These are the kinds of questions we must face if we are to be true to the 190 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 spirit of Catherine McAuley. We need God desperately and we need each other desperately. We need to 'be willing to experience conversion personally and as a Congrega-tion. We must be willing to pay the price for this conversion. ~ We can and must be a tremendous potential for good in the Church and the world. We can and we must witness to each other and the world that material goods are NOT the source of our joy nor the values on which we spend our "energies. We need to reflect simplicity--not in a judgmental or self-righteous way but in a spirit of who we are called to be. We can~and we need to reflect a joy'that comes from living with Sisters of joy who belong to God and who are free to be faithful in celibate love. We must focus on what we are to each other in community, We must share not only our goods but ourselves. If we have any struggles today and. are to attract new members to our Congregation, I am convinced we must experience interior renewal and unity of purpose. We know that God is faithful and that He will help us in this. Let us unite together as a Congregation, renewed in our purpose to pursue conversion. May God grant each of us light, strength, patience, and courage so that individually and corporately we will be strengthened to spread the good news, to further God's Kingdom, to be vital Sisters of Mercy. A More Authentic Poverty Horacio de la Costa, S.J. At the time of the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, Ft. de la Costa was one of~the four General Assistants to Fr. Arrupe. Subsequent to the Con-gregation, he was able to return to his beloved historical studies and writing, center-ing on the history of the Church in the Philippines. He resides at Xavier House; P.O. Box 2722; Manila 2801; Philippines. A consideration of the D~cree on Poverty of the 32nd. General Congrega-tion of the Society of Jesus must begin with a word about its background. The General Congregation immediately preceding, the 31st, decided that Jesuit legislation on poverty should be brought into conformity with the dispositions of. Vatican II, but at the same time perceived that this would be better done not by itself but by experts reflecting on the matter over a period of time. It therefore elected what are called definitores to draw up Statutes on Poverty which would become Society law, on the authority of the General Congregation itself, upon approval of the. Superior General. In 1967¢ Father General Arrupe approved these Statutes. The 31st General Congregation had provided, further, that the 'Statutes thus adopted be submitted for review to the next General Congregation. Ac-cordingly, Father General Arrupe, having decided after the Congregation of Procurators of 1970 to convene the 32nd General Congregation, ap-pointed a study commission to go over the Statutes and ~:ecommend possi-ble improvements. Some of the delinitores sat in this commission also. Most of its members were moral theologians, jurists, or administrators. Some months before the Congregation convened, Father General expanded the *This article is :being published simultaneously in the current issue of Jesuit Studies (The American Assistancy Seminar in Jesuit Spirituality) entitled: "On Becoming Poor: A Symposium on Evangelical Poverty." 191 Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 membership of tffe commission to include experts from other disciplines and areas of experience. The 32nd General Congregation constituted from among its member-ship its own Commission on Poverty: Commission III. Some of the mem-bers of the pre-Congregation commission, being also congregati, were elected to Commission Ili. Very broadly speaking, it can be said that for the jurid-ical aspects of the' present Decree, the Congregation relied chiefly on the work of the pre-Congregation commission; for its pastoral aspects, on its own Commission III. The Decree itself is divided into three sections. Section A is a declara-tion of what Jesuit poverty should be today in the light of prevailing con-ditions in the Church and in the world. This declaration sets forth the as-cetical and pastoral principles on which is based the dispositive part of the Decree, Sections B-F. Section B, "Norms," gives the prescriptive guidelines for a revision of the Statutes on Poverty, to be undertaken by a commis-sion appointed by Father General, who is to approve and promulgate the revised Statutes. Sections C-F are supplementary provisions concerning certain aspects of the new juridical structure which is being given to the Jesuit practice of poverty. A prinCipal objective which the pre-Congregation commission set for itself was to simplify Jesuit legislation on poverty. It was observed that over the years numerous alterations had been introduced into the primitive legis-lation of the Ignatian Constitutions, usually by obtaining an indult, that is, an exception to the law, from the Holy See; for instance, the indult whereby Jesuits are enabled to accept Mass stipends. Another~ kind- of deviation from the primitive legislation was that of certain accepted anomalies; for :instance, houses of writers.: A house of writers is not, strictly speaking, a "college" in the sense of the Constitu-tions. It is not a house of formation, the only Jesuit institution to which St. Ignatius allowed fixed revenues. Later, however, houses of writers were also permitted fixed revenues, on the grounds that they cannot otherwise carry on their valuable apostolate, since the kind of books Jesuits write are very seldom best-sellers. Similarly, there was no provision in the primitive legislation for the care of the sick and the aged. These were therefore assigned to the same juridical category as the Jesuit seminarians ("scholastics") supported by the colleges. In effect, those retired from the active apostolate were equated with those who had ~not yet begun it, and the arca seminarii, or formation fund, did double-duty as a social-security fund. . There were also accepted ambiguities which amounted to legal fictions. For instance, missionary priests in the Spanish colonies--at least up to the time the Jesuits were expelled therefrom (1767)--received fixed yearly stipends from the government. In the Philippines, this stipend was 100 silver pesos and 100 [anegas (bushels) of rice a year. This was by no means A More Authentic Poverty / 193 a pittance. A silver peso in those days was really made of silver, and its purchasing power was probably a hundred times that of the present metal-alloy peso. At any rate, each missionary priest was able to support with his stipend a missionary ~brother,~and still have something left over toward building a parish church and a parish, house. Now then: this stipend can, with a little stretching of meaning, be called an alms. But the government, and almost everybody else, considered it a salary--so.mething which the Constitutions did not allow for, especially with reference to spiritual min, istries, the normative maxim for which was. to "give freely what you have freely received." A more recent example of ~this ambiguity is the~ salary received by military and hospital chaplains. Military and hospital chaplaincies are certainly valuable, even necessary apostolates, But in many countries of the world, 'the civil law does not allow anyone to become a military or hos-pital chaplain unless he accepts a salary. It does not allow him to give freely what he has freely received. Finally, there was what looked like downright violations of th~ law to those Who ttid not understand or appreciate the need from which they arose. How, ,for instance, was the glorious Japanese mission of the Old SoCiety, founded, by Xavier himself and so fruitful in martyrs, supported?~:Why, by the fantastically .lucrative Macao,Nagasaki silk trade. ,.Portuguese inv~estors in the trade would invest sums for, or on behalf of, the Jesuit Provin(~'of Japan, and the profits from these investments were. what supported' the Province's catechumena~es, houses of formation, mission station~, printing press. Were they alms? Were they fixed revenues? Or were they negotiatio vetita, commerce forbidden to clerics? All these complexities seemed to arise from the fact that thoroughly ~alid and even absolutely essential apostolates could not be undertaken or main-tained without such departures from the primitive legislation. And 'the reason for this was the difference in economic, social, and juridical struc-tures between the modern world, the world that emerged from the Indus-trial Revolution, and the late-medieval world, the world of St. Ignatius. There are all-pervading socioeconomic realities we must take into account today which St. Ignatius and his first companions almost certainly did not foresee. Here are some of them. In many parts of the world, Western and non-Western, capitalist and socialist, there is a decline in the witness value of mendicancy. Living on aims is rarely if at all considered an effective witness to iapostolic fi'eedom and trust in divine Providence, Accompanying this decline is a correspond-ing appreciation of the ethical and social value of work, and of wh.a.t are generally considered to be the natural adjuncts of working for a living, such as the provident setting aside of savings for the future, and the invest-ment of such savings in economic enterprises that generate income. Another difference to be noted between St. Ignatius' time and ours is 194 / Review lor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 the decline in the modern world of the temporal power .and wealth of the Church,-and the dissolution of medieval forms of union of Church and State. It is no longer possible,for large-scale apostolic enterprises to be financed by endowments granted by pope or prince, by cardinal or'con-quistador. How are large-scale apostolic, :enterprises financed today? Mostly by smal! private donations derived chiefly from the middle class: the people; neither rich nor poor, who enable o religious institutes to train,their seminarians and establish foreign missions. It is a fact, to be acknowledged with gratitude, that in the world as it now is we, depend almost entirely on the bourgeoisie for the financial viability of our apostolic enterprises. On the other hand, we r~eligious are called to live not precisely as bourgeois but as poor men and women. How do we do this, in the world as it now is? How do we set up a structure~for our poverty that will be simple enough and practical enough to enable us to carry on our ministries effectively, and yet live poor? ~ ~ The pre-Congregation commission on poverty mentioned earlier pro-posed that one way of doing this was to accept the basic distinction be-tween communities and apostolic institutes, .a distinction already Sketched out by the definitores of the Statuta of 1967. The 32nd General Congrega-tion ac6epted the :distinction, along with the juridical implications spelled out by'the commission.1 In fact, the Congregation made that distinction the "keystone" of its "reform of the structure of temporal administration.":-' There are, of course, preblems raised by this revision of structure, or foreseen as'following upon it. That is why the Holy Father directs that the Decree be put into practice ad experimentum, so that the. next General Congregation "can re-examine the entire question on the basis of the .experi-ence acquired in the years to come.''3 But ~where the religious life is.con-cerned, juridical structure is usually consequent on a spiritual discernment. In the present case, that discernment is set forth in the expository portion of the Decree (Section A), to which we now turn. The 32nd General. Congregation confirms the findings °of its predecessor on the basis of a review of the Societyrs experience during the decade inter-t" By the law of ~the Society there is to be established a distinction between com-munities and apostolic institutes, at least with regard to the destinatibn and usu-fruct of 'their goods and between the financial accounts of each."--Decree of Poverty B III 1. Apostolic institutes are defined as "those institutions or works .belonging to the Society which~ have a certain permanent unity and organization for apostolic pu,rposes, such as universities, colleges, retreat houses, and other such in which Ours cai'ry on their apostqlic work."--ibid. B I 2. "Th~ goods of apostolic institutes of the Society may not be diverted to the use or profit of Ours except for a suitabl~ remuneration, to be approved by the Provincial, for work in such institutes or for services rendered to the same."--ibid: B IV. ~-lbid. A IV I 1. '~Jean Cardinal Villot to Father General Arrupe, 2 May 1975, n. 5. A More Authenti¢ Poverty / 195 v~ening between them. These findings are chiefly three. First, that our pres-ent pra~ctice of evangelical poverty, falls short of. the norms .established by St. Ignatius and the first companions, and hence, that we must resolutely and perseveringly undertake a renewal of the spirit of poverty according to the specifically Ignatian inspiration. Second, that while we must~ by all means keep the primal norms of~.our poverty intact as far as their substantive de-mands are concerned, we must also adapt them to,the socioeconomic and juridical conditions of our time, very different from those of the time when St. Ignatius and the first companions established them. In other Words, our renewal of the spirit of poverty must be accompanied by a certain adaptation of structures and procedures; it must be a renovatio accoramodata. Third, that in the matter Qf poverty, as in other matters, ,spirit and structure are intimately interdependent; that while the spirit of poverty needs a structure to support it, safeguard it, and make it operative, the structure wilPnot work, will become dead-weight and dead-letter, unless those involved in the structure are imbued with the spirit of poverty and are resolved to make the structure work. The determination of the surplus income of 'a community might serve to illustrate this third finding, namely, the interdependence of spirit~and structure. The surplus income of a Jesuit community cannot be retained. It must be disposed of annually.4, By surplus income iS o meant what is over and-above the expenses and the contingency fund. provided for in the annual budget of the communit~y as determined by its "responsible administrator" with the appr.ovai of the provincial superior.~ The norm for estimating the annual budget is a community style of.life "removed .as far as possible from all infection of avarice and as like as possible to evan-gelical poverty.''6 Ultimately, therefore, this whole rrgime of placing the community on a budget and disposing of annual surpluses will depend on the style of life adopted by the community. It will depend oi~ how seriously the community tries to live up to the norm set by the Congregation, namely, that "the standard of living of our houses should not.be higher than that of a family of slender means whose providers must ,work. hard for its support.''r In a word, it will depend on how much alive the spirit of poverty is among us. For, as the Congregation. says; "While law can support spirit, no legal re-form will profit anything unless all, .our members elect evangelical poverty with courage at the invitation of .the Eternal King, Christ our Lord.,8 , 4Decree on Poverty B VII 1. 51bid. B VI. ~Ibid. B VII 1. rlbid. A llI 7. 8Ibid. A V 13. 196 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 The norm for our standard of living just ~ited may in ~turn serve to illus-trate the second 'of the findings mentioned above, namely, the need for adaptation. It is stated that our standard of living can be lower, but not higher than that of "a family of slender means." Yes; but what are "slender means"? What does "slender" mean? One particularization of the term follows immediately: a family of slender means is one whose providers must work hard for its support. This would seem to exclude unearned in-come, that is, income from'invested funds, at least as a principal source of support for our communities. It would seem to imply that our communities should derive their day-to-day support from the earnings of the day-to-day work of their members. Here is one example of the adaptation to the changed conditions of the times noted earlier. The Congregation itself calls attention to it: "For cen-turies, the perfection of religious poverty was found in mendicancy . He was .counted poor who lived on alms, placing all his hopes in the provi-dence of God operative through benefactors. With growing clarity the Church invites religious to submit to the common law .of labor. 'Earning your own living and that of your brothers and sisters, helping the poor by your work--these are the duties incumbent upon you.' '''~ This may possibly explain why the Congregation does not have'recourse to the gauges or measuring rods of religious poverty devised in times past. Such ~as, that religious poverty is a poverty of dependence~. dependence, in the first instance, on the superior, but through him, dependence on the providence of God "operative through benefactors,'--that is, dependence on alms. The emphasis today is not on alms but on work. Or again, that our poverty should be assimilated to that of honesti sacerdotes, reputable secular priests; for while the reputable secular priests of former times did live very slenderly, they were nevertheless supported by "livings,~' that ig, stable revenue derived chiefly from landed property. However, it must not be thought that the Congregation excluded mendi-cancy-~ dependence on alms for support--altogether. Neither did it sup-pose that religious who live on alms do not work. We should give it credit for a certain measure of realism. It is a fact that many of our, hardest work-ers are dependent~ on alms for their support; for instance, missionaries. It is also a fact that in certain regions of the world today, for instance, in those countries behind the Iron Curtain where the Church is permitted tO exist~ Jesuits can live and work only i~ supported by free-will offerings. And it is equally a fact that even in those regions of the world where the right of the Church to exist is recognized, much of the work we have to do as ministers of the Gospel does not have a financial remuneration attached to it. Thus, while we should by all means adapt ourselves to the work-ethic of our time, we should guard against pressing too closely the work-income ~'lbid. A II 4, citing Vat. II, PC n. 13, ET n. 20. A More Authentic Poverty / '197 nexus. It is my impression~ that the Congregation was fully .aware of the dangers of doing so; fully aware that it could introduce among us what usually accompanies the work ethic, namely the market orientation. It is not too far-fetched to foresee an evolution of attitude after this fashion: One begins by looking around for compensated.work in order to be able to contribute to the support of .one's community. One goes on to. prefer compensated to non-compensated work, the apostolic value of the Works being roughly ~equal. A gradual, perhaps a very gradual, an almost imper-ceptible reversal of values then takes place, whereby the value of apostolicity becomes Jsecondary to the value of marketability. Such a process might even end up with an alternative version of Surplus Value, namely, that wages represent an apostolic "surplus" over and above the apostolic value of the work itself, and hence that the better compensated work is the more apostolic work. Besides vitally affecting our choice of ministries, a too rigid interpreta-tion of the duty of ~"earning your.own' living and that of your brothers and sisters" could introduce in the Society--int~ormally, to be sure, but palpably another system of grades, one based not on presbyteral function but on earning capacity. Those engaged in gainful employment and thus con-tribute to the,support of the community would, for all practical purposes, be the professed; those not thus engaged, and hence are supported by the community, °would be the coadjutors. Such a stratification would tend to bring our c"0mmunity life down to a purelyhuman level, and may well have disastrous consequences: assumption of privilege by the ~gainful workers, frustration and resentment on the part of the "unprofitabl~ servants." Are these purely conjectural hypotheses, or do we perceive them even now, in certain parts of the Society, as a~ cloud no bigger than a man's hand? At any rate, we have from the'Congregation a reminder that the adoption of the work ethic--as, indeed, the adoption of any valid principle of action--involves risk. "The frequent engagement of Ours in professions and salaried offices it not without dangers, not only for the spirit of gratu-ity, but even, for the observance of common life itself. SuCh work is to be chosen only as a more effective means to the communication of faith, with-out thought of remuneration or of the privileges attached'to an office.''1° But to get back to the slender-means norm. Besides the fact that it.is means acquired by work, present hard work, rather than a stable income from invested funds, what other nuances can give it sharper definition? Perhaps this, that it should be a deliberate renunciatibn of consumerism, of "the appetite for enjoyment and consumptign of material goods" which, as the Congregation points out, "spreads everywhere and verges on a prac-tical atheism.''11 At least that. "At the very least, religious poverty should lOlbid. A III 8. 111bid. A II 3. 198 / Review ]or Religious,~ Volume 35, 1976/2 try hard to limit rather than:, to expand consumption,!~ :says. the Congrega-tion. 1-° ,.~ Another. nuance of the :slender,means norm is that our style Of life should be pitched at a level which enables and encourages us not only to work for t.h.e, poor but with ithe poor. In order to do that~ we need to i"acquire some experience of their condition;" and even of their "miseries and distress." This, the Congregation says, is a necessary consequence of the basic option we have made regarding our apostolate today, namely, "comniitment to the cause of justice and to the service of the poor.''13 It is with this nuance that the Congregation repeats ,St, 'Ignatius' injunction "to love poverty as a mother and, within the measure of holy discretion, experience some of its effects as occasions arise. Here, then, are some of the specifications that might make the slender-means norm of our voluntary poverty less abstract, more applicable to real, life .situations: Our style of life should be that of the worker rather than the rentier;.it should put out: of our reach the open-ended self-indulgence of . the consumer society; it should afford us some~direct experience of what the involuntarily poor of today have to put up with, so that we can the more realistically and effectively help them to help themselves. I must con-fess, however, that even so, for me personally, the slender-means norm remains somewhat 'fuzzy around the edges. And I think I see:the reason why in ~a statement in obliquo of the Congregation itself. It expresses regret that we have no other word.to designate the poverty of ~the.~)religous life except the word "poverty." This is regrettable ~because "poverty means very different things to different people.''.~ Indeed it does. Not only that; different people (and therefore different Jesuits) can hold their different views of poverty honestly and sincerely, without hy-pocrisy or cynicism. Further: the reasons why they hold these different views are not always myths but often realities. Thus, a Jesuit style of life really and truly considered poor in Australia or West Germany may well be considered really and truly :affluent in Ecuador or Indonesia; not neces-sarily because Ecuadorian and Indonesian Jesuits are religious of strict ob: servance, while Australian. and West-German Jesuits are religious ~ of lax observance; but simply because of~ the .difference between "a family of slen-der means" in the developed world and the corresponding family in the underdeveloped world. ~ Consider, too, the fact, or at least the possibility, that the type of apos-tolate to which a Jesuit is sent has, perhaps should have, an influence on his style of life; an influence that leads, perhaps inevitably, to a difference ~Z.lbid. A III 7. ~. ~'~lbid. A II 5, A III 10. ~Const. [287]. ~SDecree on Poverty A I11 7. A More Authentic Poverty / 19,9 in standard of living. Thus~ it might be asked whether the:style of life of Jesuits teaching in the Gregorian University~ in Rome should be, or can be exactly that of Jesuits working among the marginados in Venezuela. The classical.: precedents invoked by those who favor a difference are will known. Among ~he missionaries of the Old Society in India, was there not a sign~ificant difference in style of life between those who worked among the brahmins and those who Worked-among the pariahs? And what about the drastic change in style of life adopted by Xavier in Japan, when .he learned that the Japanese paid scant attention to mendicants but might possibly give a hearing to an hidalgo? Equally-familiar are the precedents brought forward by those opposed to recognizing such differences. Ignatius' instructions to Lainez and Salmer6n, papal theologians at the Council of Tre~nt, that they should not follow th.e life style of the Council Fathers, but should work in ,hosEitals as orderlies, preach in city squares without a Stipend, and beg their meals fromo, door. to. door. The example of Ignatius, himself, when, he returned to Loyola from Paris: refusing to stay in?.the ancestral castle with his brother, he chose to dodge in the town infirmary, considering it a better platform from which to. persuade his fellow citizens to the service of faith and~ the promotion of justice. There is, then, an ambiguity--a necessary ambiguity, as ,iLseems--in the general norms proposed .by the Congregation; and the Congregation. admits it. Not only does it recognize that poverty can mean different things. to different people, but in ;recommending "the insertion of communities among the poor" as '.'a testimony of love of the poor and of poverty to which the Church encourages religious," it calls attention to the fact that "implehae.ntation of this proposal will have to be different in our widely. diff,ering circumstances.''I~ What it is saying, in effect, is that the slender-means~ norm can mea.n different things to different communities., o Thp practical conclusign that follows from this is that it is up t'o the discernment of local and provincial_ communities to ensure that, taking into account differences in socio-economic context and apostolic commit-ment, our poverty is, and is .seen to be, the poverty of Christ. It is to the same practical conclusion that the Congregation comes in the other major areas of our life and apostolate.17.The crucial role which the Congregation assigns to discernment, personal, and communitarian, in the process of translating its decrees from paper to practice,~, clearly appears in that it recognizes discernment as an, ingredient of Jesuit identity,18 _.and giyes,~ex~, t.ended treatment to it as a feature of our community life.1:' ~ This brings us to what was mentioned earlier, as the first of the~ findings ~lbid. AIlI 10. ~TGC 32, "Our Mission Today," n. 71; "The Formation of Jesuits," n. 22. lsGC 32, "Jesuits Today," n. 19. ~ ~:~GC 32, "Union of Minds and Hearts," nn. 21-24. ~ 200 / Review 1or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 of the Congregation on Jesuit poverty, namely, the need for a renewal of the spirit of our poverty as conceived by St. Ignatius. A first observation and an Obvious one is that we h~ave vowed ourselves as religious to evangelical poverty, that is, the poverty proposed by the Gos-pel as a counsel of perfection~ and adopted by Christ~ himself. Hence, a first distinction, equally obvious, must be made between our voluntary poverty and the involuntary poverty that afflicts so large a portion of the human race. This inhuman and dehumanizing poverty, frequently imposed by in-justice, is an evil. It cannot be the object of a vow. It is not the poverty we embrace, it is the poverty, we must fight. Religous poverty is evangelical, not necessarily sociological. Not necessarily; which leads to a second observation. All religious in-stitutes are followings of Christ, but each religious institute follow~ Christ in its own way, according to the charism of its founder. Of St. Ignatius it may be said that his way of following Christ is pre-eminently the way of service, of apostolic service. We belong to a Society which~"'is founded for this purpose above all . the defense and propagation of the faith" :and any kind of ministry whatgoever that shall be "for the glory of God and the common good.''~° Our poverty, then, as everything about us, is-~or is meant to be apostolic. We embrace poverty not for its own sake, as another religious institute well might, but in function of the apostolate. St. Ignatius' phrase praedicare in paupertate--to preach in poverty--must, I think, be ~understood in this sense. We are to be poor that we may all the more effectively preach. The images in which St. Ignatius embodies his notion bf poverty seem to suggest as much. For Francis of Assisi, poverty is the Lady Poverty, the lady of a troubadour, a loveliness to be loved for itself alone. For Ignatius of Loyola, on the other hand, it is "the firm wall of rrligion"; fortifications designed to defend an intra muros, an area of peace in which to build the City of God. And we must love poverty, ~ertainly; but "as a mother": a mother who gives birth to a .life, nurtures and trains it, not to keep for herself but to send forth: a life that will be something of value in the world of me'n.21 In the world of men today, that something of value is, for us Jesuits, a commitment to "the service of faith, of whii~h the promotion of justice is an absolute, requirement.''z2 Hence, if the promotion of justice should i'equire in-some place, at some time, the "insertion of communitiesamong the poor," if it should summon us "to live among the poor, serving them and sharing something of their experience," something of their "miseries and Z°Form. Inst. n. 1. 21Cf: Const. [287], [553]. Z2GC 32, "Our Mission Today," n. 2. A More Authentic Poverty / 20_1 distress,'''-''~ then we .must. by all means do so, but with a clear understand-ing that such poverty is a degradation not an enhancement of the"human condition, and that we embrace it for the sole purpose of h.elping our fellow-men to free,themselve.s from it. In a word, ev.angelical poverty is not neces-sarily sociological poverty, but may demand acceptance of it in.function.of the apostolate. This brings us to a third observation, na~mely, that if our poverty is in function of the apos_tolate, then it is what might be called a "functional?' poverty. It is, in level, form and style the poverty that best serves our apos-tolic ends. Its measure is the tantum-quantum of the Exercises.-"4 That is why the Congregation begins its declaration on poverty with a "reflection on the Gospel in the light of the signs of our times"; or so it seems to me. It seems to me that the Congregation, faced with the task passed on to it by its predecessor of answering "the demands of a real and not pretended poverty," did not begin by asking the question "What should our poverty be?" but by asking the question "What should our poverty be ]or?'''~'' From its reading of the signs of the times, the Congregation brings for-ward certain apostolic objectives which our poverty should by preference bear witness to or serve. At a time when nations, groups, and individuals ha~,e come to realize that .the material resources of this planet.are limited, and have reacted to that realization by accepting as a fact of life that the race is only to the swift and the devil takes the hindmost, vowed poverty should be, and be a witness to, sharing. "On fill sides there is felt a desire to discover new com-munities which favor a more intimate interpersonal communication, com-munities of true sharing and communion, concerned for the integral human development of their members. Our lives, our communities, our very poverty can and should .have a meaning for such a world.'''-''~ That meaning and message will be effectively conveyed by "a poverty pro~foundly re~ newed . . . happy to share with each other and with ,all.'''7 In fact, "our communities will have no meaning or sign value for our tim.es, unless by their sharing of themselves and all they possess, they are clearly seen. to.be communities of charity ,and~ of concern for each other, and all others.''-~ Secondly, at a time when human .fulfillment tends to be equated with the possession, enjoyment, and consumption of material goods, vowed poverty should point in the opposite direction. It should point to. simplicity: :.~Decree on Poverty A II 5, A III 10. :4Cf. 'Spir. Ex. [23]. '-"~Cf. Decree on Poverty A 1I 3-5, A III 7. '-'Olbid. AlI 3. "-'Zlbid. A V 14. "-'Slbid, A II 5. 202 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 a "simpler way of 'life," ~"simple in community expression and joyous in the following of Christ," and by this witness openin~ up to men "a new liberty and another happiness.''-~'~ Finally, at a time when the struggle for justice often means a~ struggle against unjust establishments, a disengagement from the affluent and power-ful elites from which we have received, and perhaps continue to°receive beriefacti6ns, vowed i56verty must have and be-seen to have a detachment that makes it credible. "It will be difficult for the Society everywhere to forward :effectively the cause of justic~ and human dignity if the greater part of her ministry identifies her with the rich and powerffil.'''~'~ That most be the touchstone of our credibility: detachment. "The attitude of the So-ciety should b~ that of the Third Class of Men. fully as ready to abahdon as to retain, to the greater service of God,''3~ manifest' in a povei'ty that is "apostolic in its~active indifference and readiness for any service; in-spiring our selection of ministries and turning us to those most in need?':~°- In sum: the,selfless sharing of a simplicity of life that leads to integral human developm6nt and, by its realism, gives credibility to our efforts to remove the obstacles tO that development--this is what the Congregation proposes our poverty should be today, as discerned frorri the Signs of the times: ~But in qchat'~sense is this a renewal, a making,new again, a return to what the Society was when it was new? This brings us back to'a point which came up earlier: the crucial role given by'this Congregati~on to discernment. For if it 0is admitted that ours is a functional poverty, a poverty in function oLthe apostolate,~then the authentic practii:e of that~poverty will depend at any given moment on what we discern to be,the Conc?ete objectives~of our apostolate at that moment; in short, on "our mission today." And this adap-tation is truly a renewal--so, at least, it is argued because it is precisely what St. Ignatius did. ~ ~. What Ignatius did was to giv meaning and structure to" the practice of' voweff poverty which was in function of what he discerned: to be the apos-tolic needs Of his time. He then wrote Constitutions which not-only do not forbid but demand that we practice our poverty in the light of a' similar discernment. What was his discernment? We might illustrate how concrete it was by its apparent c6ntradictions, for it is a'well-known fact that the concrete and its demands do not always meet the requirements of abstract logic. Ignatius made Jesuits in professed houses live from day to day and "-'albid. A II 3, A V 14. :~°Ibid. A II 5. 3~Ibid. AIII 9; cf. Spir. Ex. [155]. :*°-Ibid. A V 14; A More Authentic Poverty / 203, even beg from door to door; but he allowed fixed revenues for colleges, that is, the houses where Jesuits were being trained to live from day to day and beg from door to door. He would not permit the sacristies of our churches to be supported by such revenues, but-the churches themselves, Works of art which might be considered verging on the lavish,.he accepted from, or consented to be constructed by, benefactors belonging to the affluent establishments of his time. He did not favor our men going on horseback, even if they were on a mission and in somewhat of a hurry; yet he decided that professed houses should have a garden for our men to walk in. A garden! Why, certainly; a garden in cities where the ordinary citizen took the air in open sewers 'which, by an exaggeration of courtesy, were called streets. But, after all, was not Ignatius following in this matter the example of Christ himself? Christ, who regularly skipped meals because of the poor, the sick, and the bedevilled who pressed around him, but who told treed Zacheus to come down from his perch and give hil~ lunch in his house, the ~ather well provided house of an officer,of the internal revenue. Christ, who did not even have a foxhole or a bird's nest where to lay his head, but who, on his way to or from Jerusalem, regularly stopped_ at Bethany, in the house of the opulent Lazarus; who did this at lehst once with his entire entourage, seemingly unannounced, for he sent Mhrtha into a tizzy trying to figure out how may courses to lay on for dinner. Christ, who told the Seventy-two he was sending out on mission not to bring a purse or an extra pair of sandals, but who also told them that wherever they found accep-tance they should eat and drink what was put before them, because the laborer is worthy of his hire. Christ, who had a rather expensive robe, woven without seam from top to bottom, as the soldiers gambling for it immediately recognized; but who died naked on the cross. What then? Is there a fixed poverty line calculable in currency values,~ valid for all times and seasohs, to which we must keep? It ~ems not. But~ in that case how do we make, how can we be sure that we are making our poverty authentic? It would Seem that our po~verty is~authentic in the hi'eaT sure that it is really and truly in function of our apostolate--as it was in the case of Ignatius, as it was in-the case of Christ. And because it is in func-tion of the apostolate, our poverty, is, in sum, a basic insecurity: the basic insecurity of men who can.be sent and are willing to. be sent on any mission, even without provision for the jou~rney and with no assurance of provision at the end of it. Our poverty level is the minimum required to enable a Jesuit theologian to enlarge the frontiers ~of~ theology. It is also the maximum allowable "~for a Jesuit engaged in~ the "lSedagogy of the oppressed" to.be credible to. the oppressed. And it is a willingness on the part of the theologian to be sent to the oppressed, and a corresponding willingness ~n the part Of the peda-gogue of the oppressed to join a theological faculty. ,Let u,s, g~ve the last w~rd 204 / Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/2 to the 32nd,General Congregation: "The authenticity of our poverty, after all, does not consist so much in the lack of temporal goods, as in the fact that we live and are seen to live from God and for God, sincerely striving for the perfection of that ideal which is the goal of the spiritual journey of the Exercises: 'Give me only a love of you with your grace and I am ~rich enough, nor do I ask anything more.' ":"~ a31bid. AV 14; Spir. Ex. [23~,].' * * Saint Louis University Accent '76 Summer offerings of The Department of Theological Studies, Saint Louis University June 22 - July 30 Accent: Spirituality Continuing SLU's tradition of summer institutes in Spiritu~ality, . Institutes: The~ New Testament and Traditions of Spirituality; Assimilating the LitUrgical Reform: Pastoral Ministry in Th, eological Focus Inaugural Institute: June 7 - June 17 Toward An American Spirituality (Herbert W. Richardson) Accent: °Religious Studies Continuing SLU's on-g0ing M.A. Program in Religious Studies. 12 Courses: Contemporary Doctrihe, Biblical Studies, 'Theology of Religious Life. Accent: Religion arid American Culture Continuing SLU's tradition of exploring the relationship between religion and culture. Workshops: Alternate Futures For Religious Education In The United States; New Interpretations of American Catholicism. Plus: Study Tour To lsrael All institutes and workshops can be separated into two-week segments. For complete information write: Department of Theological Studies Attn: Director of Summer Programs Saint Louis University 3634 Lindell Blvd; ' Saint Louis, Missouri 63108 Our Servant Song to Yahweh: The Radical Yes Sister Mary Catherine Barron, C.S.J. Sister Mary Catherine is an English teacher at Rome Catholic High School. She had p~blished earlier, in the November, 1975 issue. Sister resides at 808 Cypre.ss St.; Rome; NY 13440. In a poem of soul-shattering dimension, D. H. Lawrence, a very ~sensual man, poses a series of very spiritual questions.,He asks: Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled, ~ made nothing? Are you willing to be made nothing? dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change.1 His interrogation embodies the central Christological inquiry asked long before Jesus answered with His life. For throughout the centuries of salva-tion history it has been the haunting refrain of all who embrace the reality of the Servant Song. No matter where we turn in the Old Testament or the New, we find ourselves faced with its harsh delineations. ,Abraham must go through the annihilation Of family ties and holdings in order to found a nation from the child he nearly slays. Moses suffers privation, loneliness, and betrayal as he leads Yahweh's people to a land he never enters. David bears for-ever the searing knowledge of his sin as he witnesses its effects' upon his household and his kingdom. Hosea suffers the painfilled prostitution of his love; Jeremiah preaches renewal amid interior desolation; Isaiah witnesses 1D. H. Lawrence, "The Phoenix," The Complete Poems o[ D. H. Lawrence (New York: Viking Press. 1964). 205 206 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/2 to the emptiness of the Servant Who is to come. John the Baptist loses his disciples; Mary loses her Son; Jesus loses His life. What do we lose? In a past issue of Bible Today, Father Stuhlmueller reflects on the two-fold aspec't of vocation. He says: "Every vocation has an occasion, that which gets it started. Every vocation has a long search for the deeper mean-ing of what one started out to do.'' Somewhere between the ~'starting oc-casion" and the "deeper meaning" resides a radical "yes" on the part of the servant to what is so graphically outlined in the "Phoenix" poem. How do we say it--that radical "yes"? How did Jesus utter it? Through a total rendering of Himself, in faith, to His Father. He tells us: "Whatever the Father does the Son does too" (Jn 5:19). The Father's "radical yes" to His creation is manifested through the gift of His Son. The Son's "radi-cal yes" to His Father is manifested through the gift of Himself. There was nothing glorious about the human life of Christ. He paid dearly for every sign of spiritual power shown. He labored long and hard for infinitesimally small results. He traversed the length and breadth of His country only to learn that a prophet is never accepted by His own. He was condemned by leaders of the religion He fulfilled. And He

Issue 22.2 of the Review for Religious, 1963. ; EVODE BEAUCAMP, O.F.M. Sin and the Bible Throughout1 the New Testament the work of Christ is presented as a victory over sin. To speak of sin in this connection is to evoke an agelong experience which is highly complex and which can not be neglected if one wishes to comprehend the matter in all its extent and fullness. The word sin is a familiar one to us; yet it is no older than the Greek of the Septuagint. Before the Sep-tuagint there can not be found in the sacred text a single word exactly corresponding to it. The Alexandrian trans-lator has included under this single word the varying nuances of a number of terms; through this word he has thereby evoked all the forms which were taken through the course of centuries by the resistance of Israel to the salvific activity of God. There can be no question of giving here a study of sin in the Bible; for that is a problem entirely too large. We shall simply mark out the essential lines in order that we might have a better understanding of the problem of sin and that as a consequence we may be able to provide a catechetical presentation of sin that will be more richly nourished by the vitality of the Bible. The God of the Bible ancl the Problem o] Good anti Evil Like all the surroundin~ peoples, Israel united into one word evil and unhappiness on the one hand, goodness and happiness on the other. The first of these words is simultaneously disorder, deceit, emptiness, and death; the second is virtue, fullness of life, and peace. Every deed carries within itsel~ its own consequences: evil in-volves unhappiness while goodness implies happiness: Do no evil, and evil will not overtake you; avoid wickedness, and it will turn aside from you. Sow not in the furrows of in-justice, lest you harvest it sevenfold (Sir 7:1-3). Moreover, one finds in the Bible different ways of ex-pressing the same proverb: This article is translated with permission from the magazine Catdchistes, n. 49 (January 1, 1962), pp. 5-19. The magazine is pub-lished by Procure des Frhres; 78, rue de Shvres; Paris 7, France. 4. 4. Evode Beaucamp O.F.M., a Scripture scholar, lives at Via di Decima Kin. I; Rome, Italy. VOLUME 22, 1965 129 4. 4. ÷ Erode Beaucnmp, O.I~.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 130 Those who conceive malice bring forth emptiness; they give birth to failure (Jb 15:35). They sowed the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind (Hos 8:7). What is original in the Bible is the teaching that good-ness, physical as well as moral, has only one source: God. "O Lord," cries the Psalmist, "thou art my welfare; there is none beside thee." And for Amos the two expressions "to seek God" and "to seek the good" are perfectly identi-cal; both the one and the other offer the secret of life (Amos 5:4-14). The successful issue of human existence is found on the way which Yahweh points out and only there: For this reason will all go well with us, because we obeyed the voice of our God (Jer 42:6). You must keep his commands., that you may prosper, and your children after you, and that you may live long . (Dt 4:40). You must do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord that you may prosper (Dr 6:18; see also 12:25 and 28). The Law given by Yahweh to His people is the way of happiness: "You must keep my laws and ordinances, by the observance of which man shall find life (Lv 18:5).'° This is a point which is important to remember when the idea of the Law is presented; the love of the Jews for the Torah is incomprehensible if it is not realized that Yah-weh is legislator precisely insofar as He is father, bene-factor, shepherd, and defender of His people. Moreover, this throws light on the well-known problem of reward. The Bible does not say that happiness is received as a recompense for goodness but that happiness is the fruit of goodness and that it is to be found at the end of the way. Evil is not treated in the same way as is goodness; the God of the Bible never attributes to Himself a paternir.y with regard to evil. For the Psalmists, evil is the absence of God; and it is towards Him that one must turn to be freed from it. Nevertheless, it is in relationship to God that evil is defined: evil is the reverse of what He wills, of the course of :action that He teaches. As the author of Chapters Three and Four of Genesis has carefully sho~qn, the evils which weigh on humanity are not imputable to the Creator; the responsibility falls on man who has at-tempted to find his happiness outside of God, to flee his dependence on Yahweh by himself possessing the key of good and evil. Man has set himself on the desperate route that leads far from Paradise: Woe to them that have wandered away from reel (Hos O Lord, thou hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who prove faithless to you in the land shall be brought to confusion, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water (Jer 17:13). Let us remark in passing that the God of the Bible never reproaches man for his thirst for greatness and happiness; what is reproached is the attempt to satisfy this outside of God. Unlikei the gods of Surher and Baby-lon, Yahweh has the intention of giving His creature the fullness of life and happiness, but He teaches that this must be done by Him: If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would only walk in my ways, I would quickly humble their foes . he would be fed with the finest of the wheat; and with honey from the rock would I satisfy you (Ps 81:13-14, 16). Although man punishes himself by separating himself from God (see Jb 22:3 ft.), the Bible, nevertheless, does not hesitate to show us Yahweh personally intervening to punish with all the power of His anger. It is He who hardens the pharaoh, as it is He who brings evil upon His unfaithful people: I am watching over them for evil and not for good (Jet 44:27). I will set my eye upon them for evil, and not for good (Amos It is curious to observe how the inspired writers can com-plain both that Yahweh hides His face and remains dis-tant from His chosen ones (Ps 88:14) and that He turns His face against them (Jer 44:11): "The face of the Lord has scattered them; he no longer regards them" (Lain 4:16). And some of the sacred writers are heard to cry out: Will you never take your eye off me, nor let me alone till I swallow my saliva? (Jb 7:19). Turn your gaze away from me, that I may be glad (Ps 39:13). Yahweh never ceases to assert His exclusive right to bestow good on His chosen ones even when they turn away from Him to their own loss. In the evils which then beset them, there can always, be detected the avenging pursuit of a cheated love: So I will be unto them like a lion; or like a leopard by the road I will lurk. I will rend them like a bear robbed of its cubs; and I will tear off the covering of their heart (Hos 13:7-8). Pursued by the love he has denied, the sinner sees him-self abandoned by all: "Thou has put friend and com-panion far from me" (Ps 88:18). He is abandoned even by the earth which bears and nourishes him: I am bringing upon them a disaster which they shall not be able to escape (Jet 11:11). I will rend and be gone; I will carry off, with none to rescue (Hos 5:14). Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 13! + + + Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Behold, I am going to make a groaning under you (Amos 2:13). Unlike the Egyptian god Aten, Yahweh is not indif. ferent when He distributes life and happiness. His gifts are always made from a personal and jealous love. Hence He can not but react vigorously when man prefers deceit, nothingness, and ruin to His love. The blows which He deals as well as His tragic silence can lead the wanderer back to the road of return: I withdraw to my own place, until they realize their guilt and seek my face, searching for me in their distress (Hos 5:15). And yet it is necessary that this appeal be heard and followed: It was I that gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities . it was I that withheld from you the rain, three months before the harvest . I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards . I sent a pestilence like that of Egypt among you . But you did not return to me (Amos 4:6-10). When sin is presented as disobedience to the Law of God, it is necessary to realize that this Law is the path marked out by God and leading to life and happiness; to disobey it is to wish to conduct one's life by oneself and to run towards one's own ruin. The God whose love has been scorned will not be content to let us leave; He will inexorably bar the way that leads to peace just as formerly He posted the cherubim with their swords of fire to pre-vent Adam and his descendants from access to the Para-dise that had been lost: They are a people who err in their hearts, and do not know my ways. So that I swore in my anger that they should not enter into my rest (Ps 95:10-11). The Special Demands o[ the Covenant The Bible is not satisfied with presenting man in con-frontation with God; for the Bible the heart of the matter is the elect one in confrontation with the God who has chosen him. The peace dreamt of by the Jews of old, peace between the members of. one community, peace with the external world and the earth where men liv~.~- this peace is the fruit of the covenant of Sinai (see Lv 26:3-13; Dt 11:13-15). From the viewpoint of the history of religions, one of the most original characteristics of this alliance is the tact that the initiative belongs exclusively to God and not at all to the people; it is Yahweh who has chosen Israel and not Israel who has chosen Yahweh. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, Yahweh repeatedly emphasizes the absolute liberty of His choice, a liberty that gives Him the right to demand obedience without reserve or mur-mur. The elect one should adjust his conduct to the direc- tives given by his God; he must seek that "which is right in the eyes of Yahweh"; he must "march perfectly before Him" without "swerving" from the way "either to the right or the left." Hence.the existence of Israel was constitute~ by the acceptance of these demands;~and these;demands were unceasingly renewed nor were they ever fully completed at any given moment of history. The more Israel, through a better understanding of the obligations of the covenant, wished to submit to them, the larger the number of them grew. In its always unsatisfied thirst to stay perfectly close to the divine will, the chosen people never ceased to develop the principles at the base of the Mosaic legis-lation of the Decalogue (Ex 20:3-17; Dt 5:6-21) and of the code of the covenant (Ex 20:22-26) into the different priestly codes and the enormous growths of the rabbinical tradition. Since there existed this demand for a perfection never perfectly attained ("You must be holy; for I, the Lord your God, am holy" fLy 19:2]; "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" [Mt 5:48]), an exhaustive list of sins is nowhere to be found in the Bible; prophets, Psalmists, and wise men give us but certain ones among many. In every epoch and in all circumstances, the obli-gations of the covenant remain unlimited; the human party of the covenant never succeeds in rising to the level of the demands of the divine party. Basically, the sin of later Judaism will be to pretend to arrest this movement of divine improvement by attempting to imprison the divine will within the walls of a definitive and rigid tra-dition. There is no need to emphasize that the same dan-ger lies in wait for every spiritual life, that there will always be a tendency to substitute for the unlimited de-mands of Christian perfection a code of limited rules which each person can hope some day to fulfill com-pletely. The covenant not only implies the demands of a bond faithfully maintained between God and His people, but it also includes the demands of a union between the in-dividual members of this people. Yahweh expects that His people should practice among themselves the justice and mercy which He has bestowed on them. The pious Israelite must never forget to share his joy with the stranger, the orphan, the widow; for, as Deuteronomy puts it: "You must remember that you were once a slave yourself in Egypt" (Dt 16:12). For the same reason it is forbidden to retain one's brother in the state of slavery (Lv 25:55; Dt 15:15); nor ought one to treat a stranger with scorn (Lv 19:34; Dt 24:17). In this principle can be seen the first outline of the thought of the Master: "Love each other as I have loved you." ÷ ÷ ÷ Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 4. + Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIL~V FOR RELIGIOUS Hence it is that along with the infidelities of the people towards God, the absence of social justice appears as the chief accusation directed by Yahweh against Israel. From the beginning of prophetism (for example, with Elijah), the struggle is waged on two fronts: opposition to the introduction of foreign cults and the respect for the rights of the weak (Naboth's vineyard, 1 K 21). As the Lord Himself emphasized, the entire legislation of Israel re. volves around this double commandment: to love God with one's whole heart and one's neighbor as oneself. The same is to be found in the warnings of the prophets, the Psalmists, and the wise men: You have been told, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you'. Only. to do l'ustice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly wtth your God (Mi 6:8; see also Jer 7:5-11). It will not be useless to insist somewhat on this capital point; since we have too great a tendency to distinguish sins against God and sins against neighbor, it is necessary to show how every sin against God leads to injustice with regard to neighbor and how every sin against one's neigh-bor is a blow struck against the rights of God. The first chapters of Genesis in the Yahwist and priestly redac-tions already present evil under this double dimension. The murder of an innocent person follows the act by which Adam made himself independent of his Creator, while the union of the sons of gods with the daughters of men (probably an allusion to sacred prostitution) in-volves the unleashing of violence upon the earth. In a more general way, the Bible unites under the single He. brew word resha' the idea of both impiety and evil-doing, The person who so acts is frequently referred to through-out the Psaher; he is a person who intends to do without God and to live his life entirely by himself and who, in consequence, makes use of force, deceit, and lies: The fool says in his heart: There is no God. Such men are corrupt; they do abominable deeds; there is not one who does good (Ps 14:1; see also Ps 9; 10; 12; 52; 62; and so forth). His adversary and his victim is the just man, the man who expects salvation and justification from God alone and who therefore does not seek to take the law in his own hands nor do himself justice at the expense of others. The life of David furnishes an excellent illustration of these two cases of the evil man and the just man. Sens-ing that Yahweh would give to him the crown of Saul, David steadfastly refused to touch the sacred person of the king; for he intended to owe his royalty: to Yahweh alone and he did not wish to do things wrongly. Accord-ingly, through terrible execution or a no less terrible curse, he decisively disassociated himself from all those who wished to hasten the event by doing violence to Saul or his son or the general of his army (2 S 1:15; ~:28 ft.; 4:10 ft.). In contrast to the dynasties of, usurpers, the dynasty of David was not in its origin tainted by blood (2 K 2:5). But in the affair of Uriah, the king of Jerusalem took a completely opposite c#ur.se; here he acted,asian impious and evil person. Nathan" recalled to the guilty monarch everything that Yahweh had done for him and pointed out to him how He was still ready to do more. But David had lacked confidence; he had chosen to take care of him-sell and this he did at the expense of one of his own subjects. There is, then, no rejection of God which does not eventually turn into injustice, just as there is no in-justice which is not a disregard of the power of the God of :the covenant. For a Christian, to sin is not only to disobey the eternal laws of the Creator; it is also a refusal of the covenant and a scorning of the love of the Father of all. Human Resistance and God's Final Victory The covenant supposes a history; it is at the center of a plan that develops by stages. At each of these stages man tries to block the plan, but his actions do not prevent God from having the final word. It is interesting to follow step by step the resistances of those who were the bene-ficiaries of the covenant, for in them are to be found all the possible forms which man's refusal of God's offer can take. 1. The choice of the elect from the midst of a humanity immersed in sin. Because the human race had turned from Him and had obstinately buried itself in evil, Yah-weh drew forth from it Israel in the desire to make of it a people who would follow His directives. Hence the election of Abraham is presented in the Yahwist tradition of Genesis as the last effort made by Yahweh to prevent His creation from going to perdition apart from Him. This evil had begun when Adam, in his desire for in-dependence, had lost Paradise. Nevertheless, Yahweh did not abandon this fugitive from Him; He gave him the hope of a future victory over the evil in which he had immersed himself; He had even covered the nakedness that the guilty couple had become aware of. To the first couple, punished by their pride, there succeeded a gen-eration of murderers: Cain and his descendants. Once more Yahweh intervened to prevent fallen humanity from disappearing, from the earth under the inexorable blows of the curse of blood. The union of the sons of the gods with the daughters of men provoked such a release of violence that Yahweh decided on the complete de-struction of His work. Nevertheless, He saved from the catastrophe a just man with whom He concluded a cove- 4- 4- 4- VOLUME 22, 1963 4, 4, 4, Erode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 136 nant. This was not yet the last act of the drama; the last scene of the beginnings of the human race is the episode of the tower of Babel, the dispersion of the sons of Adam after their aborted attempt to construct a tower that would reach to heaven. Nevertheless, the efforts of Yahweh to arrest man in his vertiginous descent into the abyss were not in vain; for, after the episode of the tower of Babel, a new history begins: the vocation of Abraham, the epic of the patri-archs, the covenant of Sinai. To the first scene of a uni-versal invasion of evil, there succeeds that of the increas-ingly solicitous enterprise of God with regard to a people whom He would choose for His own. Under different forms the same idea is found almost everywhere in the Old Testament. To explain the fact that Israel had taken the place of the Canaanites, the legal texts, for example, tell us that the latter were chased from their land because they had done "what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh"; He had determined to give their land to a people who would agree to live according to His will. But misfortune would come to this people if they ever dared to imitate the conduct of their predeces-sors; He would not hesitate to deprive them of the land. The falling back into the world of sin from which Yah-weh had drawn them led Judah to its ruin, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel emphatically pointed out. The sin of the elect is in fact a return to the sin of the nations after having been freed from it. Each election is pictured as a rupture: Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house (Gn 12:1), Forget your people and your father's house (Ps 45:11). The call of God implies an ascent towards Him by the practice of what is "right in His eyes" and by a renuncia-tion of "what is evil in his eyes." This initial break must continue throughout the course of time; this requires a constant effort at disencumbrance, for the surrounding world never ceases to exert pressure on the elect to make them fall back under its law. This is the drama of every vocation, not only to religious life but to Christianity self. 2. Resistance to the hand that guides. After He had led the people from Egypt, Yahweh made them cross the desert before bringing them to the Promised Land. The desert is the sign of temptation, a testing of faith. In other words, Yahweh would not give the land of Canaart to the Hebrews unless they abandoned themselves to Him without reserve by remaining faithful to the memory of the marvelous act of liberation by which they left Egypt. But hunger, thirst, and fatigue quickly overcame the faith of the former slaves of the pharaohs. They soon forgot the extraordinary epic of the Exodus; they mur-mured and rebelled against Moses and Aaron; they be-came enraged at seeing themselves in a venture which seemed to be pointless; and they dreamed nostalgically of the onions of Egypt. They refused to march forward on the grounds that the:.P~-omised Land W~s~'fi0t good enough and because the enterprise was to their minds a doomed one (Nm 14). This lack of confidence induced the people of Moses to attempt to assure themselves of the protection of their God by placing Him at their service and by forcing His hand as they wished. This is what the Bible calls "tempt-ing God." Instead of Yahweh "tempting" and trying the people in order to make them proceed according to His will, it was Israel who tempted its God, attempting to bring Him into the service of human caprice. Hence when Moses delayed coming down from the mountain and Yahweh made them wait for His answer, the He-brews made the golden calf, a material representation of their God which would allow them to control Him and to"make Him advance according to their desires at the head of their army. This recalcitrant attitude of the elect blocked the entire matter of the election and prevented their entering the rest of God (Ps 95:11). The intercession of Moses effected a compromise: the rebellious generation died in the desert and only their children possessed the right to the heritage of the God of the covenant. 3. Profanation of God's gift. The covenant gift of the land of Canaan should have created the indissoluble bonds of a steadfast love between Israel and God. Unfortunately, Israel, once it was secure and satisfied, was quick to forget: I led them to pasture; with food came satiety, and with satiety pride; and with pride came forgetfulness of me (Hos 13:6; see also Dt 32:15). The riches of the land of Canaan, instead of constantly recalling to the people the solicitude of Yahweh, drove Him from their mind and nurtured in them the illusion of being able to escape the jealous influence of their God. With the products of their land, they attempted to buy protection abroad; this was a seeking after "lovers"--the famous theme of prostitution. Often this theme is con- [used with the closely related one of adultery. The idea of prostitution certainly includes the notion of unfaith-fulness, but it is wider than that; it is not only the betrayal of love, it is also the profanation of the gifts of love: But you trusted in your beauty, and played the harlot on your reputation; you lavished your harlotries on everyone who passed by. You took off your garments, and made yourself gaily decked shrines, on which you played the harlot. You took also your splendid ornaments of gold and silver, which I had given 4- 4- VOLUME 22, 196;1 4. 4" Erode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 138 you, and made yourself images of men, with which you played the harlot. And you took your embroidered robes, and wrapped them in these. My oil and my incense you set before them; my bread which I had given you-~the choice flour, oil, and honey with which I had fed you--you set before them as a soothing odor (Ez 16:15-19). The Chosen People made use of what Yahweh had given them in order to curry the favor of the baals or to buy alliances with the peoples that surrounded them. Resistance to the hand that Ied them or profanation of the gift received represent two aspects of the rebellion of the children of God. However, none of the stages of the history of salvation exists in an absolutely pure state. Hence it is that throughout the length of our Christian life sin can put on the form of a refusal to proceed in the desert and of a prostitution when one, for his own pur-poses and independently of God, makes use of the gift which he has received from His love. The Old Testament leaves us with a vision of a check-mate: God is not able to regain the human race which from the beginning had plunged itself into sin and sepa-rated itself from Him. Unless God would make a new heart for men, they would never be able to rise up to the level of the divine demands. Even the Law which Yahweh had given His elect in an attempt to free them from the surrounding evil came in the end only to increase sin (Rom 7:7-25). The cross of Christ and the gift of the Spirit are necessary in order that we might escape the in. fernal cycle. It is then that there appears that new man according to the heart of God whom the prophets Jere-miah and Ezekiel had predicted: I will give you a new heart, and will put within you a new spirit; I will remove the heart of stone out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh; and I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances (Ez 36:26-27). There is no need to emphasize that one must not present the Law of Christ which alone can make us pleasing to God without adding that this Law is impractical if Christ Himself does not communicate to us His power so that we might fulfill the demands of the Law. Fundamental Aspects o[ the Discord Between God and Man Throughout the Old Testament the resistance of man to the work of God is presented under three clearly dis-tinguished aspects; it is essential to guard against con-fusing these three when the idea of sin in the Bible is analyzed. 1. Opposition to the work of divine justice. The prin-cipal adversary of divine justice is an individual whom the Hebrew language terms rasha', a term which is usu-ally translated by the word impious or wicked. This rasha' enters into association with the "makers of iniq-uity," "the proud," "the mockers," and the "men of blood." His weapons are cunning, lies, violence; he is constantly thinking of i~i~l~'ity"in his he;irt~ li'~ Sets traps for the innocent; his hands are soiled with blood and he is given to drink. His opposition to justice is shown in two ways: it is, first of all, undisguised hostility towards God who is thought to be too distant to'react against it; and, secondly, it is a merciless war against the just whose violated rights the God of the covenant is pledged to de-fend. For practical purposes, the rasha' and his satellites coincide with the adversaries of the covenant; for the justice they oppose is at the center of the preoccupation of the parties of the covenant. They appear from the very beginning of the human race, but more ~usually they ap-pear as the enemies of the Chosen People; in every case they constantly menace the stability of the work of God in the cosmos and in history. Gradually the distinction between the just and the impious is found within the nation itself; it is at this time that the realization of a qualitative Israel necessitates a distinction between the faithful and those who are traitors and apostates. None of the faithful aligns himself with the: rasha': Drag me not away with the wicked, with those who do wron.g, who speak of peace to their neighbors though evil is in their hearts (Ps 28:3). On the occasion of the demands of the wicked, the just man frequently prays for justice from God; this im-plies that he is the victim not the accomplice of the wicked. If the good man wishes to be heard by Yahweh, he must disassociate himself as completely as possible from the perverse machinations of the artisans of evil: "I hate the assembly of evil~toers, and with the wicked I will not sit down" (Ps 26:5). It is only on this condition that he can cry out: "Judge me"; "Do me justice" (Ps 26:1; 43:1). In the matter of justice, then, the Old Testament knows only negative confessions (Ps 5; 26; 139; Jb 31) like those that the dead recite for their justification be-fore the tribunal of Osiris. There is no avowal of an atti-tude of present opposition to justice, an attitude that the God of the covenant would have to punish; only past sins are confessed the consequences of which are already or about to be felt. This is evidently insufficient for Chris-tians. We not only have to present to the Father our past errors but also a heart which even now is evil and which we ask Him to transform. There can be no doubt that ÷ ÷ ÷ Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 139 ÷ .I. ÷ Erode Beaucamp, O~F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS such a prayer supposes a pure intention, and this is the profound significance of our negative confessions. Man can not pray to God while desiring evil; nevertheless, pure intentions do not effect that we see exactly what God wants nor even that we feel the power to accomplish it. Our pure intentions require from us only that we aban-don ourselves,to Him in order that we might see and will the perfection which He expects from us: For I do not the good that I wish, but the evil I do not wish, that I perform . Unhappy man that I aml Who will deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom 7:19 and 24). 2. A state of rupture with God. The three Hebrew roots which are ordinarily translated by such words as sin, transgression, iniquity, fault, and so forth express, though each with different nuances, the idea of a state of rupture with the God of the covenant: The Lord's hand is not .too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear; but your iniquities have been a barrier between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face, so that he could not hear you (Is 59:1-2). This state is a present situation the cause of which is a definite past act; hence one goes from the awareness of the rupture to an appreciation of its origin: "I have sinned." This is equivalent to saying that if God aban-dons me to my lot, I can blame only myself; it is my own fault: O Lord, the great and revered God, who keeps loving faith with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned . To us, O Lord, pertains confusion of face . but to the Lord our God pertain compassion and forgiveness (Dn 9: 4-5, 8-9). The awareness of sin, then, is the awareness of being abandoned by God through one's own fault; the sinner is like a child experiencing the feeling of no longer being loved by his mother; he feels himself cut off from the one who is his source of life: My anger shall blaze against them, and I will forsake them~ and withhold my favor from them; they shall become a thing to be consumed, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say at that time: Is it not because God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us? (Dt 31:17). By the fact of sin--and this holds true for the relations between man and man as well as for the relations be-tween God and man--the Protector finds Himself re-leaged of His obligation 'towards His proteges; in particu-lar He is no longer bound to see justice done them and He can consider them as His enemies: We look for redress, but it comes not; for salvation, but it remains f~r from us. For many are our sins before you, and our faults bear witness against us (Is 59:11-12). Abandoned by his God and even pursued by His ill will, the sinner is sooner or later doomed to death. In the case of an individual he will use up his strength in a dis-ease that is without hope; in the case of a country it will perish under the blows of epidemics, famines, and wars. For sin breaks not only~th@,~bbnds betwe~en,~n~fi and his God; it also isolates man frbm society and even from the earth, since peace with God is the condition of peace with one's fellow men and with the entire world. In his dereliction and total loneliness, the sinner possesses only one resource: to throw himself into the arms of the One he has offended. On the whole, the Old Testament attaches more im-portance: to this state of rupture than to the nature of the acts which provoke it. Contrary to the confessions of Babylon which attempted to exorcise evil by interminable lists of all possible sins, the Bible generally reduces its inventory to the simple assertion: '~I have sinned." For the Bible, it is God, not sin, that is of interest; it is God that is considered. A sense of sin that is not a sense of God and does not suppose the experience of a valued intimacy is a false sense of sin which can lead to the greatest catastrophes as the history of Luther and Jansen-ism have shown. 3. Impurity, the state of incompatibility with the divine presence. The notions of purity an~l impurity are among the most common and primitive ones in the his-tory of religions. In them is found everywhere the same confusion between taboos of a ritual nature and ethical prescriptions in the proper sense. Sexual pollutions, for example, whether licit or illicit, make one impure, just as the shedding of blood, whether justly or unjustly, profanes the earth. And the contagious nature which is attributed to such impurity makes the notion even more difficult for the modern mind. There has been a mis-understanding of the place which the Bible gives to such a primitive category of thought in later books like Leviti-cus; many see in this a reaction to the effort made by the prophets to form the moral conscience of Israel. But presented in this way, the problem is wrongly placed. Impurity is on a completely different level than that of sin, the rupture with God. It is not concerned with the difficulties and blocks that can lessen the rela-tions of man with God but with that which appears in-compatible with the maintenance of the divine presence in the midst of the country: Because the Lord your God moves within your camp to rescue you and to put your enemies at your mercy, your camp must be clean, so that he may not see anything indecent with you, and turn away from you (Dr 23:14). If the Bible attaches a great importance to this notion sin VOLUM£ 22, 1963 141 ÷ ÷ ÷ E~ode Benuc~mp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 142 of impurity, it is because for it the question is not re-ducible to the simple fact of not offending God; it is the much more profound matter of living with Him in His presence. The sense of purity is the awareness of the holiness which election requires, a holiness that must ex-tend to everything which conditions the existence of the elect: I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy; for I am holy; so you must not defile yourselves with any kind of insect that crawls on the earth. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God, and so you must be holy; for I am holy (Lv 11:44-45). You must be holy to me; for I, the Lord, am holy, and have separated you from other peoples to be mine (Lv 90:26). As long as Israel remained a political and sociological reality, the community of life between Yahweh and His people had necessarily to preserve a character that was both interior and exterior, implying demands both of a physical and a moral order. This combination should not, then, be surprising. It is necessary to wait for the Gospel in order that the problem of purity be elevated to a properly spiritual level, for then the kingdom of God becomes an interior reality which is not involved in the social and material conditions of the life of the elect: "It is what pr6ceeds from a man that makes him impure" (Mk 7:20). All cases of impurity, however diverse, have this in common that they create a cultic incompatibility and make the approach to the divine dangerous. But it is dif-ficult to find how this incompatibility flows from a single principle; this is a world of different and heterogeneous elements which it would be a waste of time to attempt to unify. So, for example, one type of impurity consisted of any attempt to violate a reality that was initially sacred: harvesting, the gathering of fruits, marriage, and so ford~. But impurity was likewise involved when a being was possessed by foreign divinities; the sinner fell into this category when, being rejected by his god, he became the prey of demons. Finally, every act is impure which lessens the essential integrity of a being, especially a consecrated one: the loss of blood or of seminal fluid, the cutting of the hair of a Nazirite, the cutting of a stone intended for an altar, the putting to work of an animal destined to carry a sacred object, and so forth. All this is common to the ancient world; and the Bible in this matter originates nothing, though it should be noted that matters such as sicknesses, curses, various ca-lamities, blood crying for vengeance, cadavers awaiting burial figure here as simply malefic rather than being at-tributed to foreign divinities or demons. Furthermore, it seems to us that a global impression emerges from all this chaos: a being cannot support the presence of God if its existence is diminished or threatened either by an acci-dental loss of substance or by subjection to some other power. Not being fully himself, man in such a case cannot offer himself to his God. If this interpretation is correct, then the need for purity calls out for the idea of the In-carnation, for the Priest without stain who can enter the sanctuary of the God of the covenant; this is the perfect man who has attained the fullness of his stature: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Before the majesty of the King-God who was revealed to his eyes, Isaiah becomes frightenedly aware not of his sin but of his impurity: Woe to me, for I am lost; I am a man of unclean lips. and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts (Is 6:5). It is not sin but impurity which impedes the vision of God: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." Whatever may have been for primitive man the deep roots of the notes of impurity, the idea should not be suppressed but moralized and spiritualized. From this an-cient notion, two elements should be kept for the profit of our own Christian life: first, our Christian life is truly a life with God, and it supposes a full realization of our stature as the "new man" according to Christ and a full posses-sion of ourselves that withholds nothing from the in-fluence of God; secondly, every lessening of our personal vitality is a lessening of the vitality of the community; every lessening of our charity detracts from the global charity of the Church, and it tarnishes her purity, since impurity by its nature is contagious, always passing from individuals to the collectivity. Solutions to the Discord Between God and Man 1. The judgment of the wicked. A victorious judgment of the God of the covenant will put an end to the opposi-tion of the wicked man. This judgment, however, is never purely negative. The wicked man is a dangerous individ-ual, and his downfall affects the salvation of the just: The righteous shall rejoice that he has seen vengeance; he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the wicked. And men shall say: There certainly is a reward for the just; there cer-tainly is a God who judges on earth (Ps 58:10-11). As we have seen, the wicked man is generally con-sidered as unable to be converted; this is why his disap-pearance appears as the only solution to the evil of which the just man is a victim; the world will regain its peace only when God has caused this evil to fall on its authors. Gradually, however, other conceptions of the matter came into existence. Jeremiah and especially Ezekiel envisage ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 22° 1963 ÷ Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the case of a wicked man who abandons his wickedness to practice "judgment and justice": As I live, says the oracle of Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather in this that the wicked man turn from his way and live. Turn, O turn, from your evil waysl Why should you die, O house of Israeli (Ez 33:11). This view of the conversion of the wicked is a direct preparation for the Gospel. Christ will proclaim that He has come not for the just but for the wicked---the publi-cans and adulterers who without conversion would fall beneath the blows of the avenging anger of God. The great revolution of the Gospel is the distinction between evil and evil men; in the Our Father it is from evil that we ask to be freed and not from our enemies, as was done in the Psalms. As long as a man has not drawn his last breath, he is never to be identified with evil and we must always hope for his eventual conversion. The venge-ance of the just is no longer the extermination of the wicked but their penance and reparation. 2. The pardon of the sin. The one who has culpably lost communion with God can only hope for the gratui-tous act of clemency and pity Which the One offended can grant or not grant when pardon is asked of Him. In the rupture man took the initiative, but the initiative in the matter of reconciliation belongs exclusively to God. More than in any other case there apears here the impos-sibility of forcing His hand. Sin, the rupture of relations between God and man, is an intolerable weight from which the sinner cannot free himself by his own effort; it is a weight that only the One offended is in a position to lift: For, day and night, your hand lay heavy upon me . I said: I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin (Ps 32:4-5). The Babylonians, in order to have greater certainty of their restoration to favor, frequently attempted to have another friendly divinity intervene with the angered god. In the Bible, as is evident, man is without the possibility of such a mediation. He must directly approach the God he has offended and throw himself at His feet while de-claring "I have sinned"; he must rely entirely on God's mercy. It is clear that such an act implies conversion; it is the return of the prodigal son to his Father's house. While the Bible does not permit the sinner to avoid encountering the God he has angered, still it does not leave him without arguments by which he can plead his case. He can, for example, invoke the glory of the God of the covenant whose name he still continues to bear: What will the nations think of Yahweh if He continues to leave his people defenseless? (Ps 79; 80; Ez 32:11-14). He can also invoke His justice: In abandoning His own, does not Yahweh yield to His enemies? (Ps 41). Finally, he can appeal to the shortness of life--life which a pro-lUonngfoedrt uabnsaetnelcye, owf eG coadn m naokte ds eelmayp thye aren du ,s epngsne~le sths e(Pses 9a0rg).u-ments which still retaiii,:th~ir~, validity for, oi~i~ prayer as Christians. We have already pointed out that the penitent does not dwell upon an analysis of his culpable act but keeps his eyes on the God the lack of whom he suffers and in whom he sees his only hope; the simple fact of the rupture is al-ready virtually the presence of death and it constitutes for the sinner the deepest kind of punishment than which nothing greater is to be feared. The penitent calls on the judgment and justice of Yahweh as a grace the right to which he has lost by sin. He awaits the moment of pardon which will reestablish him in the friendship of His God so that once again he will be protected in the midst of a hostile world: The anger of the Lord must I bear--for I have sinned against him--until he shall take up my case and do me justice (Mi 7:9). Once pardon h.as been granted, the remembrance of the sin disappears in the remembrance of the victorious love of Yahweh, a love which is capable of overpowering all offenses and which in its profundity and total gratuitous-ness leaves the soul of man in confusion (Ps 103); here already there is almost found the felix culpa of St. Au-gustine. Moreover, the world which the divine mercy re-constructs is always more beautiful than the one de-stroyed by sin. To illustrate this law, it is sufficient to reflect on the messianic prophecies which for the most part are prophecies of pardon (Ps 85; Is 40-55; 60; Ez 34; and so forth). 3. Purification of Defilement. Having been excluded from worship, the defiled man must purify himself be-fore coming into the presence of God.'It is a co.mmon idea among all the ancient religions that the gods have given men ritual materials and formulas that are capable of purifying them, their temples, and their country. In particular, there are appropriate rites that permit the expulsion from the impure being of the evil spirits and demons who have taken possession of him; thus, for ex-ample, spells and curses which had victimized a person were made to pass on to the body of animals wh~ch.~:were then driven far away or burned. In the Bible this liturgi-cal transfer has left only a few traces, the most notable ex-ample of which is that of the scapegoat of the D~y of Atonement (Lv 16). This animal, loaded with the sins of Israel, was not offered to Yahweh but driven far aw~iy to Azazel. 4, 4, VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ ÷ Erode Beau~arap, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 146 In place of this image of a transfer, the Bible has pre-ferred that of cleansing through ablutions and sprinkling with blood and water. This symbol is simultaneously negative and positive: at the same time as it removes the uncleanliness, the water restores all the freshness of life. This is also, as it seems to me, the function of the blood in the atonement rite and in the sin sacrifices. But we shall not delay here on this difficuh and debated point; we will content ourselves with giving our own personal opinion. Blood seems to have as its effect the protection of the things and persons which it covers; it protects them from the various evils which are the sequel of sin just as the blood of the paschal lamb did at the Exodus (Ex 12:1-15). But to this negative effect there is added a posi-tive action; for blood is life, and it is by reason of the life that is in it that Yahweh has given it as an effector of atonement (Lv 17:10-12). Thanks to it, persons, cult ob-jects, and the country that is the abode of Yahweh find their fullness of life, their first integrity which impurity had caused to be lost. The application of this Biblical rite to our Christian life is not difficult. The sin of a Christian can be con-sidered as a stain that not only changes our personal re-lations with God but also diminishes the vital potentiali-ties of the Church and impairs her charity. Reparation, therefore, is a social duty just as it was in ancient Israel. God has given us the Blood of Christ as an inexhaustible source of love so that we can preserve for the Church the immaculate appearance which her divine Spouse initially bestowed on her: He wished to summon into his presence the Church in all her beauty, with no stain, wrinkle, or any disfigurement; she. was to be holy and spotless (Eph 5:27). Conclusion By way of conclusion, let us synthesize the results of our inquiry. In order that the notion of sin preserve all the force that the Bible gives it, it must include three ele-ments: deterioration of the order of creation; rupture with God, the source of life; and impurity which hinders all commerce with the divine. All this is what is repre-sented by the word sin at the time of the New Testament~ it is all this that Christ has come to restore, heal, and purify. Under these three aspects, sin is a flight from God, the only source of life and happiness; it represents the contrary of all the effort God has made throughout his-tory to draw us to Him; it is a return back to a past from which He has drawn us; it is our refusal to allow ourselves to be led by Him blindly; it is our squandering of the gifts we have received. To depart from God is to depart from other men and finally to find oneself alone in a hostile world: And it has brought you. w " as reconciled . ,_ o ~;. ¯ - uom~ wron~ ;-,- - "-' holiness a~a t__ )vu mrough dying, ;,,~.:_ . 6 ~-o.ugn now (Col 1:2'1_~)."ee ~rom reproa~c h. .or ~Ta~'e,'~'~vt~uas op~rensve nbcoedy) ia Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 PAUL W. O'BRIEN, S.J. The Weekly Confession of Fervent Religious ÷ ÷ Paul W. O'Brien, S.J., is the rector of the Pontifical Semi-nary in Dalat, Viet-nam. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 148 The word "fervent" in the title is not meant to frighten away those good religious for whom the article is actually written, but who usually hesitate to think of themselves as fervent. It is used rather to indicate the limited perspective of the article, a perspective however which we trust is representative of religious and hehce applicable to many. It is not unusual to find religious who have a problem with their weekly confession--a problem that seems to arise not from their being tepid but rather from their being fervent. They are serious about their religious life. They would rather do anything than deliberately offend God in the smallest thing. And yet they find a certain uneasiness, tedium, even difficulty with their weekly con-fession. Time and again they have consulted the classical authors to find ways of refreshing this exercise, but usu. ally with only transitory success. The considerations pro-posed in these manuals, while excellent and fundamental and helpful to a certain point, do not really fit. For the religious we have in mind does not come to his weekly confession as an enemy of God; he does not come with mortal sins; he has no need of being "reconciled" to the Church, much less of having divine life "restored" to his soul. His confession is not one of obligation, and con:;e-quently there is nothing that he is obliged to confess (supposing always that to ensure the validity of his con-fession, he mentions his past forgiven sins, at least in a general way). In fact he rarely (more likely never) brings unforgiven sins to the confessional. For to say nothing of the many ways that venial sins can be forgiven out-side the sacrament, his daily communion is constantly purifying his soul, and his habit of immediately turning to God in loving sorrow for any fault committed, plus the. contrition that he excites before confession, brings him to the confession with really no unforgiven matter. Clearly the basic considerations of the purgative way, which may once have applied to him, and whose grateful memory will always remain with him, are not sufficient. There is need of a ditter~ent perspective~a .,shifting of emphasis, if his confession ~is" to produce the,, fruit ex-pected by the Church. ' ¯ ~. ~ For the Church is greatly concerned about these fre-quent confessions. When som~ younger members of the clergy were diminishing esteem for the frequent confes-sion of venial sins, claiming that it was useless, consumed too much time of busy pastors, and was actually un-known in the early Church, Pope Plus XII spoke out clearly and strongly against them (Mystici Corporis 87): Equally disastrou~s in its effects is the false contention that tile frequent confession of venial sins is not a practice to be greatly esteemed. Therefore those among the young clergy who are diminishing esteem for frequent confession are to know that the enterprise upon which they have embarked is alien to the Spirit of Christ and most detrimental to the Mys-tical Body of our Savior. For a constant and speedy ad-vancement in the path of virtue, we highly recommend the practice of frequent confession, introduced by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; for by this means we grow in a true knowledge of ourselves and in Christian hu-mility, bad habits are uprooted, spiritual negligence and apathy are prevented, the conscience is purified and the will strengthened, salutary spiritual direction is obtained, and grace is increased by the efficacy of the sacrament itself. In the following lines it is not my purpose to touch on all the above advantages nor to give a form to confession nor to enter into the aspect of spiritual direction in the confessional. I wish merely to redistribute the emphasis of certain aspects and thus perhaps help towards a solu-tion of our problem. Sacrament of Loving Sorrow One of the areas that calls for reappraisal and a pos-sible reshifting of emphasis concerns our habitual way of looking on the sacrament. There is danger that a way of speaking will induce a way of thinking. Because of our ordinary practice of speaking of the sacrament of pen-ance as "confession," we may develop a wrong emphasis. Now I am not advocating a change in our traditional terminology, but we must be careful lest our way of speaking throw everything out of focus. For the actual "confession" of sins, in the type of confession we are dealing with, is one of the least important elements of the sacrament. And yet it is frequently the main source of trouble for the fervent religious: "What to say?" Such a preoccupation is understandable when there is ques-tion of the integrity of an obligatory confession of mortal sins, but how completely out of place it is in our con- 4- 4- 4- Weekly onlession VOLUME 22, 1963 ]49 P. W. O'B~i~, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS fessions. I wonder if our exact catechetical training, given chiefly in view of a form of obligatory confession, is not unduly transferred to confessions of devotion. At any rate, it is not rare to find the problem of confession be-coming more acute as the religious becomes more fer-vent, the problem of "what to say" becoming so empha-sized as to bring on uneasiness. But even when we think more exactly in terms of the "sacrament of penance," we must still be on our guard. The very word "penance" can become a source of mis-understanding. The Latin word paenitentia of which our English "penance" is a translation, has been well-chosen and in its real meaning of "sorrow with purpose of amendment" is quite appropriate. But in English we do not think that way. For us "penance" is associated with fasting and disciplines; and even though we have been taught that true interior penance consists in sorrow for our sins, this is not our habitual association with the word "penance." Would that the translating fathers had given us something like "sacrament of sorrow." It would have helped us put the emphasis where it belongs. The emphasis then in this "sacrament of sorrow" should be on sorrow; but a sorrow that is a free and meritorius act. This should immediately put us on our guard against certain counterfeits. It is a free act; hence always in my power. I can make it on Monday; I can make it on Friday. I can make it when I am depressed; I can make it when I am as dry as a stick. Evidently its value does not and cannot depend on emotional inten-sity (which is not in my power). It is a movement of the will detesting sin because of my conviction (intellectua! appreciation) that God's will is above all. Its efficacy measured not by the accompanying emotion or affection. (if there is any) but by the strength derived from my conviction. Now for the fervent religious this conviction has become habitual. It is constantly operative in his daily life as is evidenced by his care in avoiding all that is against God's will. But it can well be that this con-viction has.become so settled in his life that it sets up no emotional resonance. He must not be surprised then when he finds that his sorrow in the confessional reta~ins the same strong voluntary but unemotional tendency that characterizes his daily life. He detests sin and all his failings because he truly loves God and has made will the supreme norm of his life. Here the question of motive enters. It is this that sets the tone to our sorrow and our confession. The faithful religious does not come to God in fear but in love,~,as to his Father. The Little Flower puts it simply: I have long believed that the Lord is more tender than a mother. I know that a mother is always ready to forgive trivial, involuntary misbehavior on the part of her child . Children are always in trouble, falling down, getting themselves dirty, breaking thing~but all this does not shake their parent's love for them. We come to God as His dearest children, sharing His very life, coming with th.e loving sorrow .of asofi; to be reassured that all, all has b&fi forgiven;' to i:eceive the embrace of the Father. Sacrament ol Purification One of the perspectives of the sacrament that opens up a rich vein of thought and deserves to be emphasized by the faithful religious is the aspect of purification-- purification not in the sense of liberation from the guilt of actual sins and faults--but rather a deeper purifica-tion that penetrates to the roots of those faults, to the habitual tendencies which cause them, and to the reli-quiae peccati which are their results. The sacrament be-comes (if you will pardon the expression) a sort of radio-therapy of our deep wickedness. We expose our wounds, visible or not, with a certain reasoned eagerness and joy to the curative influence of the sacrament. We are not so much preoccupied about our past actual faults. We have sorrowed over them and know that they have been wiped out through God's mercy. It is rather the deep of our soul, the roots of the faults, which give promise of bring-ing forth again their fruit of death--it is these roots which disturb us. And here precisely is where the "grace of the sacrament" comes into play--a grace which the Council of Florence describes as a grace of purification, a grace of healing: "Through penance we are spiritually healed" (DB 695). This grace reaches beyond the actual sins, forgiven by the absolution, to reach deep into our nature into the causes of those sins. This purifying influence acts not only on the soul but also on the body. I believe we may find an analogy in the effects of the sacrament of extreme unction which is usually considered as the complement of penance. Its influence in strengthening soul and body during serious sickness should give us some clue to the purifying action of penance. For we may well believe that the effects of this sacrament are but the "finishing touches" to a proc-ess begun and carried on through other sacraments throughout one's life. All the sacraments, even Holy Eucharist, have a purifying influence on the whole per-son, body and soul. Now one of the effects of the sacra-ment of extreme unction is to weaken the effects of con-cupiscence, to restore some part of our original integrity which was lost through Adam's sin. St. Thomas explains our inability to avoid all indeliberate venial sins by concupiscence together with the slowness of our percep- + + + Weekly Con]ession 151 ÷ ÷ ÷ P. W. O'Bden, $.L REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS tion of good, the changeableness of our will, and the frequency of temptation (S. T. 1, q 109, a 8). Now in re-ducing concupiscence, extreme unction restores order to man's strivings, subordinating the sensitive to the spirit-ual and the spiritual to God; it helps put a man in true possession of himself, so that he is able to dominate not only those positive urges of soul and body that escape control but also the oppressive weight of dead inertia by which the sensitive life impedes the striving of the will toward God. From this precious purifying and strengthening action of extreme unction, we may gather some idea of what takes place in the sacrament of pen-ance, not precisely in view of a serious sickness but look-ing rather to the progressive purification of our soul as it weakens concupiscence, counteracts sluggishness, or-ders our passions, and restores us to spiritual liberty. Awareness of Sinfulness Now it is precisely this grace of purification that draws religious to the sacrament of penance. (Perhaps I should say "drives," for there is no question of an emotional attraction, but rather the compelling force of a reasoned conviction based on faith.) It is this that explains the daily confessions of so many saints--St. Catherine of Siena, St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, St. Peter Claver, St. Charles Borromeo, St. A1phonsus Liguori. Surely they were not deliberately sinning nor were they scrupulous. But they understood better the holiness of God. St. Francis Borgia was accustomed to confess twice a day, once in the morning before saying Mass and again in the evening before retiring. By this I do not mean that daily confession, where possible, is a goal to be aimed at. It may be helpful regularly for some persons, or for others at particular times of special grace or difficulty. This is a problem to be determined with one's confessor. I merely mention these examples to illustrate one of the great motives of frequent confession--the desire for pu-rity. This desire of the saints for purity is shared by ,~11 faithful souls according to their grace. For as the reli-gious strives to lead his life more generously, avoiding as far as he can all deliberate failings, he participates more abundantly in God's light. The effect is twofold: he be-gins to understand more clearly who God is, and in the same measure he becomes more aware of his wretched-ness. He finds himself in an attitude of soul similar to that of Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, who tells .us that his hair stood on end when in vision a spirit passed be-fore him. "I heard the voice as it were of a gentle wind: Shall man be justified in comparison with God, or shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold. in his angels he found wickedness." (Jb 4:15 ft.). Isaiah re-cords a similar state of soul, the result of his great vision of the holiness of God. "Woe is me because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts" (Is 6:l-5)~The religious~in~tlle light of God s hohness becomes painfully consc,ous, I will not say of "sin," but of sinfulness. He longs to bring his sins to the confessional, but what sins? Here precisely is the trouble. The sins that are clear have long since been sub-mitted to the sacrament in sorrow. He knows that they are forgiven and blotted from the sight of God. But the daily failings? Truly they are not deliberate sins. He would rather do anything than displease God. He cannot pin down his failings. And yet he is painfully conscious of a mass of selfishness, insincerity, sensuality, but deep in the soul where he cannot reach. He realizes that this wickedness penetrates all that he does, but it is not in acts where it can be grasped. And he also realizes that this is not an illusion; the wickedness is really there. This creates a problem for him--a problem that per-haps increases with the fidelity of the soul--and which often accounts for much of the difficulty experienced in approaching the sacrament. It seems such hypocrisy to have nothing to say. And yet no matter how long the ex-amination of conscience is prolonged, nothing more spe-cific is discovered. He has only wasted precious time that could have been more profitably spent on deepening his loving sorrow. Nor is this due simply to negligence of the soul. Perhaps most natures do not have the per-spicacity to analyze and draw out into the clear these deep tendencies of the soul. The light that is given them is not so sharp. Nor need it be; for its purpose of hu-miliation and purification is equally accomplished by the confused and painful acceptance of what the soul perceives confusedly. According to One's Light Fortunately, in this type of confession, the accusation is one of the least important parts. Hence very little time should be spent on the actual examination of conscience. The daily examination of conscience faithfully made will guarantee the religious against negligence, and a quick glance will usually reveal where he has displeased God. Hence if within a few minutes nothing specific is dis-covered, he should stop his inquiry and be satisfied with a general accusation: "I accuse myself of all the sins of my past life, especially for my sins of pride, sensuality, or against some commandment." Father Saint-Jure, S.J., gives this directive: Those (venial sins) which we should seek out and confess Weekly ¢onlesslon VOLUME Z2o '1'963 153 4. 4. 4. P. W. O'Brien, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]54 with more c~ire are those which weigh most heavily on us, and those which cause us more embarrassment and shame, pro-vided that we are able to confess them with honesty a~d de-cency; likewise those which ~hinder us most from attaining the perfection to which God calls us, or which are contrary to the virtue to. which we are particularly devoting our efforts for that week or month. And since among venial sins there are some which arise from mere weakness, which escape us as by surprise, and others from malice, which we commtt with full knowledge, coldly, understanding what we are doing and with full consent, of these latter none should be omitted in con-fession. As for the others, one should leave them to the mercy of God, and confess them in general, all-inclusive terms: If the soul is sufficiently. . .pure so that it commits only these sins of weakness, let zt ~ndzcate some of them" (On the Knowledge and Love of our Lord Jesus Christ, Bk 3, c 10, ~9). Hence we may give as a practical rule: I may accuse myself of whatever God gives me the light to see as dis-pleasing to Him (no matter how trivial it may seem in itselD. If I see specific failings clearly, it is well to accuse myself at least of some of them; if I see them only.in a confused way, as tendencies, I should be content to ac-knowledge them in this general way (paying particular attention to one or another of them for a few weeks at a time)--adding, however, a general accusation of past forgiven sins to insure the validity of the confession. This awareness of sinfulness and inability to reach it through our own efforts is often given by spiritual writers as a reason for God's intervention through the passive purification of the soul. We read of "dark nights of the soul" in which God's purifying action goes deep where the active effort of the soul cannot penetrate, purifying the roots of our evil inclinations, attacking the basic self-ishness of the soul. This, type of purification is usually associated with trials in prayer that fall to the lot of con-templatives. We know, however, that God's purifying action can take many forms, that his apostles are often purified through the trials inherent in their apostolate. Surely a most powerful means of purification and one which is often overlooked is the very sacrament of purifi-cation instituted by Christ, which accomplishes in the soul much the same work as the "dark nights" and apos-tolic trials: namely, the progressive submission of our lower nature to the higher and the higher to God, the liberation of our soul from the weight of its wicked in-clinations and its consequent gradual transformation in God. Building up the Body oI Christ As the religious grows in his vocation, he should grow also in a sense of his solidarity with the Churcli, the Mystical Body. He begins to see his sin and sinfulness in their social aspect. While clearly realizing that his sin is his own, for which he alone is responsible, he is more aware of the consequences of his sin on the organism of which he is a member--and this apart from the harmful effects that may come through bad example, coopera-tion, and so forth. He understands that the life that is in him is a shared lif~e; ~w, eakened with 'his'.~weakness, strengthened with his strength. It.is true that our liturgy today does not give such prominence to the social aspect of penance as in the old days when the penitent, after a period of public penance, was restored on Holy Thurs-day to the family life of the Church so that he might share the Paschal Bread of life with the other members of his family, the Church. Nor is there question of our religious being "restored" to the Church. But he begins to feel deeply his corporate responsibility, He is ashamed of the sinfulness that he brings to the immaculate Spouse of Christ. Aware of the lessening of love, as sin drains this Body anemic, he strives to replenish the blood ;stream with his love. He understands the general disappearance in the world of a sense of sin and rushes with his loving sorrow to make amends. If he be a priest whose mission it is to destroy sin in the world, he finds an added joy both in receiving and administering the sacrament. He offers God a soul in which He may work more purity, and thus "build up the Body of Christ" (Eph 4.9). And with this consciousness of his unity in the Mystical Body, a new dimension is added to his examination Of con-science, or rather a more acute awareness of his already existing obligation: his duty of charity; his responsibility for the spread of God's kingdom; his sins of omission through cowardice, selfishness, love of ease; the primacy of love. Meeting with the Three One beautiful but rarely stressed aspect of this sacra-ment is our meeting with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While it is true that the glorified humanity of Jesus is the instrument of all our grace, it is still the Word of God who takes away sin. "Who can forgive sin but God alone?" (Lk 5:21), Every sacramental absolution is then the action of Jesus, the great high priest, acting through His representative, a man chosen from amongst sinners. And in receiving that absolution, I come in vital contact with Jesus. Here He bestows on me the grace of redemption. Jt is for this that He came into the world, as He prolongs into my soul the efficacy of His redemp-tive sacrifice. -The life that He gives, He won in His blood. It is this that causes such joy in heaven, more than over the ninety-nine just, this prolongation of the rich mysteries of His death and glorification, for me a new 4- 4- 4- Weekly Conlession VOLUMF 22, 1963 155 + ÷ ÷ P. W. O'Brien, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 156 baptism, as plunged into His death, I rise to a new or richer life. But often we are inclined to forget the part of the Father and the Holy Spirit. If there is pardon in the sacrament and grace of purification, it is because the Father loves us beyond all telling. "God [the Father] so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son." (Jn 3:16). In the pardon of the Son, I meet the love of the Father. And if there is life in the sacrament, it is because the Father, in giving His Son, gives us also the Holy Spirit who pours forth the charity of God into our hearts (Rom 5:5), this Spirit who cleanses, who burns away the impurities of our soul in the fire that He is. All this is brought out strikingly in the very institution of this sacrament of peace. It is as though the glorified Christ can hardly wait to begin pouring out the effects of His loving sacrifice. The very eve of Easter Sunday, He must come to His frightened Apostles in the upper room to give them power to forgive sin, First He shows them His wounds, the price of the sacrament, and the proof that it is really the glorified Christ in His human-ity. And then: " 'Peace be to you. As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.' When He had said this, He breathed upon them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained' " (Jn 20:21- 23). The Father is there, prolonging in Jesus and through Jesus in the apostles, the love that fathered the redemp-tion. The Son is there, in His glorified humanity, com-municating the fruits of His redemptive offering. But first the Spirit must be given, for it is in the Spirit that the soul is led through the Son to the Father. What happiness for the faithful soul is this meeting in the sacrament with the ThreeI ]oy to the Heart of ]esus But if there is joy to the soul on meeting the Three, there is joy in the Three as They enrich the soul. For the eagerness of the soul to meet its God can never begin to match the love of God that goes out to meet the soul. "I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly" (Jn I0:10). The entire life of Jesus, with all its sufferings, has been aimed precisely at moments such as these, when meeting with the soul, He can com-municate the graces won on Calvary. If love that is frus-trated and refused can be such a torment, Love that gives and is received can be immeasurable joy. It is this joy that is ours to give to Jesus as we open our hearts in sorrow to His purifying love. JACQUES LECLERCQ The Priest Today In a preceding article? on active lay people, I men-tioned the confusion of priests when they ask themselves what their purpose is since now in meetings of fill kinds lay persons make meditations and in general ~ssume a spiritual role. And yet. The Presence o] the Priest And yet the laity cling to the presence of the priest. It seems that something essential is missing if a priest is not present--this priest who does nothingl Things now are entirely different from what they used to be. For one thing, previously there were no meet-ings that resemble the ones of today. Formerly when the priest .took his part by preaching a sermon, the faithful listened and then left. Or at the time when study clubs began to be organized, the priest presided and directed, trying with more or less success to make the various mem-bers speak; and frequently he was the only one to do any speaking. Today, however, he is neither presiding officer nor director. He is rather a chaplain; he assists--in Italy he is called the assistente ecclesiastico [the ecclesiastical assistant]. At times one may have the impression that everything happens without him, but in reality there is nothing that happens without him. Everything happens with him; but this "with him" is something other than "under his direction." All of this is disconcerting for those who are accustomed to the authoritarian conceptions of former times. The priest does nothing, and yet he is indispensable. When lay persons form a spiritual group of some kind, one of their first concerns is always to have a chaplain; for without a chaplain it would seem that the group is unable to suc-ceed. Is there any way in which we can point out pre-cisely what it is that the priest provides? x In La revue nouvelle, a Belgian periodical, during 1962,. Canon Leclercq published a number of articles on the laity in the Church today. The present article is translated with permission from La revue nouvelle, September 15, 1962, pp. 171-84. 4. 4. 4. Canon Jacques Le- ¢lercq fives at 102, rue de Li/~ge; Beau-lays, Belgium. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS lacqu~s Le¢l~rcq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 158 The matter is a real puzzle, and it is being investigated from almost every angle. It is not a question of the sacra-merits. As is evident, it is the priest who distributes these. But the Christian life, as it is conceived today, is some-thing other than the sacraments. It is based on the sacra-ments; it is nourished by them; yet Catholic Action meet-ings, or meetings of workers or of managers, of students, of scotits and their leaders, have a purpose entirely other than that of receiving the sacraments; they are not even spoken of. Nor is it expected that the priest give an in-struction or a sermon. It is only expected that he be there, participating in the meeting with the rest. It would seem that from the Christian viewpoint some-thing is lacking to lay persons when they are left to them-selves., And yet it is a question of their own life, for it is they who must put into practice what they discuss. But at the same time it is a question of their own life insofar as it is Christian. From this point of view, it is necessary to have a priest in the midst of them. And I think that this expression "in the midst of them" is the exact one. A French priest, who works among the working class, has made the following remark on this point: I think that the people need a founder, someone who ~'will unite them in the charity of Christ. Lay persons can do some things, but they cannot be centers. Hence they need Someone who will be a religious center, a kind of church, for them. They do not only need Christians who are the presence of the Church, but they need above all a church in the sense of the Church realized in this community; they need someone who unites them and who is the head in the sense of being a father, not someone who commands but one who assembles and who is first ("T~moignage de M. Lelubre" in Etudes sur ,le sacre-merit de l'ordre [Paris: Cerf, 1957], p. 432). When this is reflected on, one sees very clearly the ap-pearance of the reality that is the Church. Christ continues His presence and His action by the Church. The Church is the people of God; and the people of God is constituted first of all by lay persons. In order to avoid giving the impression of tending towards laicism --which consists of excluding the clergy--let me say at once that the Church is both lay persons and priests, all of them together. But priests--all of them, even the bishops and the pope---exist for the laity, for the service of the laity. When it is said that they exist for the laity-- the pope himself is entitled the servant of 'the servants of God---this means that the people of God is essentially the laity, that it is to them that the divine life flows and that it is through them above all that it manifests itself. If the Church, according to the words of Scripture, is like a lamp that one lights and puts on a lampstand, this is the laity--Christian life in the family and in daily occupa-tions, The clergy, priests, religious are at the service of this. The result of their work is not that an elite may en-close itself within monasteries in order to live in God, nor even that Christian people in more or less great numbers may gather in churches to. ce,lebrate divine~worship; rather the result of their "dork is that through Christians Christ lives and acts in families and in the world. Priests and religious must sanctify themselves per-sona! ly in order to create a climate of holiness in the Church; but the result of the Church's holiness must be found in homes and in the world. When we use the word "world" [citd] here, we are envisaging professional, politi-cal, and social activities--all that can be called public life. It is to this that the life of Christ in the Church tends. Hence the Church is above all the laity; and it is through the laity that she first manifests her dynamism. But it is priests who form the laity in a Christian way. Priests :are men of the Church and men of God. '.Their function is to represent the Church; they exist only for this. ~ The lay person must be entirely Christian and at the same time something else besides; this shows forth the character of the Incarnation, that reality which is found only in Christianity. The Incarnation consists in this that the work and supernatural action of God is accomplished in and through nature. It has been frequently remarked that the supernatural is above the natural, but not contrary to the natural; it does not. suppress nature but elevates it; it transforms the natural, but it takes the natural into account. It constructs from, above; this can never be repeated too often if one wishes to comprehend what Christianity is. The kingdom of God, then, must be built up among men by taking due account of their nature. The Spirit of God transforms this nature to its depths; this is mani-fested exteriorly by the intention that animates action and by the choice which is made among various actions; .never-theless, these actions retain their .human character, and this must be remembered by those who are concerned with them. The Priest is Leaven Christ compared the kingdom of God to leaven that makes the dough rise; good bread can not be made with-out yeast. But yeast alone is not sufficient to make bread. Flour is needed, and the baker must be careful to secure good flour. It is necessary to knead the bread carefully. It must be baked in a good oven at the right temperature and for the right length of time and so forth. If the 4. 4. 4. The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 139 Jacques l.eclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 160 kingdom of God is like the leaven in bread, one can say that the priest is the depositary of this leaven; but it the laity who are like the bakers who must be occupied with all the conditions for the preparation of the bread. Moreover, it is they who must make use of the yeast. If the priest remains alone with his leaven, there will never be any bread; and if the bakers do not have the yeast, once again there will be no bread. Both are neces-sary. Now let us transpose all this into the entirety of life. The laity found homes and give life to the world. This obliges them to think of many things that in themselves are independent of the kingdom of God. It is to be noted that I have said "in themselves," for nothing is a stranger to the kingdom of God when one places it in the entirety of life. For example, parents must be concerned with the health of their children, their nourishment, their cloth-ing, their studies. The kingdom of God takes part in all this as a kind of preoccupation that orientates this activ-ity ir,.~ a certain measure, but only in a certain measure. And the same is the case with employers, workers, farmers, students, and so forth. But the priest is the man of God. He recalls the king-dom of God by his mere presence; one can say, by his existence, for he has no other purpose for existing. Theo-retically it should be sufficient that a priest be present for one to think of the kingdom of God. The word "theo-retically" is used because men are not perfect, and both priests and the laity are men. Nevertheless, this is the way reality is, and it is this that the laity perceive even when they cannot express it; it is this that leads them, when they are concerned with the kingdom or the way in which God should penetrate their life, to unite themselves around a priest. In brief, all the matters which.form the tissue of the llfe of the laity.are of importance for the kingdom of God; but they are not the kingdom of God. If, when they wish to discuss the repercussion of the kingdom of God on these matters, people gather together without a priest, the discussion easily slips over into the purely human condi-tions of activity; the presence of a priest, however, centers it upon the kingdom. Hence the laity need to have a priest present in their life. This also explains the desire of families to have times a visit from a priest. This is especially true in towns; but it differs from one locality to another, for we are discussing here the case of fervent Christians who desire that their faith influence their lives. In places where such Christians do not exist, the matter is quite different and needs to be discussed further. But to return to our subject, the visit of a priest to families is not a matter of giving a sermon or even of speaking principally about religion. It is a presence. Christian families enjoy having a priest in their homes. They want the priest to know them, their children, and their way of life. And this contributes to the general at-mosphere which reigns iri.~th~. home; th~"~ '6hversation spontaneously takes a vein different from the conversa-tion that is had with colleagues or with friends. And the fact that the priest is involved in their life permits all kinds of questions to be directed to him. The problem of the visit of a priest to families arouses a great many questions which can not be treated here, for they deserve an article to themselves. For the present, let us limit ourselves to pointing out these aspirations of good Christians. We are concerned with good Christians. As we pointed out previously, the Church cannot reach bad Christians or non-Christians except through the laity. The laity must be active or the Church will not take hold of the world; in the terms of the Gospel, she will be a light under a basket or leaven apart from the dough. But these active laity need the priest. Left to themselves, they are liable to be routed even in their interior life. In order that they may be united under the standard of Christ and that they may attack in an orderly way the problems of their interior life and of their Christian action in the world, the priest must be in the midst of them. In conclusion, let us note that in the Church at the beginning of this century the priest was occupied with a good many other things which were often profane; by reason of a tradition which dies away only slowly, many priests today are still taken up to a large extent by ad-ministrative and other activities which the laity would be better occupied with. The result is that priests are ab-sorbed by activities which are not suited to them; at the same time they are unavailable for groups of active Christians or they find it impossible to visi~ families. In any case, this new role of the priest is so important that there can be no Church without him. And the activ-ities that correspond to this role are so numerous and pressing that good priests are crowded with such activ-ities. And there is even the complaint that there are not enough priests. And yet what we have discussed so far is but one of the activities of a priest. Spiritual Action The action of leaven can not be seen; this results in difficulty for some because man has a body and is highly dependent on it. Man needs to see, and yet the soul and action on souls cannot be seen. ÷ ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, ~.963 161 lacques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS There are, first of all, the older priests of whom we have already spoken; for these the pastoral ministry is ex-pressed by material activities and they can not conceive any other type. Moreover, they do not conceive of any other priestly intervention than the authoritarian form of formal congregational meetings composed of a sermon and a greeting. Today, all this has become secondary, if indeed it has not been completely abandoned. Formerly when the priest spoke authoritatively, he gave directions in many matters (politics, for instance) which touched religion only very indirectly. At the present time, there is a growing agreement that priests are not to in-terest themselves in the temporal. However, many priests formerly were interested in nothing else. To the extent that this remains true, one can understand that they have the impression of no longer knowing what to do. This outmoded spirit dies out only slowly; in semi-naries as well as in houses of study of religious orders clerical formation likewise becomes transformed only slowly. One even finds young priests who think that, when they are with the laity, their role should be one of teaching and that they alone should do the talking. They find themselves ill at ease when persons are not disposed to listen to them first of all. Others still think that they must do everything themselves~determine the place, day, and hour of the meetings and issue the announcements. Again they feel discomforted when a group of active Christians organize everything without them and then come to invite them. We are living in an age of transformation. The older attitude with its way of doing things is gradually giving way. But some priests still retain the older attitudes and do not conceive the possibility of allowing the laity to act. On the other hand, many of the laity retain a purely passive conception of their role; not only do they leave everything to the priest, but they will do nothing if they are asked to take over a work. "Adult" lay persons (of whom I have been speaking) and priests adapted to such are still but few in number. Nevertheless, when one compares today with the be-ginning of the century, the transformation is unmistak-able. The essential thing is that this evolution continue and that the priest should more and more return to. the spiritual; that is, to the domain that belongs to him. But is "return" the correct word? He should rather aspire to it. But man is material, and the older conception gives satisfaction to a kind of unconscious materialism. Collaboration Formerly, one spoke only of authority and obedience. The faithful should obey, and nothing else was asked of them. Today, however, as we have seen, they are asked to think and to act for themselves. The meetings of active Christians have as their purpose a united program to enable the realization of the Christian ideal in the actual circumstances of life. Accordingly, the pri~est.is, no longer '~oncerned only with teaching; he listens and he invites the faithful to make their own personal contribution. This can be seen even in the matter of worship; the Mass has ceased to be a sacrifice offered by the priest alone at an altar distant from the people and in front of a congregation uncon-cerned with what he is doing, Now the Mass has become the community sacrifice offered by the priest an'd the faithful together, the priest being the spokesman of the community, the representative of the Church and of Christ, the celebrant of a sacrifice which belongs to the entire community. This is a profoundly changed state of affairs. Priests and laity act together. The Church is a single body and all of its members are active. This is a true resurrection. And by this very fact the priest has been strikingly ennobled, for he is no longer limited to being the shep-herd of a passive flock but has become instead the ani-mator of an active community. This change is to be found on all levels of the Church. The last and highest is that at the very center of the ChurCh, the See of Rome. Vati-can Council II gives witness to this transformation; and it is clear how John XXIII envisages the matter. His man-ner is not one like this: "Let the bishops say what they want, I shall do only what I want"; rather, his attitude is this: "I am deeply concerned to know the opinions of the bishops in order that I may take their advice into account." No one can derive from this the impression that pontifical power has thereby been lessened; but every-one does get the impression that the. Church forms one living body, animated by a movement of the whole. The role of the clergy is essential for the Church. When Catholicism is compared with Protestantism and with Orthodoxy, this role of the clergy is one of the most striking characteristics of the Church. Perhaps this ex-plains the retreat of the laity after the Reformation which placed the clergy in the background and in many cases even suppressed the priesthood and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Now, however, the Church has recovered from this crisis; Christian life is now developing in its com-plete totality. Henceforth the Church will no longer be divided into the active Church composed of the clergy and the passive Church composed of the laity. The Church is a body ÷ ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 1963 ]63 ÷ ÷ ÷ Jacqo, es REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I6,t of priests and laity together, living together, thinking together, acting together. As Cardinal Suhard put it: "The true achiever of evangelization is not the simple faithful nor the priest by himself; it is the Christian com-munity." The laity are fulfilling their role; the priest turn is free to be himself. Spiritual Counselor The direction of conscience has enjoyed a large place in the modern Church; it has been one of the principal instruments in the formation of a Christian elite. Never-theless, it has been especially concerned with women. When one reads the letters of the great spiritual directors, it is seen that they have been addressed almost exclusively to women. These women belonged to the higher levels of society. Today, however, as a result of the general spread of education and of the rise of active Christians, those who are concerned with the spiritual life are becoming more numerous and are to be found at all levels; they are found among workers and in the country as well as among the intellectuals. If it is necessary to practice direction of souls as it was formerly conceived, the clergy will be un-able to cope with it. But here once more, does not the spirit of collabora-tion profoundly transform conditions? Christians gather together with a priest to reflect on their Christian life; together they confront most of the questions that were formerly treated by individual conferences between the director and his spiritual child. In these conferences those seeking direction used to speak to their director not only of their interior life but of everything that con-cerned themselves. They asked their director's advice with regard to their relations with their husbands, with their children, and with their friends. They discussed the amount of freedom to be given their children, the amount of money to be given them, their clothes, companions, activities. Now all this is discussed in groups and in a way that is far more effective. Formerly, the person seeking direction would describe a situation to the director and he would decide the matter. The one consulting would act as though the director were omniscient, and he in turn would decide everything as though in fact he were. It was even taught as a received doctrine that the word of the director, was the word of God, that the director had the required graces of state, and that one should obey him blindly. Now it is realized that this was a false mystique, foreign to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation; neverthe-less, it formed a coherent system. Christians concerned with the exigencies o[ morality would consult their con[essor on the matter o[ all their reading. No priest, however, can be acquainted with everything that is being published. The con[essor, i[ he believed himsel[ obliged to answer--and [ormerly the majority believed themsel~ces so obliged h~d~0 answer by guessing or had to make use o[ a systematic severity in order to avoid all risk o[ danger . And thereby/ other dangers were [allen into. From another viewpoint, there were husbands who op-posed the idea o[ their wives having a director o[ con-science on the grounds that they did not want between themselves and their wives a secret authority which the latter obeyed absolutely. Moreover, the women who con-suhed a director were usually women who were not mar-ried or who were unhappily married. This meant that spiritual direction had mixed in with it a purely human desire [or masculine support, and this in a proportion that is difficult to determine. All this has passed, and we have arrived at a much sounder state o[ affairs. All the matters that we have men-tioned are taken up today in groups. In [amily groups there are discussed today the problems o[ conjugal intimacy, o[ prayer in common, and the prayer o[ each o[ the spouses. In all kinds o[ groups, there is discussion o[ diversions, o[ entertainments, o[ reading, o[ the time to be given to recreation and to apostolic work, and o[ the problems o[ pro[essional li[e. Since the dil~erent kinds o[ groups are highly diversified, the questions that are confronted also differ greatly; nevertheless, the great part of matters that were [ormerly treated by individual direction is now considered by groups, each member con-tributing the results o[ his own experience; the priest has only to contribute his own element. The result is that while the number o[ Christians de-sirous o[ a Christian life that will dominate their entire existence is growing, the number of those who want direction o[ conscience in the individualistic sense of former times is diminishing. Even the phrase "spiritual director" is vanishing; the expression tod~y is that of "spiritual counselor." Everything is simplified; every-thing is developed in an atmosphere of collaboration that befits adult li[e. Hence, [or example, when a [amily group discusses the liberty to be given to children o[ different ages or the amount of money to be given them, solutions are reached that are more balanced and more realistic than those [ormerly obtained when the one consulting was limited to accepting the word of a director who was a stranger to the li[e o[ the [amily. Some Christians, however, still have recourse to a spiritual director after the older method, but they are The Pr~st ToOa~y VOLUME 22, 1963 165 ]~que, Leclegcq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in general those who are slow to be caught up by the strong current that is sweeping through the Church and reanimating Christian life. Unfortunately they are still numerous, for a great many Christians as well as a great many priests remain immobilized in older conceptions. The movement that stresses the laity touches only a cer-tain sector and certain levels of the population. There are even entire regions where it is unknown. We are seeking here to emphasize the signs of this renewal, for we are sure that it is in this renewal that the future of the Church lies. That which is merely a prolongation of the past will fall as the world progresses. Undoubtedly, there will always remain certain ele-ments of the old direction of conscience, certain needs (more or less occasional) that will require personal, in-dividual contacts. In most of these cases confession will be sufficient. It is impossible to predict what will eventu-ally happen, but it is clear that everything is being sim-plified as the Christian animation of life grows. The Word Today much consideration is given to the ministry of the word; this again is a reaction against the past. Formerly, it was taken for granted that society was Christian. Children were instructed in religion, but no attention was paid to adults. Certain traditions, peri-odically restated by councils, obliged to a preaching directed to the instruction of the people; but actual practice had stifled the rule. One has only to recall what the state was of the ministry of the word. Now the word lives again; the most significant sign of this rebirth is undoubtedly retreats. The development of the spiritual life of active Christians has been accom-panied by the multiplication of retreats and periods of recollection. These have become so numerous that or~e can speak accurately in this connection in terms of a spiritual explosion. Retreats and days of recollection are organized in every walk of life: workers, business men, engineers, physicians, young persons of every category. Every time a group with a spiritual character is founded, retreats are organized. At the very time I am writing these lines, I have before me the bulletin of the Association of House-keepers for Priests, an organization that exists in France and Belgium; they, too, organize retreats and days of recollection. Moreover, undifferentiated retreats are also multiplying; these are directed towards all Christians and include without distinction both men and women, priests and laity. Once more we can note that formerly there were some retreat houses maintained by the Jesuits who pioneered them and by convents of women imbued by the Jesuit spirit; there was also a small number of persons who went to these houses for retreats. Today it is an immense move-ment. There are parishes which have retreat leagues com-posed of persons who make a retreat each- y.ear. In certain regions these leagues are systematically organized; in cer-tain dioceses of The Netherlands they are a regular insti-tution of every parish. And I am not speaking now of women, for women retreatants are even more numerous. Hence it is not a matter for astonishment that retreat houses are constantly being opened everywhere and that there are always too few of them. Rooms must generally be reserved in advance; and it can happen that a retreat must be canceled for lack of an available retreat house. But there is also need for priests. Preaching is par excellence a priestly duty. At the present moment the number of priests conducting retreats is legion. Formerly retreats were largely reserved to certain religious orders; but now many diocesan priests (pastors, chaplains, teach-ers) give them. Nevertheless, the number of retreat masters is still not sut~ciently large. As a general rule, it is very easy to find retreatants; retreat houses are more difficult to find; but hardest of all to find are priests. At the beginning of these articles, I recalled those who asked what was left for a priest to do now that there are active lay persons; the answer is that priests are needed for things that are genuinely priestlyl The Christian people have a hunger and thirst for the word of God, and those who can dispense it to them are not numerous enough. This is a matter of the priestly ministry par excellence. The tendency of today's priest is to occupy himself by preference in such ministries, for he feels himself the apostle of Christ in the strongest sense of that term; and he prefers to leave to lay persons the care of administra-tion. I have known a pastor who had to build a church; he appointed a committee of lay persons to raise the money while he himself conducted retreats. Perhaps the building of the church progressed a little more slowly than it would have had he devoted all his time to raising money, but he was at work shaping souls. All this also supposes a transformation in the clergy; for the majority of older priests, administrators of parishes, teachers of profane subjects, have been completely held back from conducting retreats. If they left this matter to religious, this was not without good reason. Today the importance of religious has not diminished, but retreat masters now come from every ecclesiastical sector. The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 167 $acques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 168 Collaboration Once More Together with divine worship, preaching is un-doubtedly the chief priestly activity; and yet even here there is to be found an interchange of priests and laity. Retreats differ greatly. In some the retreatants are plunged into an absolute silence; the director gives them talks throughout the entire day. In this case the renewal of Christian life is marked by the radical character of the retreat--more contemplative, more silent than could have been borne before. But there are also retreats where with-out any lessened preoccupation with the spiritual an hour a day is reserved for an exchange of views; in this period each one can present his problems as he discerns them in the particular situation in which he finds himself. Persons of an older form of mind find it indiscreet to expose one's state of soul to the whole world. Formerly in a retreat one listened to the director who was the only one to speak; then purely profane recreation pe-riods were had, and the retreatants who desired it could consult the retreat master personally and individually. Often retreatants would bring up the same questions; the retreat master would always give the same answer. In general, the matters discussed were such that there was no compelling reason to keep them secret; hence it often happened that the retreatants told each other what the re-treat master had told them. Today all this is treated in a community session; every-one profits by it, and it produces a community spirit in the group. The retreatants feels themselves engaged in a common work. The divine life in us, our work for the service of God, are problems that interest all Of us to-gether. We no longer go to heaven alone; we go there with our brethren; indeed it is impossible to go there alone, for we depend on those who surround us. The king-dom of God is a community enterprise to which we belong and which we ought to undertake together. Even a re-treat is a community enterprise. In addition to this, it is now customary to have lay persons speak during a retreat. Retreats are par excellence a priestly work; nevertheless, it does happen that a layman is invited to speak of an aspect ofthe Christian life which he knows. One of my friends was invited by a teacher to speak to his students during the retreat at the end of their studies; the subject was the role of the Christian in the world; after the talk the teacher told him: "It does them much more good to hear all this from a layman." Likewise lay persons are invited to speak in seminaries. In a Canadian magazine I found a letter from Rome con-cerned with the matter expressed by Cardinal Sali~ge as "making use of the layman." The correspondent described how some theological students in Rome had invited a father of a family to speak to them of his Christian life. ¯. Montreal, Rome, Toulouse, and now this article which is to appear in Brussels and Buenos Aires--the problems are everywhere the same. Lay persons are eve~:ywher~e.;,~so also are,priests. They are together, shoulder to'~hourder. We cannot do without the one more than the other. What About the Others? The reader will have noticed that the lay persons dis-cussed here are the active la!ty who have grown into Christian maturity. What has been said is concerned only with the activity of a priest in relationship to such laymen. But what about the others--who compose the vast major-ity of men? Clearly, the groups of which we have spoken, the aware-ness of the exigencies of Christian life, and the giving of retreats are giving to Christians a shape and a form very different from that which they previously had. As we have already remarked, we are seeing a new Christian people appearing. But if these Christians remain among them-selves and if the clergy is concerned only with them, what changes will there be in the world as a whole? Whatever else may be said about this problem, it is true that they will always be there in the world. They are not isolated from the world: they are shopkeepers with a neighborhood store; they are factory workers and en-gineers; they are white-collared workers; they are physi-cians and druggists. They are everywhere. They come to-gether to arouse their Christian awareness; but afterwards they disperse and return to the mass. This is a slow work which one can judge only over long intervals. One can see, for example, that the position of Catholic literature in the world is today far different from what it was a hundred years ago. The same can be said for the position of Catholics in philosophy, in art, in politics. This is true, someone may say; but this is only a matter of a few leaders. To this I would answer that the remark is true; but every leader supposes a body of followers. If Catholic writers and artists today show both a talent and a conformity to the aspirations of the times which were not shown a hundred years ago, then this has happened be-cause the environment must have changed. And it is the same if Catholic philosophers are able to speak to the men of today. Such persons are perhaps the flower of Christianity; but the flower supposes the stem, and the stem in turn supposes the root. If I am the root, I need not be humiliated by the 4. 4. 4. The Priest Today VOLUME 2Z, ~.963 169 ÷ ÷ ÷ Jacques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS fact that I am not seen; it is owing to me that the flower can charm the eye. The position of the Church in the world is, then, pro-roundly changed. And in the examples given above, it will be noted that this transformation has been achieved by lay persons. Writers like Claudel, Chesterton, Bernanos, Ger-trud yon le Fort have undoubtedly done more to attract men to Catholicism than any theologian and perhaps more even than any priest. But they have been in relation with a priest. In short, the role of the priest is exercised on the interior of the Church, on those who are united in the Church; it is these latter who thereupon go out to speak to the world. At times the complaint is heard ~that Christians barri-cade themselves within a ghetto, living by themselves without contact with the outside. The complaint is well founded; if they dose themselves up with each other, the salt will not be able to give its flavor. And it is true that there is a dangerous exclusivism, a fear of leaving a Christian background. This fear is a debilitating thing, for of all the emotions fear is the one that is most debasing. The spreading of ideas, and especially the Christian spreading of ideas, is done by the osmosis of personal con-tact; it is to be noted, however, that this notion of per-sonal contact is a wide one extending to the books that are read and the films that are seen. The action of Chris-tianity proceeds from the fact that the Christian environ-ment reflects Christ. A great many who were born and raised Christian turn from Christianity because they do not find Christ in the Christianity which has been pre-sented to them. What they need is for active Christians to give them an exact image of Christianity. Others, also educated as Christians, turn from Christianity when they perceive the demands it makes on them. The Church loses nothing when such quit her, for they discredit her in the measure that they are believed to represent her. This is the case with cei'tain governments which declare them-selves Catholic. This, then, is a question of the large numbers of Chris-tians who are lukewarm and indifferent. But there is an-other group, larger still, those who are not Christian:; at all. Among these the seed must be sown. Here, too, the role of the priest is essential. Father Vinatur in the text cited above remarked that the priest is a founder. It is true; Christianity is founded only by a priest. This is seen from the very beginning; in the Acts of the Apostles there is related the ministry of St. Paul; he is seen taking up his residence in a city, making some converts, and then leaving when Christianity has been set up and a member of the community--the priest--has been established as head. This is a permanent condition of things. Active lay persons can prepare the soil; they can arouse sympa-thetic interest; but a Christian community is.formed only when a priest comes. This.i~ true on all, levels of the Church. When Catholid Action was constituted with its appeal to assume a genuinely religious activity, it was priests who took the initiative in the matter. So also when the family movement was founded to concern itself with the Christian life of married persons, it was begun by priests. Lay persons came afterwards; in a certain sense, they ended by doing everything. But the priest remains, and he will never be able to be dispensed with. This, then, is the design of the new Church, animated by a Christian life which has not been known since early times, a Church of Christians all sharing in the life and action of Christ. This Church is but sketched in the reality before us at the present time; but this sketch is the image of what is being formed. The confidence which we can have for the future comes from the fact that Christ is living in this Church in a way that He has not since her early centuries. ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 196,~ 171 LADISLAS M. ORSY, S.J. From Meditation to Contemplation ÷ ÷ ÷ Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J., is professor of canon law at the Gregorian Univer-sity; Piazza della Pilotta, 4; Rome, Italy. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The aim of this article is both practical and doctrinal: it is to give practical help for the difficult period of tran-sition from meditation to contemplation and to show the theological background of the change that takes place in the soul. Meditation in these pages means prayer with the help of concepts, images, and more or less enforced acts of will. Contemplation means silence before God, prayer in which the soul is transformed under God's powerful ac-tion. In meditation the accent is on activity, in contem-plation on passivity. In meditation the soul tries to reach God by thoughts, feelings, and desires; in contemplation God has reached the soul and works on it without thoughts, feelings, or desires. In meditation the soul fights its way towards God; in contemplation it should stand before God in poverty. Passivity and poverty are then the foundations for a new type of activity and for new riches that have their source in God's powerful ac-tion. Such a deep change in prayer affects the whole man: it is a change in personality. It is not without difficulties; Saint Teresa remarks that there is no time in the spirit-ual life when it is so easy to give up prayer altogether as the time when contemplation begins. God's Work in the Soul God is eternally present in the soul: it is His presence that gives it life and being, it is His presence that sancti-fies it. He is not only present, He is working in the soul, infusing light and love into our mind and love into our will power. His final aim is to take possession of our person so that we should be united to Him and be His adopted children for an eternity. God is eternally present in the soul. He was there since the moment of our creation; but at the moment of our baptism He came again, not in majesty but as a good friend, and made our soul His own dwelling house where He likes to remain. He brought sanctity and holiness with Him and transformed the soul. As when fire is made in a cold and dark r0on~ ~th~ place be~ome~ ~¢arm and full of light, so when God comes into the soul it is filled with warmth and light. It is clothed with immortality, it belongs to God's family, in a way it becomes divine. The new life the soul receives is called sanctifying grace, the new light in the mind faith, and the infused love in the will power hope and charity. They are all fruits of the presence of God; should He leave the soul, there would be dark and cold again. God works in the soul. There is not one moment of rest for Him. He is supremely good and happy, and He wants to share His rich goodness and happiness with others. Consequently, His sanctifying presence is in fact a work of continuous sanctification. Light and love are given to mind and will in abundance: light that we may see and better understand things divine,-.love that we may go towards God at a better pace. This action of God is peaceful and quiet: He does not like noise and agitation. It is this action that ought to be the source of all our thoughts and deeds; unless they proceed from God they will be empty and they will not bear any fruit for eternal life. God's aim is to take possession of our person. He is not satisfied with partial sanctification of His family. He wants to bring them into the very centre of His own life where the Father and the Son and the Spirit are one and where They know and love each other without end. To say that one does not want to be more than an ordinary good Christian (meaning by it that one does not want to be perfect) is to betray a lack of generosity and to show a great ignorance of God's intention who wants all His children to grow continuously and reach their full maturity in Christ. The extent of the necessary trans-formation is indicated by the distance (which each one easily realizes for himself) between God's purity and our impurity, between His charity and our own obscurity. Nevertheless, it is this complete transformation that is God's aim and nothing less. He has the means to achieve it: by the gentle action of His love in this world and by Purgatory in the other. No person who wants to see God can escape this cleansing process; and those who are generous will want to get through it soon, if possible, in this life. Such desire is not a presumption: it is no more than conforming our will to God's will. 4. 4. 4. Meditation to Contemplation VOLUME 22, 196~ 173 4. 4. 4. L. M.'Or~y, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]74 Meditation When God comes into the soul of man and wants to sanctify him, He encounters a great obstacle which is man's fallen nature with all that it entails: sin, attach-ment to worldly things, false judgments, and selbwill as hard as steel. Purification is necessary. It is mainly done by God, but man has his part in it as well. Meditation is one of the first steps in this cleansing process. Man has heard the voice of God and wants to obey Him and be near Him. But man's mind is not clear and clean enough to perceive the light that comes from God living in his soul, his will is not sensitive enough follow the inspirations of grace. It is literally embedded in mortal and perishing things, it is ruled not by God but by the senses. Training is necessary for both mind and will in order to lift them from the visible into the in-visible, from the tangible into the intangible, from the sensitive into the spiritual. Part of this training is what we call meditation. The mind has to be trained. It should be a training in divine truth so that our thoughts, ideas, judgments correspond to those of God and thus that the two minds be united as far as possible into one. This training is done by the soul in an active and discursive way when it meditates on the words of our Lord, on the mysteries of His life, on the Church. What the person does is to fill his mind with God's thoughts instead of his own. He is really trying to m~ike his mind a better instrument for the perception of God's inspirations, an instrument more adapted to receive God's light. It is a tuning-up or warm-ing- up process. The mind is bathed in the divine truth so that it may become divine. This is done in an active way, by reasoning, by considering the call of Christ our Lord or God's beauty in nature, or by imagining the Holy Family. Man is working his way towards God. The will has to be trained as well. The attraction of things eternal is fine and delicate, and our selfish will does not easily notice it. In order to become more sensi-tive to the action of grace, the selfishness of our nature and of our will in particular ought to be broken by con-tinuous exercise in mortification. The aim is that our will should become soft and flexible, attached to nothing, so that it may follow the will of God in everything. To attain that aim, one has to work hard and in an active way. One has to do penance, one has to give up many things, many of his likings, one has to be humble; and there is no dispensation from this work. Since the mind and will are active, activity predomi-nates at this stage of the spiritual life. But sometimes it may happen that a longing awakens in the soul after God Himself, a desire to meet the living God without any human speech, image, or idea. Words and pictures are created things; they do not satisfy the soul that has been created to see God face to face. The desire to meet God without passing through created images all the time may be a sign of better things to come. Transition Thoughts, perception, and feelings are all created things. If we are called to union with God, there must be a moment when they have to disappear since no hu-man person can be satisfied with looking at the picture of somebody he loves when personal contact is possible. Besides~ those acts may fulfill their purpose in the puri-fication of mind and will. Their nature being limited, their efficacy is limited too. I can penetrate the mind of God to a certain extent by meditating on the Gospel; I can follow the will of God to a great extent by trying to do what I think the best. But neither my meditations nor my good deeds have the power to cleanse my soul so well that I may truly say that God has taken possession of me and that I am no more than an instrument in His hand. The true cleansing is reserved to God. It is He who transforms the soul by infusing light and love into it in a more than ordinary measure; it is that light and love that sanctify and purify the whole man. 1. External Signs. The first sign to indicate that a per-son might have a "vocation" to contemplative prayer is that he does not find any more "taste" in meditation: he does not enjoy it any more in the best and spiritual sense of the word. Before, he was able to collect a great va-riety of fruit in his meditation: words and images paci-fied his soul and helped him to formulate good resolu-tions. Now he finds that his meditation is more like a dried-up fountain which does not contain fresh water. But not to have any "taste" in meditation is a purely negative sign: it might well be the indication of careless-ness or of drifting towards the world. Hence, a more posivite sign is needed to confirm that it is God who brought about the change. The positive sign will be a deep longing in the soul for God and a sincere desire to follow Christ our Lord in everything and to be con-formed to His image. A sincere desire that is manifest in deeds. The loss of "taste" in meditation and the longing for God are always coupled with a turning away from this created world. This loss of interest in created things, even if they are very good in themselves, is the third sign; and it is a natural consequence of what has taken place: 4. 4. Meditation to Contemplation VOLUME 22, 1963 ]75 ÷ 4. 4- when the soul is not satisfied any more with created con-cepts in its prayer, it cannot be satisfied with created things either. The change may be astonishing for the person concerned: he used to enjoy music and art, litera-ture and human company, and now he notices that they all leave him dry and empty. When all these signs are found together, loss of "taste" in meditation after it has been practiced for a fairly long time (which may vary from person to person), longing for God in solitude (the longing being confirmed by solid virtues in practice), and the consequent loss of good and legitimate pleasure in created things, then the person concerned may have the vocation to a simpler form of prayer. If these signs are not there, any attempt to leave be-hind meditation and practice another form of prayer, namely the prayer of simplicity, may be poisonous for the soul; it may weaken its spiritual life and it may even ruin the soul altogether. 2. An Explanation. The signs just described are ex-ternal, but what is happening internally in the soul? What is it that brought the change about? The answer is that gradually and in a hidden way God is taking possession of the soul and its facilities. As mind and will have been purified to a reasonable degree, though by no means perfectly, God's work on them~be-comes more intense. Light and love are being given in a larger measure than ever before, and the hand of God begins to shape the new man, the new creature of St. Paul, out of the old. It is as if the hand of God had touched the soul from behind and in the dark. The soul recognised the touch instinctively but could not see the person. It turned away from all creatures, whether con-cepts, images in prayer, or works of art, and conceived a longing for its Maker and Creator. Hence the loss of "taste" in meditation, longing for God, and the feeling of emptiness in the presence of created objects. God comes near enough to awaken a deep desire in the soul but not near enough to let the soul perceive something of God's beauty. It follows that for a while (and it may be a very long while) one may remain in the dark: all consolation from this world is lost, but no sen-sible consolation from the other world is coming. Per-haps it would be truer to say that though the heart is pure enough to feel the obscure touch of God, as yet it: is not able to receive the light in its fullness because of the many impurities that it still has. The result is darkness; and if one does not know what is happening it is easy to lose confidence and even to give up prayer altogether. In truth, it is a time of grace for the soul. 3. Some Practical Advice. If the signs for contempla-tion are there, it would not be wise to force oneself to make meditations in a strict and methodical form. One cannot turn the clock back, not even in the spiritual life. The time of predominantly active prayer, is over; now one has to learn how to~follow~the lead The first step towards more passivity should be the simplification of prayer. Intellectual considerations dur-ing prayer time should be left out as much as possible. Their place should be taken by simple acts of faith, hope, and love, which are the beginning of any prayer and the fruit of the best of prayers. The soul should .learn how to come back to the same idea again and again and find peace, joy, and "taste" in it. Also there should be a tend-ency towards greater receptivity, but with prudence and wisdom. God likes to take His time; He likes to build slowly and gradually. Our duty is to follow the move-ments of His grace: we should not try to go any faster than He wants us to go nor should we lag behind. The adaptation to this new way of life in which it is God who holds the initiative is bound to be a long process. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a change in our personality. It is bound to affect everything in our life, our way of thinking, working, and our relations with other persons. A likeness to Christ our Lord is being formed in us. After the initial difficulties a long period of peaceful development may ensue. Prayer will be a mixture of ac-tivity and passivity; but if the soul is faithful, it may reach the stage in which the main rule is passivity. A passivity that leads to a readiness to do the will of God and to a very practical love of God and our neighbour. One final remark is necess

Issue 53.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1994. ; Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUaRY 199Zl. - V6LUME ~; ¯ NUMBER 1~o Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis Universi~ by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ Fax: 314-535~0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ¯ Washington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1994 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, 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. review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Sefin Sammon FMS Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUARYI994 ¯ VOLUME53 '* NUMBER I contents feature Between the Times: Religious Life and the Postmodern Experience of God Elizabeth A. Johnson CSJ relates the stress within religious life to the loss of traditional God images and the search now for the hidden face of the living God. 29 43 58 toward the synod The Consecrated Life in Church and World Bishop Jan P. Schotte CICM explains the synod of bishops, with brief descriptions of previous ones and the 1994 synodal process. Charism, Charisms, and Faddism A. Paul Dominic SJ brings clarity to the Lineamenta treatment of the charism of religious life and the charisms of its many con-crete forms in various congregations. Hopes for the Synod and Beyond Joel Giallanza CSC focuses his attention on the identity and mis-sion of apostolic religious congregations and their relationship to the hierarchy. 64 73 82 mission and ministry Images of Hope in an Inner-City Parish George M. Anderson SJ shows God working in unlikely places, making use of humble and broken people to advance the values for which Jesus died and rose. A Bracelet of Elephant'sHair Jo O'Donovan RSM shares her sabbatical experience of an "outer" and "inner" Africa. The Modern Development of Messianic Prophecy Allen S. Maller presents for our ecumenical consideration a deeply felt Jewish view of Messianic meaning and fulfillment. 2 Review for Religious experiencing the spirit 89 Living in the Womb of God Marion Zeltmann PCPA reflects upon her experience of enclosure and prayer as a Poor Clare. 95 Do I Really Believe that Death Leads to Life? Francis Blouin FIC suggests some practical ways of responding to the current dyings manifest in religious life. 102 A Rite for Those Departing Religious Formation Peter A. Lyons suggests positive and wholesome ways in which individuals departing from religious life and ~he community mem-bers who remain might deal ritually with this reality. 107 120 130 religious life issues Integrating Human Needs in Religious Formation Howard J. Gray SJ suggests ways of viewing human needs as "longings," radical desires to be integrated in the art of religious ministry. Chapters Present and Future Catherine M. Harmer MMS reviews the history of chapters in reli-gious life and raises questions about their future functioning. Religious Life, a Continuum Francis Assisi Kennedy OSF examines, historical beginnings of reli-gious congregations for patterns surprisingly serviceable today. departments 4 Prisms 142 Canonical Counsel: The Conciliar Decree Perfectae Caritatis 149 Book Reviews Jan~mry-February 1994 3 prisms 1994--a year still to be lived, a year yet to pass into history. For most people there is a healthy anticipation of "good things" when new begin-nings are made. Perhaps such "anticipation" should be called, rather, a precious grace which interconnects us with God, the eternal optimist. New evangelization is the most consistently optimistic theme of John Paul II's papacy. While his encyclicals and apostolic exhortations are many and weighty (witness the most recent Splendor of Truth), I suspect that his repeated call to a new evangelization will be the most significant and lasting grace for the church. The call is a beginning similar to the beginning of a year; it is not as if evange-lization is any newer than the parade of days which form any year's calendar. The newness in large part comes from the attitude with which we enter into evangelization, just as it comes from the way we enter into another year. The oft-quoted phrase about this call to evangelization being "new in its vigor, new in its methods, and new in its expression" is grounded in the attitude which we bring to our Christian responsibility as evangelizers. Attitude alone is not enough, but unless the grace of optimism warms our efforts as believers in Good News to share it and explain it and to offer people a challenge, little evange-lization is the result. Do members of religious congregations need to see a more intimate connection between the new evangeliza-tion and their own efforts at renewal? Since all forms of Christian life come from our having the gospels in our blood, it would seem obvious that an evangelization effort promotes effective renewal. The gospels not only have 4 R~,iew for Religio~s inspired the different forms of religious life, but also have helped shape its various expressions and methods. Men and women moved by the Spirit of Christ have gifted the church with at least three prismatic "colors" of Christ-following that look monastic or mendicant or apostolic. The question remains for us today who have been illumined by these various Christ-prisms how our gospel-inspired attitude can reveal the graced mystery of this life-form in terms of new depths of meaning and new ways of expres-sion- in the very heritage we claim. The darkness we feel comes not from Jesus, the light-source whom we follow, but from our own self-chosen, squint-eyed angle of vision having so little to do with grace or gospel. So often our efforts at renewal seem more a vain search for one "tree of life" instead of for the God who gives all created gifts for our creatively discerned use. Optimism marks the effort of anyone who begins something. An evangelical optimism seems almost lacking both in internal reli-gious congregation renewal attempts and in hierarchical control efforts. As we begin this year of the synod on consecrated life, our prayer for ourselves and our church begs again for that grace dear to our God imaged as the prodigal parent who expects the son (and daughter) to be coming up the road--the grace of opti-mism. As we begin this new volume, Review for Religious warmly welcomes Regina Siegfried, a member of the Sister Adorers of the Blood of Christ, Ruma province, as associate editor. She serves currently as assistant professor of historical studies and spiritual-ity at Aquinas Institute in St. Louis. Former editor of Spirituality Today, she is well known for her books Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, edited with Bishop Robert Morneau, and In the Company of Preachers, edited with Edward Ruane OP. Review for Religious accepts graciously the loss of Michael Harter SJ as associate editor. In his new role assignment as direc-tor of novices for the Jesuit Missouri provirice, he can assure young candidates' solid formation through their familiarity with articles from Review for Religious. So in losing an editor, I am sure that we are gaining a number of new subscribers. Just as he leaves this media field, his prayer book, Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits, has been published by the Institute of Jesuit Sources in St. Louis and is already in its second printing. We wish him well and know that we will miss him. David L. Fleming SJ January-February 1994 5 feature ELIZABETH A. JOHNSON Between the Times: Religious Life and the Postmodern Experience of God As the third millennium of the Western, Christian calen-dar approaches, all manner of assessments are being made about what will fade into history and what will newly flourish in the year 2001 and afterwards. It does not take a new millennium, however, to see that religious life in the United States is passing through an epochal change, the outcome of which in terms of fade or flourish is an open question. The research project "The Future of Religious Orders in the United States," conducted by David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis under the sponsorship of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, and the Leadership Council of Women Religious, sets out fully aware of this moment in history2 The original proposal for this study underscores the rad-icality of the journey now underway. Religious orders, it notes, are in the midst of a process of transformation, defined in categories from the social sciences to mean: The operation of changing (as by mapping or through strategies) one configuration or expression into another in accordance with a rule, a purpose or mission. Elizabeth Johnson csJ is associate professor of theology at Fordham University. This article will be part of a companion book to The Future of Religious Orders in the United States: Transformation and Commitment, (Praeger Publishers, 1993) by David J. Nygren and Miriam D. Ukeritis. Her address is Department of Theology; Fordham University; Bronx, New York 10458-5165. 6 Review for Religious Such change, furthermore, involves: qualitative, discontinuous shifts in organizational members' shared understandings of the organization, accompanied by changes in the organization's mission, strategy, and formal and informal structures. The most basic questions of group and individual identity, involving who religious are, how they are to live, what they are to do, and why, are all at stake. Religious orders in this country, the proposal continues, are in the midst of a transformative process so profound that it will lead to the demise of some, the revitalizing of others, and the birth of new forms of the evangelical life as yet unimagined. The aim of this research project is to identify factors within religious orders themselves that will contribute to a suc-cessful outcome of this major metamorphosis. Recent historical studies have unveiled a heartening picture of how the evangelical following of Jesus in the church, traditionally called "religious life," has been incarnated in a great diversity of forms. From monastic to mendicant to apostolic communities, to mention but a few of the more widespread models, new forms of this living movement have consistently emerged from the insights of individuals and groups responding to the Spirit in the crucible of cultural change. A compelling interpretation of the present sit-uation holds that in the United States, at least, the present crisis of religious orders signals yet another breakthrough in the many-faceted evolution of forms of the evangelical life. If this be true, this is the first time in the history of the church that members of religious orders in a time of transition have been so self-con-sciously aware of their situation and so equipped with the tools of modern research that they can reflect on and even direct the pro-cess of change. The purpose of this essay is to provide a theological context for the data that follows. It is important to note that this essay was commissioned, designed, and largely written before the research project was completed. Therefore it should not be read as an interpretation of the project's findings. Rather, it is intended as an independently conceived reflective piece on this moment in the history of religious life. To .contextualize the report that follows, this essay first surveys the state of the question in contemporary literature on religious life and then identifies a basic shift occur-ring that affects all the rest and that holds great portent for the future, namely, a change in the experience of God.2 January-February 1994 7 Johnson ¯ Between the Times The living tradition of the change of forms of religious life is still alive; the great cycle of death and rebirth is turning once again. State of the Question Starting in the late 1970s, a number of excellent works have contributed to discussion of the meaning of religious life and have expressed the emerging self-understanding of religious them-selves. Written by or available to members of religious orders in North America, the list includes works on the history, sociology, and theology of the life as lived by both women and men in general,3 as well as works that focus on the experiences of women4 or men5 in particular. The imagery and language of these writings reflect the enormous tension in the state of the question, both as lived and reflected upon. There is a prevalence of "re" words: revitalize, refound, rein-terpret, reimagine, reweave, redefine, rebirth. Metaphors point to new creative acts: pouring new wine into new wine-skins; reweaving the threadbare cloth; standing at the crossroads and discerning the way ahead; planting new seeds; mid-wiring a birth; bringing order out of chaos. The focus is consistently on the future: shaping the coming age, strate-gizing for growth, negotiating the challenge of change, claiming identity, being converted. Individual differences of approach in this literature recede when compared with the convergences that these writings dis-play. Virtually all of the authors are seized by the conviction that in the Western democracies the missionary and apostolic mod-els of religious life, prevalent for the last two hundred years, are dying. Relatively speaking and in some cases literally, "there is no one behind us." But this does not mean that religious life itself is dying, for no one form has ever been definitively lasting as the predominant form for every era. What it may well mean, however, is that the living tradition of the change of forms of religious life is still alive; the great cycle of death and rebirth is turning once again,6 The present malaise and decline, if lived through with discernment, fidelity, and courage, can lead to new, yet-to-be-determined forms commensurate with the cultural realities of the third millennium. 8 Review for Religious This being the case, the literature is replete with enlighten-ing analyses of ecclesial and cultural factors at work in the present changes. It also indicates that a strong consensus is taking shape regarding the way forward. A prophetic stance suffused with con-templation is being glimpsed as the crucial spiritual force that seeks expression in coming forms of religious life. Both the anal-ysis and this key proposal are surveyed here as interesting in their own right and as factors that themselves point further to a foun-dational experience of God. Changes in Church and Society The literature agrees that the most important ecclesial factor underlying the shift in religious life's self-understanding contin-ues to be Vatican II's two-pronged theological articulation of the church's identity and mission. Ad intra (internally) the church is first and foremost the people of God, with every member conse-crated by baptism and empowered to life in Christ. The conse-quent universal call to holiness undercuts the traditional notion that religious life is an elite state of perfection whose members are spiritually set above ordinary lay people. Rather, religious live out their call to holiness as a sacrament or sign to the whole church of its Spirit-filled vocation. Ad extra (externally) the church is to turn pastorally toward the world as God's good creation, marred by sin but redeemed by Christ and worthy of attention. The mission of the church in the world undermines the tradi-tional dualism between the sacred and the secular, along with the concomitant idea that religious should be set apart from the world. Rather, they are to live in relation to the world, not over against but ~vith and for, in criticism and compassion. The conciliar shift from a juridical to a more-biblically-based pastoral identity and mission, still being contested and negotiated in the church at large, undergirds the changes in self-understanding, lifestyle, and ministry that now affect traditional forms of religious life. Since the council, additional ecclesial factors have appeared that continue to impinge upon religious life in the United States. The ongoing efforts by religious orders to reinterpret founding charisms is occurring in the context of postconciliar reinterpre-rations of the Catholic biblical, theological, and liturgical tradi-tions themselves. The infusion of insight from these sources is resulting in new and influential understandings, such as the rad- .January-Febrnary 1994 9 Johnson ¯ Between the Times ¯ ical equality of all in baptismal grace. Furthermore, the postcon-ciliar explosion of lay ministries, both ecclesially sponsored and lay initiated, is multiplying the possibilities open to those who wish to serve in the church beyond the confines of traditional religious life. At the same time it creates a situation of shared, collabora-tive ministry between religious and the laity. In these same years, the original immigrant church in this country has reached mainstream status with the majority of its members moving into the middle class. More options for service and advancement have opened up in the civil sector, lessening the church's attraction as the primary field for a dedicated life. In addition, the economic and educational mores of middle-class life coupled with the availability of birth control has resulted in the reduced size of Catholic families, thus shrinking the pool from which candidates for religious life were traditionally drawn. Meanwhile, a new wave of immigration from Latin America and Asia is presently changing the face of the church; one-third of Catholics in the United States are now Hispanic, half of whom are younger than eighteen years of age. Despite outstanding service on the part of some religious of European descent, however, dif-ferences of culture, race, class, and age, if not overt, prejudice, seem to prev.ent the majority of religious orders from making an effective case for their way of life to members of new immigrant groups. Eras do not repeat themselves. All of these ecclesial factors are playing out in the wider con-text of the church .becoming a world church, less European in character and belonging to all cultures; a church of the diaspora, less supported by a homogeneous culture and more a little flock in a pluralist world; and a church in interreligious dialogue, open to the wisdom of other great religious traditions. Social, economic, and political forces at work in the culture of the United States are also contributing to changes in religious life) These forces are many and complex, but several consistently surface in the literature: democracy, which yields a more partic-ipative rather than authoritative style of governance; global aware-ness, which subverts provincialism; growing consciousness of economic and social injustice at home and abroad, which demands action to relieve poverty and promote justice; pervasive violence, which highlights the need for teaching and modeling peaceful resolution of conflicts; materialism, which calls for a countercul-tural witness to simplicity of life and the value of the human over 10 Review for Religious the product; excessive individualism, which cries out for the anti-dote of a genuine community of free and responsible persons; ethnocentrism, racism, and insensitivity to other cultures, which needs the word of the gospel about the fundamental human dig-nity of every person; and feminism, which advocates the equal inclusion of women in that human dignity. The search in the United States for a new, more humane society among ourselves, between all nations, and between human beings and the natural world of this planet contextualizes and begins to inspire the search for new, vital forms of religious life. In a striking way, ecclesial and cul-tural factors have converged in the rise of Christian feminism and its influ-ence in women's religious orders. It is indisputable that women's insights into how to live the evangelical life have never yet been allowed full scope in the course of church history, even now. Perhaps it was the play of prov-idence that unleashed the conciliar reforms at the very moment that the women's movement was gathering force once again in the United States. It is indisputable that women's insights into how to live the evangelical life have never yet been allowed full scope in the course of church history, even now. In any event, while renewing their lives in the light of the gospel and their founding charisms and while strengthening their witness in the world, especially among those depriv.ed of human dignity, women religious became aware of themselves as women in a patri-archal church and society. They .began to notice the systemic absence and silence of women in church pol!cy-making bodies and ministries, its obvious connection with gender, and the result-ing pressures on the way they lived their lives. Contextualized by the women's movement in church and society, they began to find their own voice and to claim, even for themselves, the respect befitting a human person. Women's experience was affirmed as a legitimate if untapped source of knowledge about religious life and its ministry, prayer, community, and governance, and this found expression in their reflection, dialogue, and new constitu-tions. The result of this awakening was a release of energy that bore and continues to bear promise for the future of religious January-February 1994 11 Johnson ¯ Between the Times life. But it also brings conflict as men church authorities refuse to reverence or dialogue with the insights coming from women's experience, insisting rather on conformity to their own under-standing and law. At this point the alienation of legions of women in the church is a matter of public record. Women religious, too, know this darkness. But among women religious in the United States at the end of the twentieth century, the conviction per-dures that the goals of Christian feminism are fully in accord with the gospel. They continue to grapple with issues of identity and mission with the understanding that through their struggle the Spirit of God is offering a transforming grace to the whole church, although, terrifyingly, grace may always be refused.8 In and through all of this analysis of ecclesial and cultural factors that affect religious life today, authors have been seeking clues as to how this life will be able to flourish in the future. The search appears to be narrowing. Glimpse of a New Form: Prophetic, Contemplative Life In books and essays about religious life and in documents generated by religious orders and the national conferences, a new combination of ancient dements is beginning to define the essen-tial character of religious life. The emerging understanding of this life is primarily that of persons and communities called to prophetic ministry embedded in a contemplative relationship to God. Prophecy and mysticism, prophetic witness and contem-plation, will shape the evangelical life of love of God and neigh-bor in its coming age. The two national conferences of men and of women religious place this insight at the head of the list of ten transformative ele-ments they identify for religious life in the future: 1. Prophetic Witness: Being converted by the example of Jesus and the values of the gospel, religious in the year 2010 will serve a prophetic role in church and society. Living this prophetic wimess will include critiquing social and ecclesial values and structures, calling for systemic change and being converted by the marginalized with whom we serve. 2. Contemplative, Attitude Toward Life: Religious in 2010 will have a contemplative attitude toward all creation and be motivated by the presence of the sacred? 12 Review forReligious In a similar way the visioning groups studied in the Futures Project as well as those identified by the research as outstanding leaders consistently and vigorously endorsed the prophetic/con-templative stance. Far from being an esoteric perspective, this stance brings to light what is most basic in Christian faith and what the church itself needs to emphasize in order to thrive in the future. As Karl Rahner foresaw, the spirituality of the future will arise from rela-tion with the living God at the very heart of the world and con-sequently "will be a spirituality of the Sermon on the Mount and of the evangelical counsels, continually involved in renewing its protest against the idols of wealth, pleasure, and power.''t° This is the calling of the church as a whole, and religious life crystallizes and witnesses to this. The two constituent elements, prophecy and contemplation, can be distinguished mentally and examined separately, but in reality they form one living shape, one wholistic form, one gestalt of life. Asking which comes first is a chicken-and-egg kind of question, with no intelligible answer in sight.1~ Contemplation is a way of seeing that leads to union. It arises from an experience of connection with the sacred at the very core of life. Mediated, as always, by created things such as words, images, and actions, this relationship unfolds as persons and com-munities allow these mediations to lead them into the living pres-ence of the holy. Insofar as the created mediations themselves are transcended in contemplation, this experience counteracts the human effort to control the divine and instead delivers the spirit into the bright darkness of God. From one perspective, the con-nection with the sacred is a result of the inflow of the love of God inflaming and awakening the heart. From another, it entails the discipline of becoming fully conscious, journeying to one's deepest self and to the outer limits of the cosmos in order to touch the divine. In the process, the contemplative "knows" God not in an extrinsic, conceptual way but from within, experien-tially. At the very heart of existence one is in touch with holy mystery, a relation for which the I-Thou relationship among human beings is only a remote analogy. As a result, a certain intuition arises by which one begins to know and love the world as God does. This attitude is totally inclusive of all creation. Everything created is precious and sacred within the cosmic ambience of life and is cause for delight and January-February 1994 13 Johnson ¯ Between the Times thanks. But the evident brokenness of the world and damage done persons and other creatures are cause for grief, compassion, and protest. In some unspeakable situations,, the utter depravity of evil occasions the most profound, wordless hope against hope, without any supports, in the risk that God is faithful in judgment and grace. The contemplative attitude is thus not otherworldly but pro-foundly turned toward this world in celebration and resistance, knowing that the Creator is also the Redeemer. The prophetic lifestyle and action that express this way of seeing are not the result of simple humanism (although the world could use a lot more of this too) but of real belief in God. In solidarity with divine purpose for the world, prophetic persons and communities desire to restore right relationships and so to set right what causes pain and suffering. While this has always been the case, the hermeneutic of prophecy in our day with its sophisticated knowl-edge of systems realizes that the wounds of the heart also afflict culture. Thus prophetic witness includes critique not just of per-sonal acts but also of social, economic, and political structures and values in society. Knowing, too, that we are a sinful church always in need of repentance and reform, this witness is borne toward the values and structures of the community itself. The prophetic stance is marked by a number of characteris-tics. These include attentive listening to the creative Spirit of God, connecting with the suffering in a situation and evaluating its causes, naming what is unjust, being empowered to articulate an alternative future based on the dream of God for the world, bringing compassion and hope to the brokenness, and resistance and challenge to the status quo that would maintain it. In the process prophetic persons and communities strive to empower people in their struggle to live and survive, in turn being taught and empowered by them to continue to seek the face of God. In the Christian tradition this witness is shaped by the fol-lowing of Jesus, in whom the compassion of God takes flesh in the world. Contemplation and prophecy were indivisibly connected in his historical life. As Edward Schillebeeckx explains, "In the prophet Jesus, mysticism and healing came from one and the same source--his experience of the contrast between the living God and the history of human suffering." ~2 The reign of God that he announced envisages an end to exploitation or suppression; his ministry in word and deed enacted practical anticipations of this 14 Review for Religious salvation to come. His own drink from the cup of suffering in torment and execution and the seal of God's graciousness in the resurrection ground a hope in human history that has empow-ered discipleship ever since. Remembrance of Jesus through the power of the Spirit guides and informs the life of prophecy and ~ontemplation in the church. This vision of a wholistic con-templative, prophetic shape to reli-gious life in the future, glimpsed in the literature, is already a living, growing reality in some cases. It also stands in contrast to the overall shape of religious life in the present, which has become domesticated by too close an identification with the law, structure, and spirituality of the institutional church. In a particularly eloquent argument, Diarmuid O'Murchu, taking a clue from reli-gious life as it is lived in Eastern religions, contends that religious life in the west needs to reclaim its liminal identity, a move of genuine conversion en.tailing profound change in spirit and structure. Re!igious would then be known as persons and communities who are in touch with the sacred, passionately committed to just and loving relationships, fiercely resistant against exploitation of the earth and of persons, and willing to live countercultural lifestyles with and for the marginalized. They would stand in church and society a.s liminal, archetypal, prophetic persons, articulating and empowering the deepest love.13 To arrive at this goal, religious must confront many chal-lenges and questions. A key CMSM paper muses: People in general probably do not think of us as genuine prophets. What must we do, what price must we pay, if we wish to embrace a prophetic stance? How can we be prophetic without becoming triumphalistic? How can we be prophetic without losing a ministry .to the middle class which is the social origin of nearly all of us? How can we learn to read the signs of the times and discern more surely the thrust of prophecy? What steps must we take to arrive at solid social and cultural analysis? How can we relate our The contemplative attitude is thus not otherworldly but profoundly turned toward this world in celebration and resistance, knowing that the Creator is also the Redeemer. ~anuary-February 1994 15 Johnson * Between the Times traditional institutions to the prophetic role? How can we motivate ourselves, with God's grace, to accept a materi-ally poor standard of living? We have more questions than answers, but we believe that we are on the way to a new, more prophetic presence within the U.S. Church.~4 The Futures Project identifies "fidelity to purpose" and "response to absolute human need" as the two most basic ele-ments for the revitalization of religious life. As this brief survey of the literature shows, the search for the sacred in resistance to what afflicts the world is being fingered as the purpose that will shape the new form of this life. The move toward a contemplative-prophetic stance augurs well for the future insofar as it grapples with the religious heart of the matter in the context of the suf-fering of the contemporary world. Experience of God My own reflection on these matters brings me to a founda-tional area not frequently mentioned in the literature, namely, the idea of God that undergirds the evangelical life. The fasci-nation with the mystery of God is endemic to religious life every-where and at all times. The varieties of structures and self-understandings that have emerged in the course of history only serve to underscore this fact. As Sandra Schneiders observes, "Whatever unites all these people is more interior and spiritual than forms of life or types of behavior."15 The common thread that unites them all is a search for relationship with the sacred, leading to a certain kind of absorption with the religious dimen-sion of life. "Those who are called 'religious' in the technical sense of the word," writes John Lozano, "have decided to adopt a way of life whose intrinsic, underlying explanation is religious experience.''16 This way of life intends to give daily, concrete expression to the experience of God, to empower its further devel-opment, and to manifest its fruits publicly. Put another way by Ladislaus Orsy, the only reason for religious life is the experi-ence of God. This being so, it seems vitally important to inquire about the idea of God that is presupposed at any given moment, for this structures the experience of God that sustains the entire endeavor. As the primary symbol of the whole religious system, the idea of God is a lodestar. It represents what a community takes to be the 16 Review for Religious highest good, the profoundest truth, the most appealing beauty. Thus it is not a neutral concept, but functions powerfully to shape the personal and corporate identity of believers. A religion, for example, which would speak about a warlike God and extol the way he smashes his enemies to bits would promote aggressive group behavior. By contrast, speech about a beneficent and lov-ing God who forgives offenses would turn the faith community toward care for the neighbor and mutual forgiveness.'7 By definition, the One whom people call God is the recipient of absolute human trust, God being "that to which your heart clings and entrusts itself" in the memorable phrase of Martin Luther (OSA).~s Consequently, the idea of God implicitly guides all of a person's and community's principles, choices, system of values, enterprises, and relationships. The symbol of God func-tions. Neither abstract in content nor feeble in its effect, it sums up a people's sense of ultimate mystery, the proper order of the world, and the right orientation of human life and devotion. Along with many others, I sense that a seismic shift is occur-ring in the experience and idea of God in our day and culture. Fully aware that not all people who live at the same time are con-temporaries, I nevertheless think that a certain culturally condi-tioned cast of mind is emerging in our era that yields an idea of God markedly different from the classical model. VChat is emerg-ing is a notion that coherently supports and strengthens prophetic and contemplative consciousness. Thus it is not just the move from a juridical to a pastoral relation of the church to the world, nor the dissolving of the sacred-secular dualism, nor increased global and ecological awareness, nor growing consciousness of injustice, nor any of the other ecclesial and social factors that alone or together are causing the changes in religious life. Rather, at the deepest level what is transpiring, I think, is new experience of God. The Postmodern World The contemporary mind-set in the United States shaped by conditions of the late twentieth century is frequently described as postmodern. First coined in artistic, literary, and philosophical circles, this term is used in a bewildering variety of ways to describe the sentiment that humanity must go beyond the mod-ern. Like the wanderer in Kafka's parable who, when asked where January-February 1994 17 Johnson * Between the Times he is riding to, responds, "I don't know,., only away from here, away from here, only by doing so can I reach my destination,''19. postmodernity points beyond the present to what cannot yet be readily envisioned. Philosopher Stephen Toulmin refers to the world "that has not yet discovered how to define itself in terms of what it is, but only in terms of what it hasjust-now-ceased-to-be," namely, the modern world originating from the seventeenth-cen-tury Enlightenment.2° Modern!ty esteemed at least four dynamic forces: the myth of unending progress, the clear and distinct ideas of universal reason, the power of the self-contained individual directed by his soli-tary ego, and the ascendancy of human control over nature. By contrast, postmodernity is conscious of the end of progress, the limits of reason, the sad isolation of the unconnected individual, and the catastrophe that results when nature is disrespected. Not everything originating in the modern era is to be discarded. One would want to keep the emphasis on human dignity and human rights and their expressions in liberty and equality (fraternity in isolation is suspect). But postmodernity is awake to the egregious failures that the modern ethos has wrought. It wants to go Away- From-Here. Perhaps the most felicitous description comes from David Power, who observes that postmodernism is the sensibility that does not try to pretend that the twentieth century has not hap-pened. Sprung from the disruptive, out-of-control evils of this century, postmodern consciousness is aware of the chaotic, con-tingent, threatened character of existence and the fragility of the human project. Two distinct but related positions have developed within this general description. One, the option for deconstruction, seeks to undo the power and securities that produce such evils. In theory and art it pokes holes through the rationalizations of the victors, unveiling their pretensions to righteousness and order. While in its extreme form postmodern deconstruction leads to radical skep-ticism and nihilism, its bracing insights are powerfully instruc-tive as to what should not be. In tandem with this option, a second, more constructive model has emerged. Suspicious of inherited triumphal truths, it seeks out suppressed voices and sto-ries, risking new interpretations of established tradition "from the margins" in order to enable resistance to the forces of destruc-tion. Its aim, unlike nihilism, is a more just and humane universe. 18 Review for Religious It is this latter type of constructive postmodernism, found in intellectual theory, literature, and art as well as in grass-roots movements, that generates a certain kind of spirituality.21 Its char-acteristics are painted here in broad strokes. Postmodern spiri-tuality notes the ambiguous character of progress itself and takes its bearing not from the dream of untrammeled, irreversible progress fueled by a consumerist mentality, but from the suffering of those on the underside of history, keeping in view the gaps and failures of human advance. It seeks wisdom not in the clear and distinct ideas of what is claimed to be universal reason but is in reality the thought of privileged men; rather, it honors the plurality and ambiguity of human con-sciousness, sensitive to the differ-ence that difference makes according to one's social location in gender, race, and class. The com-pass of postmodern spirituality points not to rampant individual-ism and its violent outcroppings but to the importance of community The compass of postmodern spirituality points not to rampant individualism and its violent outcroppings but to the importance of community and tradition, prizing human solidarity and peace. and tradition, prizing human solidarity and peace. It finds life not in human supremacy over the earth but in affective kinship with the extended family of the cosmos. In a word, it prizes not isolation but essential connectedness; not body-mind dualism but the wholistic, embodied person; not patriarchy but inclusive fem-inism; not militarism but expenditure for the enhancement of life; not tribal nationalism but global justice. Our age is witnessing the shift to a postmodern cast of values, in theory if not always in practice. This constitutes a widespread, if not universal, cultural phenomenon in the United States, even among Christian believers. It may well signal the first phase of an axial breakthrough in human consciousness that will shape the next millennium. If so, that is of no little significance for the future of religious life in this country. For the postmodern sensi-bility in its constructive form has a strong affinity with the prophetic-contemplative stance increasingly envisioned as con- January-February 1994 19 Johnson ¯ Between the Times stitutive for the future of religious life. At the very core of that life is the experience of God. And so we come to the heart of the matter by asking how the postmodern matrix shapes the experi-ence and concept of the sacred. Postmodern Experience of God In our era the concept of God developed by rational En-lightenment theology in the context of modernity has become largely unbelievable. Whether drawn from revelation or philo-sophical inference, this by-now-traditional theism views God as the Supreme Being who created all things and who governs all things with inscrutable providence. Perfect in a way that stands in sharp contrast to the finitude of creatures, "he" (the theistic God is always referred to in male terms) is "infinite, self-existent, incor-poreal, eternal, immutable, impassible, simple, perfect, omni-scient, and omnipotent.''22 Although architect and ruler of the world, it is essential to God's deity that he be essentially unre-lated to this world and unaffected by what happens in it. This view therefore excels at stressing ,divine transcendence and its human counterpart of spirit, while divine immanence along with the importance of matter and the body tend to slip from view. This God of classical theism is modeled on the pattern of an earthly absolute monarch, a metaphor so prevalent that most often it is simply taken.for granted. As a king rules over his subjects, so God the Lord has dominion over his creatures, a view which, as Sallie McFague has shown, is intrinsically hierarchical, whether the divine reign be accomplished through dominance or benevo-lence. 23 In theory such theism adheres to the truth that the mys-tery of God is beyond all images and concepts. Yet history shows how in practice modernity tends to objectify God, reducing infi-nite mystery to an independently existing Supreme Being along-side other beings, a solitary, transcendent power who together with the world can be thought to form a larger whole. This is the idea of God that is no longer seriously imagin-able within a postmodern sensibility. Factors that contribute to its lack of cogency include the evils of this century, contemporary science and its view of the universe, liberation and feminist anal-ysis, the political disparagement of dictatorship, and the encounter among world religions. Any one of these alone would put a large question mark next to the modern symbol of the divine. Taken 20 Review for Religious together within the cultural shift to postmodern consciousness, they all but bury it. The result for people of faith is the radical loss of their famil-iar God image, along with the experience of divine presence that it mediated. Along with this also comes the loss of their sense of place in the order of the universe. As Janet Ruffing comments on the domino effect of loss of the tradi-tional God image in religious communi-ties, "All the ways we had construed our place in the sun and the meaningfulness of our commitment have been gradually eroding.''24 But this experience is not restricted to religious life; it is culture-wide and has attracted a host of com-mentators. For Martin Buber, the loss signals the eclipse of God. For Karl Rahner, it involves entry into the spiri-tuality of a bleaker season. For Constance Fitzgerald, it means the classic mystical experience of impasse and dark night. For Sandra Schneiders, this dark night is not only individual but a corporate purification. For Martin Marry, winter serves as metaphor for this season of the heart. For Michael Bucldey, it is entry into emptiness, silence, the cross in accord with the dynamic of apophatic mysticism,zs For me, this shift is poignantly summed up in the titles of the first and last books of my friend and colleague William Hill OP, now seriously ill. He broke into print with Knowing the Unknown God, an exploration of how the Thomistic category of analogy could lead the mind to God even in the contemporary world. God might be unknown, but we were possessed of some knowl-edge through the judgments we make. Now his recent essays have been collected under the rubric In Search of the Absent God. We are not in possession at all. Enmeshed in history and its suffering, we can but seek the hidden face of the living God.26 The absence of God experienced through the breakdown of traditional mediations of structure and theory does not mean, how-ever, that there is no experience of God at all. In a profound dialec-tic, what has been taken away is encountered in the ache of its loss. Divine absence itself becomes a mode of divine presence. The unknowing beckons to a deeper knowing. Th~ darkness mediates a brightness that the eyes cannot see. The wintry horizon hints at Enmeshed in history and its suffering, we can but seek the hidden face of the living God. .~anuary-February 1994 21 Johnson ¯ Between the Times new life buried beneath the snow. The cry from the depths signals an affirmation of Life deeper than pain, as did Jesus' cry from the cross. As Maura Clarke wrote from E1 Salvador, "In the very absence of God here, God has never been more present to me." 27 It all depends on the character of God. If God be trustworthy, then we hope that we are grounded and enveloped by a Living Presence even here, in the night of the senses and of the spirit. While there is no universal enactment of salvation, the sacred comes in the form of promise mediated through everyday, small fragments of healing, beauty, liberation, justice, and love. This does not remove the darkness, but it allows us to keep on walk-ing. The ice melts but will freeze again: in history there are only relative victories. Lament and celebration are both necessary. Here there are no easy assurances, no props. We know God through hope and, in the face of starkness, even hope against hope, nourished by remembrance and the circle of community. For many years now I have found the prophet of this experi-ence to be Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his vision God is being edged out of the world and onto the cross, and that is the way, the only way, that God can be with us: "only a suffering God can help.''28 His struggle to believe culminates in the maxim "Before God and with God we live without God.'':9 This is an experience of God in which darkness is an event of disclosure, clearing the decks of a false conception of God and opening contact with the incom-prehensible holy mystery of God who goes beyond all images, all grasping, all ~elling. The manageable God of the modern age who was immediately available and could be counted upon to intervene for our benefit is no longer there. But a new experience of God is already breaking through that intensifies our compassion. Constance Fitzgerald has wisely observed that what is going on in and through this experience is "a progressive hermeneutic of~e nature of God.''3° A full theology of God has yet to be writ-ten in a postmodern context, but the typical spii'itual experience of this age is yielding an unmistakable interpretation.3~ If there be a God at all, then this is absolute holy mystery that can never be fathomed. Not literally a male person writ large, the sacred can be pointed to by any created good: male, female, animal, cosmic. This mystery does not dwell in isolation from the world but encompassesit as the Matrix of its being and becoming. God in the world and the world in God--panentheism describes the mutual relation. Thus related, the Holy One of Blessing is a God 22 Review.for Religious of pathos who participates in the suffering of the world in order to transform it from within. Divine power is the strength of love, rather than raw, monarchical omnipotence. Passionate for justice and peace and compassionate over pain, Holy Wisdom typically self-reveals in the fragmentary breakthroughs of well-being that come about through human partnership with divine purpose. Forever God acts to create a fresh, new future: liberation is her signature deed. A God like this calls for an ethic of critical com-passion. We are impelled so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. Religious people of all stripes are now in the transitional posi-tion of trying to find words and symbols for this personal and collective experience of God. A common language has yet to come to light. Yet the very way the search is being conducted gives some indication of the outcome. An LCWR paper expresses the efforts of women religious in this regard: God is immanent in creation, in the midst of the web of life. As we bond with the oppressed and marginalized, we know God standing on the side of the poor and oppressed, seeing with the eyes of the poor, leading the oppressed by alleviating oppression. In this context, we see God angry, sad, suffering, marginalized; we see God incarnated in peo-ples of color, in women, in the homeless and battered, the victims of violence and oppression of all kinds. And then the inevitable: Religious find themselves in a "Dark Night." The painful and intense moments of disintegration, which carry the hope for what can break through, characterize our living in this in-between.32 To sum up, the idea of God emerging in postmodern spiritual experience is a contemporary hermeneutic of the God whose reign Jesus preached and embodied: the God of life. If the experience of God is the core of religious life, and if it is this God who is being perceived in contemporary religious experience, then here is a key tt)eological factor shaping the future of religious life in the United States. Conclusion The dialectic between divine absence and presence, in the last analysis, is an experience of the Spirit of God: radically tran- ~tanlmry-February 1994 23 Johnson ¯ Between the Times scendent, like the wind blowing where it will; and at the same time radically immanent, dwelling at the heart of the world to vivify and renew all things. Empowered by the Spirit in our age, people of faith who treasure the living memory of Jesus seek the hidden God of life (contemplation) and live out the passion of God for the world in need (prophecy). It is my sense that religious life is riding the crest of this wave in the postmodern culture of the United States. Internally its forms are breaking down; its interpretive support systems are col-lapsing; rifts with the institutional church exacerbate the dark-ness, especially among women; many members are in distress. Most radically of all, forms of religious life that traditionally medi-ated the experience of God now not only do not mediate this experience but positively block it. At the same time, consciousness of the suffering of poor and marginalized peoples grows; action on behalf of justice continues to attract; women reclaim their human dignity and the voice that goes with it; the vivifying power of God is experienced in and through the human power to chal-lenge, cherish, and set free; the divine mystery is named in new ways. Here and there religious persons and communities begin to articulate the prophetic-contemplative identity coherent with these experiences and act in mission accordingly. For religious life in the United States it is now Advent, the most honest season of all. In my judgment, the times do not call for return to the securities of a previous age. In fact, the very effort to keep alive forms of religious life that have for the most part run their historical course may well be counterproductive to the evangelical following of Jesus. Rather,what is needed is vig-ilant patience, profound prayer, and the ability to act boldly toward that future where new forms of evangelical life will develop. Notes ~ See summary by David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, "Future of Religious Orders in the United States," Origins 22, no. 15 (24 September 1992): 257-272. Hereafter cited as the Futures Project. Also in Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 6-55. 2 1 would like to thank the following colleagues and friends for pro-viding me with materials for this essay: Mary Ann Donovan SC, Patricia Lucas CSJ, Thomas McKenna CM, Janet Ruffing SM, and Clara Santoro CSJ. My deep gratitude also goes to Mary Catherine Hilkert OP, John W. Padberg SJ, David Power OMI, and Sandra Schneiders IHM for read-ing and critiquing the manuscript in outline or finished form. 24 Review for Religious 3 Among the works that have made significant contributions are: Gerald Arbuclde, Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (New York: Paulist, 1988). ~. Strategies for Growth in Religious Life (New York: Alba House, 1987). Marcello Azevedo, Vocation for Mission: The Challenge of Religious Life Today (New York: Paulist, 1988). Leonardo Boll, God's Witnesses in the Heart of tbe World (Chicago: Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality, 1981). Lawrence Cada et al., Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life (New York: Seabury, 1979). Robert Daly et al., eds., Religious Life in the U.S. Church: The New Dialogue (New York: Paulist, 1984). Barbara Fiand, Living the Vision: Religious Vows in an Age of Change (New York: Crossroad, 1990). David A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads (New York: Paulist, 1985). Mary Jo Leddy, Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990). John Lozano, Discipleship: Towards an Understanding of Religious Life (Chicago: CCRS, 1983). ¯ Life as Parable: Reinterpreting the Religious Life (New York: Paulist, 1986)¯ Johannes Baptist Metz, Followers of Christ (New York: Paulist, 1978). Diarmuid O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1991). Sandra Schneiders, New Wineskins: Re-imagining Religious Life Today (New York: Paulist, 1986). Jean Marie Tillard, A Gospel Path: Religious Life (Brussels: Lumen Vitae, 1975)¯ The Way Supplement 65 (summer 1989): "Religious Life in Transition," pp. 1-152. Patricia Wittberg, Creating a Future for Religious Life: A Sociological Perspective (New York: Paulist, 1991). Evelyn Woodward, Poets, Prophets and Pragmatists: A New Challenge To Religious Life (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1987). 4 Works include: Mary Ann Donovan, Sisterhood as Power: The Past and Passion of, Ecclesial Women (New York: Crossroad, 1989). Nadine Foley, ed., Claiming Our Truth: Reflections on Identity by United States Women Religious (Washington, D.C.: Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1988). January-February 1994 25 Johnson * Between the Times Marie Augusta Neal, Catholic Sisters in Transition: Front the 1960s to the 1980s (Wilmington, Delaware: Glazier, 1984). --. From Nuns to Sisters: An Expanding Vocation (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty-Third Publications, 1990). Lora Ann Quifionez and Mary Daniel Turner, The Transformation of American Catholic Sisters (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). Ann Patrick Ware, ed., Midwives of the Futttre (Kansas City, Missouri: Leaven Press, 1985). s "Hope-Filled Deeds and Critical Thought: The Experience of American Male Religious and Their Need to Reflect on It," paper pre-pared for the Third Inter-American Conference on Religious Life and printed in David A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads, pp. 20- 50; John W. O'Malley, "Priesthood, Ministry, and Religious Life: Historical and Historiographical Considerations," Theological Studies 49 (1988): 223-257. The dearth of works in this category is due, I think, to the fact that for most men authors until recently, male experience, given its normative status in church and society, is simply presumed. Thus gendered experience has not become a major category of interpre-tation as it has among women. 6 L. Cada et al., Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life, is the ground-breaking study that brought the notion of cycles to present-day awareness. See the excellent fine-tuning of this thesis b~; Philip Sheldrake, "Revising Historical Perspectives," The \¥ay Supplement 65 (summer 1989): pp. 66- 77. 7 Here I have found the following particularly helpful: Howard Gray, "Shapes for the Fut.ure," pp. 289-295, and Helen Flaherty, "Religious Life in the U.S.--A Guess at the Future," pp. 296-309, in R. Daly, Religious Life in the U.S.; Anne Clifford, "Women Missioned in a Technological Culture," pp. 37-55, in N. Foley, ed., Claiming Our Truth; the address by Robert Schreiter, "The Environment of Religious Life in 2010," to CMSM/LCWR Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky, August 1989; and the videotape "Religious Life: The Constant Is Change," IHM Sisters, Monroe, Michigan, which is an analysis of societal trends by Amata Miller, Margaret Brennan, and Sandra Schneiders. 8 See Anne Carr, Transfo~wting Grace: Christian Tradition and I, Vomen's Experience (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988). 9 Joint Meeting of the CMSM and the Lcv~rR, Louisville, Kentucky, August 1989. ,0 Karl Rahner, "The Spirituality of the Church of the Future," Theological Investigations, vol. 20, Concern for the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 145. ~ One of the best contemporary treatises on contemplation remains William Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978); and on prophecy, Walter Bruggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978). 26 Revieva for Religious 12 E. Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Seabury, 1980), p. 821. ,3 D. O'Murchu, Religious Life: A Prophetic Vision, passim. ,4 "Pilgrims and Prophets," paper drawn up by the Religious Life and Ministry Committee of the CMSM for the Fourth Inter-American Conference on Religious Life and printed in D. A. Fleming, ed., Religious Life at the Crossroads, pp. 51-64; quotation at p. 57. is S. Schneiders, New Wineskins, p. 32. 16 j. Lozano, Life as Parable, p. 9. 17 See Gordon Kaufman, The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), pp. 187-189. Kaufmann argues here for the importance of the great symbol of Jesus Christ who, as the image of the invisible God, manifests a God who does not act in a violent way but rather creates a community of love and equality in a peaceable and free way. !8 Martin Luther, "Large Catechism," The Book of Concord (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959), p. 365. 19 Franz Kafka, "My Destination," Parables and Paradoxes (Berlin: Schocken, 1975), p. 189. I am indebted for this reference to Catherine Keller, "Toward a Postpatriarchal Postmodernity," in David Griffin, ed., Spirituality and Society: Postmodern Visions (Albany: State University of New York, 1988), p. 65. 20 S. Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (Berkeley: University of California, 1982), p. 254. For further descriptions of postmodernity, see Frederic Burnham, ed., Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989); and Paul Lakeland, Theology and Critical Theory (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), chap. 7, "Catholicism and Postmodernity." 21 The essays in the Griffin collection are enlightening, especially his own "Introduction: Postmodern Spirituality and Society," pp. I-31. 22 H. P. Owen, Concepts of Dei~y (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), p. 1. 23 Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 63-69. 24 Janet Ruffing, "Seeing in the Dark: The Present Moment in Religious Life," address to regional meeting of LCWR, Sparkill, New York, September 1991, p. 10. This address, somewhat edited, appears in Review for Religious 51, no. 2 (March-April 1992): 236-248. 2s M. Buber, The Eclipse of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1952); K. Rahner, see note 10; C. Fitzgerald, "Impasse and Dark Night," in Tilden Edwards, ed., Living with Apocalypse: Spiritual Resources for Social Compassion (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 93-116; S. Schneiders, see video-tape, note 7; M. Marry, A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983); Michael Bucldey, "Atheism and Contemplation," Theological Studies 40 (1979): 680-699. January-February 1994 27 Johnson ¯ Between the Times 26 William J. Hill, Knowing the Unknown God (New York: Philosophical Library, 1971), and In Search of the Absent God, Mary Catherine Hilkert, ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1992). 27 Quoted in Mary Catherine Hilkert, "The Experience of Impasse and the Roots of Wisdom," address to Dominican Leadership Conference, October 1991, p. 11. 28 D. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: Macmillan, 1953), letter of 16 July 1944, p. 220. 29 Ibid, p. 219. 30 C. Fitzgerald, "Impasse and Dark Night," p. 112. 31 For a profound analysis see Peter Hodgson, God in History: Shapes of Freedom (Abingdon: Nashville, 1989); and Wendy Farley, Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: A Contemporary Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster, 1990). 32 "Reflections upon the Religious Life of U.S. Women Religious," paper prepared for the Fifth Inter-American Conference on Religious Life, 1985, and printed in N. Foley, ed., Claiming Our Tmtth," pp. 173-181; quotation at p. 177. Cana, Meaning Uncertain Wine flowed until there was no more at a wedding in Galilee; Mary, seeing this, turned to her son, one till then like any other, a brother, a carpenter who measured what he said and did. "They have no more wine," she said. He hesitated, questioned her, stirred up feelings between them. In the end Jesus acquiesced, six stone jars, water into wine, a fine line crossed, spirit revealed. Yet the uncertainty remains, was it not a mother's prompting that disrupted heaven's intent or is love so strong even God can be swayed by its openness? Neil C. Fitzgerald 28 Review for Religious JAN P. SCHOTTE The Consecrated Life in Church and World: Toward the Synod On 30 December 1991 the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, called for the gathering in autumn 1994 of the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to treat the topic: "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World." But what exactly is a synod of bishops? What are the various theological elements connected with this institu-tion? What are its pastoral aspects? Practically speaking, how does the synodal process work? And in what way does the treatment of specific topics bring benefit to the whole church? toward the synod A Synod of Bishops Etymologically speaking, the term "synod," derived from the elision of two Greek words, syn meaning "together" and hodos meaning "road" or "way," literally means "together on the way" or "sharing a journey." This idea immediately calls to mind the Vatican II image of the church as the people of God "on the move," always on pilgrimage, led and guided by the Holy Spirit through history to its ultimate fulfillment when the Lord shall Jan P. Schotte CICM serves as the general secretary of the Synod of Bishops. This presentation of his to the May 1993 Meeting of the International Union of Superiors General in Rome was orig-inally published in the UISG Bulletin, no. 92, 1993, pp. 68-78. Bishop Schotte may be addressed at Office of the General Secretary; Piazza Pio XII, 3; 00193 Rome; Italy. January-February 1994 29 Scbotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church come again (see Lumen gentium, §6). The term also calls to mind some biblical associations. For example, in John's Gospel Jesus calls himself the "Way" (see Jn 14:6), and St. Paul makes reference to Christianity as the "Way" (see Ac 22:4). The term's rich theological and biblical associations can be saidto culminate in the concept of the church as communion. As quoted in Cbristifideles laici, "communion speaks of a double, life-giving participation: the incorporation of Christians into the life of Christ, and the communication of that life of charity to the entire body of the faithful, in this world and in the next, union with Christ and in Christ, and union among Christians in the church." Therefore, "communion" should not be looked upon as something static, but an active and dynamic reality which is both a hallmark of the church and the divine force continually enliven-ing her. This mystery of the church's communion is reflected in an unlimited number of ways in the church's life, from its most sub-lime aspect in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, to the var-ious encounters both personal and communal experienced by Christians everywhere. One instrument for celebrating the communal nature of the church on the local level is through archdiocesan and diocesan synods, which are becoming more frequent an occurrence. In convoking such a synod, a local bishop gathers around himself, as the source and foundation of communion or unity in his partic-ular church, various representatives of the church community-- lay, clerical, and religious--to pray and reflect in common and, using the eternal truths of the faith as set forth in the teachings of the church, to seek pastoral approaches and solutions to living the Christian life as a community and as individuals. The church's communal nature on the particular and univer-sal level also exists in the authority over the church which was established by Christ and subordinated to the task of preaching the gospel (see LG, §20 and §21). Therefore, where the synod of bishops uses the same word as that applied to celebrating the communal nature of the particular church, there is a basic theo-logical difference. The synod of bishops celebrates the mystery of church communion on the hierarchical level, that is, among the bishops. The Second Vatican Council describes this unity in the fol-lowing manner: "Just as, in accordance with the Lord's decree, 30 Review for Religious St. Peter and the rest of the apostles constitute a unique apos-tolic college, so in like fashion the Roman pontiff, Peter's suc-cessor, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are related with and united to one another'~ (LG, §22). This fundamental unity of the episcopate is the basis for the teaching on the collegiality of bishops (see LG, §22 and §23), which is like-wise an essential element in understanding the synod of bishops. The highest and fullest expression of this mystery of hierarchical communion is manifested and celebrated in an ecumenical council where the whole .episcopal college is convoked by the Holy Father. On various occasions the doc-uments of the Second Vatican Council refer to the episcopal gathering as a "synod" (see LG, §54; Christus Dominus, §36; etc.). But in this sense the word has the same meaning and theological significance as "council." Where the "synod of bishops" might resemble a "minicoun-cil," there is a fundamental qualitative difference between the two. For example, a synod convenes only a representative por-tion of the world episcopate, and unlike an ecumenical council, the synod of bishops is convened by the Holy Father for consulta-tive and not deliberative purposes. Nevertheless, despite the dif-ferences, "the synod of bishops," according to the Holy Father, "expresses collegiality in a highly ifitense way." The institution of the synod over twen.ty-seven years ago was inspired by the collaboration among the bishops at the Second Vatican Council and its beneficial effects for the whole church. Pope Paul VI on 15 September 1965 in the motu proprio Apostolica sollicitudo, establishing the synod of bishops, used these words: "With the aim of providing for a continuance after the council of the great abundance of benefits that we have been so happy to see flow to the Christian people during the time of the council as a result of our close collaboration with the bishops [and] because The institution of the synod over twenty-seven years ago was inspired by the collaboration among the bishops at the Second Vatican Council and its beneficial effects for the whole church. January-February 1994 31 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church of our esteem and regard for all the Catholic bishops and with the aim of providing them with abundant means for greater and more effective participation in our concern for the universal church, on our own initiative and by our apostolic authority we hereby erect and establish here in Rome a permanent council of bishops for the universal church, to be directly and immediately subject to our power." Much more than a structure inspired by the Second Vatican Council, the synod of bishops has proven itself to be an apt instru-ment for the implementation of conciliar doctrine and the appli-cation of its pastoral directives. At the same time it has also been the forum for the interpretation and further development of the teachings and spirit of the council. An Instrument of Continuous Pastoral Renewal Though each session is called to respond to unique pastoral situations, no synod is ever an isolated event, but has a relation to other synodal gatherings. Because each synod calls together a representative portion of the episcopate with its head the pope, each synod has a relation to the whole church. At the same time, because the synod is a unique response of the episcopal college to the mandate or mission entrusted to it by the Savior, each synod has a relation to the fundamental salvific mission of the church through history as well. A brief look at the various synods which have taken place to date is evidence enough of the importance of these episcopal gatherings for the church and their value in bring-ing about the reforms intended by the council. Pope Paul VI stated the goals for the First Ordinary General Assembly, held in the fall of 1967: "the preservation and the strengthening of the Catholic faith, its integrity, its force, its development, its doctrinal and historical coherence." One result of this meeting was the eventual establishment of the International Commission of Theologians to assist the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and to broaden a discussion on approaches to theological research. The same assembly provided the stimu-lus for the 1983 publication of the revised Code of Canon Law and also made recommendations to the Holy Father on various pastoral questions. Two years later, in 1969, the First Extraordinary General Assembly was convoked to seek and examine ways and means of 32 Review for Religious putting into practice the collegiality of bishops with the pope. This meeting opened the door to greater collegiality in the pas-toral care of the universal church and in episcopal conferences and the relations between individual bishops. In 1971 the Second Ordinary General Assembly treated two subjects: "The Ministerial Priesthood" and "Justice in the World." In the former, treatment was centered on the theological nature of the priesthood with the intention of addressing certain diffi-culties experienced by priests in the course of their ministry. On the subject of justice, the bishops stated the need to relate the gospel to existing worldwide and local circumstances. "Evangelization in the Modern World" occupied the work of the Third Ordinary General Assembly held in 1974. At this assem-bly the bishops reemphasized the essential missionary character of the church and the duty of each member to bear wimess to Christ in the world. The bishops' recommendations and proposals sub-mitted to the pope were used in the formulation of the apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi. At the Fourth Ordinary General Assembly, which took place three years later, in 1977, the discussion of the bishops centered on "Catechesis in Our Times," with special attention given to the teaching of the faith to children and young people. Shortly after the synod, Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic exhortation Catecbesi tradendae, which utilized a great many of the bishops' insights and proposals. The First Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, popularly known as "The Dutch Synod," was convoked in 1980 to examine more thoroughly the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the mystery of church communion and its practical implications on the universal and local level, and the figure of the bishop and his ministry. In this way the synod sought at that time to address its designated topic, "The Pastoral Situation in Holland." The Fifth Ordinary General Assembly in 1980 reaffirmed the church's teaching on the family, in particular defending marriage and the contents of Humanae vitae. From the discussion and the proposals of the assembly, the pope issued the apostolic exhorta-tion Familiaris consortio. In 1983 the Sixth Ordinary General Assembly, held during a specially called Holy Year commemorating the 1950th year of Redemption, appropriately discussed the need of applying the fruits of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection to the individ- January-February 1994 33 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church These different synodal gatherings which have taken place in the course of the synod's history appear more and more clearly as a continuous process of pastoral renewal. ual and society. The bishops' work during the synod served as the basis for the apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et paenitentia, which for the first time was designated a "postsynodal" docu-ment. The Second Extraordinary General Assembly in 1985 com-memorated the "Twentieth Anniversary of the Conclusion of the Second Vatican Council" and assessed the state of church renewal according to conciliar teachings. The recently published Catechism of the Catholic Church was the result of a proposal by the bishops at this episcopal assembly. "The Vocation and Mission of the Laity in the Church and in the World" was the topic chosen for the Seventh Ordinary General Assembly in 1987. Through a con-sideration of vocation and mission in the context of church commu-nion, the bishops sought to empha-size the distinctive nature of the lay faithful in the church's life and her work of evangelization in the world. The fifty-four proposals of this assembly were used in the formulation of the postsynodal apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici. In 1990 the Eighth Ordinary General Assembly again took up the subject of priesthood. However, where in 1971 the bishops focused on the theological nature of priesthood and its implica-tions, this assembly's attention was more pastoral in tone, cen-tering. upon priestly formation and the "person" of the priest himself-both religious and diocesan--before and after ordination. The forty-one proposals from this assembly were used by the Holy Father in the formulation of the postsynodal apostolic exhor-tation, Pastores dabo vobis. The Special Assembly for Europe was called in the follow-ing year, 1991, to help discern the kairos of the situation on the European continent created by the historic fall of communism and to consider the role of the church in the various programs of renewal and construction. 34 Review for Religious In preparation are two other special assemblies. In his recent apostolic visitation to Africa last February, the Holy Father announced, in conjunction with the release of the assembly's Instrumenturn laboris, that this special assembly will take place in Rome in 1994, just after Easter. In March the Lineamenta of the special assembly for Lebanon was published, initiating the con-sultation phase of the preparation for that synod. These different synodal gatherings which have taken place in the course of the synod's history appear more and more clearly as a continuous process of pastoral renewal, giving opportunity through prayer and reflection to deepen a sense of the church's mission and to stimulate all the people of God to participate in this mission, each according to his or her state. Perhaps our under-standing of the synod of bishops can be further enhanced by fol-lowing the synod process which has taken place thus far in the preparation for the 1994 synod on "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World." The 1994 Synodal Process The principles governing the synod of bishops and the synodal process are set forth in three basic documents: the motu proprio Apostolica sollicitudo of Pope Paul VI establishing the synod; Ordo synodi episcoporum celebrandae, or the Constitutions of the Synod of Bishops; and the Code of Canon Law, canons 342 to 348 inclusive. For the purpose of our presentation I will limit myself to those aspects of the process which immediately affect the synod topic, its documentation, and the various preparatory phases leading to the synodal gathering. Before the conclusion of the Eighth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, the synod fathers were asked to elect from their number, according to synod regulations, the required fifteen-member council to assist the general secretary in the follow-up work of the assembly and to work on the prepa-ration of the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly. At the same time the synod fathers were invited to make suggestions on a topic to be treated at the next general assembly. There is a certain value to this initial exchange on the topic during the general assembly because the responses are spontaneous and unprepared. In making their suggestions the bishops were asked to keep in mind the following general criteria in selecting a synodal topic: (1) January-February 1994 35 Sctsotte ¯ Tlse Consecrated Life in rise Church that the topic have a universal character, that is, a reference and application to the whole church; (2) that the topic have a con-temporary character and a certain urgency, that is, have the capa-bility of exciting new energies and movement in the church towards growth; (3) that the topic have a pastoral focus and appli-cation as well as a firm doctrinal basis; and (4) that treatment of the topic be feasible, in other words, that it have the potential actually to be accomplished. In retrospect it is interesting to note that even in the initial consultation during the synod itself a con-vergence of ideas was evident regarding the treatment of some aspect of the consecrated life. Shortly after the conclusion of the general assembly, the gen-eral secretariat continued the consultation process by preparing a letter with the above criteria and sending it to the patriarchates, bishops' conferences, heads of offices of the Roman Curia, and the Union of Superiors General--the normal participants in the synod process. This communication requested the submission of three topics in order of preference. The suggestions coming from this consultation were then analyzed and discussed by the members of council of the general secretariat at one of its regularly sched-uled meetings, and a series of formulations of the theme in order of preference was submitted to the Holy Father. Until now the Holy Father has always selected the council's first choice, con-vinced that the consultation process provides a true indication of the desire of the universal church to treat a given subject. Such was the case for the topic of the 1994 synod. The general consultation process revealed a remarkable con-vergence of ideas indicating a preference for the topic of the con-secrated life. Initially some persons made a rather shallow interpretation to explain the choice, insisting that since the laity and the priesthood were treated in the two previous synodal assemblies, it was only logical that the consecrated life should receive attention. The truth of the matter is that in the course of the consultation a great number of reasons were given for calling a synod to treat the topic of the consecrated life. Many argued in the following manner. 1) With the importance of the consecrated life in the church today, there is necessity to reaffirm its true nature in various new social contexts and in the world at large. 2) The flourishing of vocations in some parts of the world 36 Review for Religious and the crisis of vocations in others requires a thorough exami-nation of the consecrated life. 3) After the Second Vatican Council, various efforts have been made to rewrite constitutions, to propose anew the charism of the founder, and so forth, and consecrated life in general has been subject to an overall renewal. Therefore, the time seems right to engage in an evaluative process. 4) The question of the relationship of those in consecrated life to bishops deserves renewed consideration as well as the sub-ject of the greater participation of women and men religious in the overall pastoral plan of a diocese, particularly in light of the unique charism proper to each. Where the document Mutuae relationes has been fruitful and productive on the whole, certain episcopal con-ferences have given indications that there remain some areas still needing attention. 5) The new forms of consecrated life appearing in many parts of the church require evaluation and proper guidance. The nature of religious institutes, secular institutes, and the societies of apos-tolic life needs to be clarified and their role in the church more clearly defined. Many of the new forms of unions and confrater-nities are appearing with the false notion that they are part of the consecrated life according to the evangelical counsels. 6) Some developments and interpretations have caused the common life for religious to be questioned. In some countries there are situations which deserve attention. 7) The prophetic character of consecrated life in certain cir-cumstances needs to be more clearly defined. How is a person in the consecrated life to respond in faithfulness to his or her voca-tion in the face of secularization, the crisis in culture, and the decline in moral values? 8) In some countries religious congregations have abandoned the work proper to them in favor of individual attempts at apos-tolic work. Such a situation raises the concern of religious con-gregations as well as bishops, requiring them to seek the proper pastoral approach to such situations. The above sampling of reasons underlying the choice of topic for the 1994 synod sufficiently indicates its universal appeal, pas-toral relevance, timely character, and feasibility. At the same time, it can be seen that they have a general inter-est for the entire church. In virtue of the church's unity, every part and every member will be affected by the exchange and out- January-Fetrruary 1994 37 Schotte * The Consecrated Life in the Church come. In this sense the synod will not simply treat a topic, but make suggestions to the Holy Father regarding the future. What does the consecrated life have in store for the future? How are those in consecrated life to live out their consecration in the apos-tolic mission of the church? What courageous and bold steps are required to meet the unique challenges made on consecrated life by the present state of affairs in the church and society? Before these questions can be faced by the bishops in syn-odal assembly, the church at large will have time to reflect on them and other aspects of the topic and be invited to make their observations known through the proper channels so that those required to make official responses on the topic to the general secretariat will have current information with which to work. The 1994 Lineamenta The synod process can be divided into four great moments: the Lineamenta, the Instrumentum laboris, the synodal assembly, and the postsynodal document. We logically pause to devote some time to explaining the Lineamenta document, the present stage of preparation for the Ninth Ordinary General Assembly. After the Holy Father's choice of topic, the council of the general secretariat at a regularly scheduled meeting held a roundtable discussion with the secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and with representatives from the various groups associated with con-secrated life, that is, women and men religious, members of sec-ular institutes, and members of the international organizations of consecrated life in the church, namely, the Union of Superiors General for Men and the International Union of Women Superiors as well as the International Congress of Secular Institutes. The observations resulting from this meeting were fur-ther discussed and developed in subsequent council meetings, and with the help of theologians an outline and texts of the Lineamenta were drafted and studied, before a definitive text was submitted to the Holy Father. As its Latin name suggests, the Lineamenta is an "outline" or general presentation of the synod topic followed by a series of questions intended to direct the prayer and reflection of the whole church on the subject. The information resulting from this stage will provide the raw material for the synod's Instrumentum laboris 3 8 Review for Religious or "working document," intended to present a composite picture of the present situation and prevailing attitudes in the church on consecrated life and its role in the church and in the world. The Lineamenta document is divided into three major parts, each treating a specific aspect of the topic: (1) "The Nature and Identity of the Consecrated Life"; (2) "The Consecrated Life in the church and in the World of Today"; and (3) "The Role of Consecrated Life." The document's initial pages immediately address the prob-lem of terminology. Strictly speaking, the term "consecrated life" in Canon Law refers to religious con-gregations and secular institutes only. What, then, is to be done with soci-eties of apostolic life? Since canon 731, § 1, states that the societies of apostolic life are "comparable to the institutes of consecrated life," it was agreed that the synod topic would also include their treatment. Therefore, when the term is used in the Lineamenta, it is meant to be all-inclusive. After a brief introduction, Part I begins with an explanation of the essential characteristics of the conse-crated life, namely, vocation, conse-cration, mission, the evangelical counsels, the common life, eschato-logical witness, its essential values, and the commitment to the spiritual life. The section then proceeds to speak of the charismatic nature of the consecrated life, as wit-nessed in its variety of charisms and multiplicity of forms. In this regard attention is given to the charism of the founder or foundress, the various forms of consecrated life, institutes of con-templative life, brothers, secular institutes, societies of a.postolic life, and the new forms of consecrated life emerging today. The second part of the document describes the present situ-ation of the consecrated life in the church and in today's world, seeking on this basis to suggest various subtopics which merit consideration, for example, the direction to be taken by the con-secrated life with the approach of the third millennium, the fruits of renewal, new values and aspects of the consecrated life, nega- The synod process can be divided into four great moments: the Lineamenta, the Instrumentum laboris, the synodal assembly, and the postsynodal document. Jam~ary-February 1994 39 Schotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church tive aspects (even these must be addressed), the necessity of a clear witness in responding to the challenges of modern society, and finally the situation in various countries and cultures (Africa and Asia come especially to mind). This section ends with a call to those in consecrated life to continue the renewal begun after the Second Vatican Council. The third section speaks in practical terms of the role of the consecrated life in the church and society, beginning with a pre-sentation on the ecclesial dimensions of the consecrated life, its relation to the church hierarchy, its coordinating structures in fostering communion, its place on the level of the local church, and its communion with the lay faithful. With this in mind, var-ious topics related to the role of the consecrated life within the universal church community are treated, including the new evan-gelization, authentic apostolic creativity, acceptance of the call to evangelization, remaking the fabric of society, promoting the unity of all the baptized, and the dialogue with followers of other religions. The concluding portion of Part III turns its attention to the church's mission in the world, emphasizing features associ-ated with the consecrated life, for example, its specific witness to God's love through the works of mercy; its attention to young people and their needs; its presence in schools, hospitals, and social programs; its dedication to work on behalf of the poor; its role--past and present--in the transmission and formation of cul-ture; and its part in the church's work of safeguarding the values of nature and conscience in today's world. The closing pages of the Lineamenta then offe~ a brief look at Mary as the model and mother of the consecrated life and a reflec-tion on the consecrated life in terms of a renewed presence of Christ in the world of today. The presentation concludes with a section containing the document's endnotes, followed by a table of contents. Incorporated in the Lineamenta text and appearing at the con-clusion of each section is a series of twenty-five consecutively numbered questions which are meant to focus the prayer and dis-cussion of the universal church on various aspects of the synod topic. At the same time, these questions and numbers are to pro-vide an orderly structure for the responses from various individ-uals and church bodies which will be formulated and submitted in the lively exchange on all levels of the church community dur-ing the consultation period. 40 Review for Religious Official responses are expected to be filed with the general secretariat by those normally involved in the consultation pro-cess, that is, patriarchates, episcopal conferences, offices of the Roman Curia, and the Union of Superiors General for Men. Given the synod topic, the International Union of Women Superiors and the International Congress for Secular Institutes are also to submit responses. All responsible for such responses are to work on the best possible manner of facilitating the reading of the document by individuals and groups associated with them, and of seeking information from them so that the responses may be truly complete and reflect the richness of the exchange on the various levels of the local church community. With the publication of the Lineamenta on 20 November 1992, a significant and important stage in the preparation for this synodal assembly was initiated. I would even go so far as to say a most critical phase, because the richness and depth of the Instrumentum laboris, the reference point and source of discus-sion during the actual synodal assembly, depends on the widespread participation of the whole church and a thorough-ness in answering the series of questions posed in the Lineamenta. For this reason, it is incumbent upon each individual in the church, no matter what his or her state or circumstance, to con-tribute through the accustomed channels in this presynodal prepa-ration period, thereby providing the necessary information which will be eventually used in the official responses to be sent to the general secretariat. From my experience over the years I am becoming more aware and convinced of the very real contribution and impact of synodal assemblies in the life of the church. These beneficial results come about not simply from a month-long meeting, but from the whole synodal process, from the consultation regard-ing the theme, the prayer and reflection period, the actual cele-bration of the synod, and its follow-up. Not only do the reflection and prayer which are a part of the Lineamenta phase assist in setting the agenda in the Instrumentum laboris or "working paper," but the process itself taps and exer-cises the dynamism of church communion in the listening, shar-ing, and stirring up of new energies on various levels of the church community. And after the synodal assembly, where there is a con-centrated effort at intensely living the communion which has come beforehand, the effects make themselves felt years later. January-February 1994 41 Scbotte ¯ The Consecrated Life in the Church The Lineamenta itself makes reference to this fact when it states that the occasion of this synod will provide the opportunity for "all members of the church, particularly the institutes of con-secrated life, to reconsider the subject of their own renewal in light of the challenges and the opportunities of the present moment," based on the church's appeal in these days "for a renewed endeavor towards evangelical life, towards a profound spirituality, and towards a generous presence in the new evange-lization" (§33). This time of synodal preparation, then, is an occa-sion for hope, a hope that this profound examination of the status of renewal and the prospects for future growth of the consecrated life in all its aspects will be a moment of grace and revitalization, and bring great benefits to all those in consecrated life and to the church as a whole. Message from a Coreopsis Lanceolata (Daisies Do Tell) Some of us are past our prime, And one of us has lost a few petals; Another--will never see the sun. Yet we all rejoice That we reflect our Maker And celebrate a loving God Who signs each one of us With his own life's Blood. Joann Stuever, ASC postulant 42 Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC Charism, Charisms, and Faddism d sexagenarian religious superior who keeps abreast of the times asked me if I had read the recent document on reli-gious life produced by the council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. I said yes, adding hesitantly: "But it is not very interesting." Without hesitation she agreed completely. The Point of Departure: The Lineamenta Surely the Lineamenta, the preliminary agenda on "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World" prepared in view of the forthcoming Ninth General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, is not a particularly charismatic piece of writing. After all, it is not from the pen of a theologian like Rahner, or a biblicist like Elsa Tamez, or a feminist like Ruether, or a third-world figure like Amalorpavadass, or a cardinal like Martini. On the contrary, it is an official document with its strengths and weaknesses, treating the topic "in a complete organic manner, indicating the topic's precise content and its necessary limits''1 and touching upon "only the essential points of doctrine" (§4).2 As such, therefore, it would read somewhat like a protocol without the charismatic cadence or resonance of your fa~,orite author. However, considering that the document is the product of the pastoral office of the church, we would not be wrong if we rec-ognized in it the charismatic teaching included by Paul in his lists A. Paul Dominic SJ can be addressed at Satyodayam; S. Lallaguda; Secunderabad 500 017; India. .~anuary-Felrruary 1994 43 Dominic * Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism of charisms. And so what it says about religious life as a charism that includes many a charism can serve for our mental nourish-ment and impart to us a spiritual gift (Rm 1:11). It can set us thinking about religious life as a matter of charismatic experi-ence, that is, an experience of living a fundamental charism through as many different charisms as there are societies of"con-secrated" or "apostolic" life. Any serious reflection on this mat-ter will prove to be relevant, for the prevailing confusion in religious life concerns partly the lack of clarity about charism and charisms.3 Religious Life as Charism Religious life, like all life, is best observed in its relationships. On the one hand, it is a part of the church; and, on the other, it is itself the church and so serving, like the church, the rest of the world (§3, §25, and §44). In the first perspective, religious life is one of the many charisms of the church; in the second, it is, as we said earlier, a fundamental charism giving rise to a wide variety of expressions of itself. The religious state of life is a "particular gift in the life of the church" (Lumen gentium, §43). As such it can be properly appre-ciated only when we see it in place, beside many other similar gifts enjoyed by the church. That is why the Lineamenta begins the consideration of charisms (§14-§17) recalling the mystery of the church as the Mystical Body of Christ endowed with many gifts, quoting Paul: "There are many different gifts, but it is always the same Spirit; there are many different ways of serving, but it is always the same Lord. There are many different forms of activ-ity, but in everybody it is the same God who is at work in all" (1 Co 12:4-6). By the parallelism of the verses, the different ways of service or activity are all to be understood as gifts in a variety of forms. Paul goes on to list such gifts in the immediate context (i Co 12:8-10, 28) and also in other letters (Rm 12:6-8 and Ep 4:11). A look at all the lists can give us an idea of the wide range of gifts enjoyed by the growing church. Though it would be anachronistic to look for the mention of religious life among the listed gifts of the Spirit bestowed on the church, note that celibacy is proposed as a special gift (1 Co 7:7). In the course of time the church came to recognize many more gifts in its ongoing life, gifts like asceticism, monasticism, vir- 44 Review for Religious ginity, choice of poverty, and social virtues, to speak only of those that have an obvious reference to religious life.4 As the church grew in self-awareness, it came to discover many elements that we now associate with religious life as its specific gifts; and so today we can speak about "the charism of the consecrated life" (§14), that is to say, the consecrated life itself viewed as a gift or charism. However various and heterogeneous the different charisms may be in the manner of their working, they are one and homo-geneous in intent and purpose. They are all meant to build up the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is built up when the mem-bers are well nourished and so live to the full, reaching unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God and forming the perfect Person fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself (Ep 4:13). This fullness of Christ is the same as the life permeated by the Spirit ever filling us or even overwhelming us with all her gifts and charisms. Such a life energized by the working of the Spirit is spiritual and holy. M1 the charisms of the Spirit nourish the life of the church, making it ever more holy with the life of Christ himself. Situating religious life thus in the sphere of the church's life of holiness and recognizing in it a universal reality in the church's makeup, the Lineamenta concludes: "With this in mind one speaks of 'the charism of the consecrated life'" (§14). Here is surely an echo of the approach to religious life taken by Lumen gentium, §39-§47. Such an affirmation of religious life, however, is slightly marred by the way the Lineamenta, following of course Vatican expresses it. After describing the way of holiness of religious life marked by vows that establish a special bond to God, Lumen gen-tium concludes: "Thus, although the religious state., does not belong" to the hierarchical structure of the church, nevertheless it belongs inseparably to her life and holiness" (see L §1; see also §14 and §36). One can discover a patronizing voice here, rightly or wrongly. Anyway, what a difference it would make if the state-ment were to read towards the end: "nevertheless, like the hier-archy, the religious state too belongs inseparably to her life and holiness." Does not Vatican II after all state in the chapter on universal holiness, "In the various types and duties of life, one and the same holiness is cultivated by all who are moved by the Spirit of God" (LG §41), and further go on to describe the way of holiness of the different classes of persons and finally end with a clear reference to the life of the religious (LG §41 and §42)? January-February 1994 45 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism There is a good reason why we can parallel religious life and hierarchy in this way. Of all the charisms enumerated by Paul-- who, incidentally, developed the terminology of charisms--the pastoral office of the hierarchy is the only one that concerns a state of life. This idea gets all the greater force because the pas-toral letters signal a development in the idea of charism which continued to prevail in postapostolic times. Paul's reminder to Timothy, "You have in you a spiritual gift which was given to you when the prophets spoke and the body of elders laid their hands on you" (i Tm 4:14), a reminder repeated again in 2 Timothy 1:6, certainly refers to Timothy's charism as one of grace of state or office. If we add to this way of looking at the hierarchical charism the reference to the charism of married life in 1 Corinthians 7:7, where there is a simultaneous reference to the charism of celibacy too, we can discern a line of thinking in which the various particular vocations in Christian life can be considered charisms establishing people in different states of life. So we can now speak in particular of the charism of religious life as the grace of the religious state of life; contributing to the holiness of the church in a particular way. In this context it is enlightening and inspiring to recall an old nomenclature of the religious state of life, namely, the state of perfection, proclaiming visibly the prophetic office of Christ wit-nessing to the kingdo~n here and hereafter. What is basic about states of perfection is the perfection to be acquired by way of the evangelical counsels in a community set-up. The function of any particular way of religious life, contemplative or active, lies. in this: that religious, by their very striving after holiness, call upon all Christians to do the same in their own way. So remarking, Bernard H~iring quotes papal authority in support: "The church would not fully respond to the mind of her Divine Bridegroom, men would not fix their eyes on her as on the 'the signal unto the nations'., if they did not find in her men who reflected the splendor of the gospel more through the example of their life than by means of words.''s All this is not so old-fashioned. A few years ago America carried an article describing religious as those who, unlike the laity, make religion their very career with its own particular structures that not only favor and promote it but also witness to it.6 The charism of religious is to be identified with striving for perfection, as the Lineamenta often repeats (§3, §5, §8, and §16). 46 Review for Religious To speak of the state of perfection is perhaps not a post-Vatican practice. However, in avoiding the falsity of perception possible in the expression, one need not altogether abandon its right use. Rather, we need to rediscover in the correct meaning of the phrase some essentials of religious life. Here is one: "It is not so much we who profess as others (the church, the community) who recognize that we. at least have received an explicit call and have come to a state of commitment to pursue it relentlessly, wholeheartedly; and radically.''7 But even in so reflecting on religious life as a state of perfec-tion, one should beware of a dan-ger. If one were to emphasize the personal pursuit of perfection that religious undertake, one is liable to overemphasize all their many undertakings on the path to perfection, thereby forgetting that any and every charism is a pure and simple gift of God. The story of Peter is apt here, as Bonhoeffer tells it. "Three times Peter heard himself proclaim that Christ is his Lord and God--at the beginning, at the end, and at Caesarea Philippi. Each time it is the same grace of Christ calling Peter to follow, and revealing itself to him in his confession." To reiterate the idea with Bonhoeffer: "This grace was certainly not self-bestowed. It was the grace of Christ himself.''8 Quoting all this, J.M.R. Tillard concludes; "Now, this costly grace., is for Simon Peter and for every religious the charism which makes existence as such a sign of the gospel. This charism comes from the Lord's Spirit . It is truly a gift made by the risen Lord, through his Holy Spirit, to his people. The Lord passes by. his grace seizes certain men and women. Poor sinners, they are nonetheless of those who will say to . . . the world: 'We have found what we were looking for! Come and see!' This is their charism.''9 One may, then, delve into the experience of religious life and discover in its depths not so much a for but a because of. No one enters religious life primarily for some thing or some work, but rather because of the One Who calls. "The for will come later, nec-essarily, but in the radiance and as the evangelical fruit of the No one enters religious life primarily for some thing or some work, but rather because of the One who calls. ~tanuar2/-Febrttary 1994 47 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism because of," as Tillard says.~° Can anything be clearer than this? Yet in the culture shock that religious were exposed to after Vatican Council II, not a few sought their identity in their works and tasks, in their of religious life. But the more they did so, the more elusive they found it. For their real existence as religious was concentrated in the call of Christ to which they had once com-mitted themselves because of the altogether new experience of being seized by the Lord's power. Their existence, therefore, became, or ought to have become, a new existence, a charismatic existence, a charism. Such a vision of religious life as the charism in itself appears distinctly, though in a less charismatic expression, in the Lineamenta when it speaks of the profession of the gospel as the supreme rule for all institutes, whatever their particular ministries may be (§8; see also Perfectae caritatis, §2). The Charisms of Religious Life Once religious life is understood in terms of one unique exis-tential charism underlying all forms of it, one may be able to appreciate the more familiar experience of the particular charisms that at once characterize and distinguish the various institutes. It is in this way that the Lineamenta would seem to interpret the charismatic nature of religious life as taught in the conciliar and postconciliar documents (§ 14). Logically and theologically, the consideration of the charism that constitutes religious life leads to that of the many charisms of religious life. It is the one charism of religious life that begets many a charism in it. Are not the latter "like branches sprouting out wondrously and abundantly from a tree growing in the field of the Lord"? (LG §43, quoted in L §16). Historically, however, what attracted the attention of people was the variety of charisms and not the one charism beneath and beyond all charisms. So, tracing the beginning of religious life from the very infancy of the church, Perfectae caritatis could point out: "Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, many., pursued a solitary life, or founded religious families . And so it happened by divine plan that a wonderful variety of religious communities grew up" (§ 1, partly quoted in L § 16). The mention of solitary life and religious families obviously refers to the twin charisms of original religious life, namely, 48 Review for Religious eremiticism and cenobitism (§9 and §19c). Cenobitism itself in the course of history developed two other charisms, namely, divine contemplation and human service. These in turn became spe-cialized in their ways of focusing on God and on people. In what-ever century religious live out their days, they adopt or develop distinct varieties of direct service of God and humanity, in imita-tion of Christ. Through them, therefore, Christ comes to be shown "contemplating on the mountain, announcing God's king-dom to the multitude, 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" (LG §46, quoted in L §15). Often enough, charisms are considered, or even identified with, graces meant for the common good. Such a consideration is incomplete because it misses something important, namely, the source of the power of service. Charisms are particular graces imparted to us by which we bear or image or reflect or even become Christ in ourselves in a particular limited way, and so are able to render appropriate service in a specific context in a par-ticular part of the world in the manner of Christ himself. So they highlight in us "a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ" (§ 17). However, the gospel, or for that matter Christ himself, if under-stood with proper nuance, is not apart from the church. So the Lineamenta does well in describing charisms as bearing upon a specific aspect, not only of the mystery of Christ, but also of the church's life, and thus manifesting in the makeup of the Mystical Body the multiform grace of Christ (§15). One should not miss here how charisms are at once incarnational and ecclesial (§46). Charisms and Service Once it is grasped that charisms have to do primarily with a fundamental religious way of being, one cannot go wrong in insist-ing that charisms are out-and-out oriented towards service, "des-tined for service of the kingdom" (§3); for surely charisms have an inalienable reference, not only to the way of being, but also to the way of doing. The Lineamenta spells out the nexus between charism and service forcefully thus: "Each charism . . . brings with it a particular manner of faithfully and intensely living the evangelical counsels. In addition, it implies a particular and con-crete style of spiritual life, a determined form of apostolate, a .~anuary-February 1994 49 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism specific experience of community life, and a particular involvement in the world" (816 [emphasis added]; see also $8). What, then, are the specific paths of service in the building of the earthly city (§44)? Not forgetting the contribution of the contemplatives to society through their divine service of worship (§2)--the first permanent foundation of women in the United States was Carmelites~l--the Lineamenta illustrates the service of active charisms thus: "Today the consecrated life is present in our society through the multiplicity of apostolic services rendered to others, each according to its diverse charisms, in one magnificent expression of the charity of Christ on behalf of the integral for-mation of persons; in the education of children and young people, in the care of the sick, the suffering, the elderly, and those in want; and in aid to persons with special needs and those marginal-ized by society" (§44a). What do all such services intend except "to make operative the gospel of the beatitudes and the works of mercy" (§44a)? One particular element of service rendered by charisms con-cerns life of communion within the church. Different forms of religious life characterized by their different charisms do not con-stitute exclusive churches within the church, but, forming part of the one church, ought to feel themselves to be the church and so identify themselves with her (~3 and ~35; see also Perfectae car-itatis, §2c). The charisms of the different religious families, with their charismatic and yet ecclesial-minded founders, belong as much to the whole church as to the religious themselves (~16, §26e, and §46). For not only are they meant for the growth of the chhrch, but they also have their origin, regulation, guarantee, and approval in and from the church (§6, §15, and §16). Therefore, far from being closed in upon themselves, religious offer a rich fare for communion, reflecting ideal church commu-nion (§9). There is every reason, then, to identify the religious living together by the term community. Incidentally, the hierarchy as such can only contribute, in terms of sociology, to the culture of societas with role differentiation; but the religious as such plunge themselves into the heart of society with their charisms of ser-vice (§3, ~42, and §44) and break through segmentations in soci-ety and initiate the culture of communitas in our world.~2 In bringing about this new culture of communion in the world church, the religious, as "experts in communion" (§35), have nec- 50 Review for Relig~otts essarily to act locally in the particular church, but with their hearts spanning universally in the global church (§27a). The exercise of religious charisms "assists everyone--clergy and faithful--to open themselves to the universal and missionary dimension of the church, and., makes the particular churches an image of the uni-versal church" (§39). For a con-crete example of communion resulting from the enduring charisms, the Lineamenta points out the flourishing of lay third orders, lay associations, and lay-volunteer groups "whose mem-bers are bound under different titles to the spirituality and apos-tolic work of various institutes" (}41). Where the charisms do not serve the cause of church com-munion, they are likely to become mere means of some service or religious themselves. other without the underlying spirit. The Lineamenta warns of the danger of reducing the pres-ence of institutes to parochial ser-vice "without encouraging and welcoming the richness of the spirituality and their proper charismatic service" (~40). More plainly, in the church Body each part can do only the service it is meant for. As charisms are vivifying and beautifying graces of the differ-ent members of the Body of the church (§46), they complement one another; and so they cannot healthily coexist without mutual encounter and influence. Perhaps, in the pre-Vatican "ghetto" church, religious congregations developed their own ghettos, pos-sibly without even knowing it. But the time has come, especially in the era of ecumenism, for % better understanding of the sense of communion among foundational charisms" (§27b). It is high time, therefore, for religious to realize how a particularly har-monious communion among themselves, sharing one another's charism, "can and should contribute to express better the full-ness and richness of Christ" (§46), not only in his Body the church, but also in his extended body, the world in need of union. The charisms of the different religious families, with their charismatic and yet ecclesial-minded founders, belong as much to the whole church as to the Jan~ry-Febrz~ry 1994 51 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism As charisms serve the cause of communion in the church, so do they contribute to the unity of the separate congregations them-selves. It is unthinkable that a religious family could maintain its unity of life amid all its committed involvement in the world if it failed to cling to its essential charism for nourishment (§32b). Each particular charism, bringing with it a particular manner of intense eyangelical life, makes the presence of the one Lord pres-ent in space and time (§46) and thus "enriches the legacy of life, history, and spirituality characterizing each family identity, shared in common through the spirit of the founder or foundress" (§16). Keeping Charisms Alive The dynamism of religious life in its variety depends on the vitality of its true charisms. Once charisms turn false, they lose their vitality and spell the ruin of institutes. Present-day insti-tutes can continue their existence faithfully only if they recog-nize, recover, retain, and renew their particular charisms in their past originality and present timeliness (~ 17). What, then, can we say about the renewal of charisms? "In keeping with their proper charism" (§40) and similar phrases recur in the Lineamenta, as in the Code of Canon Law, emphasizing that the charisms are to be preserved with fidelity and continued without alteration, avoiding all subtle deviation from the original spirit (§16). This supposes in religious a healthy appreciation and pride in the early traditions of their congrega-tion, as advocated by Perfectae caritatis. Given the evangelical inspiration of all charisms, one can say more, drawing a compar-ison between keeping to the purity of the gospel and maintaining the primitive charism. As Paul insisted on an anathema for those who dare preach a different gospel (Ga 1:8-9), religious founders and foundresses could do likewise, enjoining their followers to abide by the spirit of their constitutions without any dilution or dissimulation on their part.13 In this spirit, while expressing appre-ciation of the general progress in the awareness of the separate charisms in the different congregations in the postconciliar era, the Lineamenta adds affirmatively: "This consciousness ought to find expression in a spiritual commitment and a working pres-ence which effectively enlivens and makes operative for the good of the church the spirit of the founder orfoundress and the legacy of each institute" (§3 lc). 52 Review for Religious Two modern experiences with regard to charisms are note-worthy. One, the preferential choice for the poor, which has been "a constant feature of charisms in the apostolic life, often inspired by the words and actions of the Lord" (§44c; see also §27d), is becoming more and more a serious concern for religious life, leading communities to share the very life of the poor and the marginalized with all their risks, trials, and problems. Second, reminiscent of the early successes of many a congregation, there is the geographical spread of extant charisms in the younger churches of the third world and in the newly liberated Eastern European countries (§27c), giving rise to new cultural expres-sions of them (§32c). The above-mentioned experiences are two fine examples of how charisms rise to the occasion and serve their purpose today, provided they are ever deepened and constantly developed (Mutuae relationes, §1 i; L ~16) according to the signs of the times (Perfectae caritatis, §2; L §17). The sign today is the oncoming of the third millennium, throwing up opportunities and challenges (§33) and giving rise to the sprouting of new charisms and new forms of evangelical life (§24 and §27c). One aspect of this deepening and developing of surviving charisms lies in the direction of their "being called upon today-- inspired by the spirit of the founder or foundress--to serve as the basis for making new commitments and responses in Christian charity to the new and old expressions of poverty in our world" (§29g) and, more generally, to the changed atmosphere of the world "because of the social and cultural happenings which have rapidly come about in modern society" (§25). This is reminiscent of the call of Mutuae relationes to be innovative enough for bold enter-prising initiatives (§12; L §42). Which persons are inspired enough and thus inspiring enough to make new initiatives and refound their congregations, warding off the subtle temptation to be wise in their own eyes? Only fer-vent people (§29e). Only they can update discerningly for today the expressions of their original charism. But in the absence of such people "a certain leveling in behavior and in the tenor of the spiritual and communal life has brought a certain loss of prac-tical identity in charism and works" (§28b)--as surely happened in India, for instance, when some religious working with the masses wanted no public association whatever with their congre-gation. So the apparently clever and outspoken members certainly ~tammry-February 1994 53 Dominic ¯ Charism, Cbarisms, and Faddism need to be cautioned, against tendential postures, theoretical and practical, regarding charisms that go against their.genuineness (§3 lc). A case in point was that of a Jesuit who spoke of the need to rewrite the Ignatian rules for thinking with the church, to the applause of the gathering of course, with scant awareness of their foundation in the mystical union of the church and Christ that inspired Ignatius's Eharacteristic service of the church. While there have been new, positive, and worthy initiatives-- the switch of women religious in the United States from the ser-vice of the clergy to frontier ministries should be hailed as one such measure though grudged by not a few men even in the highly progressive United States of Americal4--there have also been negative, unworthy, and false initiatives--which brings me to the discussion of faddism. Faddism Faddism, the cultivation of fads, has to do with "a rapid, sud-den, and ephemeral collective adoption of novel behavior which affects only superficial or trivial areas of life.''s It was certainly the fad of hasty paradigm shifting when some persons clamored for implementing changes in religious life at a faster pace than peo-ple could cope with. Even when people were willing to change, it was not without the grief of losing the familiar past or the fear of the unknown future. So whoever rushed their fellow religious into the world of Vatican II without at the same time providing them time to grapple with their fear or to grieve over or even rage about their apparent loss were carried away more by an itch for change (2 Tm 4:3) than by the breath of the Spirit, for whom there are times for everything. It was also a fad whenever an opinion gained ground that this or that particular individual was the resource person for renewal. To venture an example, it would seem that a certain fad of what may be called spiritual consumerism surrounded Anthony de Mello of Sadbana fame, for numbers of people kept looking to him alone for renewal, almost as if he were the director of world-wide renewal. In any case, whenever one individual looms too large in some endeavor, the result tends to be superficial, whereas all renewal worth the name happens deep within people, where the creative Spirit works in the innermost recesses of hearts. Another similax: fad, which coflld be called hybridization, was 54 Review for Religious the adoption of a celebrated model as the sole means of renewal, whether or not it squared with the blueprint of one's own origi-nal charism. If the one-month retreat according to the Spiritual Exercises appeared to be such a fad some twenty years ago, today in certain circles external dialogue--whether with native tradi-tions or modern situations--would seem to hold sway more than inner dialogue within one's own charism. Among all those who were "zealous" about reforms in reli-gious life, precious few resorted to a real praxis. Not only did individuals and small groups indulge in the fad of stylized ideo-logical talk.~6 Even entire provinces, if not whole congregations, could be all talk, adopting popular phrases about the poor, for example, rather than making sincere options for them. How pro-ductive can all this exercise be except for inviting occasional out-right condemnation. A bold village woman responded to a group of young religious whose actions were not as forthcoming as their words, "These are not the kind of shepherds who will save the sheep; they swallow the sheep." What is absent in feverish talk, namely, action, can itself become a fad and go beyond all proportion. The slogan (not the idea itself) "formation for mission in mission" suits such a fad, giving the go-by to minimum privacy and seclusion for necessary growth in maturity and personalization. Showmanship and one-up- manship feed this fad, causing each one's action to be largely unproductive. These things are the very opposite of prophetic action. They may have the imaginativeness of the prophets of old, but not their soundness of inspiration. The craze of using anything and everythin

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 36.6 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Louis UmversLty, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1977 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other dountries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Dattiel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor November 1977 Volume 36 Number 6 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REWZW FOa REL~CIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. (;allen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. My Son's "Hour" by Virginia Ann Gardner, S.S.J.1 who shares via dramatic mono!ogue memories ---of others' contemplations and her own-- in an interview with Mary about 1Sister Virginia Ann resides at 517 East 26th Sty; Erie, PA 16504. I. The Marriage Feast at Cana Now that I think about it, my Son's hour had a special kind of beginning at Cana. Chesterton once said, "There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when he walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied--it was his mirth." That is so true it makes me smile. You would have to admit the gospels show little if any of the Alleluia that Augustine said a Christian should be from head to foot. But the evangelists had so much to tell--and, besides, when they were writing, trying to catch the memory of Jesus in words, they knew little mirth themselves. They knew only urgency as they watched Christians pay the price of Love. Little won-der they record no mirth, no laughter, no sign of human joy. Yet, from the beginning, marriage feasts have been symbols of celebra-tion. One finds few somber wedding guests--ever. And so it was at Cana! We had gone to Cana together--Jesus and his new friends, strong, simple men full of the love of life. Cana was filled with mirth and laughter and the warmness of love shared. 817 I~11~ / Revie,w for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 Then, strange that I should have noticed, I read the concern on servant faces: all jugs of wine were empty. It struck a sympathetic chord and I turned to Jesus: "They have no wine," I said. It was just a simple remark--nothing more; the observation of some-thing that would bring embarrassment. It was the way anyone would say, "What a pity!"; or, "Isn't that a shame!"---and wish that you could help. You know, if I were to orchestrate a symphony, I'd compose the Marriage Feast of Cana in a major key of sheer joy--until we knew "there was no wine." But when my son responded, "Woman, what is that to you and to me, my hour is not yet come?"--then, I'd have tympanums clap and cymbals clang; I'd deafen ears with the roar of drums. It would be a haunt-ing interlude--repeated often during the symphony to record in sound the history of an hour that began at Cana. Jesus called me Woman. Strange. Did he mean it as a call to sacrifice --a call to live what women through the years have lived? "She is such a woman," we say--and mean there is nothing small about her; she does not stoop to smallness; she endures. Still, it startled me, much as Gabriel had some thirty years before, with--"Rejoice, O highly favored daughter!" Then Jesus spoke again, "What is that to you and to me?" Was he calling me to translate and respond? Translation revealed everything: He meant: were he to act, the act would be but a first on the way to his hour. "My hour has not yet come," he had said. Someone has called its dis-cernment~ etermining the will of God. At Nazareth I had "wondered and was troubled," I even questioned Gabriel. I did not unders.tand. At Cana there was no wonder, no question. I knew! And I said to the servants: "Do whatever he tells you." Yes, I answered~knowing full well "what it meant to Jesus and to me." We would be parted. I would be alone --and where Jesus was, what he would be doing, I would not know. You see, at Cana we shared discernment: His Father willed that his hour should begin. A mother, someone has said, is a lover--a lover who gives of herself and then pushes the loved .one away, both the child and herself enriched. I loved my son; I had given him myself; I had taught him human ways of talking, walking, laughing. At Cana I pushed that loved one away so that he could tell others what to do. The pushing hurt. But long ago I had vowed: "Be it done unto me according to Thy will." Corita says, "To celebrate is to tell who we are and to say yea cere-moniously." That is what my son and I did together at Cana. I spoke my last recorded words: "Do whatever he tells you." My last recorded words! They began my son's hour. John tells it in his Gospel. You'll read it all in John, and only there. Yes, we had looked forward to Cana. We had not known what the Father would ask. He asked me to be woman; He asked for an hour to be-gin; and on that day my son and I, together, shared a fiat. My Son's "Hour" / 8"19 II. Good Friday Evening Now I knew. Now I understood. Scripture had unfolded. It was like hearing that symphony played--one I had studied the score for but had never heard. "Oh, so that's how it goes! It's lovely and aweful." John had come for me--telling me Jesus' hour had come. I knew it of course. I'd known it since that day in Cana. Lovers aren't aware of time. Days, months, years telescoped. I had said my fiat to this hour thirty-three years ago, but thenwI did not understand. It's like writing something or clinging to an idea you don't understand until later. The unknown is diffi-cult, but it's good for you too. How hard it would have been to live those thirty-three years with what I know now! But at Cana the hour moved both Jesus and me at once. We knew. I did not need to speak for him to hear me, because we were both hearing with our hearts then; and we had both said yes. With Jesus it was always yes. I guess it was with me too---because the Father helped me, the Spirit moved within me--and I said yes ceremoniously to the God of my life. I think the Father saw "that it was good." Since then, since Cana, time has dragged and sped. I've heard so many things about my son. Sometimes what I've heard pierced--and I'd remem-ber Simeon. Sometimes, though, my heart quickened. People would tell me of his life, his compassion--and I'd go back to our Nazareth days, days shared with Joseph. But John came--a humbled "son of thunder." I understood. I loved him for it, and.I went with him. Jesus came stumbling up the road---carry-ing that cross. My heart broke; it broke. But even then I understood. You don't live trusting all those years without the courage to be strong. Then Jesus saw me. I extended no veil. I did not weep. I gave him all I could. His Father, my Father, erased from my eyes all pain. Once again, I did not have to speak for him to hear me: "It's all right, Jesus; no, don't worry about me. Your hour has come. I understand." His glance meeting mine spoke too. It was almost as though he tried to smile, and console me, saying, "It's not bad, not bad at all. Don't worry, Mother." Role pl~ying? You call that role playing? Putting on a masque? No, not at all. Me? I call it gift--my last gift to him. My son, who had emptied himself to take on the masque of humanity, would understand. Emptied him-self. I'm told that is the way Paul wrote it. I like the way another has put it: "Poured himself out." That is how I see his hour that started at Cana and became a free accepted death-act on Calvary. Hearing iron strike iron was such a familiar sound to me! My husband was a carpenter and he'd taught my Son. Part of the price of that hour was the giving up of sounds, sounds that brought back "homey" memories. Strength was God's gift to me; but because he is all knowing, and because he is everything my Son had revealed, I knew he'd understand that ever since that hour, I've been very sensitive to iron striking iron. ~i20 Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 Three hours is not so long a time. It took us longer to get to Bethlehem --and much longer to Egypt---but no time was longer in all my life than those three Friday-hours. His hour was never so long in coming. My heart still shares that pain as I watch loved ones die--loved ones am(~ng my chil-dren now on earth. My children? Yes, my children. During my son's hour he gave me as Mother to all children of all time and all places. Strange! I had given birth to Jesus for one reason: so that he might be shared with all people of all time and all places. In the greatest hour of that sharing, he too shared me-- with John, and in John, you. At Cana, I spoke my last recorded words, "Do whatever he tells you." In one of my Son's last words, he tells you to take me as your Mother. His hour had come and he gave up~no---he didn't give up, he poured out his Spirit. It was that Spirit that had filled me years ago--and once again--this time eternally, I prayed my fiat and you became my Spirit-child. Now share your Brother's hour caught eternally in time. His hour is here! With him, pour yoursel[ out. III. Holy Saturday "Great will be his dignity." I had pondered those words in my heart for thirty-three years: while arranging the straw in the stable-manager; while fleeing in fear to Egypt; as I stood before the prophet Simeon. They came back with new poignancy during the donkey-pageantry in Jerusalem--and five days later when I saw Jesus' bloodied eyes neath his thorned-crown. Then, as I prepared his bruised body for burial, as I washed his wounds, and Joseph (how good his name was Joseph!) helped me with the linen shroud, I thought of them again. It would have been easy to be cynical but I had watched my son die; and I heard him forgive his crucifiers. Yes, I had heard him cry, "Father, forgive." And I heard him call me Woman. Could the dignity he called me to in that name ever match the dignity of his forgiving love? My sagging shoulders had straightened and John had helped me back to the Upper Room. On our way, John and I said the first Stations--back-wards. I made John show me the Praetorium and take me to Gethesmane. John cried, remembering his sleep. And he told me all my Son had said and done in the upper chamber. It was not the time to speak to him of symphony, but I tried to comfort John; he was young and the day had been agony for him, I knew. Then I withdrew. I cried my tears alone. The Father watched and con-soled me. Jesus had wept at Lazarus' tomb; and Jesus had said just a few hours earlier: "Who sees me, sees the Father." Tears, I knew, were some-thing the Father understood. I let them come. What had happened to my mother-hope? "Great would be his dignity. He will be called Son of the Most High. He will rule forever in a reign My Son's "Hour" / 821 without end." Gabriel had told me that. It was a message from the Father. Let me tell you--that night there was within me a whisper of despair, Was it, I wondered, a whisper my son knew too when I heard him call: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Faith is not faith, we're told, until it has been tested. That night, my faith knew its greatest test. And yet something still stirred within me--and I endured. I waited through that long, long vigil--clinging hard to mother-hope and to the patience I had learned from waiting for his hour. I knew--no, I did not know; I hoped that his hour had not ended. I fell asleep saying, "Lord, I believe; help . . . help thou my unbelief." IV. Resurrection If "appearing" means "closeness," there was no need for my Risen Son to come to me. Together or apart-~I live in him and know his closeness. The time after Cana had taught me that. Then, I had thought Jesus' mission would ask for separation--a typical human fear, I know---but the Father was good. Just as the Incarnation had never separated Son from Father, so Jesus' leaving home kept us still united. With him, I was doing the Father's will, and the Father asked that I share him with the world. I shared, and lost nothing. Jesus had said the one who best does the will of his Father--is his mother and father and sister and brother. People pitied me when he said that. They needn't. He was really saying I was more than mother to Jesus. His Father willed it so and I accepted that will. Thomas Merton, in writing about me, once explained how I felt, "I was glad because He was glad and for no other reason." I say all this so you'll understand: it was not necessary for my Risen Son to appear to me. All that mattered was that I believed and he knew I did. Ignatius Loyola had loved me, so he insisted that Jesus appeared to me first. I never admitted that--even to Ignatius; nor shall I admit it to you. Yes, you like the poem that tells I had gathered herbs and had them ready for Jesus' Easter breakfast. You like to think that, while apostles hud-dled in fear, while women wondered "who will roll back the stone," and Magdalen searched the garden--I was calmly fixing those herbs. I'm sorry. That is like a little jewel---a pretty thought. I cannot say it's more. John, whom Jesus had given me as son, was exhausted when he'd finished his memories of Jesus. '"There are still many other things that Jesus did," he wrote, admitting the world would not have books enough to record them. Some things must wait 'til heaven-~else why have faith? I say, then, to you--perhaps I saw my risen son on Easter; perhaps, as it will be for you, that vision came only ~at death. It matters not. The important thing is Christ had died; Christ is risen. I believed and, so, my child, must you. I promise though, that sometime when we meet in heaven, we'll talk about this if you want. But then I doubt if it will matter. You'll Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 understand when your believing is no longer necessary, for Christ will come again. Wo Dialogue with Mary at 55-~ I was not so old the day Christ died So young I was the night I gave him birth. But when they pulled that spear from out his side No one was quite so old on all this earth. You remember that poem, do you? It's true--I was older at 55. Mothers share the lives of their children and my Child had become sin. I think I can say he had become the sin of all my children; he had taken on himself your sin--with that of all the others. Sin ages one. Faith on Good Friday didn't save me from feeling the weight of all those sins. And with Jesus, I forgave all those engaged in sin's tragedy until the end of time. I forgave y6u--and loved you in my Son. But all this took its toll. Yes, I was older at 55. The death-resurrection act was almost ten years old then. John and I shared a home and much more besides. He had begun his Gospel and he'd leave parts with me when he. went on his journeys. I would read them in the quiet evenings pondering each word in my heart; it would take me weeks to read my son's "last discourse." All the apostles would come to see me--come home, tired, from their journeys. Luke came too--our cousin, constantly asking questions about the early life of Jesus. I loved to share my memories. They had become very precious to me---forming a tapestry now--and even Golgotha brought peace. I had lived my own "healing of memories." Things were different after Pentecost. The Holy Spirit that had come upon me long years ago came to all the apostles--filling them with the Love that had given me the courage of my years. All minutes were precious to me but when one of the apostles would return, and I'd send word to the neighbors, and we'd break bread together, keeping my son's new Covenant --then, I find it hard to tell you what I knew. I don't mean that I didn't feel his Spirit with me always. It was just that I'd experience my pre-Bethlehem days again. Jesus was within me--no longer an unborn infant, but my mature son--and we'd share together all we once did not understand. That knowledge and that wisdom were caught in heartbeats of Love. Then I'd be ready to go to the well again and listen to the gossip of the women. Christians, they would say, "are changing the face of the earth." 2The author herselt' is 55. My Son's'",Hour" / 823 Some were not eager for that change. It exacted a heavy toll, I know. But filled with the Spirit the Father sent me one spring evening--and my risen son sent to the whole world--I could look at each woman with such love that she too could respond with openness to that Spirit. You would have liked my life at 55. Did I long for heaven? I longed, my child, only to do God's will. If ever the Father had been very fond of anyone, he'd been fond of me. I wanted to return that fondness--without anxiety. The Trinity lived within me. I was content to do the Father's will. I don't mean that I didn't feel the cross of separation. I was human-- very human, and I longed for reunion with my parents, with Elizabeth, with Joseph. But it was comforting to know they were all with God. We'd be together again--all of us in his good time and that would mean for eternity. And I said once more to the Father; Behold the handmaid of the Lord Be it done unto me according to your will. Amen! .O Till I Begin I did not understand till I had begun to know. I did not find You, You found me; a small and melancholy st6ne to be carried in Your pocket, till I begin to wear, to shine, till I am brushed to a smooth and faultless final core. Stephanie E. WeIler 1030 East Washington St. Iowa City, lowa 52240 Dread (the Dark Night) and Christian Transformation Leslie Lund Miss Lund is presently working on her thesis to complete her work towards an M.A. degree in Religious Studies at Gonzaga University in Washington; her interest is in spirituality. She resides at E. 945 Nora, 4~4; Spokane, WA 99207. It is difficult to be living an authentic, deep Christian life without shortly running up against the cross, the "dark night" (St. John of the Cross), the "cloud of unknowing" (14th-century anonymous Christian mystic), or "diminishment" (Teilhard de Chardin). I will lump all such terms, and the experience they attempt to express, under the catch-all word, dread. These elements of suffering and diminishment (dread, as we may now call it) are not peculiar to Christianity, and neither is mystical experience itself. Such experiences are not in themselves a good. Dread is not to be sought for its own sake. We are not stoics or modern existentialists or Buddhists --but Christians--and this article cannot be read outside the total Christian perspective. Christians may not affirm or emphasize the negative aspects of spiritual growth to the exclusion of ultimate Christian hope, fulfillment, the restoration of all things in Christ. It is my hope, lest distortion arise, that this focus will be kept clearly in mind throughout the article until its final elaboration in the concluding pages. The Paschal Mystery is diminishment, yes, but it is transfiguration. It is the cloud, but it is truth and light. It is the dark night of the soul, but it is union. It is the cross, but it is, ultimately, the resurrection. Though there may be a number of different levels or nuances to dread, in this paper I will be dealing with a very specific understanding of it. The focus will be on religious dread, though to accentuate its particular qualities 824 Dread and Christian Transformation I Will at first show religious dread in counterdistinction to an existentialist conception of dread. There are a variety of states of dread, even within the religious context, so to further narrow the topic, this article will concern itself with the religious dread experienced in serious prayer (desert prayer or contemplative prayer-~-the "dark night of the soul" in John of the Cross). For a representative understanding of this state of dread I will use the l~anguage and thought of a "classical" contemplative, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, and also of a modern contemplative, Thomas Merton (from his book, Contemplative Prayer, in which the topic of dread is dis-cussed in some depth). Dread Dread is a basic, and common, human experience, and as such, it is a theme that recurs in literature, psychology, philosophy and theology. For the philosopher Kierkegaard, dread could also be set within a religious context. But even so, generically it can be described as a condition or state of being that comes before and precipitates a choice (leap) from one period of life to another. Dread, then, involves the awful possibility of freedom, for it forces the choice for or against new realities or potentialities. This state of freedom and new choices is recognized as very painful by existentialist philosophers, but Kierkegaard believed one could be delivered from it by making a leap, a commitment to the "objective uncertainty." The leap is the leap of faith.1 The choice is painful because it is made in regard to the unknown and undeterminable, and hence to what is both attractive and fascinating, but revolting and frightening. It is a very uncomfortable sit-uation, marking the end of self-complacency and the beginning of some-thing new. Let us further define dread. Christians, along with existentialists, can describe it as a state of anguish, alienation, and insecurity. It also includes a recognition of the limits of reason (the experience of "absurdity" for the existentialist), though for the Christian this does not therefore imply that what is is meaningless, but rather, that the meaning escapes the power of haman reason, and lies beyond the self in the.transcendent mystery of God. However, religious dread includes attributes or nuances beyond "sec-ular" dread. It includes for the Christian also the awareness of sinfulness, wandering, exile, Iostness (Exodus themes). This state Merton describes as ". death--a kind of descent into our own nothingness, a recognition of helplessness, frustration, infidelity, confusion, ignorance.''~ The person can experience an acute, sense of his own uselessness and worthlessness. This experience and awareness of the self is particularly painful, though for tThe similarity of this secular view of dread with our religious dread, and what it means in a Christian context will come Clear, hopefully, a little later. 2Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), p. 34. ~196 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 the Christian this pain does not drive him to self-sufficiency in setting up the self as the center of its universe, but on the contrary, pushes him towards God as the center and meaning of his being. The author of The Cloud of Unknowing makes this statement about the experience of nothingness, self and sinfulness: Then will come a time when he recognizes in that nothingness no particular s'in but only the lump of sin itself which, though but a formless mass, is none other than himself; he sees that in himself it is the root and pain of original sin.a ; Rephrased for 6ur own time we might call this an understanding of the experience of self-worship, with the accompanying experience of this false self as the root of sin, darkness, emptiness and alienation. Our anonymous author also wrote that to feel one's own existence, which is'the content of our modern word "dread," is the greatest suffering possible. ". he alone understands the deep universal reason for sorrow who ex.periences that he is."4 It is more terrible than any other type or level Of experienced isolation and separation. Within the experience itself often comes the realization that this must be what hell is like. And with it also comes the temptation to despair at ever being healed or delivered from it and froha the burden of self. That we are as we are (separated existence) is the source of our deep anguish. The illusion that brings the agony is the failure to experience God in one's own being. Instead, one experiences his .being apart from God. For as often as he would have a true knowing and feeling of God in purity of spirit ¯. and then feels that he cannot--for he constantly finds his knowing and feeling as it were occupied and filled with h foul, stinking lump of himself., he almost despairs for the sorrow that he feels, weeping, lamenting, writhing, and blaming himself. In a word, he feels the burden of himself so tragically that he no longer cares about himself if only he can love God? This is the fundamental cause of this type of dread, though there are other corollaries and ramifications. The alienation that causes the anguish is more than a sense of being a useless, unnecessary, ephemeral being, and includes a profound experience of being separated from God, all men, and even from the self. This gives rise to acute feelings of insecurity, for not only can we not control God, we are even powerless to control or to be reconciled to ourselves. We discover we have nothing and are nothing by ourselves. This period of dread is a time when faith is seriously challenged (as is everything that has ultimate value and meaning in the Christian's life). The fear is great that faith will be lost or abandoned, and that the see,rningly absurd and meaningless, or even despair, will be embraced instead. The aThe Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling, ed. by William Johnston (Garden City: Doubleday, 1973), p. 137. 41bid., p. 103. 5lbid., p. 104. Dread and Christian Transformation entire process of dread is a crucible of honesty, where truth is almost experienced as the enemy because of the pain it causes. One sees too clearly his own unfaithfulness and dishonesty in regard to Truth, especially as it involves the truth of his own life. The existentialists coined the phrase "bad faith" which is descriptive of the awareness that one is capable of, or has been living his life untruthfully, that one has not been true to God, to his fellow man or even to himself. One perceives that he may have been living contrary to the truth of his own call or condition. Indeed, truth itself is questioned. Old ideals and values lose their certainty. There is the suspicion that one may have set himself up as the standard of truth, or there is the temptation to do so if truth is not so certain for him. Deep down, far back in the mind there are demands or calls or possi-bilities that are only dimly and faintly recognized. Failure to respond to, or even examine them, haunts and produces a sense of failure and guilt. Somewhere there is a stubborn, defiant refusal to be all one can be. Every-thing feels illusory and slippery, and out of control, and this gives rise to panic. We "want out," we want to escape the condition, but we do not know what we want instead or where to go. The experience of rebellion and anger are overwhelming at times. We experience, too, a deep hatred for God and for ourselves. God is like a "monkey on our back"--an ever constant and annoying affliction that we cannot get rid of, Like Jeremiah we feel angry at being tricked and duped (20:7). This kind of relatedness to God is not at all what we expected. The spiritual understandings and com-forts of the past have vanished. We are comfortless. To pray is nearly impossible, if not impossible. Gone will be your new fervor, but gone, too, your ability to meditate as you had long done before. What then? You will feel as if you had fallen somewhere between the two ways having neither, yet grappling'for both.6 Not prayer, or mass, or confession, or any fulfillment of the "law" can take the dread away, or bridge the gap between God and the false self. The schism between this self and all that is seems infinite. The self is seen as bankrupt and barren, and the ha~-dness of heart, selfishness, and self-cen-teredness make us recoil in disgust and near despair. "I am gall, I am heartburn, God's most deep decree. Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me.''7 But still there is the clinging to the illusory false self for fear that if we let go of even that miserable possession we will have nothing and be nothing. God could not be so audacious as to demand that from us! Even though it is seen that this clinging to the false self causes our spiritual 6lbid., p. 143. 7Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 62. 1~21~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 "sickness" and estrangement between God and self, still the all important, confused "I" remains th~ center of worship, and without the grace of God it can never be otherwise. The alienation is truly terrible, for it is not estrangement from the abstract, transcendent God of the philosophers, but is estrangement with the All and the ground of our own being. This point being re~iched in the ¯ dread of contemplative prayer, nothing is more terrible than the suffering of emptiness at the prospect of living without God, though the ambivalence of attraction and fear is again experienced--the proverbial "I can't live with him, and I can't live without him." At this point comes the temptation to believe that not even God can be what is needed, that not even he can fill the void, indeed, that he could not be the revelation of love of Jesus, but is instead, uncaring and disfant. "Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, how wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost?.-8 But there is a worse temptation. Maybe He does not exist at all;. and everything is meaningless. Though at first the struggle may be fierce and intense, strug-gling to fight back the chaos, finally one ". loses even the power to struggle._ _He feels himself ready to sink and drown in doubt and despair."9 Transformation While a description of dread needed to be set fo~-th, let us be reminded that this diminishment and apparently disintegrative condition is not the total picture, Much more is happening simultaneously. Does this most horrible of human experiences have a positive value for Christians? What is th,.e. "much more" that is happening? At bottom, it is all the mystery of the transforming cross, and since Christians are used to paradox, it should not be surprising that those who have come through dread speak of it as a "blessed gift." "God in his mercy protects the contemplative in this way, though some foolish neophytes will think he has turned enemy to them.''1° There are several approaches that can be taken in response to the process of dread. One can insulate himself from it by retreating into illu-sions of the world,, getting involved in society's concerns and structures, or in general, by just keeping busy and blocking out any interiority. Or, as many are saying today, one can escape it by "going through it." Thomas Merton wrote that the "chief service of the monk was not only silence, listening, and questioning, but was also b~ing open and exposed to dread."~ Those who are serious about their prayer and faith life, and gradual transformation into Christ, face, and even embrace, the crucible of dread, Slbid., p. 67. 9Merton, op. cit., p. 99. ~°The Cloud of Unknowing, p. 145. ~Merton, op. cit., p. 25. Dread and Christian Transformation / 829 and allow themselves to experience it totally. This is not done stoically. It is not done lightly. There is resistance, for Christians are not masochists; they always struggle against evil. It is the "If it is possible let this cup pass--not my will, but Yours" prayer of Jesus. Even the decision to go through this process is a mystery, and is often not even articulated at the conscious level. There is the sense of continually "letting go" and sub-mitring to the process and moving in the darkness and uncertainty, but if the question were put, "Why are you doing this?" probably no satisfactory answer could be given. This should not be a worry, and can be taken as a sign that it is an authentic transforming process, for it is not something we do to ourselves, rather it is something done to us with which we cooperate. It is the desert experience of the young Israel. Nothing is certain. Help, if it comes at all, comes only at the eleventh hour, barely in the nick of time. It is a period of trials and collapses. But it is the fruitful time of formation (as it was for Israel) and, it was, as it still is, the movement towards the Promised Land. There does not seem to be much of a choice once the process has started. It appears that God has forced us into a radical decision. (In The Book of Revelation he spits out the lukewarm.) We must make a choice. We are forced (as our existentialist writer, Kierkegaard, observed we would be). This makes us angry. We want to sit in the middle, but must choose the dread with its seemingly horrible emptiness and darkness (though we somehow s.uspect: accompanying growth and maturity) or withdraw and drop out of the process, letting ourselves become trapped in our own illusions and immaturity. Our Catholic tradition has always placed a value on suffering (more often than not a distorted value) and somewhere along the way we have all heard that this diminishment is a necessary factor in spiritual growth. If it is the authentic process, and not a pseudo one that we bring or put on ourselves, this can be so, and our faith can be deepened. Merton must be read in context, but he also puts it this way, ". full maturity of the spiritual life cannot be reached unless we first pass through the dread, anguish, trouble, and fear that accompany the inner crisis of spiritual death, where we abandon attachment to our exterior self and surrender completely to Christ.''12 Attributes of Transformation It is time to take up a description of the attributes that the transformation process of dread can accomplish. It brings about many spiritual benefits and new dispositions. Since it threatens faith, it also changes it and deepens it. The doubt and despair serve to purify faith and destroy some of the more human elements of it (i.e., the need for certainty, and a correspondence to t2lbid., p.110. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 one's way of looking at reality, etc.). It is not what it was before. It takes on new dimensions and powers. We can finally experience the very "dearest freshness deep down" of things that Hopkins wrote of in his poem "God's Grandeur." Some time during the process of dread we become more comfortable with it, i.e., with the uncertainty, darkness and emptiness. The dread has moved us mysteriously beyond the need for consolations or gratification of immediate desires, or need to control what is. The process has the power to radically alter attitudes, and once the person has been emptied and humbled through this process that is beyond his control, he can be filled with Christ-like attitudes. His stance before God can include such attributes as opennes, s, pliableness, purity of heart, dependence, defenselessness, emptiness, hopefulness, truthfulness and gratitude. One becomes receptive to the fullness of God through the process. As was mentioned earlier, it is definitely not a time to be trying to regain self-possession, nor is it a time to be making new resolutions. However, it is a time of surrender and a time of letting go of the control and direction of one's life, and of giving it trustingly into the hands of the Lord who has been in charge of the process all ~along. It is the moment to depend only on him and his grace. Again, the experience of dread forces honesty.'It makes us evaluate our commitments and motives and beliefs at a much deeper level. It surfaces questions to ask ourselves that we could not have asked before. It is a blessed time when we come to encounter our real selves, to get to know that person we truly are. It also destroys false conceptions of God, and reveals him as he is in himself. The authentic process reveals sham and posturing. It gets us down to rock bottom. It does not allow hypocrisy, and false religiosity. It makes clear our illusions, idolatries and addictions. It is the experience of being the broken clay pot, for it takes awhy our sense of self-possession or assurance. And though we can often be worried that the dread takes us only more deeply into ourselves, or gets us caught up in the trap of constantly taking our own emotional and spiritual pulses, in the end, the process takes us out of ourselves. The experience, in dread, of alienation becomes trans-formed into a great recognition, need and desire for reconciliation and union with God and our fellow man. It is said that God tests those he loves. This is scarcely of any comfort in the darkest hours of dread, and it is in no way adequate for describing the mystery of the process, but there is some truth to it. The process is a gift of God's enigmatic mercy, and it is God's work, not ours. (In the more traditional vocabulary it is known as passive purification.) Only the false self is destroyed and emptied, but to make room for the Christ-self. Re-men~ ber, we are not masochists or stoics or manicheans--but Christians, for whom each individual, including the self, is precious, not evil. But the true Christ-self cannot be happy or full apart from God, and it is the process Dread and Christian Transformation of dread that intensifies and deepens this realization. The Paschal Mystery is the dialectic that accomplishes this. Thomas Merton writes, This alternation of darkness and light can constitute a kind of dialogue between the Christian and God, a dialectic that brings us deeper and deeper to the conviction that God is our all. By such alternations we grow in detachment and in hope.~3 Our anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing teaches that this is God's way of preparing, educating, and forming us through the alternation of hiS presence and absence. "As often as he goes, he will come back. And if you will suffer itall with gentle love, ea+h coming will be more marvelous and more joyful than the last.''14 In the process, doubt becomes faith. Despair becomes hope. The chaos and confusion become liberating and freeing. Hatred and anger mellow to gratitude and love. Rebellion becomes surrender. Peace comes in the com-mitment of the self to the loving will of God, and in the death of the false self comes the resurrection of the new Christ-self. The language and purpose of contemplative ~lread has a Pauline cast to it. The dread becomes the process in which the incomplete, false self dies so that the true self can come to be. It is "terrible" as the author of The Cloud of Unknowing calls it, but it is the work of love, nonetheless. The false old self dies, but this can be a joyous death for the Christian, for it is really the fulness of being. Therefusal to participate in this "work of love" results in a self that remains separated and isolated from the ground of its be!ng, God. To choose the destruction of the false self is necessary for the life of the true, resurrected self. It is to reject the illusions of the idolatry of the self. It is to truly believe at last that one is only himself when he is in union with God. "This simple awareness of my being is all I desire, even though it must bring with it the painful burden of self and make my heart break with weeping because I experience only self and not God. I prefer it with its pain., for this suffering will set me on fire with the loving desire to experience God as he really is.''15 Thus the author of The Cloud of Unknowing realizes that the suffering he.endures is really not hell at all "but his purgatory,.''16 He instructs the reader to not be troubled if his emotions or imagination tempt him to give up, for the prize is near. He asks simpl3i that a gift of the self be made as it is, to God as he is. Further, he counseis that there is no need, no matter ho.w it seems, for fear or panic or discoiaragement. His understanding is that it is a time to suffer humbly, waiting patiently in trust. For we do not know what is best for ourselves, but God, in his love and mercy, uses dread to bring us to his fuiness. God is audacious for us, and the process is nothing less than a total metamorphosis. "Now you are on what I might call a sort ~albid., p. 35. t4The Cloud of Unknowing, p. 184. 151bid., p. 174. ~lbid., p. 137. ~132 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 of spiritual ocean, in voyage from the rife of the flesh to the life in the spirit."~7 Though the author of The Cloud of Unknowing refers to this dread as a "hell of purgatory," a twelfth-century Cistercian monk, Isaac of Stella, refers .to it as a "hell of mercy." This is an even more powerful and rich notion. Here I quote the passage surrounding the idea of the "hell of mercy," for it very much embodies the reason and purpose of dread, that is, to destroy the false self, so that the Christ-self can be resurrected, and receive God himself. It also makes clear the concept of purification, not as punishment, but as a gift and work of Love. This passage must be read in the context of the total Christian dimension of diminishment and restora-tion, of cross but resurrection. It is too powerful and beautiful to para-phrase, so I leave it as it was written: "So let us be cruel and harsh for ourselves. I mean for the exterior man, so that we not offend the judge of both the interior and exterior man. If we accuse ourselves in all truth; if we judge ourselves with severity; if we condemn ourselves in harshness, we will not have to fear another accuser; nor will we have to be afraid to meet or confront another judge, or to have to endure or submit ourselves to another chastiser. What do we look for--pleasure or rest? We are on the cross. Or rather, we were in the world; we are in hell-- but a hell of mercy, not of wrath; we shall be in heaven. In the world, we sinned; here, we make atonement; there, we shall rest. There, we were in pleasures; here, in pain and tribulation; there, we will be in glory. There, we were in the dirt; here, we are in purification; there, we shall be in peace. "So let the Father be the Father of our souls and the chastiser of our bodies. Be he the Father of the Son of God in us. Be he the one who feeds and nourishes, the pedagogue and teacher, as long as childhood lasts, for him who i~ the future heir, and who as son, will dwell in his house forever. Be he for the son of man (man) theone who bruises and who humiliates, the one who betrays and seduces, the one who takes everything away, the one who crucifies and buries. If he neglects to act this way towards us, let us be ourselves the murderers of the son of man (man), but feeders and nurturers of the Son of God within us, so that he grow and become un-surpassed, or, as the apostle says, until Christ is formed in us, and we attain the perfect man in the fullness of Christ, who with the Father and Spirit reigns forever.''~8 In this same vein, though.from a different age and manner of expression, Thomas Merton also sums up the real value of dread, "The purpose of the dark night., is not simply to punish and afflict the heart of man, but to liberate, to purify and to eialighten in perfect love. The way that leads through dread goes not to despair but to perfect joy, not to hell but to heaven."19 171bid., p. 184. 181saac de L'Etoile, Sermons (Paris, 1974). pp. 148, 150, 152. ~aMerton, op. cit., p. 110. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality Thomas Dubay, S.M. Father Dubay, well known to our readers, presently devotes his time to lectures, retreats and chapter consultations for religious and priests. He resides at the Marist Administration Center; 4408 8th St., N.E.; Washington, DC 20017. No finite reality is adequately understood except in terms of its context. Even the God of revelation presents himself in Scripture in the context of a created world. The individual person is understood against the back-ground of his family, and social problems are evaluated in terms of the milieu in which they occur. A sentence is grasped only within its paragraph and the paragraph within the entire article. The classical example of this truth is the biblical statement, "there is no God." This is understood only with the words that precede it: "the fool says in his heart that . " Celibate friendship can be understood only in terms of a complete pic-ture of the raison d'6tre of celibate dedication. To discuss this way of life without a previous consideration of its primary orientation (which can be known only from Revelation) is to present a truncated account, almost necessarily an illusory account. The Usual Explanation The popular explanation of friendship in religious life is likely to begin with our modern and improved understanding of human sexuality. It goes on to say that while there was in bygone days an undue repression both of the reality and its open discussion, we now see a positive worth beyond that of procreation and we freely share our views about the matter. This may be followed by the basically favorable view of sex that we find in the Bi-ble-- even though anything approaching an adequate discussion of virginity 1~34 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 in the New Testament is omitted. At this point we arb likely to meet a disapproving look into the patristic and medieval literatures. Next the writer or speaker may direct attention to contemporary theories of sexuality as they may be applied to the celibate condition. Little or no attention is given to the revealed context of consecrated virginity. Instead we may find a mixture of undoubted truths ("the two sexes are complementary") with less secure statements (physical signs of affection [no limits mentioned] are normal between celibates) and even clearly .false ones ("there is no vocation to celibacy, only that to Christian life"). The legitimacy of celibate friendship is then supported and illustrated by the classical examples of Jordan and Diana, Catherine and Raymond, Jane and Francis. In this usual explanation there will be words of caution, for not anything at all is acceptable behavior. Yet the limits are not clear and some people carry away from the discussion the impression that occasional serious sin ought not to disturb the two friendsunduly, that such is the price of an enriching relationship. Celibate men and women need to mature in their relationships so that they can "handle" their emotional reactions. Religious and priests differ, of course, intheir evaluations of this typical discussion of celibate friendships. Some are highly critical, others are favorably impressed. My own reactions are mixed. Ican identify with some of the ideas in these presentations, but I also find serious shortcomings. There is often a lack of theological accuracy and of a realistic assessment of the human situation. There may be insufficient contact with the biblical word and, especially, there is no adequate context. Celibate friendships are seen as though celibacy itself were chiefly a matter of interhuman rela-tionships and apostolic freedom. Here, as elsewhere in human life, faulty premises yield faulty conclusions. The Celibate Context As a dedicated ~vay of life, a permanent ideal embraced for the King-dom, consecrated virginity/celibacy~ appears for the first time.on the face of the earth in the persons of Mary and her Son. It is a 'theological ~eality in the etymological sense of that word: its meaning is found only in God and it can be known only from his lips. Although they may be helpful in an ancillary way, psychology and sociology of themselves know nothing of consecrated celibacy. The celibate is grasped by the Lord God in a manner so radically new that his whole life undergoes a basic reorientation. All men and women are to be oriented toward God as their raison d'etre, but most reach him q shall use the two terms interchangeably even though strictly speaking they do differ. In every case the adjective, consecrated or dedicated, is supposed. Virginity is the preferred biblical term, while celibacy enjoys common modern usage. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality through the intimate and human sharing called marriage. The celibate on the other hand omits this sharing in order to respond to another more deeply intimate and divine sharing. Even one who may not be able to see the ¯ significance of these profoundly mysterious words can readily perceive their fundamental radicality. It is this fundamental radicality that must be grasped before we can understand what friendship should and should not be between celibate persons of the same or diverse sexes. Until we know how these persons relate to God we do not grasp how they relate to one another. Without this context, discussions of friendship are not likely to be on a much more elevated level than those of the syndicated advice columns found in the daily newspaper. Virginity, a Privileged Sphere of the Sacred Virginity is a vocation, a new vocation, a privileged vocation. To ap-preciate this fact we must refresh out understanding of the biblical concept ofqadosh, the holy, the sacred. We moderns tend to equate the word, holy, with virtuous. For us the holy person is the morally good person: patient, chaste, gentle, honest. For the ancient Hebrew, ttie "holy" is the set-apart person or thing. One was consecrated, holy, not primarily because he was virtuous (though that would be supposed), but because he was reserved for the service of the Lord God. All holiness derives from the utterly holy One. God is totally trans-cendent, totally other, even though entirely immanent in his creation. One becomes holy in this sense when he approaches the burning otherness of the Lord, when he is therefore set apart from the ordinary, the everyday, the merely finite. God's people, for example, are a holy people because they are selected from all the nations of the earth and set apart for him. This is the sense of 1 P 2:9: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light." Continence was practiced in the old dispensation before a priest par-ticipated in the temple liturgy or soldiers went off to the holy war (which shared something of a liturgical enterprise), not because sexual relations in marriage were bad, but because they were of the humdrum, ordinary life. Sexual intercourse was avoided at these times because it was of t, his world, whereas the priest or soldier was to enter the sacred sphere of Yahweh. He was to engage in something qadosh, holy,set apart, and thus he prepared himself by removing himself from the everyday occupations of marriage and daily life. When ther(fore, St. Paul speaks of the virgin as being holy in body and spirit he is not talking first of all of her moral goodness, though that is not excluded. He is saying that she, unlike the married woman or man, is set apart for the sacred sphere of the Lord God. As a virgin she need not be concerned with the dozens of duties that are the normal round for a wife 836 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 who cares for husband, children, household. She can give "undivided attention to the Lord" insofar as she is not burdened with the concern for this world that is necessarily entailed in familial duties and sexual relations. By calling the virgin holy, qadosh, St. Paul is not saying that she is virtuous while the married woman is not. Both are to be morally good. The dif-ference is that, as married, the one lives in the sphere of this world, while the other lives in the sphere of the Lord. This language and thought pattern are expressed by Jesus himself in his priestly prayer at the Last Supper. He says that neither he nor his select disciples are of this world (Jn 17:14, 16). He "consecrates" himself, makes himself holy, set apart, so that they too may be set apart in the truth (Jn 17:19). Jesus belongs to the privileged sphere of the Father in a preeminent way. He is reserved for the Father alone and so he declined an earthly marriage. His food was to do the will of the Father and nothing else (Jn 4:34). He could not have given the attention to this world that marriage requires. The celibate is celibate precisely as Jesus was and for the same reasons. The celibate, the virgin is a man or woman who, while living on planet earth and involved with its joys and sorrows, its hopes and burdens, is none-theless a person set apart. He belongs to the sphere of the transcendent, which is the sphere of the infinite, the other, the Lord God. This is one reason magisterial documents indicate that the primary orientation of re-ligious life is not engagement in an external apostolate but rather prayer, penance, gospel example.2 The religious vows afford a freedom for uni-versal love and apostolic involvement, yes, but that freedom is second to a prior freedom for a direct love-prayer relationship to God himself. The first commandment remains first, and the second remains second. Celibacy, an Excluding Fullness3 Celibacy for the kingdom (the only type we envision here) is not first of all non-marriage. It is a fullness in its own right. In a similar manner the earthly marriage of Susan to Philip is not first of all a non-marriage to Robert or William. A religious or priest does not see his consecration at all ade-quately until it appears as a positive fullness in its own right. The person with the celibate charism has been grasped by the Lord for a special, direct relationship. God takes the initiative and so orientates this person that he (she) "cannot" give a marital attention to another human being. The authentically married person experiences a similar "cannot" in relation to others than his spouse. The married man could physically attempt marriage to another woman than his wife but it would do violence to his being. The ~See Christus Dominus #33 and Renovationis causam, 4~2. aA more complete treatment of this section may be found in my article, "Celibacy As Full-ness," REWEW VOR REL~C~Ot~S, January, 1975, pp. 88-100. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality / 83? celibate could likewise attempt marriage but it would do violence to his person. God so captures the genuine virgin that she cannot but focus her being on the Lord's affairs and give him her undivided attention. In spiritual direction of religious one sees instances where this cannot is completely obvious. Virginity/celibacy is an exclusive God-orientation, a focusing on "the one thing," a fullness in its own right. From this positive reality flows the negative, the non-marriage. The healthy celibate appreciates and values the beauty, attractiveness, goodnesses of the opposite sex, but he appreciates and values even more the immeasurably greater beauty, attractiveness and goodness of God himself. The virginal heart is a large heart, a heart so large that earthly marriage cannot fill it. Erroneous Premises Many, perhaps most, significant differences among religious in recent years are fundamentally due to widely different presuppositions. An ob-vious example is one's ecclesiology. If one person wholly embraces the ecclesiology of Vatican Council II and another that of liberal Protestantism, ¯ it can hardly be surprising that they entertain basically different notions of what religious life is. Whatever one thinks about celibate friendships, it is quite certain that his thoughts stem from underlying premises. We may be aware or unaware of the explicit forms of those premises, but there is no doubt that we have them. A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit (Mt 7:17). Sound premises, roots, produce sound conclusions (provided the rest of the reasoning process is correct) and faulty premises produce faulty conclusions. Some of our problems in the area of celibate friendships are the presuppositions. It is no doubt worthy of note that not a few of these presuppositions are departures from Catholic teaching. I shall mention here several of these erroneous premises. This is not the place to develop my observations at length. Anyone moderately versed in theology will recognize that with some of them we are dealing with re-jections of the teachings of the Church. After we have cleared the air we shall sketch positively what a beautiful celibate friendship is like. First, the faulty premises. 1 .) "Close celibate relationships have no significant connection with the quality of prayer life." If a connection is supposed, little is made of it. The writer or speaker seems quite unaware of the primary orientation of vir-ginity to prayer, and he makes little of the tie-up between depth of prayer and the reality of friendship. The latter he seems to think ¯is simply a psychological matter which is quite accessible to human reason. 2.) "Genuine love between the sexes is common and easy to come by." We may note about this premise that psychologists themselves point out on purely natural grounds that a capacity for genuine love between the sexes is rare. Even more to our purposes is the teaching of the New Testament 1~31~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 that the new Christic love is naturally impossible, not simply rare. Only if we have been emptied of our maze of selfishnesses and converted by the eternal Word of God and born into his new life can we love others sincerely (1 P 1:22-23). Popular discussions of celibate sexuality seem not to know this. This is a fatal error. 3.) "The religious vocation may be temporary, and hence dating may rightly lead to marriage." I have not seen one sound psychological or theological argument among the many produced in recent years to support the theory of temporary vocation. This is not the place to trace out the solid case for permanent vocation. It may suffice for our purposes simply to state that the Catholic Church all through her history has held that the vocation to the counsels is permanent. 4.) "Genital sexual activity in celibate life is not nece.ssarily repre-hensible." Hence, those who hold this premise feel masturbation, intimate touches between friends, perhaps even sexual intercourse are not always wrong. It may be sufficient to note about this position that most people find it shocking, and that it entails a rejection of a large portion of Catholic sexual morality. One wonders what founders and foundresses would have said about these thoughts of their spiritual children. 5.) "Marriage and celibacy are of equal effectiveness in freeing for the kingdom." This premise is a rejection of Jesus' and Paul's teaching (Lk 18:29-30; 1 Co 7:32-38), as exegetes who have no axe to grind readily point out. The premise is of course also a rejection of the teaching of the Council of Trent and that of Vatican Council II. 6.) "The religious woman should display her femininity, or, as one writer put it, she should look 'sexy' " (in some sense he did not define). Only one who is innocent of real life (what, for example, many men are likely to think and say of this type of "virgin"), would make this sort of statement. One may wonder here, too, what our best examples of deepest feminine beauty would think of this idea: Agnes, Agatha~ Catherine of Siena. Teresa of Avila, Maria Goretti and a host of others. 7.) ,"Almost any friendship between a celibate man and woman is to be viewed as similar to those between saints." Merely to advert to the sen-tence is to see how untrue it is. No comment is needed. Signs of Genuine Friendship Even the most uncommitted scholar, well informed in the area of saints and canonization processes, will agree that the Church does not place her seal of approval on any celibate friendship. This undebatable fact suggests that there are significant differences between the holy and the unholy re-lationship. One may, if he wishes, introduce a third category, the "spiri-tually neutral" friendship, i.e., one in which there is no obviously sinful activity and yet in it no one would be inclined to consider either party especially saintly. It may be doubted in at least many cases whether such a "neutral friendship" would long remain merely neutral. It is likely that it Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality will either slowly dissolve or become more or less unholy. We humans are like that. I shall consider here the signs of the genuine friendship. If some readers are inclined to question these signs, I ask only one favor: read the lives of the saints and then judge whose position reflects their attitudes and prac-tice. All of us ordinary people are subject to error. In matters like this we are inclined either to exaggerate the gospel or to dilute it. And being sinners, ,most of us are far, more likely to dilute than to exaggerate. I trust that no one of us is so arrogant as to suppose that he knows better than the saints how the gospel is to be lived in concrete life. Their lives have the authentic seal of the Church upon them and ours do not. This is no slight difference. We may take it as a general norm that a genuine friendship is immersed in God, honestly immersed in him. It is a living of the universal Pauline principle that whatever we do, eating, drinking or anything else, we do to the glory of God (1 Co 10:31). This is easy to say in the morning offering but it is"not easy to live. Nevertheless I am supposing here that celibate friend-ship is a love of the Holy Spirit and as such is immersed in Jesus' love for all men and women. In a sense it is a participation in that love: "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus" (Jn 11:5). Every celibate is to love as he loved. In that way and in no other. Honesty here is not easy. The first sign of this honest authenticity is that God not only was, but remains the first concern of each party to the friendship. It is not siinply that God was once upon a time their prime concern when they engaged in spiritual direction ora common apostolic enterprise. Right now he is their chief love. They would do nothing, absolutely nothing to displease him or to divide their hearts. This implies that each person is a man or woman of deep prayer. They take contemplative prayer seriously and are at least growing in it. They are not content with vocal prayer alone, even the excellent vocal prayer of the Liturgy, of the Hours. We can see why this sign is crucial when we recall the context of celibacy we considered above. Religious and priests who do not really understand their vocation and love it deeply are hardly capable of celibate friendship. This may be a funda-mental reason why some of the writing and speaking on this subject is so defective: it lacks roots and orientation. The second sign is a growing commitment to the celibate gift. God is a God of fidelity and he expects fidelity in us. The celibate charism is given permanently, not for a few years. Both the charism and a genuine friendship are gifts of the one Holy Spirit. He does not contradict himself. He who gives the permanent gift of celibacy does not then turn around0and chip away at it in a relationship between possessors of the gift. Hence if a priest and/or religious begin seriously to consider a dispensation from vows and possible marriage, the love is no longer a love of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual life is one integrated whole. It hangs together. A beautiful friend-ship strengthens chastity, perfect chastity. It prompts each party to want the celibate dedication more strongly and to be entirely faithful to it. 840 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 The third sign is non-exclusiveness, non-possessiveness. It is true that the universal love of the virgin does not mean that she (he) does not love individual persons. No one is to love others only as a kind of global mass. Like all others the celibate is to love unique individuals, but unlike the married he loves without exclusiveness. Marital love is possessive, but celibate love is not. Marital love as marital centers on one person and one alone, even though the married are to love others with a general love. Celibate love as celibate is universal, and a deep friendship with one in-dividual does not erase celibate universality. This is why a Teresa of Avila would be happy to know that Jerome Gratian has another deep, close friend. She does not love him possessively, exclusively. A religious or priest who resents another close friend lacks something of the love of the Holy Spirit. Our next sign is closely allied to the previous one. Genuine friendship promotes universal warmth. Not only is there no exclusivity or posses-siveness, but each party finds that he goes out more warmly to all people. Cordiality, warmth, helpfulness is not reserved to one's friend. This person lives the Pauline admonition to the Romans, "treat everyone with equal kindness" (Rm 12:16). Friends ought not to assume easily that they are living this admonition. It takes a great deal of detachment, self-emptying, to go out as warmly to others as to a special friend. We may recall that 1 P 1:22-23 taught that authentic love in community requires a conversion. And we ought not too easily suppose we have been thoroughly converted. Afinal sign is that in authentic celibate friendship the frequency and length of visits are limited. I shall not cite quantitative limits, but I may say that a man or woman of prayer knows instinctively what is too much in the area of time spent together and what is too much in the area of signs of affection. Again one need only think of the saints. Normal men and women who spend too much time together or are too demonstrative in their af-fection soon have a chastity problem. The Need-Relationship Experience indicates that when many young religious find themselves close to another person they quite automatically consider the closeness to be love. This is especially true of young women. When before too many months or years pass the closeness slowly vanishes, they are not only surprised, but sometimes crushed. Many of these relationships are nothing more than need relationships. One individual finds another to be attractive, interested, concerned. And perhaps the other finds the first to be such also. Then one or both find that the other answers real needs for attention, security, warmth, sharing of problems, pains, aspirations. They are close ¯ because needs are being met. This need-relationship is not necessarily bad. But it is not yet love. Love does not dissipate in time. A mere need-friendship does dissipate when the need disappears or is met by another person. Celibate Friendship: Illusion and Reality / We annot emphasize too strongly what we noted above as the opinion of psychologists, namely, that a capacity for genuine love between the sexes is rare. Need-closeness is not rare. Love is. Real love demands I. conversion, being born of the word of the everlasting God. This is why ¯ genmne celibate friendship happens only when deepening prayer happens. This islanother reason, too, why some recent writings on celibate sexuality are so superficial and consequently misleading. / Implications //We are now prepared to suggest implications that flow from our dis-cUssion. of context, premises and signs. Some religious may well be sur- Jprised that I feel it necessary to indicate these implications so plainly. While others who are well aware of our situation may be saddened, they will not be surprised. Our first consequence is that there is no such thing as a valid "third way," namely some sort of combination of celibacy and marriage, that is, physical closeness and intimacy without marital commitment. It should be said, of course, that what has been meant by the third way is itself a fuzzy spectrum of relationships all the way from dubious friendships to uncom-mitted sexual intercourse. And, it may be noted, this spectrum of rela-tionships has itg defenders from one end of it to the other. Why do I say that there is no such thing as a third way? There are two clear vocations on this score, marriage and celibacy/virginity. A third, marital-virginity, is an illusion. The whole twenty-century history of Christian virginity has seen deep friendships and profound love, but the Church has never set her stamp of approval on a third way. A least acquaintance with the saints makes this clear. Further, one need only review all that has been said thus far in this article. None of it remotely suggests a third way. Our second implication concerns dating. I have found that a religious and a priest who go out to dinner socially together (or share some other recreation) are likely to object to calling the engagement a date. I am not at this point overly concerned about the semantics of the matter, but I may note that these people for some odd reason resist terminology commonly accepted in our day. Almost everyone calls this kind of outing between two unmarried people a date. Whatever the name, this practice has its ardent defenders. It is not simply something done through mistaken judgment and then regretted, That it often ends up in marriage is not surprising. (And that this is a normal, good consequence is also defended.) What is wrong about all this? A number of things. First, the celibate charism is a permanent gift. One who has accepted the gift through vow is to honor his commitment. Vows are to be k~pt. The celibate may not marry, and he ought not to put himself in circumstanc'es that normally lead to marriage. If one responds by thinking or saying, "I have no intention to marry and there is no danger in our dating," I would answer that if the two ~142 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 persons are normal and persist in their relationship they are going to have a chastity problem. If they are not normal, they already have a problem. Then there is the question of scandal. One writer, admitting that many people in our society are scandalized in seeing religious and priests dating, expiessed the hope that one day our fellow citizens would come to see that a man and a woman can go out together with some other purpose than an eventual genital relationship. To be more clear, I think he should have said that he hopes the ordinary man and woman of our day will come to see that a platonic friendship is a likely explanation~ of why a priest and sister may date. This hope is naive. Anyone familiar with our sex-saturated world recognizes that this "likely explanation" is becoming more and more re-mote. I have met aremarkable woolliness of thought on this score of scandal. A sister will maintain that if people see anything wrong in her going out to dinner with a man, that is their problem, not hers. They must, she thinks, have unchaste minds to think of anything else of a platonic or merely business relationship. This view is innocent of reality in two. ways. The first innocence regards the types of scandal~. There is such a thing as pharisaical scandal, namely, that which people take when there is no least reasonable basis for it. This kind we may disregard. The other is what we usually mean, namely, when our action is such that in the normal understanding of.people there is basis for seeing something amiss in it. This kind we may not disregard. And this leads us to the second innocence in this woolly view. The person who holds it seems unaware that in our contemporary society a man and woman who.go out together are ordinarily viewed as either a) married, b) thinking of possible marriage remotely or proximately with this person or some other or c) doing something together but only as a part of a genital sexual relationship. It is. true that many people would admit that the two may have only a platonic interest in each other, but that is not the likely understanding of why they date. Now if th, ese people are scandalized when they see two consecrated celibates dating, their scandal is not pharisaical, that is, without solid basis in normal society. They ought not to judge that the two have sinned or plan to, but they are not wrong in think!ng what I have expressed in the above (a), (b), (c) sentence. It is important to notice about this scandal matter that people need not be sure that there is sexual sin between dating religious. Scandal is given if suspicions are aroused through a normal understanding that there may indeed be something amiss. The work of priests and religious for the king-dom is seriously undermined if people begin to think they are leading double lives, posing public!y as celibates and privately living as married or some-thing approaching this. The Church is severely damaged by suspicions like these. Priests and religious have no right to furnish a basis for them. We may be reminded of the splendid example of St. Paul. He refused :to scandalize "the weak" (i.e., those with erroneous consciences about eating Celibate Friendship." llluMon and Reality food offered to idols) even though what he was doing was perfectly per-missible[ He does not callously say "that is their problem." Rather he remarkslthat Christ died'for this weak brother and Paul will never cause his ruin. "That is why," says the apostle, "since food can be the occasion of t my brother's downfall, I shall never eat meat again in case I am the cause of my br~other s downfall (1 Co 9:7-13)¯ Dedicated religious have this same sensitivity. In no way will they sow the seeds of suspicion in the minds of their bro~thers and sisters, whether the latter be weak or strong. Our ~inal implication bears on maturity, chronological and spiritual, in ~ts bearl.ng on the question of deep cehbate friendship. If one reviews what we havelsaid about the context and signs of a beautiful relationshihpe, will easily see" a problem: are young religious, priests, seminarians really de-veloped/ enough, psychologically and spiritually, to be capable of what we are talking' about? It goes without saying that no one can cite a mathematical norm oriage at which people are mature enough to enter upon more than a mere ne, ed-relationship. In any event young people should remember that ¯ a capacity for genuine love among all age groups is not common and they . ought not to be easily persuaded that they themselves are already so capa- . ble. Young people especially are prone to mere need-relationships which they m~stakenly interpret as love. I am not saying that the young cannot love genmnely. But I am saying that no one, young or old, can love w~thout hawng Been converted¯ And no one loves deeply w~thout deep conversion. Thislis why prayer is absolutely crucial to the whole question of celibate friendsliip.' Those who write and speak about this matter and pay scant ¯ I . attention to the prayer-context are s~mply bypassing the core ~ssue. Vt r-ginity f~r Christ has' depths of which psychology has not dreamed. That man or woman alone is capable of a deep friendship who is already deeply (or at least is growing in depth) in communion with the source of all love, the God who is love. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.~.B.T. and Carla Przybilla, O.S.F. Sister Mary Vincentia is Assistant Professor at the National Catholic School of Social Service; the Catholic University of America; Washington, DC 20064. Sister Carla is Executive Director of the National Religious Formation Conference; 1330 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.; Washington, DC 20005. The authors wish to acknowledge and thank Rev. Ladislas Orsy, S.J., for reviewing this article and for his helpful comments. The whole future of the Earth, as of religion, seems to me to depend on the awakening of our faith in the future. Teilhard de Chardin Today, with the growing consciousness of the personhood of woman and with the re-structuring of her roles in both society and in the Church, women religious are providing leadership in spearheading and developing new and exciting ministries designed to meet rapidly changing social needs. There appears to be a new perspective, based on a model of collaboration and interdependence, which captures both identity and purpose, while at the same time engaging in a dialogical process with the world. This vibrant movement, in response to the needs of people, and within the context of the charismatic beginnings of religious communities, is not only transforming the forms of ministry of women religious in the United States, but is also impacting on the orientation and style of preparation required for ministries of the future. The future however, is in the present. A futuristic view of ministry requires preparation for today's demands. We are living in a time of such 844 Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / !i45 accelerat ~d change that it is estimated that people will undergo retraining ~ . for occup, at~onal needs many times during a lifetime. Not only will many religious have to re-tool for today's work but a totally new orientation will be necess,ary to respond appropriately to ever-changing needs. Professional schools, i,n their socialization processes, are emphasizing education geared to the self-directed learner, preparing the adult learner for a major constant in our culture--social change. In the helping professions this means creat-ing a readiness to handle continuous and rapid change as well as skill in generating new models of helping. Incorporated within this orienting frame is the closely related concept of monitoring and assessing service effect¯ iveness. Has this trend fully impacted on religious communities, in their socialization processes and in preparation for second careers? Cer-tainly, it has influenced a number in their approaches to ministry. More still have to ~ confront this major dynamic influencing the mission of the Church in moder~n society. It vitally touches every area of "personpower": re-cru~ tment policies, qualifications needed for the various service modalities, the capacity to ~ntegrate the spiritual and rehg~ous dimensions m service, and the tra~mng modaht~es for new m~mstnes. What are the personal re-quiremedts necessary to meet new and changing situations? A look at the emergln.g~ forms of mlmstnes may provide some answers. As Rahner states, ttiese new models of service, similar to the secular professions, are concretelexpressions of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.~ The p~urpose' of this article is to examine the developing forms of min-istry of women religious and to consider their implications for the so-c~ ahzat~on processes, e.g. the formation programs of religious congrega-tions as ~well as for re-tooling for new and re-focused careers. An attempt also wiillbe made to provide an organizing schema, a conceptual frame-work, to,~ analyze the major components of these socialization processes within a [context of future needs. The data presented here were collected during the preliminary phase of ¯ a larger study which is underway on the new careers of women religious, related areas of role conflict, and coping styles utilized in conflict resolu-tion. 2 Thlis first phase, a survey of 367 religious congregations of women in the United States, sought to locate the population of religious in new works, that is, ~n works which were new to their congregations.3 Communities ~Karl Rahner. "'Practical Theology and Social Work in the Church," Theological Inves-tigations, ~/ol. 10, translated by David Bourke (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), pp. 267-68. I , 2This study is being conducted by Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T. with the Nationa~ Religious Formation Conference, Washington, D.C. Sister Mary Vincentia developed the research design and Stster Carla processed the data for this preliminary phase. The article was written by the former and the final version was completed jointly. 3The istin~ of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which included major supe-riors of 367icongregations, was used for the mailing. The time-frame of the survey was summer to fall, 1976. 1~46 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 were asked, in an open-ended format, to indicate the new ministry of each sister. There was a 94.60% rate of response which would seem to indicate, along with the many supportive statements, a high level of interest among religious communities in this area. A total of 5,892 religious was reported by their communities to be engaged in new works. ¯ Although this survey was not intended to be an exhaustive study, it was rich in information on developing works among sisters. The data, therefore, were analyzed and classified into broad categories of ministry. These findings would seem to have value in that they provide an empirical base, suggesting future directions and rough indicators for some future projec-tions. New ministries, as used here,, refer to forms which were new to religious communities. In considering the findings, it is important to note that a number of communities indicated that they have no new works, that their congregations have always been involved in what many consider new directions. The non-r~spondent group may also be composed of those who have consistently been involved in what is considered new by religious today. For example, in a recent study on sister social workers profession-ally educated in the United States during the period 1962 to 1972, forty-six sisters or the largest, number trained in any religious community were members of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity.4 None of these, however, are reflected.in the findings discussed here since social work is traditional apostolate of this community. Similarly, the large num-ber of sisters in this community, and in a few others, in parish work is not represented in the data since, historically, these communities have been engaged in this type of work. New Forms of Ministry The proportion of women religious in the broad categories of ministry are shown in Table 1. This typology follows the familiar classification of works according to the fields of health, education, and welfare (here termed social ministry). Other emerging forms of ministry did not fit neatly into these general categories and, therefore, were presented separately. Parish work, for .example, which involves a plurality of ministries, crosses the categorical boundaries of health, education, and social ministry. A special category was constructed for the spiritual ministries which have been in-creasing over the past few years. They clearly represent a cluster of spiritual and religious functions (such as directed retreats and prayer movements) generally performed in Church-related structures rather than in exclusively non-ecclesial settings. Similarly, supportive Church-related 4Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, A Study ~of Self-Role Congruence and Role-Role Congruence on the Integration of the Religious Role and the Social Work Role of the Sister Social Worker. Unpublished DSW dissertation, the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 1974, p. 247. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / 1t47 ministries are surfacing more explicitly and distinctly associated with some level of Church structure or Church work. An example would be the role of the diocesan consultant. These categories, particularly, give striking evidence of the shifting roles of women in the Church. Table 1 Proportion of Women Religious in New Forms of Ministries According to the Type of Ministry* Religious Type of Ministry No. % Health Ministry I 112 18.87 Education Ministry 1334 22.64 Social Ministry 1912 32.45 Parish Ministry ' 797 13.53 Supportive Church-related Ministries 384 6.52 Spiritual Ministry 266 4.5 I Other 87 1.48 5892 100.00 *Refers to forms of ministries which were new to religious congregations of women at the time of the survey. As can be seen, the social ministries represent the largest group of services provided by women religious among these new forms. Almost one-third of the survey population were engaged in a form of social ministry, 10% more than those in education and close to 15% more than those involved in the health field. An interesting piece 6f data was the small number of sisters actually engaged in such works as business, clerical work, and sales in strictly non-ecclesial setti.ngs. Although a large number of others worked in non-sectarian structures, such as hospitals, they were most frequently ehgaged in pastoral work in the human service fields. The dominant theme which ran through the findings was se~r, vice, often with a highly skilled and profes-sional orientation, within a framework of ministry or mission. From the comments of some communities, form of service and perspective of min-istry were clearly within the context of their charismatic beginnings. The categories in Table 1 will be elaborated more fully in the discussion that follows. New Forms of Health Ministry The largest single category in the health field was pastoral care in Cath-olic institutions--hospitals, .nursing homes, or other group facilities. As Table 2 illustrates, a forceful trend is noted when pastoral care in Catholic settings is combined with pastoral care in non-Church related settings: almost one-half of the new forms of health ministries are in the field of pastoral care. Interestingly, too, more than one-fourth of the sisters in new health ministries are providing nursing or allied medical services in public 1~41~ / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 or private institutions not sponsored by the Church. Thus, almost 45% of the sisters included in the survey in the health field offer services in other than Catholic institutions. This proportion is even higher when combined with non-Church related community services. Table 2 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Health Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Community-based Health Care (nursing and related allied 202 18.17 services) Health Care in Non-Church-related Institutions* 289 25.99 Pastoral Ministry in Catholic Institutions* 363 32.64 Pastoral Ministry in Non-Church-related Institutions 192 17.27 Other (Physicians, dentists, other specialists/consultants) 66 5.93 Total 1112 100.00 *Refers to hospitals, nursing homes, and the larger group facilities. As would be expected;.a large proportion, or almost 20% are in in-novative community and neighborhood-based health programs (such as public health, visiting nurses, and outreach clinics, both in Catholic and non-Church related settings). This group consists largely of nurses and allied professionals. Interestingly, this trend somewhat parallels that in social work although there was a sharper reversal from institutional to community settings in that field. Close to two-thirds of the sister social workers were in institutional work prior to Vatican II in contrast to over two-thirds in community-based programs after Vatican II: No doubt this trend in the hea!th field would be greater if more Church-related commu-nity- based programs were available within Catholic structures as they are in social work, e.g. Catholic Charities agencies and other neighborhood and parish-based social service and social action programs. Also, it was inter-esting that close to 85% of the population studied provided services within Church structures and only 6% saw services in the public sector as an important future role of the sister social worker. Leadership within the framework of the Church, as long as these structures were available and viable for effective and relevant service, was viewed as a dominant future role. Close to sixteen were physicians or dentists; when combined with psy-chiatrists (see Table 4), we can see a more visible trend in the medical ministries. A small number were speech and music therapists. 5Joseph, op. cit. pp. 102, 174. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View 1149 New Forms of Education Ministries More than one-fifth of the religious in the survey population continued in new and specialized forms of the education ministry. This is not sur-prising since the majority of religious have professional training in this field and many communities hold education as integral to their mission. Most interestingly, however, were the innovative and creative forms taking shape. As reflected in Table 3, close to 40% are specializing in religious education, which would seem to be an important role for the religious of the future. Almost one-third teach in schools in the inner city and urban areas, reflecting the traditional concern of communities for the poor and culturally deprived. Close to one-fifth were in a variety of specialized forms of education to the physically and emotionally handicapped, school drop-outs, minority and bilingual groups, and a range of adult education pro-grams. Table 3 Women Religioas Engaged in Forms of Edncation Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Campus Ministry 86 6.45 Communications 67 5.02 Library Work 56 4.20 Religious Education 530 39.73 Teaching in Seminaries and Theologates 25 1.87 Specialized Forms of Instruction 252 18.89 Inner City Teaching 318 23.84 Total 1334 100.00 A developing trend in communications was discernible, revealing some interesting works. Thirteen sisters were involved in very technical work with the media, TV and radio, while fifty-four sisters worked with Catholic and secular newspapers/periodicals in writing, illustrating, and publishing. ¯ New Forms of Social Ministry It has been made forcefully clear in recent years, by both the magis-terium and the Council, that the social ministries are essential aspects of the Mission of the Church.~ Perhaps the most significant trends in new min-istries are, in this area, not unrelated to the directions in society and de-velopments in the Church. This field, which reflected the largest number of new forms, has been defined variously in the literature. Very broadly, it ~Eugene A. Mainelli. "'The Parish Community Becoming: Theological Reflections," Social Thought, i (Fall. 1975). p. 15. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 is viewed as comprising health, education, and welfare. Most specifically, as used here, it includes those activities which focus primarily on the social dimension of human services: the response to socio-personal needs as well as social justice and advocacy efforts directed toward humanizing and transforming societal structures,r As Table "4 shows, the largest proportion of sisters engaged in social ministries, over one-third, were in social work. These data are consistent with Joseph's findings: as many sisters were professionally trained, in social work from 1970 to 1972, inclusive, as were in the previous decade,s It is not surprising that religious would select this field as it call for skills in working with both' personal and social needs. With the two-fold emphasis today on the person and impacting social systems, it provides opportunity for both service and social action. The sisters in this survey were social workers in school and hospital settings as well as in community-neighborhood pro-grams which reflected reaching out to others in a variety of ways. More than one-half were in Catholic Charities agencies, in both traditional family and child care services, e.g. family counseling, foster care and adoption ser-vices, and in community organization work, crisis intervention, and other forms of outreach. More than 30% of the religious in social ministries worked with minority groups and rural poverty programs, evidencing out-reach as well as justice efforts. Table 4 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Social Ministries New to Their Congregations Religious Ministries No. % Prison, Probation, Police Work 99 5.18 Social Justice Work 168 8.79 Social Work 651 34.05 Psychiatric, Psychological. Therapeutic Work 82 4.29 Work with Minority Groups 376 19.67 Rural Poverty Work 204 10.67 Alcoholism and Drug Addiction 116 6.07 Youth Work 114 5.96 Day Care Programs 28 1.46 Group Homes and Specialized Care Facilities 32 1.67 Other 42 2.19 Total i912 100.00 Although many in the above categories were actively engaged in social justice, advocacy, and social action--as related to the groups served-- 7Cedric W. Tilberg. "'The Social Ministry of the Congregation," Lutheran Social Welfare Quarterly, Vi (December, 1966), p. 8. 8Joseph, op. cit., p. 90. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View almost 10% of the sisters ,wer~ involved exclusively in these activities. Most of these sisters worked in social justice centers or on special commissions directed to justice and peace. Eighteen, however, were in political min-istries or appointed to government positions at state or local levels, while twenty-three were lawyers, aids, or legal advisors to the poor. A number organized legislative networks to promote grassroots leadership and create political power. Sixty-six worked in halfway houses for alcoholics or parolees or in group homes for pre-delinquent or delinquent youth. Another thirty-two served in homes for the mentally or physically handicapped or the emotionally disturbed. Slightly over 5% of the sisters worked with prisoners/parolees and their families, did probation work, or were on the police force, a relatively new area of ministry and one rich in service potential. The "'other" category consisted of those engaged in natural family planning, Birthright, housing projects, and shop~ for the poor. The liberation of the oppressed, as a pivotal and actigie concern of the Social Mission of the contemporary Church, is vividly clear in these data. Neff Forms of Church-Related Ministry Table 5 shows that almost one-half of the religious working in supportive Church-related works were specialists in the various fields of ministry, e.g. education and health, who acted as consultants to diocesan programs. More than one-third held offices in Church organizations at national and inter-national levels, utilizing the competencies of religious in important lead-ership roles. Three sisters were canon lawyers, twenty-three were identified as vicars for religious, and twelve were in tribunal work, no doubt a significant future indicator for the role of the ecclesial woman, These data represent a growing trend for women to assume leadership positions at all levels in the Church. Table 5 Women Religious Engaged in Forms of Church-Related Ministries New to Their Congregations Ministries National and International Offices in Church Organizations Vicars for Religious and Canon Lawyers Marriage Tribunal Work Diocesan Consultants/Specialists Ecumenical Consultants Total Religious No. % 126 32.8 I 36 9.38 12 3.12 189 49.22 21 5.47 384 100.00 Parish Ministry There is a:remarkable movement in the Church toward parish ministry, 1~52 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 especially among women religious, markedly illustrated in these data.~ The parish may be viewed as the Church in mission; it is here that the Church's mission is concretized. Rahner, in discussing the parish, states: ¯ . . the Church will make its impact as a present reality there where the presence of Christ is made real . Here the Christian of tomorrow will come to realize the true nature of the Church. Of course such a community, which feels itself to be the concrete realization of the Church as achieved through word and sacrament, will be conscious of being united to all other communities which likewise are the same Church . "~ It is in the parish-community that the Christian of the future will experience the Church in word and sacrament. The parish was the largest single category of ministry; 797 sisters were reported as involved in some aspect of parish work. The Parish was actually the only single category in the broad classification of ministries (see Table /), since the data did not lend itself to clearly differentiate among the various forms of parish work. A number, however, did indicate that they were parish associates, assistant pastors, parish workers, home visitors, social ministers, pastoral assistants, eucharistic ministers, parish spiritual directors, and parish team ministers, evidencing the plurality of forms at this level and supporting the need for the team approach. It may also be an index to the role ambiguity often experienced by parish workers and, fur-thermore, may indicate the need for clearer role definitions. Presnail dis-cussed this, detailing the range of roles identified with the parish worker and urging specialization within a framework of the plurality of ministries and personal charisms, competencies, and training. He points to the role am-biguity experienced by the religious educator until the role became more specialized and the boundaries more circumscribed.1~ In recent years, a number of Catholic Charities agencies across the country have reached out to parishes to facilitate social ministries at this level. According to a study that is underway, 206 religious are involved in some way in these parish social ministries, either directly as parish staff affiliated with the agency or as parish workers, not administratively related to the agency but receiving consultation from agency staff.t2 This upsurge in parish ministry is consistent with the findings of Jo-seph. 13 Comparative data, pre- and post-Vatican 1I, on the major apos- ~Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T., "'Christian Social Action," Careers in the Christian Ministry (Washington. D.C.: Consortium Press. 1976), p, 118. ~UKarl Rabner, -The New Image of the Church." Theological Investigations, Vol. X (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973). p. 11. ~Gregory Presnail, "Guidelines for a Parish Worker," Sisters Today (November, 1971), pp. 416-21. ~zSister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T. and Sister Ann Patrick Conrad, M.S.B.T., National Trends in Parish Social Ministry: A Study of Parish Programs Affiliated With Catholic Char-ities Agencies, in process. ~ZJoseph, A Study of Self-Role Congruence and Role-Role Congruence on the Integration of the Religious Role and the Social Work Role of the Sister Social Worker, p. 241. Preparation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View / 853 tolates of 108 religious communities, were obtained. The most dramatic change was in parish work. The number ~f religious congregations engaged in parish work at this time increased from 17.35% to 44.90%, close to a 30% oost-Vatican increase. Thus, we can expect---on the basis of these data, a continued upswing in parish work with a greater differentiation among ministry roles and a continued use and refinement of the team approach. The challenge remains to identify and elaborate the emerging patterns of parish ministry. The Spiritual Ministries Spiritual ministries, close to 5% of the new ministries, represented an emerging field in which the religio-spiritual dimension is the primary focus. These are closely related to pastoral ministry, but differ in that generally thry' are performed within church structures rather than in a setting in which one of the helping professions is the host-profession such as the hospital or the social agency. These ministries consisted largely of houses of prayer, retreat work---especially directed retreats, and prayer move-ments. Summary A two-pronged trend is reflected vividly in these data: concern with religious/spiritual aspects of the person (as evidenced in pastoral care, religious education and the directly spiritual ministries) and with the social dimension of human need (noted in the large number of religious engaged in the social ministries). Parish work may be viewed as reflecting both trends as the parish is concerned with socio-religious needs of persons through its developing approaches or team ministries. Deepening insight into the Pauline concept of the plurality of ministries is illustrated remark-ably in the growth in ministries at this level, particularly among women religious. The emphasis on social need was not only reflected in the increase in social ministries but also in the service modalities and organizational patterns in the health and education fields. The upswing in parish work, social work, pastoral care in health settings, and religious educationhin that order--would seem to forecast that these will be important future roles of women religious. A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Formation Programs The literature on adult socialization~4 is rich in its implications for for- ~4Socialization is the process by which one learns the ways of a given group. Often, it is defined as role learning. In adulthood, it refers to training for life or occupational roles. Studies have been done on socialization processes in such professions as nursing and medicine. No published research has been located by the authors on preparation for the role of the woman religious. I]54 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 mation programs in religious communities and provides tools for critical examination and assessment. The work of Brim and Wheeler is particularly useful as it identifies core variables which influence socialization out-comes.~ 5 It suggests a broad conceptual model to study the essential com-ponents of formation and aids in raising questions about current structural patterns, Central concepts are: the recruit or socializee: the candidate; the socializing agency: the religious community; the socializing agent: .for-mation personnel; and, the socialization process: the process of formation. The importance of taking another look at formation programs becomes obvious not only in considering the trends in ministry but in recent work-shop experiences of the National Religious Formation Conference. During workshop meetings, both men and women religious were asked to define the qualities needed for the future religious. Most frequently projected characteristics were: (1)self-direction; (2) the willingness to search, risk, and deal with uncertainty; (3) a deepening spiritual life; (4) a sense of rootedness in the charism of the institute;and, (5) a global mission concern. These characteristics and the new ministries suggest the need for an orienting philosophy of learning geared to the adult learner. Cartwell, in an excellent article on current educational models in formation programs, clearly identifies the need for an integrated cognitive-experiential-devel-opmental approach appropriate to today's social and cultural needs.~6 The proposed approach to learning is the adult learning model, androgogy, which prepares the person for self-direction and on-gbing learning. This approach is grounded in active participation, mutual sharing, and a readiness to learn. It recognizes not only the potential of the recruit but also the learned skills and past experiences which are brought to the new learn-ing situation.~r ~ With the trend awayJfrom institutional forms of ministry to community and parish-based work, many religious are moving from highly structured settings to natural ecological settings which are often ambiguous and lack-ing in role clarity. Such settings require that structures not only be created but implemented effectively and that roles be defined and continuously reclarified. Services at these levels demand creative action and continued innovation. Collaborative team approaches are required, calling for a high degree of skill in interpersonal communication as well as in coping with conflictuai role demands. Competency and evaluation (a trend in our so- 15Orville G. Brim and Stanton Wheeler, Socialization After Childhood (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1966). ~6Peter W. Cartwell, O.F.M., "Formation--Whither or Whether," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XXXll (September, 1973), p. 1050. ~rMalcolm Knowles, The Adult Learner: Neglected Species (Houston: Gulf Publishing Com-pany, 1973). Preparation ,for New Ministries: A Futuristic View ciety where resources and commodities are scarce) will be essential to assess program effectiveness. Increasingly, then, ministry will require self-directed persons, ready to generate new service modalities, negotiate role demands, and collaborate with others in attempting to find solutions to complex problems. The Recruit-Candidate Very often young people today have broad experiences. Frequently, they are well traveled and view such experiences as important to their on-going development. Generally, those who enter the helping professions have a high degree of commitment to serve the needs of others. Those who would enter a religious community seek to deepen their value-orientation and share similar values with others in community. Many have been ex- :posed to an adult learning style, basically experiential, moving from the realm of the empirical and from skill in doing to the level of abstraction and conceptualization. They freely challenge ideas and existing structures, ex-pecting an openness of response and, themselves, inviting feedback. Where opeaness is absent, confrontation is often heightened. They seek an ex-panding personal development and view some contemporary religious structures as constricting growth potential. The questionmust be raised: Can present structures of many formation programs attract, support, and enhance the goals of these young women? In view of the socialization outcomes required fo~ the new ministries, what personal qualifications are needed in the recruit at entrance?~Selection and socialization processes obviously interact. Etzione states that where both are high, socialization should be effective.18 Space does not permit further discussion of the prospective candidate. It seems sufficient here to raise these basic questions. The Structure Granting the developmental-experiential nature of adult learning, one must consider the environmental or structural conditions which foster it. Organizational arrangements of formation programs will require on-going examination in the light of trends in ministries and related learning needs. A basic assumption of the androgogical model implies change in the self-concept moving from one of dependence, to increasing self-direction.19 When operationalized in structures, this assumption is reflected in mutual trust and collaboration, flexibility, freedom to express differences, and active participation in learning. These structures should be geared to fa- ~SAmitai Etzione, Complex Organizations (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961). ~Knowles, op. cit., p. 45. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 cilitate growth and provide experiential as well as didactic learning oppor-tunities, a direction underway in many communities. Self-concept theory and research have demonstrated the impact of ref-erence groups on the self-concept of the person. Where a person constantly receives negative images, a negative concept of self may develop. In the past religious structures emphasized negative feedback, often forming negative self-concepts in religious. Current structures must be realistic, emphasizing positive as well as constructive negative feedback. Such an orientation contributes to a realistic self-concept and confidence in both self-direction and leadership skills. The Socializing Agent Fundamentally, formation personnel must be comfortable with the self-directed contemporary religious. Question must be raised as to appropriate preparation for formation team members. The predominant emphasis has been largely theological while also drawing from the humanistic psychol-ogies. Since the new ministries require an on-going diaiogical process with the world, it would seem that a broadened training would be required drawing from the social sciences and the secular professions. This would highlight the environment, the interaction between the person and the so-cial context--in this situation, the community. The environmental aspects and their influences on the person need to be emphasized. The self is in constant interaction with social structures, both within and outside the community. Formation personnel need to be more aware of the impact of structures on the person in community and how the person can impact on structure, as a basis for mutual and on-going growth and change. The Process The process of socialization, which seeks to identify how a specific role is internalized, has been studied in a number of professions,z° Greater attention needs to be given to this process in formation programs. The work of Kinnane and Preister suggests that the ultimate direction of socialization should be characterized by a movement from dependence and indepen-dence to interdependence; the development from self-centered behavior to social behavior; growth in maturity; and, the increasing integration of re-ligio- spiritual values in ministry.2t Z°Howard Becker, et ~il., eds., Institutions and the Person (Chicago: Aldine Publishers, 1968). ZlJohn F. Kinnane, Career Development for Priests and Religious (Washington, D.C.: CARA, 1970); Steven Preister, "The Professional Socialization of the Seminarian into the Career of Priesthood." Unpublished paper, Catholic University of America, 1976. PreParation for New Ministries: A Futuristic View The formation process involves both formal and informal components. Basically, the formal process occurs in sequential phases, clearly marked by rites of passage or movement from affiliate or candidacy status to the position of novice or of commitment. Informal processes, however, operate and may be identified. It has been observed in one community that religious often proceed from the initial stage with some role ambiguities, to a positive identification with community (often at the beginning of the novitiate) to a negative identification, followed by a more realistic conceptma stage of interdependence in community and the beginning of internalized commit-ment (generally toward the end of the novitiate),z2 Although this was found to be th~ usual process, individual variations in development and regression may occur throughout the process. It does suggest, however, a process of integration and internalization which continues in all adult life. Young religious need to be continuously confronted throughout this process to recognize both positive and negative aspects of the religious community and consider within this context where they are, personally, at a given time as they develop a realistic view of the community and seek to serve within its framework of ministry, they have already begun to internalize their religious commitment. To be fixated in either a positive or a negative phase may well reflect a question of personal commitment within this particular life style. With the complexities of living in society today and the greater demands in ministry, it seems that more attention must be given to the processes of initial and on-going formation. Conclusion In conclusion, religious of the future are now, in fact defining them-selves. This paper has presented indicators for the future role of women religious based on ministries which were identified as new to their con-gregations. An orienting conceptual model was formulated to examine ex-isting struciures and processes of formation programs as well as to raise questions as to how these programs are preparing religious for future roles in ministry. A further question, however, needs to be asked. Although religious communities are intellectually endorsing new ministries, are affective sup-port structures being provided for these newly developing works? These survey findings therefore, compel communities not only to address their newly developing forms of ministry but also to consider the support sys-tems provided for these new directions. 22Sister Mary Vincentia Joseph, M.S.B.T., "S~cialization in a Religious Community." Un-published paper, Catholic University of America, 1974. This paper was prepared in con-junction with research on the socialization process of one community. Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" Anne Marie Harnett, S.N.J.M. Sister Anne Marie received permission for a "contemplative sabbatical" last year, during which time she resided with, and lived the life of several contemplative communities. Presently she is doing graduate studies in theology and resides at 519 Varnum St., N.W.; Washington, DC 20011. The poet's labor is to struggle with the meaninglessness and silence of the world until he can force it to mean, until he can make the silence answer and the non-being be. It is a labor which undertakes to "know" the world not by exegesis or demonstration or proofs but directly, as a man knows apple in the mouth.1 When I read this paragraph recently, I was excited. It seemed to express what I have been trying to do this year during a "contemplative sabbat-ical." Aboht a y.ear ago, I asked for the opportunity for an extended ex-perience oUsolitude because of a somewhat hazy intuition 'that such an orientation was at the source of any ministry for justice (a large interest of mine) and it was itself a powerful witness to the consumer ~ociety in which we live. ~' I address these reflections particularly to those men and women who" might also feel called to an experience of solitude--to encourage them. I speak to contemplative communities--to thank them for their hospitality to me when I needed to be a "temporary monk." I hope that these few thoughts will encourage contemplative groups of women especially to con-sider this kind of hospitality as a service to the Church. Since September I have been struggling with the meaninglessness and silence--sometimes catching glimpses of the answer and the being--in a seemingly endless game of hide and seek. I have let the various elements of the experience speak to me, wondering at times what all this has to do 1Archibald MacLeish, Poetry and Experience (Boston, 1961), pp. 8-9, in The Courage to Create by Rollo May (New York: Bantam Books, 1976), p. 89. 858 Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" / 859 with ordinary living, let alone with problems of violence, poverty, injustice, the needs and :,:~oblems of people today. Sometimes I have felt anxious and frustrated: c:,.cu joy-filled, occasionally guilty, generally at peace, "r,. year has been. a tapestry. It has provided me with a variety of experiences resulting in changed attitudes and new and keener aware-nesses. Many of the designs iffthis tapestry have not yet been woven, and like the underside of a tapestry, the pattern is not readily visible to me. Because I am always wary of instant experts, of people who spend a few weeks in a foreign country and then lecture or write about the people and culture of that country, I hesitate to say a great deal even about the early part of my adventure in the "desert"; certainly I cannot yet write about my current "Carmelite phase." I would like however to share my reflections on the short experience I had in a Trappist monastery in Mistassini, Quebec. The monks'there have opened their choir to both men and women, and so I had the privilege of sharing fully in their prayer from Vigil at 3:30 A.M. until Compline at 7:30 P.M. Their Office is beautiful inits simplicity. I found that it not only satisfied 'my need.for beauty in worship but that it completed my own prayer; whatever the mood or message of my prayer might have been. The Hours became~for me a stream into which I could jump at various times of the day, a stream which carried: along with it all my hopes, as-pirations and activities. Because chanting Office at 3:30 A.M. is so foreign to most of us, I would like to say a little abotlt Vigil. It was never easy; seldom .was it bright With praise or, comforting in sorrow or pain. It was to me what its name suggests: watching and waiting. I often thought all of this would be absurd if God did not exist, if he were not God with us and for usl Often too I would think of and so pray for other people who-were up for other reasons: those on night shifts, parents with sick children, street people, those with no bed to go to. At other times I would think of people close to me, some of them watching and waiting in a way only they could know; other~ now fully enjoying him for whom we in that church were keeping vigil. Often too I would just manage to be there. Always I knew that all the stars were laughing at our wonder. I became more keenly aware of the apostolic dimension of prayer, both liturgical and personal, knowing that my prayer and that of the monks and other guests extended far beyond the confines of that church. This is so because of the nature of liturgical prayer, because of the eucharist and our faith in its cosmic dimensions~, but also because of what happens in prayer. The experience of a deep need of liberation and healing, the experience of both the presence and the apparent absence of God, and of his absolute fidelity, the relationship of this prayer to daily life with its demands, calls, and responses--all this is a microcosm of the world today with its own great need for liberation and healing, and its search for God whom so many have dismissed or do not know. ~160 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/6 This experience in prayer brought me new attitudes toward solitude. For some time I had found periods apart renewing and increasingly nec-essary to my well-being. So when I went to Mistassini I considered it under this primarily physical or geographical aspect. Now, while I realize the necessity and appreciate the value of periods of physical solitude, I have come to think of it more as "an enclosure" I carry around with me. It is an inner attitude in line with the thought of Thomas Merton expressed in Contemplation in a Worm of Action. As I understand it, he sees solitude as a probing for truth, first of all in oneself; it is the acceptance of one's identity and of one's lot as given by God. While probing for truth and forming convictions, one seeks the courage to live, to witness in accordance with these convictions. It involves making decisions, consonant with one's inner reality and in the light of God's truth and love.2 I became more aware of the fact that my search and probing is a pil-grimage. Like Abraham I have set forth in the desert hearing the call, "Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father's house to a land that I will show you" (Gn 12:1). While my predominant mood as I set out on this pilgrimage was one of joy in God's presence, yet solitude sometimes brought me fear of the future, an angst fear. This reality I found also described by Thomas Merton: "The man who wants to deepen his existential awareness has to make a break with ordinary existence, and this break is costly. It cannot be made without anguish and suffering. It implies loneliness, and the disorientation of one who has to recognize that the old signposts don't show him his way, and that in fact he has to find the way by himself without a map.''3 Perhaps I will always have to live with this anguish because the old signposts are in fact gone, and the new ones are very hazy. Certainly they will never be as clear-cut and sharply defined as they were in the past. Very likely the way will never be clearly mapped out. Yet I have become more at home with my anxiety and at times even welcome it as an experience of my powerlessness, as a call to total de-pendence on God. Recently I found a passage in The Courage to Create by Rollo May which describes in psychological terms this aspect of solitude. The ex-perience of encounter, encounte¢ implying a deep commitment, always brings anxiety because of the shaking of the self-world relationship which occurs in the encounter. "Our sense of identity is threatened: the world is not as we experienced it before; and since self and world are always cor-related, we no longer are what we were before . The anxiety we feel is temporary rootlessness, disorientation; it is the anxiety of nothingness.''4 In mature creativity anxiety must be confronted if we are to experience joy. 2Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action (New York: Image Books, 1973), Chapter III, "The Identity Crisis," pp. 75-100. aIbid., p. 126. ~Ibid., p. 107. Reflections of a "Temporary Monk" / 861 I can live with anxiety and anguish, confront them and experience joy because of my faith and trust in God, and because of the love relationship I experience with him. The anxiety is then transformed into resting in him. It' is living in that marvelous gap between what my faith sees and feels and what God knows and is actually accomplishing in me; between my desire to live as he wants me to live, to be the person he wants me to be, and the fulfillment of this desire. It is a living of the words of Isaiah, "See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers" (Is 43:9). During the summer just before my sabbatical year I was a journalist at our general chapter which was one of reflection and discernment on our charism and our response to it in the world today. During the c.hapter our foundress was very much alive and present to us; she continued to be present to me during these weeks of solitude. As I reflected on my life as a woman religious and on hers, I saw that she had creative imagination'~ which she used in service to the Church. She consulted the signs of the times and, with eyes wide and in perfect freedom, said yes. This yes meant leaving a respectable and secure position, setting herself and her two com-panions up in an attic, opening a small school with no financial means, embarking on unknown seas in an as yet unfounded community. She said thisyes daily depending totally on God in faith and love. It seems to me that this is the kind of response to which God calls us today: the witness of a life--creative, integrated, with a willingness to risk, dedicated to the gospel. As I write these reflections in my room in the Bronx Carmel, I am looking at a little collection of prints tacked on my wall: La Misereuse accroupie (a woman crouching, possibly in prayer) by Picasso, Christ Mocked by Soldiers by Rouault, The Burghers of Calais and La Pensde by Rodin, the South Rose Window and Lancets from the Cathedral of Chartres. Beside them is the quote, "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." The collection symbolizes the strands of life that have brought me here and the threads continually being woven into my solitude, my experience of God. The Christ who is mocked is the crouching woman, the attraction of La Pens~e, the glorious center of the rose window. He is the reason for loving the questions and for being patient with the incompleteness of the answers. He is somewhere in the agony, the stolid acceptance, the chains and the resistance symbolized by the Burghers of Calais. At the same time he is in the beauty and achievement of ihe ensemble. My encounter with this reality brings me back to labor and struggle with the meaningless, the contradictions and the paradoxes. Again I am knock-ing on silence, waiting for being; above all, I am living in hope. ~Leonardo Boff, author of Jesus-Christ Liberateur, says that imagination is the creativity to see humankind become better and richer than the present cultural environment. The Call of Retirement: A Ministry of Elders Jeanne Schweickert, O.S.F. Sister Jeanne is Vice President of Ministry for the School Sisters of St. Francis. Her office is located at 1501 South Layton Blvd.; Milwaukee, Wl 53215. Over the past several years many old people have entered my life in new and powerful ways, the young old, the middle old, and the old old--and as they touched me I experienced the paradoxes of their lives: the hopeful expectations of some, the disillusionment of others; the longing for (he great past and the eager awaiting of death; the joyous celebration of life and the loneliness, fear and despair of day-after-day. It became more and more obvious that as the people I met approached old age, as they moved into retirement, they experienced traumatic mo-ments in their lives, moments that challenged their very personhood. Some time ago I decided to take council with some of the elderly sisters of my community. I invited them to get in touch with their own experience of retirement and share with me what they recalled happening inside them at that time. The following are a few of their comments: "Sometimes it feels like your personhood is diminished ." "I want to be seen first as a person, and then as a patient . " "Institutions make it difficult to be personal ." "You can't make decisions for yourself ." "I felt dethroned, becoming an observer rather than a participant . " "I was frightened of being a captive of the rocking chair and treated as a child kept busy with games and crafts . " "The real pain of not being active is that your opinion is never sought . " These are but a few of their comments; they are the more painful ones. 862 The Call of Retirement: A Ministry of Eiders / 1~63 However all of these perspectives reinforced for me again the perception of retirement as a time of moving away from something that had meaning rather than moving toward something significant in life. In his "Preface to a Practical Theology of Aging" Don S. Browning emphasizes that we must challenge both the idea that a person is only of worth or contributing when he is gainfully employed and the idea that the last stages of life should be a time of irrelevant comfort and preadolescent indulgence. Al