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Transcript of an oral history interview with Mrs. Carol Todd, conducted by Sarah Yahm at the interviewee's home in Roxbury, Vermont, on 12 May 2015, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. Carol Todd was the wife of Norwich University president, W. Russell Todd, and the founder of the Norwich University Center for Volunteer Management. Included in the interview are reminiscences of Mrs. Todd's early life and education as well as her experiences at Norwich University. ; Mrs. Carol Todd, Oral History Interview May 12, 2015 At interviewee's home Interviewed by Sarah Yahm Transcribed by C.T. Haywood, NU '12 May 20, 2015 SARAH YAHM: You know what hold on I haven't turned this on yet and we're talking about interesting stuff that might be good to have on tape. But what were you saying about "should?" CAROL TODD: Well I, when General Todd was a young officer and we were first living at Fort Knox I learned a good deal about what I came to feel was my responsibility or at least what I should do for those wives who are around me, who might need me, who were just like I was with their mother wasn't there, their family was far way. And in those days when you were in Kentucky and your folks lived in New England it was a long way away. There was none of the technology that we enjoy now. Now I never was very good at this but I tried my best and I eventually did the work not directly for these young people but through an organization called Army Community Services, which was a social work organization, which now has become very strong and has professional people that do it. But when it started it was folks like myself who saw the need to be available. And we did what people's family would do for people who are in need or really need, kept an eye on folks is what happened. We all lived on post in the 1950s almost everyone lived on post in government quarters, government apartments. And we were neighbors. We were friends. We knew each other. We did things. We went for walks with the babies in a baby carriage. It's a different world and I understand that but I don't know how we got on the subject but it's…. SY: Well it's interesting because JoAnn Kelley who I interviewed talks about… CT: Oh yes! Interesting yeah… SY: Yeah about um when they were in Germany I guess you know Mike Kelley was away for a couple days for some reason. CT: Sure. SY: …for some reason she had already lost most of her vision and she talks about the incredible support of the women living on post with her enabling her to be able to do what she needed to do, right? Her kid got hurt and needed to go to the hospital and the degree to which the other, the mothers just dropped everything and took care of her kids and got her to the hospital and got her kid x-rays. And she felt that very powerfully in Germany. CT: Yeah and isn't it wonderful that she was the recipient of that kind of attention, because it must have been pretty tough to be alone. I think the whole ethos of this type of 2 community has changed in this whole country. It isn't just the military that it's changed in but and it isn't just the Army. I think the whole, but, for instance in those early days wives did not work. Ha! Heavens no! I knew of one of my friends who had a job who worked for a while. And I had come from a pla--from a situation where I had been working full time and could have probably managed to continue doing personnel work which is what I was doing. But I thought, "Huh," but nobody does that, you know, that isn't what we do here, you know. SY: Did you miss it? Because you, I mean you were you know you'd had a very good education, you were trained, you were? CT: I really didn't miss it at all. I really didn't. It was, we had such a good time. It was really fun. It was really fun for a while and one of the couples to whom we were close then, they lived around the corner and down the street a little bit, we are still close to. They live in Saco, Maine and the name is Nutting, Jane and Wally Nutting, and we still talk a lot and send birthday cards and visit once or twice a year. Unfortunately they both have some health issues, well don't we all at this age if you come right down to it. And so we don't see them as often as we'd like. But there was some very, very strong bonds. We took care of each other's children, we took care of each other. It was, it was easy and it's what people did and it made it easier to do I think than perhaps a different situation. And we were poor. You've got to remember in those days there was no extra cash. Everybody was counting out to see how much money they have left for the last week in the month and… SY: And were some--were you paying for your housing or was your housing free? CT: No we were paying for it. Because there were all kinds of arrangements but everybody paid for it in one way or another. Either they deducted it from your salary if you lived in certain kinds of housing. We lived in what was considered contract apartments and I think we paid $65.00 a month which seems like, it seemed like a lot then. It was for us then. And everybody and nobody, everybody, all the women were wearing their clothes from their trousseau you know because that's, there was no running out and buying new outfits and stuff like that. Yeah. SY: So let me actually, let me officially start this interview because I need to get us on tape. CT: Please do. SY: So I'm here interviewing--though I'll transcribe that and use that it's super interesting. So I'm here interviewing Carol Todd. Its May 12, we're at her house in Northfield. Is this technically still in Northfield? CT: As a matter of fact the house is in Roxbury though the garage is in Northfield. SY: [laughs]3 CT: Winch Hill Road is, you know the dividing line goes right through our garage as a matter of fact. We can show it to you. It's painted on the floor the garage. SY: That's hilarious, yeah. It's like the Derby Line Opera House and Library. CT: Oh yes, right, right [laughs]. It's true. SY: So okay let's actually, let's start from the beginning because oral history it's a story of a life. So I guess where did you grow up? Where were you born? CT: I born in Beverly, Massachusetts which is just north of Boston - 28 miles we used to say - in 1928. I can remember, we've got a picture somewhere in our files of the funny old car that my father had to, came home from the hospital, a funny sort of thing, an open sort of sedan thing. My parents were older parents which made my birth very exciting because my mother was 37 or 8 by the time I was born and that was considered geriatric practically. She never had the first labor pain. She didn't have the baby and didn't have the baby when it was due. So finally the doc went, "Hmmm better do something about this," and it was determined well before I was born that I was no doubtful a boy. There was no question about it. I had such a slow heartbeat which I still do. But no I wasn't a boy was I? And he was to have been named for my father, it would have been William Henry. So when I was a girl, some of the doctor or one of the nurses said, "Well, what are you going to name her?" and she said, "Well I guess I'll have to name her Wilhelmina Henrietta" which caused everyone in the delivery room to have a good laugh. But instead I was named for my grandfather's mother who had died giving birth to him in 18--what is it? '34 I think, yeah. I get the numbers kind of mixed up. But no he was born in '54, 1854. And anyway, but I was named for her my name being Caroline but I've been called Carol ever since. Because at the time in the thirties Carole Lombard was very, very famous and very fancy. So lots of people who were named a word like Caroline would be named, called Carol and that's, I still use Caroline for my legal name but other than that. And then I grew up in Beverly, small town, 20,000 people more or less. Went to the public school there. Could walk to school, could walk home for lunch, back for the afternoon, back home in the afternoon, play outside in the in our yard or in the yard next door. Go sliding on down the street on the little hill in somebody else's backyard. I had ah [cough] (pardon me), I had friends that I knew in kindergarten that I graduated from high school with and one of them I still play Words with Friends to this day with. One of these girls is still my friend. It's really fun. Everybody went to a different church and I thought, was only thinking about that this morning. My sister and I and one other, Eleanor, went to the Washington Street Congregational Church which is around the street from us. But my friend Pauline went to the Baptist church which was up the corner, and Elizabeth Ann went to the Episcopal church and then another friend went to the Dane Street Congregational Church and nobody thought this was odd. I mean this is how it was. People were all mixed together I think in the public school system which was a really good thing. I can remember in the sixth grade how thrilled I was when a new student came whose name was Emilio Zarzanello. So my last name being Wyeth I was no longer the end of the alphabet when we lined up by names. So I loved Emilio Zarzanello.4 I thought that was grand. Went to all the way through the public school there, went to junior high. It was a building called Briscoe which still stands in the center of town which is the same school that my grandfather had gone to and it had been condemned during the time he was there so you can imagine what it was like then. Went to high school there at Beverly High School and that's where I met my husband whose family lived in Wenham, Massachusetts, which is an area just north of where we lived that had no high school. So he was tuitioned into Beverly High School, and I guess we just, we had lockers, adjacent lockers, you know how kids used to in high school. And l loved that high school. It was really great. Had extremely good teachers, some. A wonderful English teacher who pushed and shoved me hard to love words, to recite poetry, to do this sort of thing. And a history teacher named Mr. Bellmore who taught us how to take exams which was a marvelous thing to do. Every Monday morning he passed out a piece of paper on which there were 5 questions and these were things we were going to learn this week in American history. On Friday he would choose one of these topics, throw out a question in regards to this, give us blue books just like you had in college and said, "You now have 20 minutes to write me an essay on this subject." Well once you got the idea and got onto it all you had to do is learn the material and recite it back in written form, which he then corrected, spelling, punctuation, to say nothing of the facts and by the end of senior year I could take an exam in almost anything if somebody would frame it just correctly. And it helped me tremendously in college to have had that training. It was a good high school. SY: Absolutely. Do you remember your first impression of your husband? CT: Yeah I do. I just thought he was so handsome and he was wearing a bright red cable knit sweater that his grandmother had made for him. Isn't that funny? Yes I do. But the interesting thing was his mother had just had a baby. A what? We were astonished. And that baby is his brother Dick who we still are very. very close to but all those years through high school Russ was a big draw for girls who loved to go up to his house and push the baby carriage and knit mittens for Richard and this sort of thing. It's funny isn't it yeah? Our parents, both sets of parents sensed it once this was an important relationship for both of us. So my mother called a woman whose name I've really tried hard to remember, but she lived in Wenham and mother knew that - her name was Miriam something - she knew that Miriam would have known the Todds through the town. So she called up to ask Miriam who these people were. Meanwhile the Todds who lived down the street from this ladyhad called her to say, "Do you know who these people are that live in Beverley?" And she assured both parents that this was okay that this you know is a good relationship and everybody relaxed and said, "Okay." We went to a lot of activities together in high school. SY: I was just gonna say. So this is what year? You were born in '28 so this is… CT: We graduated in '46 so it's late forties. SY: Okay so, yeah what were, what was dating like in the early forties? What were the protocols? 5 CT: Well, the boy usually called up or said, "Do you want to go to the movies?" That's what we did; we went to the movies. And the first few times we dated we went with his parents, his mother and father, because Russ didn't drive because he, I suppose he wasn't 16 come to think--oh he must have been. Well I don't know why we wend, but anyway we did, we went with the Todds and a couple of times. And then my mother and by then my father wasn't well, but anyway and we were living with my grandparents. But my mother said, "Why don't we have him for dinner before you go out?" I don't know where we were going so he came for supper and that was a big success because he was reasonably comfortable doing that. He had met them and we lived about 5 or 6 maybe 7 miles apart. They weren't really in our neighborhood but it was another town. And that we also used to do things like go to a large picnics that the coll--school would have like the chemistry department would have a picnic and we'd all go. And I can remember one time we won a three legged race. Because you see physically we were very much the same size. Of course we're not now because I've shrunk more, but we were then. I have longer legs and he had a longer torso but we could do things like, we're very much the same shape and size which was handy for three legged races if nothing else. SY: Exactly. I'm also realizing that you grew up during the war. And so I'm wondering what your memories of wartime in Beverley were like? Do you remember blackout curtains? Do you remember rationing? CT: Oh yeah, all those things. Blackout curtains were fun. Well they weren't fun but it was interesting because you had to have them, and you had to pull them down and sometimes you pulled them down and fasten them on the sill. But if you didn't do it just right they'd unroll and go "brrrt" go up and everybody'd "oh no." We also had to paint the bottom half of the headlights on the cars because we lived near the ocean. You know we lived right there on the Atlantic Ocean. So you had to do that in order that the, to take care of the submarines so they wouldn't see you when they came in close to shore. Which of course we learned they did later. We learned quite a bit about that. My father was in the Coast Guard Auxiliary. He was of the wrong age to be in the second world, in either of the world wars. He was too young for one, too old for another. And so he used to go out with the other men on his team and walk on the beaches in Beverly and sometimes in other towns nearby looking for lights in the ocean and he'd come home. All night they'd be out, you know, like 8 or 9 hours maybe longer at night. I can remember how tired he would be and every once in a while he'd say to my mother, "It was worth it, it was worth it," meaning they'd seen something and notified the people in Boston who took care of it, you know. They had a telephone system. It wasn't like a cell phone but they had some sort of a telephone system they could call. And he also in the summertime went out in a boat with his friend Homer Riggs and looking for people who are off our coast that didn't belong there. Which was sort of interesting too. We collected tin foil when you chewed gum. You got, you know each one was wrapped in a tin foil. Maybe it still is I don't know, and we made balls of tin foil. We collected newspapers. As we recycled them then we recycled them then in the World War II. We 6 also collected bacon fat. Nasty trick but you put any fat into a tin can or some sort of a receptacle that would have a lid. I can't remember what else. Oh my mother was a hoot. She decided if my father was going to be in Coast Guard Auxiliary she'd have to do something so she joined the Red Cross Auxiliary and learned to cook for large numbers of people. I have a recipe book somewhere - cocoa for 100, meatloaf for 250, you know. She never did it, she never had to do it. But they were prepared for any kind of emergency. Well the only emergency we ever had was in our town. There were icehouses full of saw dust where they stored the ice from Wenham Lake and Kelleher's Pond which was near our house and stuff. Well time had come for those things to burn. Nobody set fires but I went to at least 3 icehouse fires during those years which, because my father would get us up in the middle of the night. They always burned at night it seemed. SY: Why would they being set on fire? CT: They weren't set on fire it would be combustion, you know, some sort of combustion, internal combustion. No, they were not set on fire. SY: Oh okay. CT: No, it just, they were accidents that happened I guess. SY: But there were a lot during that time period which is interesting. CT: Yeah, I guess, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. SY: I don't know because it would be hard for an icehouse to be set on, it just seems strange to me. CT: When icehouses empty and there's no ice in there dripping. SY: Oh the sawdust I didn't realize that. CT: You see, would dry out [phone rings in background] I suppose that maybe lightning set it on fire. I really don't know. SY: But you would wake up and you would go - CT: And my father would say, "come on quick!" so my sister and I we'd jump [sound of getting ready in a hurry] and run down and mother would be in her suit in case she had to make coca for 100, and the 4 of us would go off. And the thing was to be sure to be watch your step because my mother like both of my sister and I tend to trip on things. So my mother once tripped over a fire hose and skinned her knee. Caused great trouble because then the other Red Cross volunteers all came around in excitement to give her a bandage. That was big stuff. SY: Because everybody was all dressed up with nowhere to go, they had nothing to do but make hot cocoa for 150 [laughs]. A Band-Aid for the woman who tripped! That's hilarious. 7 CT: And she's one of our volunteers too, "Oh dear there goes Helen again." But anyway it was sort of an adventure for us. Now the other thing about World War II that made a huge impression on me - down at the end of our street, the end of our street was right on the water itself. We lived about 5 or 6 houses up. I could count them maybe I'm not sure how many. Anyway, lived a family that had a little girl that we babysat, I babysat for and my sister did and we helped take care of this girl. Nice little handicapped - she had I'm not sure what but she was handicapped. But we, so we enjoyed her. She was a nice girl. And their father whose name was Les Buck was on the train. His father, her father was on the train going into Boston one time because the Boston went in from the, from Beverly, every day so people could work in what we called in Town. In town was Boston, not, and uptown was Beverly but in town was to go to Boston. So he goes in, he's going in town, and he's sitting there minding his own business and he had had language lessons when he was in high school like so many of us do, and he could figure that the people in back of him were speaking German. Didn't know quite what they were saying but it was clearly German. "Hmm," he said. So when they got to Boston, to the North Station, he just got off and walked into where - in the railroad stations then they had a lot military police and there were shore police from the Navy all the way around Boston - and went up and said what he'd heard. And said, "those are the two men right there," and they run right over and took them away. Just because they were speaking German which sounds awful doesn't it? SY: I mean who knows? They could have, right… CT: It could have been German. Who knows, but we always thought they'd come aboard out of a submarine which is apparently did happen many times, but we thought that pretty exciting. SY: Yeah because it happened on your street. Yeah, yeah, yeah. CT: But if Russ were here, he'd tell you another story about our family which is World War I that he unearthed, and that is that somewhere in the papers that he's got of our family there's a letter that my grandfather got beginning of World War I saying: "Dear Mr. Lee, because of your exemplary behavior and your role as president of a bank in this small town you are hereby appointed by the governor of Massachusetts and the President of the United States to be on the alert on anything untoward that might happen in your community. We are aware that on the same street where you live there is a Mr. Carl Klink and Mr. Klink is now a U.S. citizen but has many relatives overseas." And you can just hear this letter. Mr. Klink, charming man, ran a bakery uptown and they said, "if at any time you have concerns about anything going on your street. You are at once to…" you know it's terribly officious letter… SY: And it's good that it was your grandfather and not somebody else who was sort of a paranoid bully, right? And would have taken him out of the bakery. CT: It's possible, yeah. We knew them really well. His wife was a friend of my grandmother's. His daughter went to school with my aunt. His granddaughter was in my 8 sister's group of friends, you know. And so my grandfather just filed it under you know, but Russ found it not long ago which it's funny. SY: It's so interesting. CT: There must have been people all over this country that got letters like that, don't you think? And now we wonder about you know privacy and all that kind of stuff, yeah. SY: That's fascinating. CT: Isn't that interesting? SY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well and the "if you see something say something", right? The post 9-11 signs everywhere. I didn't realize that that's how it was done in World War I. That's fascinating. So what about the Depression, how did your family fare? CT: Well my father had a very bad experience. We're never going to get to, we're never going to get me grown up at this rate. But my father had a very bad experience and I'll try to tell it straight because it's a little difficult. He was co-owner of an automobile agency and they sold Chryslers and Dodge and maybe one other kind of car. I was pretty young when this happened. And he went off to work every day and they sold the cars and everything worked fine. His partner was a man named Mr. Berry like in strawberry, Ralph Berry. And the story goes that one day he was ah, he got up go to work, went down to the garage what they called it, where this agency was, there were no cars, there were no records, there was nothing in the office and Ralph Berry was gone and so was every single cent in the bank that belonged to this agency. This was before the days when we had limited partnerships and we had legal protections for people who entered partnerships. In other words this man stole everything and it caused a great deal, a great deal of distress as you could well imagine. My father eventually after a few days had what they called a nervous breakdown. Now I suspect it was a depression of some sort. I don't know what it was. But I know I don't what it was. But I know that he had he to stay in bed and the curtains had to be down and my sister and I either had to be very quiet or go across the street to where my grandparents lived and go stay. We stayed over there for a little bit. And I, how long it went on I don't know, but eventually of course he got over it, whatever it was. But what else could it have been but depression? He didn't have a stroke. I don't know. He, as a result of this always had high blood pressure so it must have happened in 1937 or '38. Or no even before - '36 or '37, because by '38 when I was 10 years old, he was okay I can remember. But anyway and he died very young from auxiliary problems from having high blood pressure which in those days they didn't treat. The only thing they did he was he was supposed to be on a salt free diet. You know almost everything, even eggs have naturally some salt in them and you don't have to add anything. But my mother made salt free bread. Oh there were all kinds of goings on but he just continually got worse and worse and he died when I was a, well he died in 194-, he died in the November of 194-, October of 1949. So the last few years of his life were pretty uncomfortable for him and for all of us you, know. But Mr. Berry got off from this scot-free to the best of my knowledge I don't know otherwise. Had the nerve shortly 9 after my father died to buy a beautiful big house in Hamilton which is another small town outside Beverly, with horses and big yards, and gardens and stuff. Married a second wife and came back to town. And I thought, "What gall?" now somebody, I hope nobody listening to this ever was a relative of this man. But he just caused an awful lot of heartache in our family. But shortly after that I think it was this didn't happen to my father alone. This sort of thing was going on all over the country. Times were getting hard, the Depression was hard on people and my mother and father managed to take care of us somehow, I don't know. There was no social security. I'm sure they used up every cent of savings they'd ever had. I know when we needed things like when we got to be a certain age and wanted to go to camp my grandparents always gave it to us for our birthday present. Winter coats magically appeared, you know. I can re--the only time I ever remember anything happening that affected me personally was I said to my mother, "I really need a new pair of shoes these are getting so worn out," blah, blah, blah. And she said, "Carol I know you do," and she said, "and you can have a new pair of shoes. We're just gonna have to wait until the first of the month." And so we waited until the first of the month and I got what I needed. But there was no ah, they didn't. We were very very fortunate. SY: And they protected you from--I'm sure they were filled CT: Absolutely! SY: with money anxieties but they protected you from that? CT: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. SY: And so your father never really got his footing back? CT: Well in a way he did. Because after he sort of got his wits back together he and a friend of his who is a doctor, and the father of one of my girlfriend's, and another gentleman who we knew got together and bought cranberry bogs in Rhode Island, in a little small town called Greene, Rhode Island that's on the border with Connecticut; in Marshfield, Massachusetts which is near Quincy and Duxbury; and a third one that I for the life of me can't remember where it was. And they formed little company called the Summit Cranberry Company. These were all cranberry bogs that at one time had been very productive and had been let go and they had the great pleasure of investing enough money in it to make them all productive. It was just the time that Ocean Spray was getting going and Ocean Spray kept trying to buy them out or buy their product. "No," said these strong New England gentlemen, "we are independent growers." They loved being…well of course it was their downfall but they remained independent growers and they sold through an independent agent. Only berries to be sold in crates in the grocery store, never anything boxed or barreled or made into juice or jelly [laughs] certainly not. Just straight cranberries and they had various, all these different kinds and my mother used to go and help during harvest season. She used to go down and live at one of the bogs with my father while he was managing the harvest and she would go and I don't know did things with the various women and stuff. 10 SY: A lot of the Cape Verde immigrants worked? CT: They did, yeah. Except the foreman who was the only man I remember. His last name was Thibodeau and that's French isn't it? SY: French-Canadian. CT: So he probably was French-Canadian and he had a daughter named Lilian who was my sister's age. And one year at Christmas in the midst of all this my family got together and they said now, "We want to tell you we always put aside a certain amount of money for your Christmas." And they said, "But we just feel this year that Lillian and her sister (whose name I forgot) need Christmas treats more than you do. Would you mind if we took some of your money and gave them?" We said, "No fine with us, we like these little kids too." Which they did and you know to this day I have no idea that we got any less or any different than we ever did. We never knew the difference, you know, but I love it that they told us what they were going to do. SY: Well I think they were modeling. They were teaching you something, yeah. CT: Yeah. SY: That's very interesting so he did manage to do it. So okay do you remember going down there during harvest time? CT: Oh yeah. Sure. SY: Did you help harvest? CT: No. We were always too small. They used women and no. And I think it sort of would have been against the ethic to have the boss's children paddling around in the. But interestingly enough wherever cranberries grow so do blueberries, and we would always pick all the blueberries we could and we'd bring them home and blueberry jam and blueberry pie, and give them to the neighbors and you know stuff like that. We picked blueberries. And if my sister were here she'd tell you a story that I'm not sure. She always says that one time when she was picking blueberries she began to feel really cross because my mother was sort of supervising her and saying, "Don't pick this one we don't want any green ones" [nagging sound] and she looked around and it wasn't my mother it was a bear that was standing by her. But that was the presence she felt was a bear. SY: Oh that's Blueberries for Sal. That's a children's book that I've read, she mixed that up. Blueberries for Sal is a story in Maine of a little boy named Sal picking berries. CT: It's Robert McCloskey isn't it? SY: Yeah, yeah. CT: Isn't that, that's where she got it. SY: That's where she got it. She thought it was her own story! [Laughs] that's hilarious. 11 CT: She probably--you can see as a little kid it just seems so much like the experiences she'd had. What a hoot and a half. SY: That's hilarious. CT: We're not going to let her hear this. Sorry, sorry. SY: You should buy her a copy of Blueberries for Sal and send it to her in the mail [laughs]. CT: Golly isn't that funny. SY: It's one of my favorite children's books it's lovely, yeah [laughs]. CT: Oh I am blushing here. SY: It's so funny. Okay so that's the forties at that point? CT: Yeah and then we went to high school and we worked hard and we had 2 or 3 good teachers, but some hm-hm. Oh Latin, my mother insisted we take Latin because she majored in German in college and she thought Latin was absolutely essential that everybody have lots of Latin. Because it was so good to help you figure out what all the words in other. To this day playing Words with Friends I'll give Pauline a French word and she'll say, "No you know you can't do that." But so we took French and we took lots of Latin in school and we had a French tutor whose name was Madam DeBesey and she was a French refugee of sorts, who made us come to her house and have tea and crackers after school one day a week. And have conversational French. It's so awkward you know, but we both learned a good deal. So that when I actually went to live in France I just turned on my high school years and was able to manage. SY: So your family wasn't part of the military. It doesn't seem like the military was part of your upbringing. CT: Oh, no, no except my father being in the Coast Guard Auxiliary. No, no we didn't know anything. But Russ' family was and when you talk to him he'll tell you about his dad and stuff. SY: And so when you and Russ started dating and seeing each other and it looked like it was going to get serious, you must have realized that you were probably going to be married to a man in the military. And what were your thoughts about that about that life? CT: Oh that's a good question. I don't--certainly in the high school years and in the first few years in college I just thought it was interesting that he was up here at Norwich going to school. I was in Northampton which isn't that far away and used to come up on the train to see him, and it was kind of fun except there were those fraternities. And I'm just too much of a stick in the mud or too, I don't know, I didn't find all this hilarity and all this drinking and stuff. I was just, I was just uncomfortabl,e it just didn't suit me. And so we became friends with several couples literally who were married and we were just 18-19 years old, but who were married and lived a more somber life here in the, you've 12 heard them talk about people who lived in the trailers down where Kreitzberg Library is. And some of these people who were, I was more comfortable with because they were more staid I suppose. And but we used to do things with the fraternity too. Russ had a good time working with them and we came up here, Junior Week was so much fun where they had polo game matches. SY: Can you pause for a second? Because I realizing your chair is making noise. CT: Oh yes I squeak this chair. SY: Let's just switch out the chairs is that possible? CT: Okay, sure. SY: Because I don't want because it's squeaky yeah. CT: I never even noticed it. SY: Yeah I didn't notice it until a little a while ago. Do you want me to move it or you got it? CT: No, no I've got it. Let's try that one. That's a newer one, give it a wiggle first and see. Better? SY: Quieter, way quieter [laughs]. CT: Yeah these are pretty old chairs. Alright good, I'll try not to. SY: Oh don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. I just thought you know why not get a less squeaky chair. Okay alright so you're coming up, so do you remember your first impressions of Norwich? CT: Not really, but one of things I really miss terribly is how beautiful Central Street was. When I came here Central Street was an arch of the most gorgeous trees all over the top and they took down the last of them, the one between the president's house and the next door just this spring. Beautiful trees. It was a very pretty place in the right weather. One of the times I came up here we've got a marvelous picture somewhere of me getting off the train and being met at the station downtown with the, by Russ and our friend Jim Ricker who was in, he also went to high school with us, and he was there too. So Jim came down too and a band from the university to meet the girls getting off the bus, ah, off the train. And I thought that was pretty swift you know. We always, the women in those days dates did not stay in the dorms [laughs] heaven forbid! We stayed with people around town and Russ can tell some funny stories about trying to get dates, places for me to stay because of course his father had gone here and his mother had come up to visit him and these people all remembered his dad because Dad Todd was a terrific dancer and they all thought this was fun to have Tommy Todd's son, you know, now coming to see him. So I got to know a few people who lived in town that way because I stayed at their house. It was fun. I was glad when put do--I was glad when they closed down the 13 fraternities it didn't make sense it and we still know people who fuss at it at with us and Russ just nods his head and said, "What can you do you know, it's how it is." SY: Change tradition, grumble, grumble. CT: Yeah. SY: Yeah. CT: But and you see that was talking about too and I'm talking about the changing tradition how it bothers me in another way when it's something that affected me more such as what goes on in Army life. It's just hard as you get older. It is. SY: It is hard, yeah change is hard. Okay so you would come up and you would stay with people in town? CT: Right. SY: And you would, oh so Junior Week you were talking about Junior Week. CT: Oh yes I had, let's see they had polo matches, which were great fun to watch. They had equestrian fancy riding, what do you call that? Dressage. They had all kinds of basket--not basketball, baseball games and other things that were really fun to do, as well as a dance. But the dances were really big time, they would pay somehow to have very big bands come here - Artie Shaw and all these people. Do you know who the Ink Spots were? Now the Ink Spots, I never saw them, but apparently they did come to Norwich once because as we speak somebody on behalf of the museum is trying to buy a poster that says the Ink Spots are coming to Norwich University. SY: I interviewed a guy two weeks ago, I'm blanking on his name, super nice man lives in town. Northfield, I mean Norwich graduate, who or I don't know if he graduated but he was at Norwich for a couple of years ,and he was in a band that played all the time during that period of time. CT: Oh I'm sure. SY: But I'm sure you know him but I can't remember his name right now. CT: I'm glad to hear you say you have the same trouble because I really can't remember a lot of these people's names. My vision and mentally I can see so many of these people and what fun it was. SY: Ha-Hammond? Hammond is his last name I think. He's in town, yeah but he was he played the saxophone and he played at all of these events on campus. CT: I'm sure. SY: Yeah. CT: I don't think….14 SY: Who knows? CT: I don't know that name. SY: Okay so you're at Smith during this time and what's your vision when you're at Smith of what your future's gonna look like. Are you thinking like when I graduate, were you thinking when I graduate I'm gonna get married, when I graduate…? CT: No I wasn't. Now that's interesting because Russ was always a part of my life from the time I met him. I think in a different way than most people get married so quickly to each other. He was just, I knew so much about him and his mother and his father and his brother and his sister-laws. But I also knew that somehow I needed to do something. I wanted to do something before I got married because in those days once you got married you probably weren't going to have a career. I don't know that I put it in words or said I wanted a career, (oh dear there's the rain) but I did want to, I guess try my skills. I guess maybe that's what I was thinking. So when it was time for me to graduate I majored in sociology with a lot of economics which I wasn't so good at, a lot of French, a lot of English literature. But the best courses I'll just don't mind telling anybody I ever took at Smith or anywhere else were art appreciation my senior year and music appreciation my French year. Those have lasted me so well so well. I oh well that's another whole story but so I always say to people I know going to college, don't just focus on what you might do for a career there's so much more to learn, don't sell yourself short. SY: That's what the liberal arts are about, developing yourself, right? CT: That's right yeah. Oh that art course was fabulous. Well anyway the upshot of all this is, so it's time for me to graduate and my sister however has still got another year. she's two years younger. But she was just a year behind me in school. So she was at Smith too and my father had died so I went into the--we all has appointments with somebody in the administration. Her name was Mrs. Mindel, but I don't know what her title was. And she said, "What are you going to do when you graduate?" I said, "Well I don't know for sure but there's a course at Radcliffe I'd really like to go to, a one year program in business administration. It is essentially the first year of the Harvard Business School which does not accept women as you know. But it's very much the same thing and I just would really love to do that and see if I can get some skills there that I could use." And she said, "Okay, let me think about this." So she called me back and she said, "Here's the deal," she said, "I'm going to call your mother and I'm going to suggest that if she will pay for you to go to this program at Radcliffe, I will give your sister full room and board and tuition for her senior year at Smith." What she was doing was giving me a graduate program. And they did. SY: Wow and I wonder….what an interesting arrangement because she wanted. CT: And my mother was just thrilled. She wanted me to have that opportunity. SY: That's great! 15 CT: It is--I have never heard of anything like it. SY: Me neither. CT: And I said, "really?!" And I know that the course I went to was nowhere, it was nothing dollar wise, I don't know what my mother paid but it was nothing like. But she knew, she knew that I was, that the family was having trouble financially and that we would've, they would have seen that Anne went, she would have finished, we would have found a way. So, "oh great," I said so off I went to be a bridesmaid in 2 or 3 weddings the way you'd often do it after in those days after college. And started in August at this program. Lived in Cambridge on Brattle Street. It was just a wonderful experience, learned how to write a one page memo that told, said everything you wanted to in you know 3 paragraphs. I just learned so much a lot about personnel work a lot about accounting. SY: Were you in classes with the men in the MBA program? CT: Oh no, no, no. We weren't even supposed to talk to them. No, no, no. SY: How did they make that clear to you? They said no talking to them or no interacting? CT: No, one of my classmates eventually, Jan Campbell eventually married the guy she met there, no. It was just. We were on the Radcliffe campus which was on Garden Street, do you know that area on Garden Street? And I lived at 69 Brattle Street and we had, we fixed our own breakfast, had lunch at the dining facility that was on campus, and then took turns fixing dinner. There were 9 of us that lived - I can make something for 9 in a flash - that lived in this house. And then the rest of the students who did not live in this house of which there were another maybe 10 or 12 lived at home or boarded somewhere else. But they were people that, I was the only person, there were two of us from Massachusetts. Everybody else was from another state. There were woman who were old as 30 [chuckles] old ladies. There were people who had majored in all kinds of different things, and the jobs they went onto afterwards were fabulous. One of my classmates had a seat on Wall Street. She was fabulous, Marilyn whatever her name was. And people worked for Bergdorf Gord-Goodman, Bergdorf Goodman as a buyer. Ah Jane, became the alumni, alumni director of Radcliffe before it amalgamated with Harvard. Interesting people. And it was a fabulous year. We had classes for a while then we had the first internship program, and I was sent to a--if I say Raytheon it was, it may have been Raytheon factory where I assembled the starters in the ends of a fluorescent tube. Did you even know there was one there? [laughs] Ah I am not dexterous. I never was dexterous and I tell you my experience on an assembly line where dexterity counted was so interesting. Because I didn't, I was not the star, I was the one that was holding them back. I was the bum. I was the rich girl from the college who was interfering, and the task was to win over my place in this --you know. Nobody said this, but that was the idea, to see what I could do in a situation like this. And it turned--and in the midst of this Russ has graduated from college and gone into the Army, and in the midst of this he came home to say good-bye to everybody when he went to Korea. And those were pretty bad scary days 16 so it was kind of a tough month in lots of ways. So he went off and I finished the st--this job and then went back and had some more classes and then in the spring this whole bunch of us got sent down to New York City where I worked for B. Altman which is, you remember which was a big. I had wonderful time doing that. I worked in their personnel office interviewing employees who had grievances and all kinds of things like this. It was very interesting. SY: And so you were living in New York on your own? CT: Well we, but we all had to live in a female hotel. Did you even know there was such thing? On 34th Street. And we lived there, just for a month. We were just there for a month and then we came back and had some more classes and finished up, I suppose in June. Meanwhile the recruiters are coming out and looking to recruit some of us and I got a job offer to be a personnel assistant at Mill Parr Incorporated which was an electronics research firm in Alexandria, Virginia. Well I knew what research was. But electronic research was really, I had no idea what they were talking about. It was such an experience. So I moved down to Virginia because I had a good friend who lived there and I could stay with Betty. And eventually worked there until Russ came home from Korea and we were married not too long afterwards. But it was a wonderful experience. SY: Do you want to get some water? CT: Yeah I think I'll just have sip here. SY: So do you remember -- did you see him off before he went for Korea? Do you remember, did you talk about if he didn't come back? Like what were the conversations? CT: Oh no, nope, no. He took me out to dinner at a local hotel, Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, which is nice hotel. And we had gone a lot of times I guess, well I don't know. But I just remember that we sat there and looked at each other and no we didn't. And I think we both knew that it was a go but we just had to wait. And I had told him before and he had asked me a million times to marry him and I said, "no, no, I got things to do, I got things to do." And I said, "I've done some things, you know, I'm good." I just had to fulfill that part of me I guess is what it comes down to and talking to you about it helps me clarify for myself what I was doing. I was just needing to know who I was, I could do things, I could succeed, not only academically but I could succeed when you put that thing to work. If not in the eyes of everybody but for myself I knew that I was good to go, you know, I could do things. SY: Yeah you had to live on your own in the world for a little while. CT: Yeah, and my mother who interestingly enough had gone down to Smith too and graduated in 20-in 1913. She was determined that both my sister and I would have that background, you know, that we'd be able to be on ourselves if we needed to be that we could be strong women, yeah. SY: Yeah it's important to know.17 CT: Yeah. SY: You never gonna know what's gonna happen in life and she'd certainly had enough upsets in her life to know that you needed to be able to make it on your own. Um, I had a question that I just lost. Okay so you're living in Alexandria by yourself, are you guys engaged at that point? CT: Nope. Nope. Russ called me from Kor--no not from Korea from Japan. They had R&R in Japan and he called me up and said he would be home on the (I don't know--I've forgotten it was January something) I said great and he said, "Well would you come to New York and meet me?" His parents by then had moved and were living in Scarsdale, New York. And he said, "Come, you know, spend the weekend at the folks." I said, "I will and let me know when," and he said, "I will." And we just talked a little bit. And said, well that's what happened. I guess we were past having to really verbalize a lot you know? We knew what we were doing. We just had, I had to grow up, time had to pass. People would say, "How could you date somebody for so long?" and I said, "Well we didn't date exclusively," We--oh he used to date a friend of mine, not a friend, a woman I knew that I couldn't stand, and I swear he dated her just to make me mad, you know. It was alright. and I dated this guy Jim Ricker a couple of times and he was practically engaged to somebody else. It didn't matter. It was something else. And I dated some guys from MIT who were a funny bunch. We just needed to have some experiences before we settled down is what it comes to. SY: But it sounds like you also knew that that was eventually where you were going. CT: Yeah. SY: Yeah. Oh this is what I was going to ask. In his oral history interview he talks about how he was kind of messing up and not doing so well in school at first and how you were like "you get it together, or we're done." Is that true? CT: Yeah it's true. Let's see when that was. I don't know exactly but it was in the summertime and I was staying at my grandmother's house which because they had what they called a maid's room upstairs. They used to have, they used to have full time help of course nobody did then. A wonderful bathtub with claw feet you know. But anyway so I was staying there. So he came down and we went out to play tennis one afternoon and we were hitting balls around and I finally said to him, "You know if you don't settle down and get some good grades and make some sense out of going to college," I said, "I just am not going to marry a loser. This is just ridiculous, you know you've just got to." And he just [sounds of bickering] and he was furious. He was mad and I was mad and he went home. He went back to New Hampshire or wherever he came from and then after that he's always done well academically. Because he just, he was acting like Maggie like our granddaughter I told you about. He was just having "such a good time." SY: At those fraternities? CT: Yeah. And in the military part of it. He really liked that, you know. 18 SY: Yeah. So okay, so you've been working on your own, right? You get married and suddenly your whole life changes. So what's your new life like? How do you learn what you're supposed to be doing? What the expectations are being married to him? What's his rank at that point? CT: Second lieutenant. SY: Second lieutenant, okay. CT: Or maybe first, he may have been a first lieutenant by the time we've, yeah he was. He'd gotten promoted in Korea. See he was over there during the worst of Korea and he…. SY: And did you know what was going on with him over there? CT: He wrote letters all the time. SY: And were they honest? CT: No, no not really, no. Just as well. He had a classmate that was killed you know? Somebody from Norwich, Pete DiMartino, maybe his name was. Be sure to ask him to tell you sometime because we should remember that. No not really. I just trusted him. I wasn't, he's been in a lot of bad scrapes and I never really have worried about him. I just trust him to know what to do. He has more common sense than most people I know, and he wouldn't try to second guess something, he'd do what was right. And he'd rather do what's right and fail and do what's wrong, you know. And he had a strong sense of doing the right thing and he did. Has he told you about how he won a Silver Star? SY: No. I haven't but I haven't interviewed him yet, so I've read other people's interviews. CT: But do make, be sure that he does tell you that. Because he never tells people. He won a Silver Star in Korea at a very young man. SY: So okay, so you're, where do you get married? CT: Oh where'd we get married? We got married in Beverly at home. At the church around the corner where I grew up. And some of these same people that I told you I had known in kindergarten were bridesmaids, plus Russ's sister who's a bit younger, then my sister too. It was really nice, it was the kind of wedding people had then where we had the wedding at the church and then walked back to the house and had a reception in the backyard with beautiful garden that we discovered florists will help you make if your garden isn't looking so well and you want to have a party. You call the florist and they bring in big pots of things and dig them in. Most gorgeous garden you ever saw. It was all gone the next day or the day after they just dug. It was fabulous and yeah, we had a good time. We went on a honeymoon down to Cape Cod where some other cousins had a cottage at the beach at a tow--place that's now called New Seabury but I know it's near Barnstable I think. But anyway we went there and had a nice time. And then we drove 19 out to Fort Knox and I'll tell you that summer I had been hot in my life but nothing like that humidity, you know? I thought this place is the pits. One of the wedding presents, he'd love to tell you this story. One of the wedding presents we got was a hand mixer, but it was so hot in that house he said, "I'm going to take the hand mixer and I'm gonna make us a window fan." I said, "Russ you cannot make a window fan out of a hand mixer," and you said, "You watch me." I don't know what he did. It had do with baking pans and ice cubes and the motor from this poor little hand mixer which can turn two little beaters. Well we laughed so hard we almost died laughing. But it helped not at all, but he had a great time thinking he could fix it for me you know. SY: Taking care of you that way. It's very sweet [laughs]. CT: I have learned to say when he tells me about a new invention, "ah I don't think so." [both laugh] He's usually right. He fixed something yesterday. He's a good fixer. It has to do with being so practical and having such good common sense. I don't ever fix anything I just "oh look it's broken," you know. SY: So what did you do during the day because he was working on the base? What were you doing? CT: What did I do? SY: During that time….? CT: Gosh I don't know. We lived next door. Well one of the fun things we lived next door to young George Patton and his wife Joanne who we have been so fond of all these years. And well that's one of the things I did now come to think of it. Joanne had gone to fancy place for her honeymoon, so I think that is not a good thing to do. She'd gone I think they had gone I think to Bermuda. I think they'd gone to Bermuda and she had gotten rheumatic fever. I think that's it. I think it was Bermuda but I may be wrong but I think so. And so she had to go to the hospital because she was really sick. Well the hospital was not air conditioned naturally. So one of the things that her husband George who had no common sense you may know, he decided that we would provide her with cold drinks and it would be nice if I could help with this. I said sure. So he had a pitcher and I, we still have one like this, a pitcher that has an insert so you put ice cubes in the middle and then you. So about every so often I had to run over and change her ice cubes [laughs] but I was glad to do that. I really liked her and I still do. She was a good, she's almost 3 years younger than we are, maybe more. She'd just graduated from college when they were married. Oh so many funny stories about them. Gosh, well anyway we had a good time. I also had this friend, this Jane Nutting that I mentioned before, who I'd known from before and she was my friend. And there was a girl named Ann something lived across the street who was pregnant and that was kind of fun watching her because we were all pregnant because that's what you did then. SY: So you were pregnant? 20 CT: I was pregnant right away. Char—Tom was born in April, so. But I didn't feel sick or I didn't have any problems for a while, all through the summer. And then I came down with something that I still have because it's a really funny disease. It's called erythema nodosum which you may never heard of because most of the doctors I've run into also say they never heard of it. But it's an allergic reaction to catching a cold in the spring or the fall. In that first fall I caught a cold and then my legs, and I didn't have it as much in my arms as on my legs would break out in huge areas of black and blue. And every time a new area popped out my temperature would rise and I would look like I was sick. Well I wasn't sick it was just until that black and blue got established. Then my temperature went down and I went on my merry way. But because I was pregnant they were sure something dreadful was wrong with me. Well it wasn't and somebody finally must have checked in the medical dictionaries and found out what this was, and decided not to worry about me because I had it then and I've probably over the years had it 5 or 6 times. Which is in the spring and in the fall if I get a cold I make every effort to get rid of it right away because I don't want to go into the next stage. And I haven't had one now for a long long time. But that was that was part of it and so the first Christmas that we were married Russ's sister Jane, who was young, a bit younger, was teaching school in New York state somewhere and she said, "I think I'll come down and spend Christmas with you so you won't be so lonely." Wonderful. So she came and flew down to Kentucky and we got her a date with a British foreign officer who was there attending a class, who fell head over hands in love with Jane. Jane was appalled really his name was Anthony, "really," she said. He kept saying to her, "Oh I want to take you back to England with me. You'll love my mom." My mom, and her woollies and her tea and I don't know, Jane was, she kept saying, "I'll stay until Christmas, but I got to go home." We had parties, lots and lots of parties in those days in the neighborhood next door and parties were just people getting together and bringing your own beer, you know, and maybe somebody would get some crackers and cheese out but no big deals. And then the units would have parties and you'd get invited to the post to a party. Meanwhile Russ has gotten to be the aide-de-camp to the commanding general, partially because George Patton's mother, Mrs. Patton - darling, darling lady - had come to visit. And one of the funniest memories I have of that early summer, Joanne's in the hospital with rheumatic fever. I'm running around trying to take Mrs. Patton to where she wants to go. She doesn't have a car. So every time she needs to go somewhere, "Oh Carol would you mind running me?" "No, I'd be glad." So one day she came over to our house and she said, "I am just too exhausted, so can I just sit in here and visit with you?" I said, "Certainly, Mrs. Patton." Well my mother and aunt had given me an old two-seater couch that must have belonged to I don't know who, whose springs had long since lost their elasticity. She was a little tiny lady, she sat down and disappeared. So that she was sitting with her knees up around her -- you know how people do it? I thought, "Oh this is so bad!" Well I said, "wouldn't you like to sit," I had one decent chair, "Wouldn't you like to sit here in my wing chair would you like to sit here? I would be so happy to you know." "Oh, no, no, this is fine." So she sat there until Russ came home from work for lunch. Because they came home for lunch and he said, "Oh hi Mrs. Patton, what are you 21 doing in the hole there? Can I help you up?" "No, I'm fine." So she said, "What's up with you?" and he said, "Well they just they asked me if I want to be aid to a General Collier." And she said, "Oh good idea, aren't you excited about." And he said, "I don't know if I should be doing that or not." And she said, "You should, you should, it's a good thing to do." She said, "Go upstairs and put on a clean uniform while Carol gets your lunch on, I'm going home now and you just be your natural self. You'll get chosen." Well of course that's exactly what happened and he did it for the next year or so. But I'll never forget her sitting there in that yellow couch with her knees, oh how I felt bad. But she was always friends with us ever since, and when Tom was born she sent him a lovely baby present. And well then she went home and Joanne Patton's mother came who also is a general officer's wife but instead of being the kind you'd put in your broken couch. She was Mrs. Holbrook and she was a bit fancier. By then I'd caught on, you see, and I managed to keep her sitting in the good chair. But she used to come over all the time and it was the same sort of thing. She'd come over and say, "I do need to run down to the PX," or "My friend Peggy so and so is having a coffee would you mind dropping me off?" well it was lucky that Russ - I don't know how I got the car, Russ must have gone in with a friend knowing that I needed to, because we lived about 2 miles from where the guys were working. Oh it was a hoot but that was one of the things I did that summer and that maybe is how I learned about the community you know come to think of it. This is such a good experience for me too, I'm thinking about these things that are more critical. Maybe that's how I learn this is what you do when people need you, you fill in and do what you need. And it's fun as long as you, I didn't have anything else to do you know. That was good and I wore all my, I can remember wearing one of the dresses I had from my trousseau, a really pink really nice beautiful cotton dress and I decided to put it on one day because we were going to drop off Mrs. Holbrook I guess at an event. She was going to a coffee and could I come back at x hours let's say 11:30 to take her home again. Okay. Don't--nobody says would you like to come in, or I'd like to introduce you to my friend, no no. So I come back at the appropriate hour and I park where she told me to park and I wait and I wait and I wait. By and by all the ladies come out, the coffee it's over, and they're leaving and getting into their cars and she walks across the street and interestingly enough her hostess--oh I can see her now--she walked with her. They came over to the car and Mrs. Holbrook jumps in but her hostess says, "Oh Carol," she said, "You're so kind to take," what's her name home and all this. I said, "I'm very glad to do that," and she said, "And what does your husband do in the Army? And what does your husband do in the Army my dear?" And my dear cleverly remembered and I said, "Well he's working as an assistant instructor at the Armored School," or whatever it was. And she said, "Oh that is so interesting. My husband works for the same Armored School." Course he was the commander, you know, and she said, "I was hoping he has a wonderful time with…" She was so gracious as compared to what the other side was doing. I thought even then I thought "ha ha this is what makes a difference" you know. She was so gracious and she was so sweet to me when she had no reason to be, you know?22 SY: And do you think she said something to her husband too? Do you think like your relationships with women and other wives in some ways helped your husband's career? Is that the way it worked? CT: If so I don't know. I don't know, maybe, maybe, but I don't know. SY: If you'd been rude it might have hindered his career? CT: Well that's right. "Oh boy he married a dud," yeah. And in a way, in a way it was interesting because most of the lieutenant's wives were college graduates. Most were. I'm trying to think of anybody who wasn't. Either that or heiresses, a couple of them were really very wealthy ladies who whenever they had a party served champagne, yeah champagne this is [inaudible]. But that's right but that marriage didn't last either that's interesting. She's the only person I ever knew who got infected by dropping a pickle, a pickle fork that she was polishing on her foot when she had no shoes on. It went [makes dropping sound] and she didn't pay any attent--I thought now that is a odd thing to happen to somebody. SY: That's a strange injury. CT: But I haven't forgotten it have I? SY: And you're careful with your pickle forks I bet. CT: Never polish a pickle fork is the answer. SY: Clearly. Alright note to self. CT: If you could even find one. SY: Yeah I was just gonna say. CT: Yeah, long time ago. This is way back in the 19, early 1950s and the Army was a different game than it is now. It was a different game. It was, it was always good that Russ had graduated from Norwich. Always, it always was even so long ago. And now it's really, but when Russ got to be a general officer he was the first one in years and years and President Hart was so thrilled because they hadn't had anybody promoted in a long time. SY: Yeah. Okay so then where do you go next? I mean we don't need to go through every one of your placements. CT: Oh I can't. SY: But I guess where were the places you liked best? And what were the places you liked least? CT: And people ask me that too and I can't help but say the same thing that has sort of been my whole life. I seem to be pretty adjustable or limp I don't know which it is. But wherever I am at the time for the most part I'm fine, I'm just fine. Ah we had a really bad 23 experience - our Tom was born as I said the next April, cute little guy and he was fine and life went along until the spring when he was (in January he would have been what 8 or 9 months old) and he was learning to crawl. And I was in the kitchen, I don't know, just fixing something for dinner. Russ was reading the newspaper, watching the baby, and the baby crawled across the floor. We didn't even know he could crawl this much you know, we just had plunked him down. He crawled across the floor and I had started a coffee pot. We used to call them a Silex pot, they had [oops] two sort of bulbs, the water went "brrrp" went up into the top and then dripped down. And I had started a pot of coffee for our dinner and he heard this noise I'm sure, crawled across thought: "Hmm what is this?" and saw the cord hanging down, you know, like this. Put his hand on the cord and it broke open on the back of his neck. Ah we picked him up rushed him to the hospital and they had moved the emergency room the week before or something. Of course we didn't, who pays attention to stuff like, so we got to the hos--we got to the right place and the person, the doctor on duty was a dentist. Nicest man you'd want to know but he was no surgeon and he said, "I'm going to I'm going to have to cut off this beautiful handmade sweater this child has got on." I said, "Why not, oh yes." He said, "I'll ruin the sweater." I said, "Ruin the sweater," you know. He was in the hospital -- it was January 13. He was in the hospital in the hospital for about--his birthday, probably until the first of April. Had numerous, not transfusions, but trans--what do they call it? When they take your skin from one place put it….? SY: Transplants CT: Transplants, numerous transplants. He was just a baby. They had never worked on baby before at Fort Knox. The doctor was terrific, the surgeon, he got on the telephone with the same burn center I told you about before where Steven was in San Antonio. This is 50 years before and tells, says, "Okay, when you go to do the transplant you get on the phone with me. I'll take you through it step by step and you can do this, you can do this." And if you just see my son right now without a shirt on all you'd see is a ring around his back like this where they hooked on the transplant. Everything took and he's fine. He's never had a minute's problem with his, they took all the skin off his chest and put it on his back. They took it all off his thigh and put it on his arm. This arm unfortunately after he'd been, it turned out alright, but after he'd been in there awhile all bandaged up with catheter tubes running though it to keep his wounds soaking wet so they could work on him. They said to me, "Say Mrs. Todd. Funny little thing on your son's arm," he said, "What is that?" I said, "I don't know," "What do you mean what do you mean what is it?" he said, "It's looks as though he might have had a vac" I said, "Oh yes he had his vaccination done just before this happened." And they said, "Well you are the luckiest people in the world because it has festered and scabbed over, and all this water running through it has not opened the scab. If it was he'd have generalized vaccinia all over his whole body." But he didn't, he didn't, worked out fine. He barely has a tiny little mark there now. He's a great big 60 year old man with, you would never know. It was just if and they were so good to us and we stayed in a private room in that hospital at Fort Knox with him. One of us was with him all the time except when people began to say "We can 24 stay with him. We can keep him happy." He was-he is a very good natured person. He still is, he's very patient and even as a baby he would just lie there and look at, you know, we had a thing what do you call it, twirly thing over his head so he could…. SY: A mobile… CT: Mobile, yeah and he had a music box that he loved. I bet I used to wind that thing endlessly and as long as there was a little music going he'd be quiet. SY: You must have been beside yourself though with worry? CT: We were, we were, yeah. But people were very supportive. He was working for General Collier and Mrs. Collier used to come and babysit him. She said, "I'll stay with him. Go get your haircut or something. Run around the block. Get some fresh air. Do something." It was a long winter. And yeah, yeah. And then he came home from the hospital. He could not sit up he could not stand up of course. SY: Oh because he missed all those developmental milestones? CT: Within 2 weeks he was not only sitting up he was pulling up and he was walking in a month and he was, he just made it all up in no time at all. It was amazing. SY: And I assume, I mean he was so young he doesn't have any memories of that time? CT: None. SY: Okay. CT: The only thing he remembers is the last doctor we saw during this said to us, "When he is," I think 12 was the age, I remember 12, "I want you to take him to a plastic surgeon and have them check out these sites and there may be a place where they'll feel it needs to be repaired." They said, "We can't guarantee this will last him his lifetime." But he said, "Take him and the guy they'll know." So we were living in Germany at the time and we took him to a, wherever this was, Stuttgart to the hospital where the surgeon was, and explained the story to him. And he said, "Okay. Okay little guy come on over here. Can you climb on my lap? Sure." He loved to climb up into your lap and they played and talked and you know made his arms and legs go and he said, "If I throw a ball down the hall, will you run and get it?" he said, "Sure," so they threw it down the hall and he ran down. He was not that old, he was near 6 because he was still, and he ran down the hall picked up the ball and came back and the guy said, "Everything he's got, every muscle moves the way it's supposed to. He's fine," He said, "There's no indication to do anything." He said, "if the time comes when he gets psychotic about it, and hates the fact." He hasn't looked at his back, how often do you look at your back? Like never. He has no more and his legs and place and his chest they grew back, it all grew back. He's fine. Isn't that funny? It's wonderful. We used to say to each other that if we ever had to pay for this in a private hospital Russ would have had to get out of the Army and get a big paying job or something because the bills must have been huge. 25 SY: But they took care, it was all taken care of? CT: It was 7 dollars a week to keep him in the hospital because you had to pay for the food. Well he ate 2 jars of chopped liver, I don't know what it was they were eating you know. We were worried. On the other hand, you know I think it had gone past, we couldn't worry anymore and we had to have faith that they were gonna and I think having a good attitude helps in all these things. SY: You don't have time to be filled with anxiety. You just have to do it. CT: No, no, that's right. SY: Yeah. CT: And and neither of the girls ever had anything serious so we were fortunate, yeah. SY: Now, Phyllis Greenway has some crazy stories of you know of her husband you know her being I don't remember where they were maybe it was Fort Knox and her husband being assigned to Hawaii and her having to fly across the country with all of her stuff and the baby and do all this stuff by herself. Did you have experiences like that of just sort of having to manage these moves alone? CT: Oh yeah lots. Yeah. The first move overseas Russ had gone in the fall and I went in probably in mid-December and took Tom. He was, let's see. Yeah and he was fine by then. This was, but he had the cutest little red snowsuit with a little head and we, he and I went down to Fort Hamilton which is Staten Island maybe, and went out with a group of Army wives in a chartered flight. But we swear that the pilot had a date in Paris because we flew to Paris and they put the plane down and it was 6 or 8 hours before he came back. And we thought, "Just a minute, just a minute, we need to go Heidelberg, get over here!" and then we flew on to Frankfurt or wherever it was, yeah. But yeah and then lots of times when we moved I moved I would be -- they seemed to have a way of finding they have to be somewhere else when the. But the one thing I insisted on was that somebody else was gonna do something else with the equipment like the TV and anything else that had a cord that I didn't know how to wind up and put an elastic around sort of thing. I said, "If you can't do it, you got to get one of your buddies to come and help me. I'm just not gonna fool with this stuff." And it got more and more complicated as the older we. And the last person who ever was the one who got tapped to come and do that was John Greenway. When he was Russ's deputy he came and organized all my stuff when it was, when we were moving from Fort Hood to Georgia I guess to Fort MacPherson, yeah. SY: That's funny you guys have known each other for a long time. CT: Oh yeah we knew them well before that. Phyllis is a wonderful cook. I hope you've talked to her about that. SY: I have actually. And she's made motions about having me over to dinner. So I should remind her of that. And she has all that beautiful French cookware too [laughs].26 CT: She does and she's a good cook. SY: I believe that we talked about cooking a little. I'm trying to think because there's this, you know there's so much to talk about here and I don't want to skip over important milestones but we should also probably get to Norwich huh? CT: I think so. Well time passes [both laugh] and um let's see…. SY: Oh well let's talk about volunteering. So you begin to take on this sort of professionalized volunteer role it seems like the Army started to recognize that what you were doing was critical. So could you talk about that? CT: That's absolutely true and I'm trying to think where we were. I think it was those years we lived in France, '63 to '66. We lived oh goodness this is so--I'm gonna have to write a book. So it was such an interesting thing. We lived on the French economy. Fortunately my lessons came swirling back standing me in good stead because our youngest Ellen went to French school, the words I didn't know she probably did which was handy. But we had, we lived in a really nice house. Odd situation but it was nice and you could walk to the over to post. And during those years there were lots of young enlisted people who lived in very difficult places. They didn't speak French, they didn't know the people, and the Army Community Services began to be formed to offer assistance. You had to come on post but there were buses that ran around the community that brought people and we taught things like how to run a, do a checkbook. We taught people very basic things - here's where to find out how to buy food, you know the things that you want, here are the words in French. If you can't get to the commissary and you do go to a, here are the things in a French grocery store that you can buy that are gonna be almost exactly like you'd buy at home if you buy this, you know. It's just very very basic things but even before that, even before I had Tom I had developed somehow a reputation of being somebody who could give talks to other groups of women about really simple stuff. And it started out being with Army etiquette. That was way back when, way way back before I had any children, that first year because I knew one of the colonel's wives. I don't know how well I knew Betty Chandler or how I knew her but I did know her and she said, "Well you know could you do this?" So I started giving these talks which has led me to feeling more comfortable addressing groups of people. Particularly if it's about something I know something about. Tough when you don't, but you can usually fake it some [laughs] and then call on so and so to fill in the gaps or something. But that's really how I started doing this and then time passes and I'm always volunteering to do something. Some things I loved doing, some things I was terrible at. I really really was not good at working in a hospital. I have to go to the hospital you have to make me well if I'm sick. I will be nice to, you know, but I don't want to be there. I really did not like being a Gray Lady but that's what they used to call them Gray Ladies. For one thing you had to wear these awful gray dresses. They were made of heavy, heavy cotton and every time you went it had to be starched and cleaned. Well I couldn't afford sending mine to the cleaners so the day before I went I'd spend, you know, starching and ironing this thing. Well the whole thing was absurd so that I decided that was no good. 27 But I could do things like teach somebody how to balance a checkbook. I could talk to people about the basics of baby care and this sort of thing, and so I was glad to do it. But I began to realize as many, many senior people did the longer you're in this game how great the need is help other people use volunteers well. And how important it is that volunteers be used with compassion and common sense so that the gift that they're giving you of their time and talents and everything else are maximized for their benefit and yours. Because when you go and do something as a volunteer for somebody and come home feeling disappointed or abused it's no good. It doesn't have to be that way and that's how I got into this volunteer administration role which eventually is what became the sort of the climax of my time doing this. I worked in thrift shops, I worked every sort of thing, organized all kinds of events in this sort of thing but the best thing I really think I did was begin to show them how important it was that the people who manage and lead volunteer programs have an understanding of some of the basics. Such as a volunteer needs to have a job description. A what? I said a job description. You don't need it be very long, it does not have to be complicated, but if you ask someone to do a task you have to know what the parameters of this job are. Ah amazing! Ah and because of this I wound up going with Joanne Patton as it turned out to Colorado to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and that's a wonderful place, to go through a summer program and I did it twice with her about how to help people become good volunteer managers. And that woman's name was Marlene Wilson and she wrote the first book ever for volunteer managers - and I think I've still got my tattered copy in there - in about 1980. And so it really was during the time that we were here that I began to do more and more of that. And I think that may be one of the contributions I made was generally to people I ran into I kept trying to say, "Let's get this straight. Exactly what are they supposed to do? How are you going to thank them down the road? Is there a chance that they could be the boss of this? They could be the team leader? Or no." Those things need to be thought through and you need to put the whole task in language that everybody feels comfortable with. SY: Yeah what was the assignment that the chief of staff gave you in Europe? CT: [chuckles] Well that's right. That was the last time, that was in late '70s before we came here in '82. They began to realize how important this sort of thing was, so they asked me to take this assignment to, on behalf of the Army, to go around the various places where Americans were stationed and talk about this with the commander and the commander's wife and anybody else would listen, and some of the volunteers to be sure people were having a good experience volunteering. And I wrote a quarterly newsletter for them about what was going in Bad--what's her name over here in Frankfurt or Heidelberg just sort of encourage people and just say we were all in this together and we're trying to make life better for all of us here as volunteers and it's worth it to do it. And you met with various levels of success but it was worth doing, it really was. SY: And did you also see gaps in the kind of Army infrastructure? CT: Oh yeah. 28 SY: Yeah, yeah, what did you notice? What did you? CT: I noticed that there would be places where the commander and his wife could care less about the situation. And perhaps there were needs for transportation for one thing, so that people who lived what we called on the economy, lived out in the community, could not easily get -- if the husband went off to a duty somewhere else or on the "into the field" as we used to say to do exercises, the wife would be stuck out in the. So we used to talk about setting up transportation networks, you know, could Mrs. X contact Mrs. Y and they could work out something together or not. Or do we need to work on finding some way that a bus goes around talks to people, yeah. That was one of them. But mostly there was a tremendous, very, very nice response to my interest. And because I was doing it sort of with a little bit of authori--I didn't mean authority, but people knew that they were supposed to listen. And I enjoyed doing that. And that made it very easy for me to move into the role that I had here because it's the same thing, or least it was the same thing. SY: And that's actually a question, how do you think you -- I mean the first lady of Norwich, the president's wife, that role of being sort of the president's wife - how did you conceptualize it? And how do you think you conceptualized it differently than the women who'd come before you? CT: I knew Marilyn Hart and we must talk about this again before we go further. I knew Marilyn Hart because they used to come and visit us a good deal. Wherever we were there would be Norwich events and often, I don't know often but enough that I felt like I really knew her. You know she's a really nice lady had 2 kids, got a son Matthew and a daughter whose name is I've forgotten I'm sorry to say. But and we would talk and visit I would take her on functions and things like that. And I knew darn well that I never could never fill the same function that she did. She had been a faculty wife. She had worked with him all the years helping him do things. I'm sure she corrected papers. I'm sure she did everything. She was really smart. But she had a fabulous memory a fabulous memory. I admired that so much. She would -- the receiving line he would be first and she would be second and any number of people, they could be students, they could be people from the State Department would come through, she would know who they were just from seeing them. And she would say to him, "Joe Smith, English class of '64, '64, he shoveled snow for you one time." And he would say, "Joe, remember the time you came and shoveled snow?" I could never do that. That wasn't, I couldn't do that. On the other hand she wasn't comfortable organizing a luncheon or saying, "I think we should do something or support." There was a woman here whose husband was the athletic director her name was Jen, his name was Wally Baines, her name was Jen Baines. And Jen wanted to have a faculty picnic twice a year. "Good. Let's do it." The Harts had the role in this, not of encouraging them and seeing people came and this sort of thing, but of sitting at the door with a checklist seeing who showed and who didn't show up. Well no matter what anybody thinks, no matter how much you might [inaudible] you gotta remember who showed and who didn't show up. It set things off in a bad note. So we29 said well we won't, we don't need to do that. So I'd say to Jen, "How many people you think are going to be there?" "Eighty-four." I said, "Eighty-four? Wow that's great. Just about everybody." I said, "Is everybody who might like to come, do they know about it?" She said, "Well I don't know about the people in physics." I said, "Well what should we ought to do?" I said. She'd say, "Well I ought to." "Or maybe you ought to call up somebody." I said, "I'll be glad to call up somebody just to be sure they know." That's nothing. That doesn't hurt anybody's feelings. I think I spent a lot of time sort of trying not to hurt people's feelings. SY: And easing things over, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah so that was a big part of your job, right? CT: Yeah it was, yeah. I'll tell you something else Marilyn Hart did which I think was amazing. She addressed a Christmas card to everybody on the University's list. I think there were 800 names on that list, not only people who worked here but people in town, people in Burlington. And the first year when they came to me at Christmastime and they said, "Here's your list," I said, "Give me a break here, what do you mean?" And they said, "No this is the job of the president's wife to address the Christmas cards." I said, "Then there won't be any this year. You don't want me doing it believe me you don't." They said, "Whose going to do it" and I said, "Don't ask me, I don't know. You'll have to figure it out." Since then somebody on the staff has just had to start addressing about in September. But you can do that, you know? You can address the envelopes anytime. SY: Yeah but that, you weren't, that wasn't the way you wanted to spend your time. CT: Oh I wasn't--I wouldn't even consider it yeah. SY: So talk about the role you did end up playing. The Peace Corps was pretty critical huh? CT: I wound up working almost working full time in lots of ways as a volunteer, because I was always a volunteer. It's what I did. SY: Though by the end you were getting paid, right? CT: Pardon me? SY: You were getting paid by the end, right? CT: Yeah, in a way. In a way. My hus--did I tell you? explain this to you? Yeah about how Russ took part of his salary and had it given to me instead. SY: So it was symbolic, but it seems important. CT: Well it, by that time it was to me, really, yeah. And I don't know how much the university knows about that. I, I don't care if they do or not. SY: It's the same money going to the same family I don't think it matters, but. 30 CT: Well it did because it helped my social security contributions. But not enough to do any difference. That was okay I was glad to--the whole business about the Peace Corps Prep Program started because I was very active in this Association for Volunteer Administration which was a national organization. Ah really a…a busy, a small organization, but a good organization for people who are in the same area, who are interested in making volunteerism not effective, effective is a good word for it is. And it was before we had national volunteering, before, it was when the Peace Corps was getting going, it was well before AmeriCorps and all this business was started. And these women met once a year and I eventually became the vice, one of the vice presidents for this and served on lots of committees I think because I come across as being efficient, reasonably efficient. And Chris Frankland who was the president asked me to fill out, fill in a second national role and I did that. And I really liked doing it, I liked the people I worked with. It isn't, the organization is now defunct. They made a big mistake in hiring an executive director that they didn't vet appropriately. The man wiped them out every single cent and disappeared and they never, they never could get going again. They had lost all their assets. SY: It's like Mr. Barry. CT: It is! it is! It's the same idea! It is the same idea! Oh my goodness, aren't you smart. I never thought of that. Ah yeah it is. Well anyway, but anyway so that's now defunct. But anyway, still I had these ideas that I should do this. But during the time that I was active in this association we had a national conference as we did each year, and I went and I honestly do not know whether it was in Buffalo or somewhere. But anyway someplace I'd never been and we were having a big luncheon and I was sitted, seated, next to one of the women who was to be a speaker whose name was Loret Miller Ruppe. And Loret Miller Ruppe was the head of the Peace Corps at that time and we were just [chatting sounds] you know just chit chatting, lady talk. And the speaker for the luncheon got up to speak and it was Father, Father Theodore Hesburgh who was the president of Notre Dame. And he essentially said he thought it was high time that higher education took on the role of training students to do volunteer work in the same way they chose to train young men and women to be part of the national service, part of the Army, Navy, Air Force, etcetera. And he said, it is just as much of a need for people to be trained to be good volunteers to head up volunteer organizations. I wish I had a copy of his speech, I never did, but that's essent--I listened to him I thought, "Oh my socks." Russ and I had talked about this ever and ever so many times since when he'd become president that one of roles he saw needed to be fulfilled, somebody needed to do something about the fact that the students who were not in the Corps, most of them at Vermont College in those days when we still owned Vermont but some of them down here in Northfield were not having the same opportunity to become leaders as the people in the Corps were. They were not being given that opportunity to do something beyond themselves, to stretch, to learn the outside world. And he said, he said "I don't know," he said, "I just don't know how to do that." And I said, "Well I don't know how do that either." 31 But when he, Father Hesburgh did, I thought, "I know how to do this. I've got this idea." And I turned to Loret Miller Ruppe and I said, "Ma'am I think Norwich could do that." She said, "Carol, Norwich would be a perfect place to do it. Do you think you can?" and I said, "I'll ask," and I said, "Please don't say anything and I'll go and call and see." So I called Russ, got him out of a meeting and I said, "Don't say anything just listen," and I said, "I need to tell Mrs. Ruppe if we're gonna try." And he said, "We will." He said, "I'll find a way, we will." Well it must have been just before a board meeting because the next time the board met they said, "If you want to try it, go ahead." Meanwhile back at Norwich we have somebody who's a vice president named Peter Smith. Do you know Peter? Who he is? He had run for Congress from Vermont. Well there's more to it than that but anyway and been defeated. No, wrong, he had become a congressman. He, I'm not sure about his career. He had either been in--no he hadn't been in Congress at that point, he had been the lieutenant governor of Vermont. And he had written a Ph.D. thesis on Vermont College which was terribly interesting for Russ to learn when he took on. He knew about Norwich when he took on the job, he didn't know. SY: Why, I wonder what his thesis was about? CT: About the fact that Vermont College had absorbed all those programs from Goddard which is about as far off block as Norwich is you know they're kinda [chuckles]. Well it was a big job to try and pull all this together, but we were giving it a go. So he said, so I called Russ and he said yes to it. The board said yes to it. Peter Smith meanwhile said, "Let me see what I can do about getting you a grant." Good thinking. He got us FIPSE grant, do you know what FIPSE? The Fed, now the Federal, no the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, Department of Education. If I was smart enough I could have told you the amount but I don't remember but he got us a grant to get started. Now if I had taken a salary we wouldn't have had much money left so I was, I didn't need anything. So we had some money and I made up out of whole cloth as best as I could a program that looked like ROTC training but wasn't, was focused on various on other things, which one of them was learning how to manipulate, to act in a culture that was not your own. This was one of the things and having appreciation for others, for other communities. And so it took a while to get this thing sort of organized and once I got a program sketched out I had to go before a committee of the faculty to get their approval. Can you imagine? I was a wreck, but I thought, "Okay I can do this." So I went before the committee and I made my little talk and do you know David Westerman? Oh Professor Westerman, David Westerman he's a geologist. But he's also the guy who is the head of the program at the University for Student Research. You guys really need to be aware of this. SY: Oh you know his name's been mentioned to me because he also collected some geology artifacts I think. CT: Oh I'm sure. SY: Yeah, okay. 32 CT: I think he goes to South America and brings home chips of stuff. I don't what he does. He is the most understanding, thoughtful, articulate. He's, I'm a big of David West--. David Westerman was on that committee and he said, "Well Carol, I'll tell you what, I think you've got some good ideas." He said, "You need to smooth it out a bit but I say you're a go." And he met with the rest of the committee and I said "What did they say?" "Oh sure, good, approved." And I thought, "Oh, he saved my life." I mean he just and then he was helpful in giving me some ideas. And what I'd really like to do is to, maybe another time when we get together is to get into your records, what it was the program looked like. It was a 2 year program for anyone who is not in the Corps. That's all you had to be, not in the Corps. You had to be any elsewhere. And you took classes and you did internship in the summer. And the internships were on Indian reservations. I can remember somebody went overseas on their own ticket to get into something, you know. I really have lost a lot of the details but I spent about 2 years maybe 3 working on this. And one of the big things I had to do which was very helpful was send reports into this FIPSE organization. They assigned a women, I'm sure I'll remember her name if I think of it long enough. She wanted a report from me every Friday. Well I couldn't do it. I finally got to every other Friday, you know you'd spent too much time writing the report then actually out doing something which got to be kind of old. But with their support we were able to get this thing rolling. We were able to hire former Peace Corps volunteers to act as professors. And one of them was Don Hooper. Does that mean anything to you? He lives here. Do you know Don and Alison Hooper? SY: You mentioned it to me, yeah. CT: They make the wonderful cheese, goat cheese, Chèvre. Well anyway I'm sure that somewhere I've got the list of who those people were. Then it got to the point where it had gotten too much and there was enough money left in the FIPSE pot to hire a director, which we did. And it worked reasonably well. But when my husband's time here was over and President Schneider came and things changed there was, I don't know how to put it, it just didn't work out anymore. And they had not been a big success. There hadn't been hundreds of students flocking to it. Every once and awhile you'll hear about somebody from the, from Norwich that goes into the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps itself is not what it was. It's nowhere near as near well-funded. They don't have the leadership of somebody like Loret Miller Ruppe. You know things change. But it wasn't a bad idea, it wasn't a bad idea. SY: No it's a really good idea. So because you know you can go into Peace Corps without previous training right? CT: Absolutely. SY: So this was just to create more effective Peace Corps volunteers? So it was sort of an auxiliary program to the Peace Corps training that would follow? Was it sort of like a? CT: Well no they weren't that interested in it but it was a way of encouraging people to do this kind of service, and to do it effectively. Yeah that's right. And there were people 33 that were int--there was a guy named Mike Kim and Michael Kim was one of these ones who went through it and he eventually became a priest interestingly. SY: I'm interviewing him next week. [interview pauses and resumes] SY: So what were we, what were we talking about? Oh yeah so another thing I read in your husband's oral history was that when you first got up here it must have been mud season, looking at the place you were like, "I don't know about this?" CT: Well of course I'd been up here a lot as a student. But then you're sort of rose colored glasses, you know. But the day that we drove up here to be interviewed for the job it was March at its most March-like, and as we came down the road, which was not this lovely access road we have now from 89. Oh no, twisty turny. There was a cow - did he tell you about this? There was a cow standing beside the side of the road behind a fence. Literally it was up to its udder in the mud and I thought, "Russell," I said, "We cannot live here. This is just awful." He said, "Oh for heaven's sakes. It's just one cow…" I said, and I thought to myself, "Okay, if…" I knew he wanted the job so much. He would have loved, he always hoped he could get the job to be the facilities manager here because he said, "I could love fixing it up." He said, "Never mind, we'll get a facilities manager to fix it up." He said, "Oh this is going to be so great." I thought, "Uh huh." So we came to the interview and we stayed in guest quarters where at the time where the infirmary is, not the new one the old one. And as I told somebody once long ago and I thought it was rather apt, it smelled like your grandmother's cottage after it had been shut up for the winter you know that awful musty [sniffing sound], "Oh it's getting worse here by the minute." And then Jackie and Jerry Painter who you don't know they live in Micminnville Oregon, he was the treasurer, they came and picked us up in their lovely new Buick and it made all the difference in the world. We had a wonderful, fun dinner and they had us in stitches laughing it was so friendly and nice and it was, I thought, "Okay, we can do this. This will be alright. We can clean up the guest quarters. We can do this." Then we were interviewed and I don't remember much about the interview except when we were all siting around. Nobody interviewed me much I don't think. I don't know what I did. But finally Ken Smith, who you don't know, he's dead now but and you wouldn't know. But nice, nice guy, said, "and now General Todd I see that you have no Ph.D." Russ said, "That is correct." And Ken Smith said, "and what do you intend to do about and when will you be getting your Ph.D.?" And my husband said, "I intend to do nothing and the answer is never. Any more questions? No, alright we'll move on." But Ken Smith became his dear, dear friend just a wonderful. Ken Smith could write one of those citations on a, on a, on some sort of a document or when you get an honorary degree, the citation, oh they were wonderful. His use of the English language was just gorgeous. I really loved him. He was great. But anyways so I really didn't like it much so I said, "Okay," if you get the--Oh and then we went to New York City to some lovely club I don't know where, to be interviewed by the board who was meeting there too to interview us the very same weekend because we had just come home from Europe to do this. Fortunately I had new Blylie suit so I was feeling very fine. I always bought a 34 new suit or a blouse if I was going to be in an interview and it seemed to help and I do advise that for interviews. So we went to New York and we got--and Russ was starving, you know if I'd get nervous I don't care if I ever eat. He just gets hungry and hungry. And so we went there and went into this interview and these people were all finishing their lunch and they said, "Have you had any lunch?" Russ said, "No, I haven't." And they said, "Let's get a menu for the Todds." I have no idea what I had, no idea at all. But he decided he'd have French onion soup. Can you imagine eating French onion soup? Nope. I thought, "Oh my God can you imagine so stupid to have?" well of course he managed to get the job and eat the soup at the same time. But it was, I thought, "French onion soup! Idiot!" [Laugh] So that and when we left that interview I knew it was a go. You know I knew it. They told us the next day or something but I felt really good about that. No it was longer than that. Because Russ went back to Europe and I stayed with mother because that's when Sarah was getting, our daughter was getting married about a month later so I stayed home. And George Patton called from the board meeting to tell Russ because we'd been friends for so long. And Russ was really pleased. And then he started getting ready to you know come, reading stuff. And it was a fairly in a way a hard transition because we'd left everything in the military, put it down, and we had a month off. And meanwhile I had taken a tumble somewhere and cracked my hip or something, so I was on Motrin when Motrin was brand new which was great. And we went to England, had a wonderful time in England. I had a friend who's not there now. Lived there, we spent some time and then we came home and then we came here. All pretty, we retired on one day and started here the next sort of thing. It was good. It was good. SY: Wow and then? CT: Loved the house. Was thrilled with the house on Central Street - you know where it is on top of the hill? Because my grandmother lived in a house not unlike that so I knew where the furniture was supposed to come, sort of thing. Oh I liked that house it was fun to live there. SY: And were you glad not to be moving? CT: No I don't mind moving. SY: You don't mind moving. And then clearly you've come to love Northfield and this area. CT: I know it! Oh so originally I said, "Okay now here's the deal. If they offer you this job 5 years, I will stay here 5 years because you'll have plenty of time for you to make an impression." But I said, "I don't," and he said, "Fine, should I tell them 5 years?" I said, "Tell them nothing, just know that I'm telling 5 years." You know "Okay." So after about 3 years he said, "Well now I'm going to have to tell them I'm leaving in 2 years." I said, "You're what? You're what?" I said, "No we live here." He said, "Alright we stay 5 more." I said "5 more." But I knew he was very certain from the beginning that 10 years was what he wanted to give, that he felt anything that could do he could do in 10 years. After that he was afraid he would not be effective. That was his rule to himself so I knew 35 we weren't gonna. But then we said, "Hmmm what are we going to do after that? Hmm I don't know." Let's find some land here in this area and that's how we found, a friend found this and suggested it. SY: It's beautiful. CT: Yeah. But there's another part of my career that I've never gotten to and we don't need to elaborate this, but after the Peace Corps Prep Program I started the Center for Volunteer Administration and taught volunteer administration for 2 years or 3 through Continuing Ed over at VC. SY: You did? CT: Oh yeah. I had a friend named Anne Mills who worked with me and the two of us did this and I felt good about it. I trained maybe about maybe 50 people around here. But you know the thing is they have the same problems, you know the problems don't go away. People don't write plans, they don't take it seriously. I've gotten some of the worst fundraising letters lately and it makes me, of organizations I care about! Good Beginnings - did you get a fundraiser from them? They didn't sign it! SY: I don't. I mean I'm just friends with them on Facebook. I don't get letters from them. CT: Yeah it's a wonderful organization I really think what they do is super, but all you need to do a little, pay attention. No, but way too much of that. But I, nothing that I can do, or nothing that we can do could change that except make people more aware. National Life was a big supporter, really helped, always gave us space and we had a friend who'd been an officer in National Life and she got us a couple of grants to help run that program. So but I mean and then Russ really retired retired I did that for a little bit and then I just thought, "This is just too much fun you know." And then we since '92 I can't believe we've traveled a good deal and we've been all and I was down there looking through some of the scrapbooks and there's tons of pictures of various interesting people, and had a good time. SY: Yeah, so um so was that were you getting paid for was for running the program? CT: No, no, no, no. SY: No. CT: No. SYU: I don't know why I keep asking that. It's just because I'm thinking about the arc of your life and I'm thinking about you wanting to take those couple years before you got married, and I'm just wondering if it mattered to you in that way as validation? CT: No. No. You see when Russ was first, when we were first in the Army and Russ was a lieutenant, we and during the first, even after Sarah was born we were so, they did not pay Army officers a lot of money. We were so tight to the chest and we were so careful even to this day it kills me to pay more than I think I should for a pound of bananas. We 36 just were really careful, and we, even when we had 3 children even by the time Ellen, we were still really, really watching. It wasn't until Russ made general officer really that we got enough money that I didn't have --I remember one day Russ said, "You don't have to worry anymore. You do not have to worry anymore. There's always enough money. There's always enough that you could." Well he knew I didn't have too fancy taste. I didn't want anything fantastic. But he said, "You can stop worrying." It's meant an awful lot to me. I suppose I'm worrying because my mother worried and never said anything. And I'm sure the children didn't have any idea of this, why should they? This is just a burden I bore but it was my own doing. I didn't have to. I just was like that and it's been lovely. I can remember you know lots of times when I thought, "Hmmm if I spend $25.00 for that, no I can't do that," you know, this sort of thing. SY: You were a Depression baby. CT: Yes. SY: This is what your generation did. CT: Yeah. SY: You knew that the rug could be pulled out from under you at any moment. So it makes sense. CT: Yeah, even at the point when you're in the Army you knew that. Well we never had any concern that Russ would lose his job you know. I suppose he could have done something awful but he never did. I sort of trusted him not to do that, but that's right. I never thought of it that way but that's what it is. But it wasn't, it wasn't easy. And then when we came here of course we had not only had his retirement but we had a very modest salary from the university, because for one thing the university could afford nothing else. They - Russ had said, "I think I'll just tell them that I'll work for the first 5 years for no salary." I said, "No, no, no. That's not fair. Even if it's a little we can manage on very little, but." Mary Roux, you know who is our - you know Mary Roux runs the Uniform Shop? She was our, she came to work for me the day the moving man brought us to Northfield and she stayed with us the whole time until we retired in '92. And she was our housekeep--she was supposed to be our housekeeper but of course she became a third daughter which was really great, and yeah that was really nice to have full time help that the university gave us. She did everything for us, she cooked, if I needed her to she ran errands, she did anything. SY: You hosted a lot dinner parties you needed help. Or you need your mother's cook book on how to make hot cocoa for 100. CT: I know it. But she and I cooked a lot because we couldn't afford to pay the food service to have dinner parties, so Mary and I we made apple crisp, not for 100 but I think for about 60 one time, you know. And we did a lot that--hors d'oeuvres and stuff, and I have lots of recipes of Mary's, little recipes that she found that she whip up on a Thursday and I could serve on Friday night if I had to sort of thing. She was wonderful 37 about that. And that was in the days when this University was just going on but we were determined to put up a good face you know. SY: Keep up appearances. CT: Keeping up appearances, yeah. SY: Yeah, yeah. CT: But it was, it was, it was a great life. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have done it differently. I wouldn't have wanted to live in one place. I guess a regret, I suppose it's a regret although it isn't to, our 3 children live all over. They've gone their own separate ways. They're very successful kids to me. They've done what they've needed to do or wanted to do, but they're far away. I think it would be so nice to able to say, "Come over for coffee," or "You and your family come for Sunday dinner or something," and there's none of that. We make a lot of effort to talk a lot on the telephone and they're wonderfully good to us. But I can't see moving to California, I certainly don't want to walk, move to Washington, D.C. and Tom even worse he lives in Olympia, Washington which is charming. We have no connections except them there you know? We have to, our connections are here and in Massachusetts because Russ has cousins there and I have 1 cousin there, and we have our high school friends and we have new friends that we've met there that are good to us too. So this going back you know when I say I don't mind moving that's kind of a falsehood because I fuss and fume but I can do it and we do it twice a year. We move and pick up and [laughs], I left my winter coat down there this time instead of bringing it. I will need it in November here particularly since now those Todd Lecture Series people who've been told 100 times, "Please don't have anything after the first of November," November third next year, November third. And I need my winter coat. Now that sounds like a minor thing, but we've got to go back because I am not going to go to that parade in November without my winter coat and I'm not buying another one. Well I might. There you go, that's a thought. SY: You're a Depression baby you're not going to buy another one [laughs]. CT: It's true. SY: So ingrained, not gonna happen. CT: And I suppose people study Depression and of course you get into the end of it aren't you? I mean people who are much older than I am aren't around too much. SY: Yeah. CT: Yeah. SY: You're getting to be that last generation. CT: Yeah. SY: Yeah. 38 CT: But it was a hardworking generation. Think of our parents. Gosh yeah. SY: Yeah. CT: Yeah. SY: How long have we been talking? 2 hours! [laughs] This was, I was fascinated the whole time. I don't know if I have any other questions. Do you have any last thoughts?

Issue 59.4 of the Review for Religious, 2000. ; )ULY: AUGUST 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 4 to Gbd~s ,univerial call, to holiness by ~n~aking available :to tb~mJtbe~piritual legaHes }bat flow from tbe cbarism~ of Catbolic ~onse~ated life:, Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: foppema@slu.edu Manuscripts, books for review, 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; ~VVashington, D.C. 20017 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2000 Re'biew for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (article~, 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. LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ ¯ Patricia Wittberg SC JULY AUGUST 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 4 contents 342 women religious Another Window on the Crisis in Women's Communities Mary Anne Foley CND presents the renewal of women's communities as a work in progress which faces the challenge to move beyond .present viewpoints in order to see a fuller truth. 358 A Path of Humility and Truth: Historical Reminiscence Bernadine Pieper CHM shares her experience of being in leadership at the time of Vatican II changes. 368 finding God Einding God's WiII--A Maneuver W. Henry Kenney Sj describes a process for finding God's will by popping loaded questions to God in prayer and noticing the pattern of desolations or consolations. 379 Consulting Your Inner Wisdom Hilary Ottensmeyer OSB guides us to the central core of ourselves where we hear the echoes of the voice of Jesus and of all the good people who have been examples of faith and good conduct for us. Review for Religious religious vocations Tell Them, Tell the New Members. Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ proposes the need to share with younger members of congregations hints about what is most central to religious life: the mystery of divine intimacy. 396 Sister Moms: Something Old, Something New Louise Cababe OP reports on the contemporary phenomenon of women, having been married and having raised a family, bringing a new and beautiful experience to religious congregations. 399 Vocational Confidence Donald Macdonald SMM sketches out an environment of vocational confidence whei'e vocations are invited, expected, challenged, and supported. 410 prayer perspectives Praying through Sleep A. Paul Dominic SJ explores various relationships between our sleeping and our praying. 420 Toward a Spirituality of Weariness Michael D. Moga SJ considers some of the paths that lead to spiritual treasures hidden in the areas of our exhaustion and weariness. departments 340 Prisms 430 Canonical Counsel: Exceptions to Duration of the Canonical Novitiate 435 Book Reviews July-August 2000 prisms Te jubilee year we are cele-brating provides us a challenge to our observance of the Sabbath. Sabbath has always been identified with the seventh day--the day of the Lord's rest after the six days' work of creation as depicted in chapter one of.the Book of Genesis. The Christian tradition reidentified the Lord's day with the resurrection victory of Jesus, bringing to fullness the work of redemption. The idea of refraining from work has often received greater attention even though the church has always identified "making holy" the Lord's day--Sunday--by the twofold obligation of celebrating the Eucharist and doing no servile work. Of course, there h~s been a lot of moral casuistry applied to the meaning of servile work, so much, perhaps, that the focus on God slipped because of the overwhelming emphasis on human activity--what was right, what was wrong, how long or how drudging could the work be, and so On. Pe.rhaps this year of jubilee can be a call to us to mov~ beyond the casuistry and to recapture the spirit of the Sabbath. Sabbath means, above all, a chosen awareness of spending time with God. If we are to spend time with God, then we have to take time for ourselves--not just time filled up with more "doing," even .with passive sporting events or active participations in games, but time which we describe so well today in terms of just "being." Sabbath is meant to be a deeply humane time because then God can become more active in us. Sabbath points to the movement of the oft-quoted expression of St. Irenaeus: "God's glory is the human being come fully alive, and seeing God is what human life is." Review for Religqous Eucharist belongs to the Christian Sunday observance because we celebrate God's glory shining out in the victorious risen Jesus, the firstborn of the new creation. But what else for us belongs to our Sabbath observance? What enhances our relationship with God? In other words, how do we devote time to making ourselves more humane--loving, compassionate, wise, generous, available, shar-ing- so that God's glory does shine out now through us? When we truly observe the Sabbath, we are more and more like the sacra-ments of God that our Christian vocation calls us to be. Another viewpoint. In the northern hemisphere, vacation time is upon us. Vacation, being personal rest time, shares in the sabbath notion. We sometimes refer to spiritual retreats as "vacations with God." Retreats, of course, take their focus from considering our relation with God. But would we be acting more Christian if we viewed ordinary vacation time through a prism similar to our Sunday observance? Vacation time does not need to be spent "reli-giously," performing devotional prayers and acts. But would it not be appropriate for us Christians to spend our recuperative and relaxing time with a more spiritual focus? Vacation means a time of "emptying out" (of mental cobwebs and secular preoccupations) and a "leaving space" (for attention to an ever present and loving God) in the ordinariness of our life. "Keep holy the sabbath day," then, should draw our attention not to what is to be avoided, but to what enhances our relationship with God, with ourselves, with our neighbor, and with our world. Those relationships are meant to be observed together, as a whole, when we speak of "keeping holy." Keeping holy deals with all our relationships viewed in the light of God and Jesus Christ. 'When we keep holy, we move with the Spirit. We let ourselves be moved by the Spirit--with all those with whom we converse, in all things we do. Jubilee, sabbath, and our secular vacation all find their mean-ing in the one reality of celebrating God in our life. This millen-nium year is the opportunity to remember thht jubilees, sabbaths, and vacations come to us not by some kind of law or right, but by gift--the gift of God. These time periods remind us to take stock and enjoy the God-with-us now so that we take from these "moments" the realized promise and consolation of our lifetime with God forever. ¯David L. Fleming SJ 37uly-August 2000 women MARY ANNE FOLEY Another Window on the Crisis in Women's Communities religious Last year I spent much of Holy Week working my way through Ann Carey's Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities.l The book's reviews did not make me anxious to read it, but I felt obliged to do so. For some years most of my research has focused on the history of religious communities of women, and my concerns about initiating new members have forced me to confront questions about the future of this way of life. Moreover, having lived through the tumultuous past three decades of change in women's communities, I have wanted and needed to gain some perspective on the experience) Although not planned, the timing of my reading proved to be both appropriate and helpful. I felt pain and anger at seeing the women who were most instru-mental in leading the changes characterized as deliber-ately manipulative, bent on revenge, unfaithful, and heretical, and those who moved with the changes they advocated, as naive, foolish, or incapable of under-standing what was taking place. At another time I might have been inclined simply to dismiss Carey's work, but reading it in the shadow of the cross enabled me to lis- Mary Anne Foley CND, a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal, is an associate professor of the-ology at the University of Scranton; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. Review fir Religious ten to what was being said under and through the words, and hence to become vulnerable to it. It was somewhat like the expe-rience of reading The Autobiography ofMakolm X. I knew I was not the "white devil" he came to loathe while in prison, but I began to see why he viewed me in that way and then to recognize my own complicity in his hellish situation. Carey's stated intention is simply to document the significant changes that have taken place within Catholic communities of women in the United States over the last forty years. She does so as a journalist, relying not on her own experience but on personal conversations and extensive archival research. The book's subtitle, however, reveals the perspective from which she writes. She is convinced that the changes have been an aberration, leading these groups away from genuine religious life. Carey belieyes that the sis-ters most disaffected as a result of the changes are afraid to speak for themselves, and so shehas chosen to speak for them. While always naming the "change-oriented" sisters she cites, she often identifies her sources among "traditional" sisters only by the name of their congregation or as Sister S., for example) One of these anonymous sources insists that many older religious are experi-encing "a time of martyrdom" as they risk being "cut off, threat-ened, and persecuted" if they challenge the directions their communities have taken (Crisis, 309). Whether or not this sister represents the views of many others, and even whether or not the threat she describes is real, it is important that she be heard, and Carey challenges the reader to listen. According to Sisters in Crisis, the reason for what emerged during the postconciliar years was, first of all, a program of mis-information concerning authentic Vatican Council II teaching, orchestrated prifiaarily by officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), known earlier as the Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW). Carey traces the rebellion back to the Sister Formation Movement in the 1950s, which exposed young sisters to the social sciences and "controversial and speculative" theology. The Sisters' Survey of 1966-1967, con-ducted by the CMSW, is presented as playing a key role in "indoc-trinating" sisters about possible new directions for change. The definitive step in the process of "co-opting" and "stealing" the renewal is said to be the "coup" by which the officers of the CMSW altered the nature of their organization by arranging for a revision of its bylaws and changing its name from CMSW to LCWR. At var- July-August 2000 Foley ¯ Another Window on the Crisis ious points in the process, in Carey's view, the Vatican issued clear mandates to return to a more controlled process of renewal, but these leaders refused to obey. Opposing Perspectives Since Lora Quifionez and Mary Daniel Turner were among the leaders of the LCWR during the 1970s and 1980s, it is not sur-prising that their interpretation of the last forty years is diamet-rically the opposite of Carey's. As a result, reading their book, The Transformation of the American Catholic Sister, in conjunction with Sisters in Crisis was both fascinating and unsettling. According to Quifionez and Turner, the changes in women's communities are not the result of a plan devised by a few politically astute activists and then foisted upon an undereducated and unsuspecting mass of sisters. Rather, the transformation of these communities reflects a maturing of American sisters at large; that is, they have grown more conscious of their identity as Americans, as women, and as moral agents? Given this difference in interpretation, it is interesting to note the substantial agreement of these two works on the importance of the Sister Formation movement and especially the LCWR in shap-ing the last forty years of religious life in the United States. Both are clear that the Sisters' Survey went beyond its original purpose of assessing the readiness of American sisters and the availability of resources for the renewal mandated by Vatican II. Both con-clude that the survey itself affected that renewal. And both main-tain that underlying the changes was a new belief among sisters in the validity of their experience. As Carey describes it, "some women religious determined that their own 'lived experience' was more valid for defining religious life than were any of the direc-fives coming from the church" (Crisis, 75). Quifionez and Turner not only agree; they chart the emergence of that beliefi "Sisters began to notice that even long-held and never-to-be-challenged philosophical and theological premises lent themselves to the pur-poseful sounding of experience, personal and social. Experience possessed its own authority" (Transformation, 38). More significant still is the fact that neither work acknowl-edges the possibility that those whose perspective on renewal is different could contribute something toward a more profound renewal. This is more apparent in Sisters in Crisis. Although Carey Revie~v for Religious admits that at times ignorance may have played a role in the deci-sions that were made, for the most part she attributes baser motives to the main actors: "Some religious institutes purposely expanded the years between general chapters so that experiments could be stretched out. Others purposely incorporated items into their con-stitutions that they knew would never be approved by Rome so they could continue experimenting endlessly" (Crisis, 38-39). Quifionez and Turner are far more nuanced in their expression, and they do not impute motivation to such groups as the Consortium Perfectae Caritatis, which consisted largely of community leaders who had renounced membership in the LCWR. However, the absence of any critique of actions taken by the LCWR makes the reader suspect that their account may not be as objective as it first appears. This becomes particularly evi-dent in the concluding chapter of Tran~Corrnation, where Quifionez and Turner list questions to be resolved if religious communities of women are to have a future in the United States. They accurately iden-tify one of the key questions: Is it helpful or even honest to retain canonical status? But they proceed to a further series of questions, all of which imply that the only possible answer to the question of canonical status is no. Moreover, in noting that the hierarchy and the sisters must face the questions honestly, they assert that such a process "will exact a different price from each of them. For the hierarchy it will mean giving up dominative ways of governing; for sisters it will entail laying claim to rightful uses of power. For both, it will involve owning that they are peers, no matter how distinct their role in the church" (Transformation, 167). Tran~orrnation offers ample evidence of "dominative ways of governing" by members of the hierarchy, and even Carey admits that the church officials have been "obstinate" at times. These few words seem to imply that only the hierarchy has misused power and that sisters' only sin has been the failure to use it. This would surely be an oversimplification, of a sort that would tend to polarize further those who disagree about the direction the changes have taken. Underlying the changes was a new belief among sisters in the validity of their experience. July-Auffust 2000 S#ters in Crisis was published five years after Transformation and appears to be intended in part as a response to that work, a sort of revisionist history. While Quifionez and Turner did not have the opportunity to respond to Carey's assertions directly, the current leadership of the LCWR responded by claiming that the women in American religious, communities today are not "sisters in crisis," but rather "sisters in service."s There is truth in this assertion. Many of those castigated by Carey really are performing service of inestimable value, and for them to focus more on that service than on institutional survival does not call for the word "tragic" in Carey's subtitle. But that is not to say that I think there is no ~ri-sis. 6 It has been common in recent years to refer to the two Chinese characters that together convey the meaning of crisis, one referring to danger and the other to opportunity. Carey is right: there is a real danger that women's religious communities as we have known them in the United States will become extinct. But the LCWR leadership is also right in noting that the service which women's communities offer indicates a time of great poten-tial. Here I offer some reflections on how the opportunity pre-sent in this moment of crisis may be recognized and embraced. A Window of Opportunity The story is told of two men seated in the same room in a library. One was very hot and opened the room's only window. The other, afraid that his papers would blow all over, immediately closed, it, only to have it reopened by the first. The reaction of the other can be guessed. When the librarian saw the brewing conflict, she went into the next room and opened the window there, thus providing cool air without creating a disruptive, breeze.7 It seems to me that those who find themselves in deadlock on how women's communities have come to be where they are need to discover another window through which to view the last three decades. For this they may well be helped by James Fowle~:'s the-ory of faith development. For Fowler faith is a verb; it is how a per-son makes meaning of the world. We tend to "faith" in a particular way until that way of making meaning no longer works for us and compels us to make meaning differently; this he describes as a new "stage" of faith.8 During adolescence, for example, many peo-ple begin to base their faith on that of the significant people in their lives. They may have reflected deeply on what they believe Review for Religious and can probably describe the content of their faith, but it is largely tacit. Later the demands of adult life, particularly in a culture no longer homogeneous, often move people toward Individuative- Reflexive faith. Those in this stage can articulate the reasons for their faith. In addition, the source of authority for their faith has moved inward, so that they believe because they have chosen to believe. Even if the content.of their faith remains the same, it has become their own.9 Fowler notes that, as a result of midlife stocktaking, some adults experience yet another transition, to what he calls Conjunctive faith, in which they can peacefully hold their own belief while truly listening to another whose belief is different. No longer do they perceive difference as an attack on their hard-won faith that must be defended at all costs. Rather, the other person's faith becomes an invitation to deepen and refine their own belief. Such faith is not possible until one has fully moved to the Individuative-Reflexive stage by both internalizing authority and making one's belief explicit. (Otherwise what appears a willingness to allow one's own faith to be influenced by others may simply be a form of the tacit faith that allows others to define what. one believes.) The fruit of Conjunctive faith is real dialogue, which begins with the belief that each one comes to the table with a perspective on the truth and includes the humble acknowledgment ~hat each has in some way failed to serve that truth. Fowler's theory has been applied to the "faithing" process of groups as well as individuals. Of course, not all members of the group are at the same stage at any given time. But the theory can be helpful in describing a group's changing "corporate culture." In the years before the Second Vatican Council, for example, when sisters lived in an environment that exemplified one and the same faith perspective, many were able to make meaning of their world through the tacit faith that the environment supported. As Quifionez and Turner describe that time, "canonical definitions, legislated by church authorities, gave 'religious life' its existence, its legitimacy, and its value" (Transformation, 36). In asking women's communities to return to their sources and to read the signs of The other person's faith becomes an invitation to deepen and refine their own belief 3%dy-dugust 2000 Foley * Another I4andow on the Crisis the times, the council caused them to become more analytical. At the same time, both the changes sisters began to make and the movements in the church and in society around them weakened many of the structures which had reinforced their commitment, so that those who remained were forced to acquire personal reasons for doing so. The movement between external and internalized authority is well illustrated by the responses which the members of LCWR gave to actual and proposed canons of church law in 1968 and 1977. Quifionez and Turner note that these responses differed, not in content, but in the way they were justified: "While in the 1960s sisters invoked Vatican Council II to legitimate their view-points, in 1977 they relied on the authority of their own experience to ground their critique" (Transformation, 56). This suggests that Carey is mistaken in assuming that most changes were the result of a few very influential leaders imposing on the rest their way of seeing the world. That may have been true for some, but, by illus-trating the extent to which "change-oriented" sisters began to appeal to. personal experience, Carey herself provides evidence that in general these women had come to a personally appropri-ated faith?° In my view, profound as this kind of faith may be, it is limited by the tendency to exalt one's internal authority to the extent of being unable to allow one's belief system to be affected by oth-ers. This can make it almost impossible to move together as a group. At a chapter several years ago, it was proposed that the community as a group fast and abstain on Fridays as a sign of their hunger for peace. One person objected vehemently, not to the action in itself, but to committing the whole group to any practice. Her memory of practices imposed in the past seemed to make it impossible for her to accept such a limitation on individual free-dom, even when that limitation was chosen. I believe that the future of religious communities depends on their moving beyond such a stance toward the deeper openness that constitutes what Fowler calls Conjunctive faith. Over the years, many "change-oriented" sisters have looked at and tried on elements of what Carey calls "the latest theological, sociological, psychological--and eventually New Age--fads" (Crisis, 138). She condemns both this and what she considers an excessive tolerance for the views of everyone. It seems to me, how-ever, that for many sisters the opportunity presented by the pre- Review for Religious sent moment is the call to a still greater openness, by which they can allow themselves to truly listen, on the one hand, to new alter-natives and, on the other, to those who question their new ways of understanding and living. Carey does not provide evidence to sup-port her accusation that "change-oriented" communities have deliberately silenced their more traditional members, and yet I believe that in some cases the voices of these sisters have not been heard, or their views have been dismissed as reactionary, irrational, foolish. Any honest dialogue would have to begin with everyone admitting some failure to listen. Openness to dialogue is possible, though certainly most dif-ficult, when the other is not similarly open. Carey speaks of "dia-logue" as if it is often used like a ploy in a game,11 and her position throughout Sisters in Crisis suggests an unwillingness to concede that "change-oriented" sisters could possess a piece of the truth. That, however, does not free the latter from the need to continue discerning where the critique offered by more traditional sisters has its own truth that deserves to be faithfully responded to. Opening a different window on the future requires humble dialogue around many of the issues raised by Carey, among which are the mission and vowed life of sisters, their place in the church, and the impli-cations of "refounding" religious communities. Mission Even though she acknowledges that justice has played an important role in sisters' traditional apostolates, Carey maintains that "change-oriented" sisters have recently replaced their true, "spiritual" mission with social justice as "a new primary mission" (Crisis, 112). For example, she criticizes the choice of nonviolence as the theme of the 1996 LCWR conference, claiming that this reveals "the conference's continuing priority bf placing sociopo-litical issues ahead of spiritual issues" (Crisis, 242). In this.discus-sion she comes close to what Quifionez and Turner describe as the worldview of sisters before 1960, for whom the sacred and the secular occupy two different spheres. The coauthors contend that since then many sisters have moved beyond such a view and "increasingly frame the meaning of their life in terms of the church's evangelizing mission" (Transformation, 59). The bishops at the 1971 synod called "action on behalf of justice., a consti-tutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel."12 In light of that July-./tugust 2000 Foley ¯ ~lnotber Windo~ on the ~ teaching, Carey's apparently outdated perspective seems to have nothing to offer the women about whom Quifionez and Turner write. Indeed, seeing spirituality as somehow pitted against jus-tice is not helpful. This aspect of Carey's position, however, masks an important criticism that "change-oriented" sisters would do well to recognize. Quifionez and Turner state that dedication to mission has comd to encompass the meaning of many sisters' lives. They cite a "grow-ing tendency . to define religious identity as witness against cultural values and attitudes" and assert further that "work and identity are inseparably related" (Transformation, 79 and. 39). In my view, this comes perilously close to insisting not only that my work is my prayer, but that it is my life. This is indeed what our culture often proposes; I consider.it an area where sisters are called to take a countercultural stance. Surely there is a middle path between a spirituality that would have no relation to justice and a life that would collapse itself into work on behalf of justice or any other important value. Carey's articulation of the mission of sisters in apostolic com-munities is not satisfactory, but neither is that of Quifionez and Turner. Hence the need for dialogue around what Carey would call the "spiritual" .mission of sisters. Such dialogue could very well occur in the context of the vowed life. Vows Carey claims that many elderly sisters who disapprove of the directions in which their congregations have moved "take very seriously the vows they made, and they are not only disturbed that religious life has been fundamentally restructured in their own communities, but even more alarmed that in the restructured model it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to live out the vows they made to God" (Crisis, 306). Nowhere does Sisters in Crisis explain how the restructuring of communities could make it "impossible for them to live out the vows." Perhaps these sisters believe that, for them to fulfill the demands of obedience and poverty, there must be specific persons designated as superiors who give commands and permissions. If so, a system in which decisions about ministry and the use of goods are made commu-nally may never provide what they are demanding. As has already been noted, Quifionez and Turner maintain Review for Religious that the defining element of many sisters' lives is no longer the vows, but rather witness. This suggests that for these women the concerns of the sisters whose perspective Carey shares are irrel-evant. And yet Quifionez and Turner also say, "For a large num-ber of the women, their shared life has to be linked to ultimacy, to the values of the gospel, to the deepest insights of religious tra-ditions" (Transformation, 166). Just how their lives can be "linked to ultimacy" is an ongoing question that must be addressed if there is to be a future for women's communities. It seems to me that addressing it will be difficult as long as the expression is as vague as that given here. I suspect that the word God is omitted because of the desire to be inclusive. To be sure, speaking of God is dangerous, and moreover help on the journey toward God can come from various traditions, including those that do not name God. But one must begin a journey from some point. Sandra Schneiders has pointed out the danger when communities that consider themselves religious have highly indi-vidualized, and eclectic spiritualities unconnected to the Christian tradition in which the communities are rooted. For such groups, she suggests, "the quiet sidelining of Christian .identity believed and practiced in the church is not compatible with their ongoing life and self-renewal as a religious congregation." 13 Over the centuries Christian women and men have sought to link their lives to ultimate, reality, which they have named God, by means of the vows. They have done this not only and, in my view, not primarily as a witness to others, but because God has somehow reached into their lives, and so, in being true to them-selves, they structure their lives around their relationship to God.14 Certainly there is need to reconceive and even reformu-late what is meant by the vows,15 but this must be done with recognition of their connection to the divine and hence of their significance beyond that of any actions .they imply. Vows of this kind must indeed be taken seriously. Surely there is a middle path between a spirituality that would have no relation to justice and a life that would collapse itself into work on behalf of justice. July-duffust 2000 Foley * Another Window on the Crisis Church Quifionez and Turner say, "Central to their quest for mean-ing, we believe, is the identity of sisters as church women" (Transeormation, 166). But, as Eucharia Malone RSM pointed out as early as 1970, "this relationship with the.church seems to be the point on which we are divided" (see Crisis, 95). In fact, the very definition of church is often at the heart of the polarization within and between women's communities. At first glance it is difficult to imagine a rapprochement between the understandings of church espoused by Carey and by Quifionez and Turner. Sisters in Crisis assumes a church in which the initiative comes from the hierarchy. As a result, Carey implies that sisters' meetings held in 1964-1965 to discuss strategies for renewal were subversive because Perfectae caritatis had not yet been promulgated formally)6 What could she have to say to those for whom church is a discipleship of equals, each of whom is responsible for initiating change? Many traditional as well as "change-oriented" groups have claimed to be following the teachings of Vatican II in their very different approaches to renewal. But the council documents them-selves represent compromises between bishops of various per-spectives. They are often ambiguous concerning the church and hence concerning the role of women's communities within the church. The situation is not unlike what followed in the wake of the last reforming council, the Council of Trent. Like Vatican II, Trent carried its own contradictions within itself,, including both a call for widespread education and an insistence on cloister for women ready to dedicate themselves to the education of young women. The conflicts, that resulted were virtually inevitable. Indeed, the experience of the post-Tridentine church calls into question any notion of reform as neat or uniform in application. In general, Carey fails to place the events she narrates within a larger historical context. She takes the American experience of religious life in the first half of.this century as normative and con-sequendy disparages many of the changes that have occurred since then. Research into the foundations of many communities before this century has revealed considerable struggle, especially with members of the hierarchy, over the very issues of ministry and conformity to monastic lifestyle that so concern Carey?7 Her lack of attention to the history of women's communities appears to be related to her sympathy with the representatives of the Consortium Perfectae Caritatis, who wanted discussion with LCWR officials Review for Religious to focus on "absolute truths that would transcend., any age, any period of time, any period of history" (Crisis, 283). Quifionez and Turner, on the other hand, are well aware of the various forms in which what is called "religious life" has mani-fested itself over the centuries, accurately noting that it is always a "historically conditioned" phenomenon.~s They are less attentive, however, to the values sought by sizable numbers of contemporary women and their foremother~. For genuine dialogue to take place, it might be necessary to declare a moratorium on valuing things either as "absolute" or as "historically conditioned." It could go far toward healing not only some of the divisions in women's com-munities, but also some of the woundedness of the larger church. Refounding In her concluding chapter Carey addresses herself to tradi-tional sisters who find themselves in communities that have moved away from what she considers the essence of religious life. She believes that such women may be called to "refound" their com-munities, and so offers a number of recommendations for how that might take place: "This refounding must be accomplished by the sisters within those institutes themselves, for refounding of religious orders cannot be mandated or directed by hierarchy, clergy, or laity, though legitimate refounding efforts should be supported by these other groups of people. In the refounding pro-cess, some members of a religious institute may come to the real-ization that their concept of consecrated life really does not fit the church understanding of a religious institute, and so those women may wish to pursue one of the other forms of consecrated life defined by the church" (Crisis, 328). Carey does not clarify why refounding a community "cannot be mandated or directed by the hierarchy" even though that is precisely what she believes its role should have been during the postconciliar renewal. Equally surprising is the open-ended pro-cess she describes, which it cannot be assumed will conform to the standard definition of a religious institute. Of course she assumes that, if what emerges does not fit that definition, the alter-native is another already defined form. In contrast, Vita consecrata, among other documents, assumes that forms not yet defined are also emerging at the present time.19 . In these comments Carey sketches out, no doubt unwittingly, j~uly-/lugust 2000 Fole~ ¯ Another l~ndow on the Crisis what many perceive to have been going on during all these years since the council: initiatives taken by those within the commu-nity, support for those initiatives from (some) other constituencies in the church, and ~n honest confrontation of the questions that traditional understandings of religious life bring to the fore. The element that Carey believes was missing in so many attempts at renewal is "legitimacy," which she understands to be close con-fortuity to the document "Essential Elements of Religious Life," issued by the Vatican Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes in 1983. Many "change-oriented" sisters and commu-nities consider that sense of legitimacy overly narrow, but in so doing they seem often to have acted as if all changes were equally legitimate. I believe that Carey and others have rightly criticized processes of experimentation that lacked mechanisms of evalua-tion. 2° Many are not fully satisfied with what has emerged in the. course of renewal, but are not sure how to name what is missing. Carey comments sharply on the failure of "change-oriented" communities to attract many new members. In her view, there are only two possible reasons for this, "unselfishness or pathological denial" of the imminent demise of their congregations, and she is quite sure that the latter interpretation is the accurate one. I think' these are false alternatives, though both no doubt play a role at times. A more significant factor in the decline in the number of women joining these communities seems to be a feeling of ambivalence, both among members of women's communities and in the church at large, ambivalence which results in part from massive change without evil-uation and consequently without general ownership. Carey, along with ~¢arious church officials, has declared the period of experimentation for women's communities to be over. But her proposal for refoundation suggests that a new, more pro-found kind of experimentation is just what is called for. The women who are coming to communities these days, particularly those young enough not to have lived through the years immedi-ately following the council, do not share the ambivalence of their older sisters. No doubt it is they who will lead the way in the founding and refounding still to come. Neither/Nor, Looking Anew, Nuancing In my opinion, the renewal of women's communities in the Catholic Church over the past forty years was not "co-opted" or Review for Religious "stolen" by their leaders, but neither has it been fully accom-plished. It is a work in progress, and in that work there has been considerable polarization between different approaches, and mutual recrimination as well. The challenge at this time may be to move beyond present viewpoints, to look through some other window onto those same issues and see a fuller truth. Those who wish to find such a window would do well to heed what Carey has written. Certainly Sisters in Crisis is flawed in its use of sources. Many are cited out of context, they are often listed without explanation or analysis, and generalizations are made on the basis of undisclosed and apparently meager evidence. But Carey's effort to speak in the nameof sisters whose views may have been ignored in the process of renewal provides a significant resource for those who are willing to look and listen. What has been said here about renewal within women's com-munities is true of the renewal of the whole church; in many ways it holds true as well for liberation movements within North America and across the planet. It is often asserted that communi-ties of men and women are called to take a prophetic stance. In my view, such an assertion requires careful nuancing. But, if sisters who represent different perspectives can learn to engage in gen-uine dialogue about their recent history and possible future direc-tions, I believe that could be prophetic indeed, not only for the church, but for all of humanity. Notes i Ann Carey, Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Press, °1997). 2 The focus of my work is women's communities, and the sources for the present reflection deal specifically with women in the United States. Other groups, too, may find what I say relevant. 3 These are not my preferred terms, but since Carey uses them I will follow her lead. 4 Lora Ann Quifionez CDP and Mary Daniel Turner SNDdeN, The Tranyformation of American Catholic Sisters (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). s "Book rebukes renewal; nuns rebuke book," National Catholic Reporter, 23 May 1997, p. 6. 6 Former LCWR president Doris Gottemoeller RSM agrees, but she believes that Carey has not named the crisis adequately. See "Religious Life in Crisis," Origins, 25 February 1999, pp. 634-638. ~uly-August 2000 Foley ¯ Another Window on the Crisis 7 One modern source for the story is Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 40. Walter Wink suggests that finding a third alternative in a situation that has reached an impasse is a gospel imperative. See his Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992). s Fowler suggests that the pattern of stages he describes remains valid regardless of the content of one's faith. It is rather a factor of one's cognitive and moral development,.although the circumstances in which one finds oneself tend to propel one toward a new stage. His theory is quite pragmatic: no stage is better than another; it simply may be more adequate to the realities one has to confront. 9 Note that one of these elements can be present without the other. Persons with an analytical bent can ana!yze the content of a faith that is not personally appropriated. Similarly, persons who tend to be inde-pendent may formally reject the faith of significant others before being able to give a reason for their own belief, other than the fact that it is their own. 10 This is not to say that more traditional communities have not made the same transition. I simply do not have enough evidence to make such a judgment. II She maintains that, when their constitutions were not approved, "many institutes simply played the game of prolonged 'dialogue' with Rome, hoping to win approval for practices that already had been in effect for years" (Crisis, 314). 12 Justice in the World, §6. 13 Sandra M. Schneiders IHM, "Congregational Leadership and Spirituality in the Postmodern Era," Review for Religious 57, no. 1 (January-February 1998): 26. ~4 I am indebted to Edward Vacek SJ in "Religious Life and the Eclipse of Love for God," Review for Religious 57, no. 2 (March-April 1998): 118-137, for his description of the vows as'structuring one's life around the relationship to God. ~s Barbara Fiand SND has articulated a theology of the vows in keep-ing with an e~;olutionary, nondualistic worldview. See her Living the I~uion: Religious Vows in an Age of Change (New York: Crossroad, 1990) and Wrestling with God: Religious Life in Search of Its Soul (New York: Crossroad, 1996). 16 See Crisis, pp. 110-111. 17 HWR News and Notes, published by the Conference on History of Women Religious (ed. Karen M. Kennelly csJ; Mount St. Mary's College; 12001 Chalon Road; Los Angeles, California 90049), tracks current scholarship in this area, much of which is presented at that orga-nization's triennial conferences. Both the enormous variety of expressions and the common themes Review for Religious manifest in that variety are very evident in Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). ,9 See ~ta consecrata, Origins 25, no. 41 (4 April 1996); also in The Church and Consecrated Life (St. Louis: Review for Religious, 1996), pp. 323-436; see esp. §§12 and 62. The latter section is explicit about the pos-sibility that new forms emerging today may come to be approved offi-cially at a later time. 20 For example, Gottemoeller, "Religious Life in Crisis" (see note 6), p. 635. At the LCWR assembly in August 1999, there were a number of calls for evaluation of the processes of renewal. Musings of the Prodigal's Brother Look at him! The life of the party. Music, fatted calf, ring- all to celebrate my brother's return from a wasted life. Squandered inheritance, prostitutes, and hunger shared with swine. Look at my lathe!! Joy-filled, radiant, his long-awaited prodigal is home. Unconditional, all-forgiving love Lighting up the room with warmth and joy, my father - our father - now at peace. Look at me! Lonely, jealous, bitter. The son who did not squander - but gave my father only loyal, total service, What's this? My envy giving way? My inner blindness praying, "Lord, that I may see"? Maria Corona Crumback IHM ffuly-August 2000 BERNADINE PIEPER A Path of Humility and Truth: Historical Reminiscence T~ay, thirty-five years after Vatican Council II, many people nk that the changes in religious life arose spontaneously, somewhat like Athena springing from the forehead of Zeus. In fact, the changes took place because of intense preparation. That preparation happened in the contexts of the general culture and the individual religious communities. My community, the Congregation of the Humility of Mary, was a small congregation of approximately 430 members, and so most sisters knew one another. The sisters came from a variety of ancestral ndtionalities: Irish, German, Czech, Italian, Mexican, and others. Many of the sisters had rural backgrounds, had the experience of living with Protestants as well as Catholics, and had attended both public and Catholic schools at all levels including university. The congregation had moved from France to Pennsylvania to Missouri to Iowa and had experienced losing the motherhouse in Ottumwa, Iowa, in a 1957 fire. They were pio-neers, risk takers. Further, a remarkable group of women made up the leadership of the Congregation of the Humility of Mary from 1960 to 1966. In November 1964 the general superior, Mother Mary Nicholas, and the general council called for a congregation-wide Bernadine Pieper CHM was elected general superior of her congre-gation in 1966, shortly after Vatican Council ii. She writes from her experience of the past forty years. Her address is Humility of Mary Center; 820 West Central Park Avenue; Davenport, Iowa 52804. Review for Religious vote on a revision of the delegate selection process for the 1966 general chapter of affairs. That same month she and the council ¯ asked every convent to discuss renewal of religious life with spe-cial applications to our congregation. Background material sent for the study included Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy, chapters 5 and 6 of the Constitution on the Church, Pope Paul's discourse of 23 May 1964 to all religious, the original 1858 rules and regulations of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary, and Father Bernard H~iring's Christian Renewal in a Changing World. The sis-ters were also asked to study related sections of Scrip~re. The virtues listed in our original constitutions were to be studied along with the congregation's apostolate. The sisters were asked whether " we were meeting the spiritual and religious needs of the people of our time in the localities where we were working. This was a time of excitement and ferment. Discussion of these topics provided an opportunity for departure from the rather superficial conversation typical of specified recreation times. A 22 February 1965 letter from Mother Mary Nicholas states that the objective of our study was profound renewal inspired.by bib-lical, liturgical, and apostolic documents of Vatican II and by wis-dom from the congregation's experience. She said some changes would be decided by the congregation itself while others must await legislation expected in the future. "We realize that renewal of religious life will not be easy," she said. From each of four geo-graphical areas (east Iowa and Illinois, midwest Iowa, southeast Iowa, and the west), she and the general council appointed the following committees: liturgy, common life and discipline, poverty, obedience, works and apostolate, and formation and maturity. Committee members included every sister in the community. After a year of discussion, each of these committees sent a posi-tion paper, including reports and recommendations, for study by the congregation. From October 1965 to May 1966, sisters prepared proposals to present to the 1966 chapter of affairs. A total of 545 proposals on a variety of topics were prepared by the sisters, both by indi-viduals and by committees and groups. The recommendations included practically every facet of the sisters' lives and customs: elections, prayer, charity, social work, spiritual renewal, revision of rule and directory, companionship, cloister, letter writing, use of gifts, permissions, and other more mundane items such as swim-ming, ceremonies, appointments, and speeds at which to drive. ~uly-August 2000 Pieper ¯ ~t Path of Humility and Truth There were few proposals about chastity and friendship, pos-sibly due to the fact that no study group was assigned to this topic. During the previous fifty years, obedience had assumed priority for religious life. Three sisters were appointed to organize the pro-posals for presentation to th6 chapter of affairs in a logical way. After attending a workshop for religious superiors at the University of Notre Dame, the local superiors of the congregation met in the summer of 1965 to look at common life. They recom-mended a variety of changes to Mother Superior and the council. Among the changes approved were: talking at breakfast, walking outdoors after 6 p.m., eating with guests, retiring early, noncen-sorship of mail, elimination of the chapter of faults, yearly general permissions, and going without a companion to medical appoint-ments. Previously three other sisters were involved when one went to the doctor: one as her companion at the doctor's and two oth-ers to drive them there and pick them up again. In 1965, upon the recommendation of the liturgy committee, sisters began to use the breviary for morning and night prayers. A workshop on guidelines for renewal was held in spring 1966 with the cooperation of the Canon Law Society of America and the approval Of Davenport Bishop Ralph L. Hayes. The speakers were Father Paul M. Boyle CP, past president of the Canon Law Society of America; Father Kevin O'Rourke OP, coauthor of Canon Law for Religious Women; Sister Jane Marie Richardson SL, secretary of Sister Mary Luke Tobin SL, auditor at Vatican II; Sister Ignace RSM, province councilor of the Mercy Sisters' Chicago Province; and Sister Maristella (Elizabeth) Picken CHM, member of the Marycrest College religion department. Davenport sisters had also traveled to Aurora, Illinois, that spring for a speech by Sister Mary Luke Tobin. The membership for the 1966 chapter of affairs was entirely different from that of earlier chapters, which had been composed of almost as many superiors as nonsuperiors. Besides the seven ex-officio members--major .superior, council, former major superi-ors, secretary, and treasurer--seven superiors were elected from among 38, nine sisters from among 88 more than 50 years old, ten sisters from among 90 between 35 and 50 years of age, and four from among the 80 sisters under 35. All these sisters had per-petual vows. Sisters with temporary vows had only active voice. During the chapter the delegates voted to abolish all secrecy. Chapter delegates represented a wide variety of sisters. There was for Rdigious a wide spectrum of emotion--fear and impatience on the one hand, hope and excitement on the other. Everyone, however, cared for the congregation and worked hard to follow the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Relaxation of discipline and introduction of the breviary were not the only changes which took place before the 1966 chapter of affairs. The number of entrants into the congregation had already declined before 1966. The largest number of persons to enter the congregation came in 1959 and 1960:27 and 32 respec-tively. In 1965 only six women entered, and in the spring of 1966 only four had been accepted for entrance. Sisters were aware of and inter-ested in civil rights. Though no one went to Selma or other places in the South for demonstrations, they were deeply concerned and prayed particularly when Medgar Evers was killed. They also began to help with local problems. For example, some numbers went sandbagging along the Mississippi in Davenport during the 1965 flood. They tried to do this quietly; when a picture of the sisters appeared in the daily paper, not everyone in the CHM community was happy. Probably attitudinal changes were the most important. In the 1960s the culture implied that one was incomplete without a sex-ual partner. Vatican II taught that perfection was obtainable not just by sisters in community, but also by married persons. At Marycrest College, where over one-fourth of the CHM community studied during the summer, creative and critical thinking was a college goal. Sisters began to recognize that they were thinking creatively .and critically about everything exc.ept their own lives. They became aware that they had been founded as an apostolic community and were neither cloistered nor monastic, but had been trying to live as if they were. At the chapter of affairs, on 27 June 1966, I was elected the general superior. My experience as a superior was limited to sev-eral summers for the sisters who were students at Marycrest College. I had, however, taught a majority of members of the con-gregation. This was my first chapter of affairs. M6ther Mary In 1965, upon the recommendation of the liturgy committee, sisters began to use the breviary for morning and night prayers. Pieper ¯ A Path of Humility and Truth Nicholas Sheetz, who might have provided me some guidance, died in October 1966. Mother Mary Magdalen Wilmes, another potential source of information, asked to move to Phoenix. "You can make your own mistakes," she said. I retained the designation "Sister" and took the title president instead of mother superior, as have those who succeeded me. When Father Paul Boyle CP spoke at Marycrest College in April 1966, he assured the members of the committee which orga-nized the proposals that he would be happy to help at the chapter. He came to Ottumwa from Monroe, Michigan, and was invaluable in distinguishing among aspects of church law, community law, customs, and culture. He advised us tobegin with a discussion on prayer because that was the most important topic and further-more was likely to be less controversial than the others. After considerable discussion and revision at the regular June session and a short one in December 1966, about sixty motions were approved by the delegates, either unanimously or at least 10 to 1 in favor. Mass, lauds, vespers, and an annual retreat were the only requirements regarding prayer. However, the value of prayer was endorsed, and continuing past practices was recommended. In the area of poverty, the sisters were asked to be as poor as they wished and to provide community witness to poverty by sharing things. Minor finances were to be a subject for experimentation. Each sister was to be given $15 a month for clothes and personal needs, while housing, .meals, and travel were to be provided by the local house. One sister commented that her girdle alone cost $13. Investigating congregational health insurance was approved. Home visits, travel without companions, retention of baptismal names for those who so wished, eating with persons other than commu-nity members, and letters and phone calls without censorship were approved. Broadening our apostolic works was recommended, with particular emphasis on Latin America. The value of long-range planning was noted. The following commissions were described and set up in great detaili (1) the coordinating commission on apostolic works, with subcommittees in the various areas of work; (2) rule and directory revision; (3) formation and religious renewal; (4) finance and development; and (5) habit revision. The sisters were asked to participate in annual meetings of the whole con-gregation. No time limit for experimenting was set because Pe, rfectae caritatis allowed twelve years. Review for Religious In the letter I wrote to the congregation accompanying the record of the June 1966 chapter, I said: "Many of you have prob-ably read Michael Novak's 'The New Nun' in the July Post, in which he says, 'Press reports emphasize the shortened skirts, the briefer veils, the appearance of nuns on public beaches, but these are misleading superficial aspects of a deep-running revolution. In ever increasing numbers the sisters are creating new rules to define what tasks they may or may not tackle, what styles of life they may or may not adopt.'" Change in clothes was symbolic and probably the change most criticized by the sisters' publics. The original intent was to design and adopt a simple costume with a modified veil. The process, however, led to diversity. Sisters sent requests to the coordinating commission on habit revision, with the final decision to be made by the general superior and council. At first the sisters were expected to wear a veil and white, gray, black, brown, or blue clothing. Many sisters quickly adapted to the change, Next came . requests and permission to wear red and green and finally flowered blouses. Just before the 1967 summer school, the gen-eral council decided to allow sisters to go without veils, having noticed that sisters in some communities who were still asked to wear the traditional habit were surreptitiously wearing street clothes when they were ¯ away from the convent. We felt that honesty was the better policy. At first clothes were usually made out of habits and cloaks and often were ill fitting and not very well designed. Generally sisters wore blouses, skirts, and suits. Some sisters reverted to the hairstyles of their teen years; some bought wigs. Fairly soon, though, the sisters emerged as attractive women rather than neuter icons, and sometimes this incited the envy of other women. For example, one sister found a suitable coat with a small fur collar in the poor box for the parish. She was criti-cized by some parishioners as being too extravagant in clothes. The change to contemporary clothes, the sisters thought, necessitated some means for identification. For a while each sis-ter had a name tag; then we adopted a design for a medal. It is still being used. Change in clothes was symbolic and probably the change most criticized by the sisters' publics. July-August 2000 Pieper ¯ A Path of Humility and Truth This was a time of energetic hope and gloomy predictions as well. One priest "expert" predicted that within five years the con-gregation would be extinct. Before 1966 the vow of poverty implied permission for the use of material things. After the 1966 chapter, the meaning of being po.or as one wished and sharing material things was open to interpretation. General congregational'needs included care of retired sisters, administration, and the retirement of a debt on the motherhouse. Up to this time, each house had sent as much as possible to the motherhouse. In fact, sometimes superiors vied with one other to see how much could be sent, even at the expense of local needs. As sisters began to live outside established con-vents, the question arose about ensuring a balance of individual and congregational needs. Since CHM local houses had sent to the congregational fund the amount each determined, it seemed logical to continue this process. Hence, each sister was asked to deduct from her income what was needed for her individual or house costs and send the rest to the motherhouse. Little by little most of the sisters began to contribute as much as they could to the congregation's fund. Diocesan stipends were entirely too low. In the Des Moines Diocese the stipend set for each sister was $50-$100 monthly. In the city of Des Moines, all except one parish paid $50 per month per sister. I had to go to bishops and pastors to ask for an increase in the stipend. Frequently I was told that, if the sisters went back to their habits, they could get along on $50 a month! I prepared and distributed a budget so that the sisters could be informed about real congregational needs. Funds for retreats and education were budgeted. A study was made of average expenses for an indi-vidual. Many sisters responded favorably when they were informed about the needs, both for the congregation itself and for works to assist the poor. To free active sisters from increasing costs for sisters already in retirement, we enrolled in the social security program in 1972 when it became available for sisters. Using unclaimed interest on patrimony, we set up the CHM retirement trust in 1976. Until the summer of 1966, health expenses were cared for gratis by several related hospitals. One of these began charging the sisters for services. Then we initiated a health-insurance plan. Each sister in the congregation was asked to have an annual phys-ical examination. Revie~ for Religio~ The commission on rule revision met almost immediately after the 1966 chapter. Unable to decide what to call the first product of their efforts, it settled on "Spirit and Goals" until a better name could be found. After considerable discussion a state-ment of about a page and a half was sent to all the sisters for study and recommendation. After several revisions, a statement of spirit and goals was approved by a vote of the sisters in August 1968. The statement began, "We Sisters of the Humility of Mary are a group of women in the Catholic Church who have banded together to dedicate ourselves through a special common effort to the pur-suit of life's essential meaning and to a radical response to the Christian gospel of universal love." The Spirit and Goals document was intended as a basic state-ment explaining our spirit and the meaning of religious life for the Sisters of the Humility of Mary. The remainder of the rule was intended to be directives approved by succeeding chapters of affairs. After some years, and after the rules and regulations had been arranged according to topics and divided into Books I and II, the CHM president and I presented the document to the English-speaking committee of the Sacred Congregation for Religious (SCRIS) in Rome in 1982. The committee, finding several sections unacceptable, told us to make mandated changes and resubmit the document. Since the total congregation had already approved the 1982 document, it was necessary that they subsequently vote on SCRIS's mandates. This CHM approval was not forthcoming, so for seven years the congregation followed Books I and II without papal approval. In 1988 a new rule-revision committee attempted to integrate the directives of SCRIS, now called the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) in such a way that our identity would not be compromised. We con-sulted a canon lawyer working in the English-language depart-ment of CICLSAL. Her suggestions included moving as many items as possible to Book II, which did not require canonical approval. The main objection of CICLSAL had been our election process. After numerous revisions we were able to present the document to the CHM general assembly in the summer of 1990. It was approved by the Representative Assembly in that year and sent to Rome requesting the approval date of December 8. We distributed approved copies to the congregation in the summer of 1991. We are still probing self-determination versus community focus. ~uly-August 2000 Pieper ¯ A Path of Humility and Truth That sisters could choose their work had both positive and negative results. By 1968 we were sending openings for available positions to community members. That sisters could choose their work had both positive and negative results. Some felt insecure in having to find their own positions. Sisters who were not good teachers or who had no interest in teaching were able to go to school and train for and find occupations more in keeping with their talents. Justice was adopted as the congregation's priority. More sisters began working directly with the dispossessed, and the congregation supported their efforts. After the recommendation of Pope Paul VI encouraging American religious to go to Latin America, Father Louis Colonnese, director of PAVLA (Papal Volunteers for Latin America), rec-ommended about half a dozen places to the sis-ters. All of these were dioceses where the bishop had a pastoral plan to follow the spirit of Vatican II. Several of us went to visit Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of the San Crist6bal de las Casas diocese in southern Mexico. He took us over mountains to see places where sisters had been working to show us what had been done and what the pos-sibilities were. We were so impressed that we decided not to look further, but rather to use for the program in Chiapas the money we might have spent on airplane fare to other potential sites. We were urged to send sisters also to Ambato, Ecuador. Four si~ters went to these two missions; two are still in the San Crist6bal diocese. Although the commission on formation devised an extensive plan for formation, very few women applied. Furthermore, a :great many, particularly among those who were in temporary vows, left the congregation. Perhaps they were still in the process of being integrated in the congregation in a pre-Vatican II mode. Of the many reasons for the mass exodus from religious communities, I think a good many were cultural. Quite a few young women said that, if they could be as holy living as married women with chil-dren as they could as celibates in community, there was no reason to remain as sisters. The sexual revolution implied that one could not be a whole person without genital experiences. Some sisters, particularly those working directly with the poor, found that their primary community was one, other than the ClaMs. Some who left were those who had been dissatisfied for years. On the other hand, Review for Religious some were sisters who had worked most diligently and effectively for the changes. Some were unable to identify with a patriarchal church. Without a doubt all of us made mistakes. It might have been better to have informed our public about proposed changes, but we were intent on our internal study. In any case, I doubt if the pub-lic would have approved of the changes if we had asked them beforehand. The Sisters of the Humility of Mary moved some-what faster than other communities at this time of. change. As I watched communities that made the changes later, I used to think that I could be a consultant, telling them what to avoid. However, all of us had to learn from our own mistakes even though many of them were similar. Not everyone was mature enough to take per-sonal responsibility. The changes in discipline, clothes, works, and so on were only the expressions of a hope for the inner renewal of each sister and of the entire congregation. Celibacy in community has replaced obedience as the defining vow for sisters. Since the early 1970s, associates have expanded the search and service aspects of com-munity. Among the sisters, responsibility for private prayer some-times meant temporary abandonment of prayer altogether. Inner renewal is difficult to assess and is known only to God and the sister. Bishops witl~ whom CHMs worked were supportive during this time. One said that he did not understand everything that we did, but trusted us. On one occasion he commented, "I would never presume to tell a woman what to wear." Today we are an older and wiser congregation. The renewal set in motion in the 1960s has, I think, resulted in return to the spirit of our founders and a steady love for God, people, and the universe. Father Richard Hill 'SJ died on 29 January 2000 in the Jesuit infirfna~ at,Los' Gatos,~ Cahfornia: " 'Fathei" ~li ~sed~tor for c~nonical ~ounsel from Janua~ 1985 to July.19~)0. ~ : Let us remember him in burp~ay~ers~ July-August 2000 w. HENRY KEN-NEY Finding God's Willm A Maneuver finding God My title, "Finding God's Will," purposely suggests a prior search. In an age when some prefer to think of God as havin~ no specific will for individuals, but only a general wish for us to use our freedom well, the whole concept of seeking and finding God's will seems out of place. But I do not think it is. The theological assumptions behind searching for and finding God's will are, I believe, not of this age. They have appeared in the spirituality of countless saints, and espe-cially in those who lived in the last four or five hundred years. My large debt to an acknowledged master of search-ing for and finding God's will, St. Ignatius of Loyola, I gladly own. I am also quite indebted to dozens of pray-ers (my preferred term for directees) whom I have accom-panied on many a search and in many a finding. So my basic assumption is: God has a specific will which can be searched for and found--in large, medium, and lesser matters. A very good case, I believe, can be made that this is the prevailing assumption of the Bible and that it shines forth especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For instance, along with many scripture scholars, I see Jesus' desert temptations as part W. Henry Kenney SJ, founder of the Bluegrass Spirituality Center in Lexington, Kentucky, is now a free-lance "prayer coach." His address is 153 Barr Street; Lexington, Kentucky 40507. Review for Religious of his search for the Father's will on how to undertake and exer-cise his public ministry. Near the end of his life, we see Jesus in Gethsemane struggling to get beyond his aversion to an igno-minious death ~and coming finally to embrace his Father's will peacefully and courageously. Presuppositions for Fruitful Searching My first presupposition is that searching for and finding God's will is a gift, and God's best gifts most often come in answer to persistent prayer. Hence, the guiding light for a searcher is: Beg, beg, beg. That repeats in short compass the longest teaching of Jesus on prayer: keep on knocking, seeking, begging for God to reveal their (Father, Son, and Spirit) will (Lk 11:1-13). For those who are settled into a significant prayer life, recipients of one of its gifts--a strong desire to know God's will--persistent begging for the revelation of God's will strikes them as quite right. To be given the knowledge of God's will and the courage and joy to do it is perceived by such pray-ers as a most precious gift coming from God's Spirit, the gift. Happy are they who experience their begging turned into receiving--the knowledge and love of God's s, pecific will for them. The second presupposition is that the principal impediment to finding God's will is my own will, often enough so attached to X or so averted from Y that it is very difficult or nearly impossi-ble for Y to be revealed as God's will. Spirituality writers used to call that state "attachment" or "lack of indifference." Currently that state is described as insufficient openness to God's will or lack of spiritual freedom. If I am mildly or strongly attached to getting married or averse to becoming a priest or religious, it is more difficult for me to recognize that God's wisdom and plea-sure are calling me to the priesthood or religious life. When there is very strong aversion or attachment, it is nearly impossi-ble to know and accept God's willing the opposite of our own wills. Let us state this positively. A necessary condition for our finding God's will is our possession of indifference, detachment, real openness to God's will--spiritual freedom. St. Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises (§157) supplies a soul-testing remedy for such "inordinate attachments": When we feel an attachment opposed to X [Ignatius instances actual poverty] . it will be very helpful in order ~ly-.4ug~st 2000 Kenney ¯ Finding God's Will to overcome the inordinate attachment, even though cor-rupt na(ure rebel against it, to beg our Lord. to choose us to serve him in X. We should insist that we desire it, we should beg for it, plead for it, provided, of course, that it be for the service and praise of the Divine Goodness. (Puhl translation) With some discomfort I own that I have seldom suggested that a praying person follow §157's recommendation. However, from directing pray-ers (and from my own seeking of God's will) I have happened on to a maneuver that achieves, almost by indirection, what §157 seeks straight on. The third (and, for some, shocking) presupposition is this: God's will is usually revealed not by words or images, but by feel-ings: feelings of peace, of increased or continuing peace (called consolation), or feelings of diminished peace, of distancing (called desolation). Novice pray-ers have usually not had enough prayer and life experience of consolation and desolation for those feel-ings to be without the assistance of a spiritual guide--true instru-ments for revealing God's will to themselves. Conditions for Finding and Choosing God's Will Here are four necessary conditions for finding God's will: The first is spiritual freedom or openness. Being reasonably "at balance" is necessary for being really open to God's alternatives. How cru-cial this is can be seen in Ignatius's Exercises, in the extensive instructions and reflections given to help a praying person come to a reasonable level of spiritual freedom. The second is homework. Suffic-ient investigation of the par-ticulars of the available options (who, what, where, when, for how long, at what cost, and so forth) is absolutely necessary. Some per-sonality types want to rush into choosing before they have done their homework, or done it well enough. Pray-ers will often have discerned, in the first place, whether to commit themselves to an in-depth investigation of the alternatives, that is, the pros and cons of each. The third is kairos. There is a kairos, an appropriate time, for the discerning process. Some times are inappropriate, for example, wanting to know if I should accept a job offer before I am offered the job. That is clearly quite different from discerning on whether I should commit myself to investigate some job possibilities or to Review for Religious make some applications. Further, for those given .to control, there is often the temptation to discern alternatives--to have closure-- long before there is reasonable need for a decision. A help in the searching process is to fix the actual date wl~en a decision is needed. Then the discerner can assign a reasonable number of days for discernment before the due date. The fourth is a discernment companion. If a pray-er is leaning to one alternative and strongly dislikes the other, the aid of a dis-cernment companion is usually essential. The companion can help the praying persons to follow the process correcdy and thereby get beyond their subjectivity. Novice discerners with strong attach-ments are astonishingly adept at fouling up the discernment pro-cess. A person who read this article in manuscript form was dumbfounded to find in it a finger pointing out an inclination to subvert true discernment of a touchy personal decision. Even mature pray-ers, at least in their earlier searchings for God's will, usually have need of human help to discern and interpret patterns of consolation or desolation in response to their continued search-ing for the Lord's will. There would, then, be great risk if non-pray- ers or novice pray-ers attempted such formal discernment without a discernment companion, and even greater risk in the maneuver suggested below. The~, would too likely get into magic, divination, or self-deception. A ManeuvermOne Way of Searching for God's Will Central to the maneuver is repeatedly asking a loaded question of the Lord in the middle of prayer. I call it "popping the ques-tion." Unfortunately, there are several gloriously wrgng ways of popping the question. First is popping an unloaded question, such as, "Lord, do you want me to marry Susie?" That sounds quite sensible. What is so unproductive about this Way of phrasing the question is that it demands a vocal answer: "Yes" or "No." The Lord, however, is not in the habit of giving such answers. Not a few pray-ers continue to be scandalized that the Lord's preferred way of communicating "answers" to us is through our emotions, through consolations and desolations. A second wrong way of popping the question is to pop a ques-tion that is loaded towards the alternative the pray-er wants. This, unsurprisingly, greatly muddies the spiritual waters; self-gener-ated "peace" tends to obscure any subtle message from God. If I j~ly-August 2000 Kenney ¯ Finding God's Will greatly desire quitting my job and I keep asking, ".Lord, you want me to quit my job, don't you?" my strong emotional bias will give me so much'comfort that a contrary response from the Lord will likely be blocked out. Third, pray-ers will often fudge the process by alternately popping questions loaded against and loaded for themselves. Once again, muddied waters will result. A right way to phrase discernment questions is to use a loaded question consistently, a question loaded against my inclination or aversion and thereby loaded in God's favor. For a young or not-so-young woman attached to her single lifestyle, the loaded phras-ing of "Lord, you want me to marry Stan, don't you?" will cause disturbance, negative feelings, the first several times she pops it. These initial affective responses will likely prove untypical of responses later on, but she needs to experience them now. I say this because I have quite often seen sincere discerners surrepti-tiously (without knowing it themselves!) try to bypass such dis-comfort and get approval of the alternative they want either by asking an unloaded question or by unconsciously switching to the loaded question that favors their own present inclination: "Lord, you don't want me to marry Stan, do you?" Pray-ers that "lean" toward a preference of theirs need to be assured more than once that it is just as easy for the Lord to "answer" no to a loaded question as to answeryes. Understandably, many "leaning" pray-ersfeel that the question is too loaded against themselves for the Lord to be able to say no. In phi'asing discern-ment questions, it has gradually and experientially ~ome clear to me that it is much better to formulate the questions positively. For example, if a pray-er pops "Lord, you don't want me accept this job offer, do you?" the negative tends to muddy the process. The right-ness of the positively phrased question, "Lord, you want me to con-tinue in my present job, don't you?" can be sensed by pray-ers who lean toward accepting a new job. They experience more dis-comfort with positive questions than with negative ones. When to pop? I ask discernment questions of the Lord only, only, only when I am prayerful, that is, when I am at peace and have some sense of being with the Lord. Never do I ask when I am even a little unpeaceful or lack some real sense of being with the Lord. Praying persons, indeed, are frequently tempted to do this. If they yield, it is like asking the wall and expecting a revela-tory response within themselves as a reaction to the wall's action! Review for Religious When one is consciously with the Lord, whether in formal prayer or at'liturgy or at another time, a question should usually be popped only once. Popping the same question several times in the same ,prayer experience usually comes from a control drive that tends to commandeer the discernment process. How to pop? When I am in the middle of being connected with the Lord, I pop the question, as it were, eyeball to eyeball. Then I wait a short time, seconds. If I wait longer, I am trying to manipulate the Lord or influence my reactions. After popping I need to notice what happened to my con-nectedness and consolation. Did it remain the same? Did it increase? Was it subtly modified? Often pray-ers say "Nothing happened" after they popped the question. My response is "Something always hap-pens!" If my connectedness and peace remain the same, that is a very revealing, though low-key, response. Hence we need to keep a record of our post-popping reactions so that we may discover a pattern. How often to pop? For a small matter, once usually suffices if there has been a clear enough affective response. For larger mat-ters-- a new job, undertaking a volunteer project or pulling back from one--five, ten, or a dozen times usually give a clear picture. Very large questions--marriage, religiou~ life, another child, major change in employment or lifestyle--may need months of discern-ing. What is always being sought is a clear pattern of responses from multiple poppings. Confirmation. When repeated poppings have yielded a pat-tern that tells us we very probably know God's will in a large or very large matter, it is good to supplement the discernment with a further process that may increase and strengthen our careful cer-tainty. Regarding marriage, the confirming question (in full detail, useful for the first popping) could well be "Lord, I think you have revealed to me that you want me to marry Stan. That is your will, isn't it?" Interpreting patterns. If pray-ers' first discernment efforts involve large or very large issues, I usually say nothing beforehand about htw to interpret their experience. Rather, I tell them they should pop the question "about X times," note carefully what hap- I ask discernment questions of the Lord only, only, only when I am prayerful. July-August 2000 Kenney ¯ Finding God's Will pens to their state of peace while and after popping, and record the experience of each discernment. At our next meeting we look at and interpret the responses together. The interpretation is very simple: The experience of consola-tion confirms the loaded question, whereas a lesser peacefulness or a diminished sense of being with the Lord negates the loaded ques-tion. In the example "Lord, you want me to marry Stan, don't you?" the results of the maneuver may be "muddied" by several years of attachment to a single lifestyle. The first few poppings will probably bring feelings of desolation, coming from pain at the thought of possibly losing certain blessings of the single life. But it is the pattern'of consolations or desolations, derived from many spiritual experiences, that reveals whether the alternative is in harmony or not with God's wisdom and love, and with what is deepest in herself as well. It is worth adding that in using the maneuver people may often experience desolation in new ways. They may sense a sud-den loss of contact with the Lord--no more disturbing than the quiet loss of a telephone connection during a conversation. Or they may sense the onset of a "vacuum" feeling, a severe feeling of emptiness, immediately after popping the question. Such feel-ings are often quite subtle, but are clear instances of desolation nonetheless. Sundry Choices Made by Means of the Maneuver Somehow it seems more appropriate to place this section at the end rather than near the beginning. My hope is that it will give some feel for the variety of discernments. I give some instances of choices that go ~ith the chooser's natural preference as well as againstdt. Understandably, I fictionalize to protect confidential-ity, but give enough details to suggest a "feel" for the shape of dis-cerned choices. First, four examples of big choices: a woman in her thirties who had enjoyed an active lifestyle met a man whom she feared God might want her tO marry and thus have her lifestyle signifi-cantly altered. Hers was a long discernment, spread over a num-ber of months, and she gradually became more open to marriage, especially through the use of "Lord, you want me to marry Stan, don't you?" Postwedding life has proved the fittingness of her def-initely not easy choice. There is a greatly loved child, and she Review for Religious found herself saying, "It's clear to me that I'm growing up now." A man in his early forties, increasingly uncomfortable with his military-connected job, sought first to know if God wanted him to give up his job and seek training and employment in some-thing more oriented towards human service. It was difficult to consider giving up a well-paying job without knowing what the next, step would be. His discernment was eased by his having a substantial amount of savings. In his case the discernment of per-haps five or six months gave him the certainty (and courage) to quit his job. This led to discernment about further education and eventually to a people-centered ministry. A young woman, thirty-two, who came with a strong prayer life and dedication to helping the poor, was not charmed when I asked if she had thought about religious life. "I want to get married and have children." "What if God wants you in religious life?" was a question she did not enjoy. In some-thing like a month of using the loaded ques-tion "Lord, you want me to be a religious, don't you?" she came to much more spiritual freedom for either marriage or religious life. She found herself eager to know God's will clearly, whatever it might be. That desire was fulfilled in another month and a half by a definite vocation to a missionary order. A woman in her forties taught'alternativ~ high school (possi-bly a universal euphemism for teaching students less than sixteen and expelled from regular schools). She heard of the possibility of becoming chief financial officer for a large God's Pantry opera-tion; she was both very qualified and very attracted. When, how-ever, she frequently asking loaded questions about whether God wanted her to continue in her present job, she came up with no clear sense of direction. Then, almost immediately after she was actually offered the CFO job, her prayer was filled with clarity that God wanted her to continue teaching "alternatives"--the very drift of her original popped question. Next are two examples of "medium" choices, but I flinch at such labeling because often the consequences are major. Probably the saddest accompanying I have done was with a man in his for-ties who was in a cult-like abusive relationship. In a discernment "What if God wants you in religious life?" was a question she did not enjoy. .~uly-Aug~st 2000 Kenn~y ¯ Findin~ God's W~ll which was long enough and clear enough, the answer was yes to "You want me to give up my relationship with X, don't you?" The sadness is that the relationship continued with great harm to him-self and to his family. Though I tried to persuade him to get coun-seling, the abuser convinced him that that counselors do the work of the devil. A man in his early fifties is a first-rate high school teacher. He got the idea that it would be good to get a Ph.D., but dis-cernment dictated otherwise. He continued happily and effectively teaching for several years. Because he is very gifted, he was asked to do all sorts of things at school, at church, and elsewhere. Before using formal discernment he was seriously fatiguing himself by undertaking too many projects. He began using a discernment notebook. When asked to do something, he noted it, carefully constructed a question for popping, used it in prayer,and logged the '~results." He says. no a lot more now, and notes the absence of fatigue. Out of the blue a department chair at the university asked him to supervise graduate students doing their summertime practice teaching. Not only did his discernment yield a clear "No," but also an unusual pair of words, "You're enough"--exactly what he needed to hear. He has no need for other and ever new achieve-meats to prove and feel his self-worth. Other Ways of Discernment The maneuver suggested here is one good way of seeking and finding God's will. There are many other ways. Experimentation vs. popping. In several areas of our lives where the prayer discernment process proposed here is not appro-priate, experimentation is a privileged way of finding God's will. It can be used for how long to pray, where and when to pray, what type of prayer is best for one's "daily diet," how much sleep, exer-cise, food, and drink to get, and so forth. Experimentation is not trying X one day, Y another, and Z on the third. Rather, it is try-ing one way five to seven times, then trying another way five to seven times, and afterwards reflecting on our experiences, espe-cially on the quality of our lives during the alternative experi-ments. St. Ignatius Loyola observes: "Now since God our Lord knows our [individual] nature infinitely better [than we do], when we make changes of this kind, [God] often grants each one the grace to understand what is suitable for [us]" (SpEx §89). Review for Religious There is another way that God answers sincere prayer--and, here, prayer to know God's will. My sister, her husband afflicted with Alzheimer's, knew they had to move into some form of assisted living because her heart condition was making her ever less able to care for him. She was more inclined to get care eight hours per day rather than 24-hour care--too pricey, she thought. Her earnest prayer that God reveal Their will was strikingly answered. The next two nights her husband had diarrhea and did not know what the toilet was for. Clearly, day care would not suffice. Another way of discernment is, I think, proposed by St. Ignatius, but unfortunately I cannot document this. This way involves offering the Lord different options as one would present different dishes to an honored guest, waiting to see which' he prefers. I mention, too, the experience of a Baptist minister who, faced with significant choices, would open his Bible to random passages and find in them helpful suggestions towards a particular course of action. He would say, "The Scripture came and grasped me." Summing Up First, the maneuver suggested here for finding God's will in larger and medium discernments centers on popping loaded ques-tions to God in prayer and noticing the pattern of desolations or consolations. By examining the patterns, the pray-er comes to suf-ficient certainty (especially if there is a confirmation process) that God's will has been found. This maneuver has been instrumental for scores of pray-ers in finding the peace of certainty about God's will for themselves even, sometimes, in small matters. The out-comes of decisions arrived at in this manner have been uniformly good (with one exception), and pray-ers have continued secure in their discernments, free from attacks by second thoughts. For persons who approached a decision leaning somewhat or strongly to one alternative, an unplanned and unexpected result of using the maneuver is that repeated poppings of a question loaded against their inclinations brought them--gradually, but more rapidly than I had dared hope--to equanimity about, or even real openness, to the unwanted alternative. With only one excep-tion, those who were led to "tough love" decisions were able to embrace them peacefully and live them energetically. Those who were led by the right use of the maneuver to embrace alternatives July-August 2000 L3-77-- Kenney ¯ Finding God's Will in accord with their initial preferences enioyed the special conso-lation, of knowing they had sought and found not merely their own will, but also God's. Magnificat I want to thank with all my heart the unknown man who, this summer, hacked back and burned the briars and unruly gorse which had covered that singing stream between Boolagh Bog and Bockagh Hill. And I will, because now eye can feast on the smooth black tables of rock down which clear brown water tumbles and bubbles and makes white foam. Ear had always heard the choir under the gorse-and-briar canopy. Body had always sat or stood there, soothed by sound. Now eye and ear heart and bone and soul and tumbling stream are humming their Magn~'cat in unison. Bernadette McCarrick RSM Review for Religious HILARY OTTENSMEYER Consulting Your Inner Wisdom Mnuch of our United States consumer-society mentality vades our quest for spiritual growth. We snatch up the latest acclaimed spiritual authors. We dash off to the latest popu-lar workshops. We try to take in more and more. The effort is laudable, for there is this hunger within us to know more about God's plan for us and to draw nearer to Jesus. All the restless searching, however, ignores the treasure that lies right at our feet. We look everywhere, but we do not see it. As Meister Eckhart wisely put it, "all people have a vintage wine cellar, but they sel-dom drink from it." What I propose here is a stop to all this chas-ing about and an invitation to look into ourselves at the inner wisdom that is already ours. We have access to it. Where the Treasure Lies Have you .ever noticed how easily we slip into states of total absorption, into trancelike states? I imply nothing "spooky" here. This is simply the way our minds work on certain tasks. In that state of absorption, of inner searching, we step out of time, away from the settings around us. We become so focused on a single idea that no other thought, no other emotion, intrudes. People who use their mind in this way experience vivid imagery and feel overall such bodily responses as muscle tension and sometimes Hilary Ottensmeyer OSB last wrote for us in our January-February 1997 issue. His address remains 1414 Southern Avenue; Beech Grove, Indiana 46107. July-August 2000 Ottensmeyer ¯ Consulting Your Inner Wisdom heightened blood pressure. Common occurrences: driving right past your own home, not hearing what people say and asking them to repeat, and not noticing that the phone is ringing insis-tently. Sometimes, by single-minded concentration on a prob-lem, we may come up with a "Eureka!" experience and have a solution. Most of the time, however, I suspect we choose this kind of intensive focus when someone's word or action has wounded us, and we retreat inwardly to chew on the bitter rind of our hurt pride. My suggestion here is that the mind's same powerful ability to focus, its intensity and bright-point targeting, can be used voluntarily in prayer--only this time the focus is on the inner wisdom we all possess through the grace of baptism and indeed all the sacraments and through our enriching experiences of striv-ing to be faithful followers of Jesus and reflective readers of the Gospels. In this way of prayer, we ask the Spirit of Jesus to guide and enlighten us. When we Christians go into the center of our minds and hearts, it is the indwelling Spirit who greets us there. There we hear the echoes of the voice of Jesus and of all the good people who have been examples of faith and good conduct for us. That central core of ourselves is the inner wisdom of which I speak. It is there, and it is available. But let me make a few distinctions. Some Clarifications I am not referring here to centering prayer or at least to what I understand by centering prayer. To quote Father Thomas Keating in his excellent book Open Mind, Open Heart: "A thought in the context of [centering prayer] is any perception that appears on the inner screen of consciousness. This could be an emotion, an image, a memory, a plan, a noise from outside, a feeling of peace, or even a spiritual communication. In other words, anything what-soever that registers on the inner screen of consciousness is a 'thought.' The method consists of letting go. of every thought dur-ing the time of prayer, even the most devout thoughts." ~ What I am referring to here about consulting your inner wisdom probably comes close to what Keating refers to, and dis-misses, as self reflection?. This, Keating says, is to be got over in order to reach pure cont.emplation. My own proposal is a delib-eratefocusing of thought as if one were using a magnifying glass to Review for Religious ' direct the beams of the sun to one spot. Such a tactic could pen-etrate steel. The discipline I propose is not behavior modification. That highly effective psychological tactic involves visioning an unde-sirable behavior of mine, such as becoming angry with the choir habits of a fellow religious, and then seeing myself calmly allow that person to do his or her own thing without my usual emo-tional upset. Consulting our inner wisdom means having in mind a specific goal (more on this later), then cleansing our mind of external dis-tractions by some relaxation exercise, and, in that calm and focused meditative state, inviting the Lord (or some other spiritual counselor) to help us understand and move towards atti-tudes and behaviors more consonant Jesus, unlike ourselves, with the obedient love with which a allowed himself to Christian wants to identify. This differ-entiates consulting our inner wisdom be angry only.when from simple behavior modification because it sees the change in ourselves the Father's honor and as inspired by the example of Jesus and glory were attacked. not simply as a personal social or emo-tional adjustment, helpful though that might be. Take, for instance, the ques-tion of boundaries. We are all aware how careful we are to pro-tect the spiritual frontiers of our Christan, Jesus-inspired integrity. Anger, rooted in pride, is one such protection effort. Jesus, however, unlike ourselves, allowed himself to be angry only when the Father's honor and glory were attacked. See, for example, the cleansing of the temple or the "woes" in Matthew's Gospel. At all other times, personal attacks did not seem to move him emotionally. When we honestly consult our inner wisdom, we may note boundaries of ours that we fail to protect enough. We may fail to caution ourselves regarding the sight or memory of a sexually attractive person. We may carelessly allow ourselves to recollect wounding words or actions that, even years later, cause us to tighten our fists or clench our jaws. Reflecting upon our inner wisdom, we can suspect or see the dangers of these reactions and thereby find ourselves protected against deep tenacities and inva-sive roots. "When you bury hate in your heart, you bury it alive" is a piece of liberating wisdom worth remembering. ~,~-~-~L~ ~ July-August 2000 Ottensmeyer ¯ Consulting Your Inner Wisdom Some Helpful Preliminary Disdplines Any relaxation exercise that suits our personality may be used to induce a meditative state. Relaxing the muscles from the head on down throughout the body is a common practice. The point is to pull the mind away from the leaping about that characterizes our ordinary mental activity. As one Eastern mystic put it, "the mind is like a tree full of chattering monkeys." Another approach, count-ing backward from thirty, demands just enough concentration to clear the mind of other thoughts. Paying attention to your breath-ing also slows down the inner agitation. The current enthusiastic practice of walking a labyrinth serves the same purpose--certainly this was the reason why many European cathedrals have a labyrinth carved in the floor near the entrance. Working through a series of yoga exercises, too, or focusing on a mantra helps some achieve the same end. Before entering into such a disciplinary exercise, it is impor-tant to have a goal in mind: "Jesus, I want to go into the place where you live in me, sit with you there, and talk about this com-pulsion to anger, to judgment, that spurts up so frequently, so involuntarily within me. Open to me your way of living with anger, for you felt it too. Help me draw on the many times I have given in, and the times I have restrained myself and 'stuffed' down my anger, only to see it blaze up in a trivial context once again, a con-text that was most inappropriate. Lord, I want freedom--to the degree my frail humanity allows--freedom from this compulsion. Lord, I am admonished by the wisdom you,.and others, have taught me. I have seen people mellow with the years, and others grow sour. Seeing someone act harshly, hearing another cut into someone's reputation, I react angrily at once, from the simple proud conviction that 'I wouldn't do it that way!' And I quickly find myself locked emotionally and mentally into scathing criticism." Jesus gently points out to us--after we wait silently for a while--that the only times he became angry were when the Father was attacked, ignored, impugned in some way. Our petty and obsessive responses melt before his gentle encouragement. Sometimes when we journey inwardly we become more acutely aware how often we fall into stubborn, addictive behaviors about which we feel helpless. Who is this "other" person who shows up within me, powerful, demanding, whom I watch with anguish as if it were a stranger? We have tried therapy, prescription drugs, behavior modification. The one.thing lacking to these tactics-- Review for Religious and I do not deny their value--is this: They rarely draw on that inner wisdom, that Jesus-centered encounter, where true change can take place. For instance, Alcoholics Anonymous has helped innumerable people, and indeed has an important spiritual com-ponent, namely, surrender to a Higher Power. But surrender in faith is only a beginning. There needs to be private self-ques-tioning that draws on the inner wisdom with which we are graced. Wl~en an addictive, destructive pattern has invaded our psyche so that a part of our life has become disconnected from the normal flow of life, we need to reach into the deepest resources within us: grace, the voice of Jesus, our inner wisdom. Within this intense, highly focused place in our mind, we call on Jesus to walk us through another pattern of behavior. Mental rehearsal is common to many forms of psychother-apy. Seeing yourself in the company of Jesus, however, and con-trasfing sad experiences of the past with "bright angels" of wisdom and true freedom, we choose a different, liberating pattern of action. We establish new boundaries, mentally and visually mov-ing away from the edges of danger. The mental rehearsal itself is now a new behavior that we can draw on when temptation returns. The hand retracts instead of reaching for the bottle, the eyes turn away from the stimulus to lust (maybe "custody of the eyes" was not just a life-depriving tactic after all!), the serving spoon is put down after one moderate portion. Psychologists continue to study how the mind visualizes behaviors and procedures. Imagination and imagery can be used in very sophisticated ways. In a recent New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell asks: "What do Wayne Gretzsky, Yo-Yo Ma, and a brain surgeon named Charlie Wilson have in common?" The answer: their practice of careful visualization before any action is taken. These men are virtuosi, and they exercise their great technical skills internally first. They mentally see an action through to the end before they perform it externally. Charlie Wilson, during his morning run, looks at each of the day's operations in his head, visualizing the entire procedure and its potential outcome. He says, "When I was actually doing the operation, it was as if I were doing it for the second time." Once, after finishing an operation, .taking off his gloves, and heading off down the hall, he suddenly realized that "the tape he had been playing in his head didn't match the operation that had unfolded before his eyes. 'I was correlating everything--what I saw, what I ~dy-August 2000 expected, what the X rays said. And I realized that I had not pur-sued one particular thing. So I turned around, scrubbed, and went back in, and, sure enough, there was a little remnant of tumor that was just around the corner. It would have been a disaster.''3 Consulting our inner wisdom involves a similar attention to detail. The skills to visualize here, however, are not the motor skills, but rather the spiritual skills we have accumulated over the years through prayer, scriptural study, and the counsels of wise Christians in spiritual reading and in the living church. It is all there inside, waiting to be drawn on like a rich bank account. Adding to the Inner Wisdom We sometimes feel empty, wandering endlessly in our private deserts. We feel locked into decades-old mental labyrinths. Our motivation flags. Dorothy Day once told a reluctant young friend that God "makes us understand this distaste, this recoil from reli-gion. The lethargy comes from a. consciousness of the immanence of the struggle, the fact that it is unceasing and will go on to death, and we often think that sheer thoughtless paganism would be a relief. ''~ But deep within we accept what the great John Cardinal Newman wrote: "Prayer is to the spiritual life what the beating of the pulse and the drawing of the breath are to the life of the body. It would be as absurd to suppose that life could last when the body was cold and motionless and senseless, as to call a soul alive which does not pray. The state or habit the spiritual life exerts itself consists in the continual activity of prayer.''5 Our task consists in never giving up on the faithful practice of prayer. How often we have heard that! And each morning we awake with renewed intention. But then we shoot through the day like a bullet, "busy about many things"--good things, too. When we finally bring ourselves to our inner wisdom, finally sit at the feet of Jesus just for a while, it seems we hear him say: "Until you are convinced that prayer is the best use of your time, you will not find time for prayer." And the sentence haunts us, but also frees us now for the best use of our time. It is as though a key has turned in a lock. Sometime~ it is helpful to have a favorite saint join you in that central place of peace. St. Joseph, who never ~ays a word in the Gospels, is delighted when you join him for an evening and sit with him on a bench just outside the little house in Nazareth. Review for Religious Perhaps Mary will come out, too, and rest awhile as the sun sets behind the Galilean hills. There is a beautiful view from Nazareth over towards the Roman city of Sepphoris, and even beyond to-the great sea. They will talk to you if you question them. When Problems Arise, When Hopes Surface When we go with Jesus into th~ place of our inner wisdom, we make starding discoveries. We may find problems we did not know we have. We are likely to become aware of wasteful, regrettable ways that our head and heart have been capable of, but cannot well afford. There are innumerable clamorous voices. There is the insistent voice of the Problem Solver. He wor-ries relentlessl~ about the future. The muscles around his eyes are taut because he is always peering ahead, looking for solutions there in the distance. He causes headaches and upset stomachs. The expectations of others are his con-stant concern as he tries to weigh a chance remark, interpret a fleeting facial expression. There is no center from which he acts. Life is one wrenching effort to get control of things and people. His bulky appointment calendar, like Marley's chain, gives him away. Another recognizable voice inside us is the Self-Accuser. Her skin gets hot, her hands become fists, as she recalls awkward words and clumsy gestures from years past. She plays memory tapes over and over in our head. No one is more persistent in tearing us down than she is: "You have been in religious life for fifty years now, but that is no proof that God loves you." Nothing so saddens, so pierces the heart like this cry, one we have all heard many times. The Self-Accuser has only to stop talking and thus give,us a quiet moment to lift our eyes to the cross or listen to Jesus' many words of love for us, or to hear Yahweh's endear-ments in the words of prophets and psalmists. But, beaten down by the Self-Accuser's words or shrinking from her grimaces, hear-ing we do not hear, seeing we do not see--because the Self- Accuser in us relendessly shares her deafness and blindness with us, and we chronically allow it. Sometimes it is helpful to have a favorite saint join you in that central place of peace. j~uly-Aug~tst 2000 There are other inner voices. Perhaps most persistent is the voice of the Lonely One. It does not let us forget that we long to love and be loved, to hold and be held, to whisper and be whis-pered to, to beclose to Another and not feel so alone. Sometimes we do feel consoled and calmed. The lonely restlessness at the center of our being, however, can never be completely quieted; perhaps it is not meant to feel so much peace. It is a reminder of" our desire for our heavenly home. How poignantly John of the Cross describes this quest for the Beloved in his Spiritual Canticle: "Where have you hidden, Beloved, and left me moaning?" In the hollow center of the soul where inner wisdom and grace live, there also dwells this urgent longing, We carry this wound in our heart. We become aware of it sometimes with hopeful anticipation, some-times with fear. In time, achieving greater integrity--the union between what we appear outwardly to others and what we know inwardly to be true--may calm us to some degree. Disturbing voices within us are balanced by "bright angels" calling us to. greater integrity. We long for inner peace, but only sometimes, with our inner wisdom, do we experience a joyous hope for it. Letting Memory remind us "of those splendid moments when we were touched by God, when we felt the reality of God deeply, is inner wisdom. Those blessed recollections remain when thought and emotions became as one with.an intensity that seems like an embrace. These are wells to which we can return time and again. Another support is Imagination: gathering together the way-ward impulses of our heart, humbly putting them before Jesus as the woman caught in adultery did during her brief moments with him after all the others had gone. And she heard him say, "Neither do I condemn you" (Jn 8:11). We long to hear such healing words, words of forgiveness that bring an offer of reconciliation. Unlike her, we may still hold out, failing to hear those words because of our pride and shame. St. Paul insists: "We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Co 5:20). The repetition of per-sonally inspiring gospel texts (we all have our own)--in a mantra-like fashion, but more intentionally, until they infuse the heart--evokes and strengthens the inner wisdom. "The Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name" (Jn 15:16). "You did not choose me, but I chose you" (Jn 15:16). Allowing such words to soothe the heart steadies our resolve. As the Curg d'Ambricourt affirmed on his deathbed in Georges Bernanos's novel The Diary of a Country Priest: "All is grace." l~eview for Religious Jesus the Center of Our Being It helps to anchor our resolve in one basic' truth: Jesus is the center of our being, our very existence. Until we can accept that, we cringe when we hear Jesus uttering those breathtaking demands to his disciples: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up h.is cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Mt 10:37-39). Who does this Jesus think he is, pushing into our lives and taking them over? Presuming on our most instinctive loyalties! Preempting our deepest affections! Usurping our natural ties to father, mother, son, and daughter! Boldly proclaiming himself the most important person in our lives! This cross which he demands we take up daily disorients our whole lives, doesn't it? These demands are one way of forcing us to admit quite simply--and we are dazed by the thought--that we are not the center of our own life. Everything in our consumer culture tries to convince us that we are. If we can swallow and digest that one truth, many of the pieces in this vast jigsaw puzzle of our lives would fit together wonderfully. When we realize that Jesus made us the center of his life within his obedient love for his Father--these demands become acceptable, even desirable. My favorite image of intimacy with Jesus comes from John's Gospel. The beloved disciple, while re.clining at table on that unforget-table evening, leans back onto the breast of Jesus. Consulting the inner wisdom that God has put into our hearts, we know we are invited to do the same. Do we have the courage, the love, to do so? Notes ~ Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Opoz Heart (New York: Amity House, 1986), p. 35. 2 Keating, Open Mind, p. 112. 3 Malcolm Gladwell, "The Physical Genius," New Yorker, 2 August 1999, p. 63. 4 Dorothy Day, "Letter to an Agnostic," America (90th Anniversary Issue) 180, no. 13 (17 April 1999): 8. s Quoted in Saint Meinrad Archabbey's Community Bulletin, 4 July 1999, p. 2. ~dy-August 2000 EILEEN E O'HEA Tell Them, Tell the New Members. religious vocations A Mission is clear. That is, most if not all religious insti-tutes have spent days, weeks, months on mission state-ments for their communities. And they have done this bravely, wisely, prayerfully. These statements, coming from their lived experience as dedicated men and women, represent not only what they are doing now but also what they hope to do, or do better, or do more of. Concern for the poor, the marginalized, the disenfran-chised is a substantial part of communities' commitment to do whatever they can to facilitate the reign of God here on earth. A sister in my community, Elaine, one we all agree is charismatic in the true sense of the word, has been riding the chartered bus from New York City to the Bedford Hills Women's Correctional Facility every other Sunday. The bus is filled with inner-city children going to see their mothers. It is a two-hour ride. Elaine's con-cern for the women in prison and for their continuing relationship with their children has made these Sunday visits possible. For more than thirty years Elaine has worked in what she calls "the slammer." Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ, a decade-long contributor to our pages, had her third book published in May: In Wisdom's Kitchen: The Process of Spiritual Direction (Continuum). Her address is still 1750 Marion Street, #8; Roseville, Minnesota 55113. Review for Religiotts "The slammer" is an accurate term because, as Elaine enters, at least ten gates must open and slam shut before she gets to the room where she works within the razor-wired enclosure of this maximum-security prison. The room is now called The Children's Center. Elaine's job has been to do whatever she can to help the women keep in touch with their children. This article will not attempt to describe all that is involved in Elaine's ministry in prison, or to describe the eight convents (called Providence Houses) that she and others have reopened so that women leaving prison have a place to live and a chance to begin again in a new environment. Their children come too, of course. The sisters liv-ing in these houses with the women and children are quite clear about the mission-and-ministry statements of their congregation, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, New York. Stories like Elaine's (or Eugene's, as the case may be) are true of individuals or groups in many communities--and are attract-ing new members. "Come and see," we say. Come, join us in try-ing to make a better world. Come, help to bring about systemic change. Every year a few do come. They are searching; they seek something worthwhile to give their life to. They want to make a difference, and they want to be with others, with communities that are facilitating the reign of God on this earth. For some new members, religious life seems to work for a while but then seems to be "not enough," not enough of what they looked for or hoped to find. "What do you get for doing this?" they ask, or "Why stay?" after the excitement of discovery fades; "I can do this without a vowed life of poverty, chastity, and obedience." And they are right; they can. Many women and men, ¯ married or partnered, hold the same values and are involved in the same types of ministry. When we invite new members into this little piece of the vine-yard, into participating with us in mission and ministry, we often forget a simple truth that might literally be underneath their skin. New members seem to be looking for three things: ° a lived expe-rience of gospel values through the mission and ministry of the community; ¯ intimacy, which is part of the friendship found within community; ° and intimacy with the Divine. It is this third one I am concerned about. Elaine and the Providence House sisters are, without a doubt, prayerful, God-centered, holy women. They reflect on the day's Scriptures together, talk about the meaning of the texts for their July-August 2000 O'Hea ¯ Tell Them, Tell the Nay Members. personal life and for their ministry, and they are committed to some personal prayer each day, usually some form of contempla-tive prayer. If we put prayer, community life, and ministry together, then why is it "not enough"? Admittedly, prayer or Scripture shar-ing sometimes means that those present share their personal strug-gles, philosophies, and theologies and thus can seem too intellectual, or too focused on the external ministerial needs, or too routinely self-focused. Most times, however, it is a heartfelt response to divine inspiration and the Gospels. Is this not "enough"? Perhaps not. Maybe those great mentors like Elaine and others are not sharing quite enough with the new member. We seem to do well at providing and accompanying new mem-bers in meaningful ministry. We also share community and friend- ~hip withthem, but we know, and hope they know, that we cannot supply what did not happen for them in their families of origin. Alice Miller, a leading psychologist of our time, states: "What you didn't get at age two, you will never get." Why? Not because we will not know love and affirmation, but because we will not know them as a two-year-old needed to know them. Intimacy and love is often an issue for new members, and they must work hard at discerning what they are meant to find within the community and what they must find within themselves. Frequently they feel there is not enough intimacy because deep friendships seem hard to find among the members. This is so because most of the members are much older, or are already bonded in relationships that have endured for years, or because the older members are so involved in their ministry that they do not have the time or the energy for anyone else. We probably will never resolve successfully all that is involved in the struggle for intimacy and love within religious communities, but we can do better. What remains after considering prayer, community life, and ministry is this: What do we get for doing all this? What has kept Elaine trudging up to the slammer each day for thirty years? What makes h6r such a holy woman? Is there some experience so sus-taining that makes it worth everything? Is it possible that you, Elaine, have experienced being grasped by Divine Love? Is there something that happens, intimacy with the Divine, that holds you, sustains you, makes you the very delightful and humorous person we all know? Did you encounter Christ in your ministry to the poor and is this what transformed you? Do you, Elaine, know, really know, intimacy with Divine Love or know you dwell in inef- Review for Religious fable Mystery? And is what you experience available to me, the new member? Can you tell me---if, indeed, it did happen for you-- whether it happened all at once, or gradually through the years, and what kinds of psychological, emotional, and spiritual ups and downs you have gone through? Was there one experience that was more formative for you than any other? Intimacy with Divine Love (and people experience it in a variety of ways) is what the human heart longs for, searches for. Our nature is such that we are all meant to realize union in and with the Divine even though each of us will experience it differ-endy. So, when we invite new members to "come and see," we must tell them what they get. In my novitiate days the sixty-four novices (thirty-two have remained these forty years) were told by a very wise and very Irish mistress of novices that, if we left all, we would receive back a hun-dredfold. Did we? I cannot speak for others, but my guess is that most (maybe not all) would say yes and that they would make the same life choice if they had the opportunity to live it over again. They just never say exactly why they would do this. Intimacy in any human relationship of true love is rarely spoken about in detail. The same is true of intim, acy in and with Divine Love. Mystics write about human and divine love because they break through egoeentricity and are no longer reticent or ashamed to speak of the wonder, the awe, the love they experi-ence. Poets write of human and divine love and tease our spiritual appetite by circling around some pro'found experience. They are like eagles riding the air current, then soaring so high we lose sight of them and what they are expressing. They stir up the embers of our hearts with their hints, but eventually leave us feel-ing tantalized by possibility. I do not think it can be any other way. Relationships of true love are intrinsically mysterious because the experience is beyond words, beyond intellectual constructs. The words of the poet point us to the moon, as the Zen saying goes, but once you see the moon the pointer is no longer neces-sary. In fact, it is an impediment. What remains after considering prayer, community life, and ministry is this: What do we get for doing all this ? July-August 2000 O'Hea ¯ Tell Them, Tell the New Members. What ke~ps us from at least giving hints as poets and lovers do? What can we say to new members if we are not poets? Some, like the poets, will use romantic language to describe their expe-rience of the Divine; others will be more concrete or more tran-scendent in expressing their experience. Recendy, at the end of a mission-and-ministry convocation, someone complained that he seldom heard Jesus referred to throughout the weekend. One of the participants responded by asking, "Is it more important to quote Scripture and refer explic-itly to Jesus or to do what he did and invite people to share the communion of table fellowship with us?" A good question, a great response. It has a familiar ring to many of us. It is the tension between doing works of justice and peace and theologizing about them, and then reflecting on them and integrating them as part of our own personal journey of faith. Simply naming God and Jesus as we talk about our lives and ministry is not what I am referring to. I want "hints" from Elaine and from the remaining thirty-two members of my novitiate. I think the reasons we hesitate to speak about our religious experi-ences are many. We do not all believe the same things about God or Jesus any more, and we do not want to offend, or we are afraid of exposing what is most sacred to us because it might meet with disdain and scoffing, or become the subject of theological combat. And so we are quiet. The pearl of great price is buried. Religious experience is always unique, different with every individual. Two categories, however, help to explicate distinct modes of experience. For those whose religious experience is the esoteric, God is the One beyond all names .and forms and is Mystery. There is nothing to say and nothing to tell because, over their years of spiritual searching, they have discovered this truth: God is ultimately an ineffable Mystery. Some not only take refuge in this discovery, but even collapse into it. They stop searching and ride on their limited knowledge, presuming that what they have discovered is all that can be realized. Consequently, their relationship with ineffable Mystery is rarely spoken of. I think some new members want to know that this experience of ineffable Mystery is not the dead end of the spiritual journey, but a realized source of joy in the one experiencing it; that this connection with the Divine, an experience beyond any human connection, makes a life of celibacy the only choice for them; and that it is this par-ticipation in divine life that impels them to minister to others and Reviev~ for Religious thereby have an experience, however fragile, of equanimity, integrity, wholeness. Esoterics must learn how to share their expe-rience of ineffable Mystery with the new members and admit to them that there is such a thing as the hundredfold. For some others, another type of religious experience is open, one frequently referred to as exoteric. It is the experience of a personal relationship with the

Issue 9.3 of the Review for Religious, 1950. ; Review for Religious MAY 15, 1950 E~es Right? ~ ~ichard Leo Heppler~ C:onformity wffh Christ C;.A. Herbst the Holy Ghost ° '" Leo A. Coressel Psychometrics and R.~ligious I~i~e ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ Sister M. Digne Lay Religious and Laws of Bishops Jose ph F. Gallen ~ue~s÷ions and Answers. Book Reviews Summer Sessions Report to Rome RI::¥11:::W FOR Ri::LI IOUS VOLUME IX MAY, 1950 NUMBER CONTENTS EYES RIGHT?--Richard Leo Heppler, O.F.M .1.1.3 SUMMER SESSIONS . 118 CONFORMITY WITH CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERING-- C. A. Herbst, S.2 . 119 ATOMIC BROTHERHOOD CAMPAIGN . ~ . 124 OF THE HOLY GHOST, WHO PROCEEDS AS LOVE-- Leo A. Coressel, S.J . 125 PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOMETRICS TO RELIGIOUS LIFE--~Sister M. Digna, O.S.B . 131 LAY RELIGIOUS AND THE LAWS OF BISHOPS ON CONFESSION-- 2oseph F. Gallen, S.J . 140 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 152 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 13. About the Little Office . 153 14. "Happy Death" Crucifixes . . . 1"54 15. Lay Superiors find Excuses from Fasting .154 16. Blessing by Mother Superior . 157 17. "'Sacrament of the Present Moment" . . 157 BOOK NOTICES . 158 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . . ' . 163 THE EYMARD LIBRARY . 165 . REPORT TO ROME '. . 166 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1950. Vol. IX, No. 3. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Streef, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis, S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Copyright, 1950, by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. 'Eyes Right:? Richard Leo Heppler, O.F.M.' ALL IN ALL. over the years, Noah Webster's work has been givin~ satisfactory service. Timeand again many of us have turned-to it in our difficu!ties and.have.come away not only with knowledge but also with] a: more 13rofound appreciation of the man's ability to be neat, exacL and brief. Now, it would be mani-festly unfair to accuse Mr. Webster of 1~eing unromantic in his defini-tions. He has no more title to be chivalrous with his words than Dr. Einstein has to be amateurish with his theories. Consequently, a love-smitten collegian might throw his dictionary away in disgust when he reads that the eye is "the organ of sight: esp., the nearly spherical mass, the eyeball, . in the bony cavity of the skull, or the orbit including eyelids, eyelashes, eyebrow." The yo,uth would avow that the great Noah Webster had never seen the eyes of his Hazel. And he might even be tempted to dare the venerable Mr. Webster--or anyone else--to try to describe the elusive laughter lurking in his Hazel's eyes. Naturally, we religious do not expect Mr. Webster to go'beyond his definitions; we do not expect him to try to describe the eyes we would most desire to have looked into. What words could ever describe the human eyes of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? For that.matter, who could ever describe the maternal eyes of Our Blessed Lady, the adoring eyes of St. Jose'ph, thd discerning eyes of the Magi, the patient eyes of Simeon, the priestly eyes 0t: St. Jdhn, the sympa-thetic eyes of VeronicL the contrite eyes of Mary Magdalene, the tdar-dimmed eyes of St. Peter, the purified eyes of St. Paul? And what about the eyes we would-not like to have seen? Isn't it just as well that Noah Webster did not attempt to describe the treacherous eyes of Judas, the murderous eyes of Barabbas, the stony eyes of Annas, the crafty eyes of Caiphas,the sneering eyes oi: the Pharisees, the wavering eyes of Pilate, the carnal eyes of Herod, the cold eyes of the Roman soldiers? That God gave us two ey.es to be used for His glory, religious readily admit. That it is possible for us to misuse them for our own greed, glory, and indulgence, no one will deny. To use our eyes th~ way God would have us use them and not the way our lower nature would incline us must be our constant effort. To aid us in this 113 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER Reoieu) [or Religious undertaking are countless 'angels and saints, and not the least among the latter is one who put his eyes to excellent advantage as long as he bad sight and then made proper use of blindness when God sent that. Some of the great artists and poets at times permitted themselves long, full, intoxicating gazes upon the teasing loveliness of nature so as to feed their minds with matter for masterpieces. And, in direct opposition, some of the severest saintly ascetics refused to allow their eyes to regard the beauties of creation lest their souls be disturbed in the contemplation of Beauty Uncreated. But St. Francis of Assisi, the poet, artist, and ascetic, was granted the gift of seeing the true beauty of this universe with unclouded vision while recognizing the unmistakable reflections of God's beauty everywhere he looked. He was poet and artist enough to appreciate all the moods and mani-festations of nature; he was saint enough to trace instinctively all loveliness back to its source. He could gaze for prayerful hours at sunlight and shadow and storm, at castle and cave and cathedral, at tomb and tent and tabernacle. He never tired thanking God for the moon and the stars and the rivers and the fields. He readily saw brothers' and sisters in birds and beasts and rain and fire and wind. It was part of his vocation to be an eye-opener for the rest of us. But it was his spiritual vision that saved him from being some-thing of a masculine, thirteenth-century Alice in Wonderland. All his life he saw very. repulsive beggars, but, as G. K. Chesterton says, he alway.s managed to see through the beggars and recognize Christ. There is no way of measuring the number of lepers he saw, but it is safe to say that he never looked upon one "of them without l~eing instantly reminded of the suffering Son of Man. That he never saw a lamb without thinking of the Lamb of God, and that children could walk away with his heart because Christ had favored them, and that a wounded bird could move him to tears, reveal a very deli-cate sensitiveness, But there was also a definitely virile spirituality in his view of things: he saw at close range rough bandits and tr'eated them like princely envoys; he looked upon Christian and Moslem soldiers ("murderers" might be more exact) and respected them as if they were martyrs of old; each condemned criminal was another Good Thief. Was he. unrealistic? Well, one day Brother Juniper told him that God had granted him a vision of h~ll and that he had seen no Friars there. To this St. Francis replied, "Brother Juniper, you did not look deep enough." A religious vocation is a calling to be a supernatural detective. 114 May, 1950 EYES RIGHT? God has generously scattered clues about Himself all arohnd us and He wants us to put them together and find out more about him. We have to try to see the hand of God and the love of God in every per-son we meet, in every place me go, in everyevent that happens to us. If we really try to be spiritual sleuths we shall be delighted with all the p6ssibilities around us. The bill-collector may be another St. Matthew, the doctor another St. Cosmas, the salesman another St. Peter of SienL the beggar another St. Benedict Joseph, the lawyer another St. Fidelis, the police captain another St. Sebastian, the sailor another St. Brendan, the altar, boy another St. John Berchmans, the taxi driver another St. Christopher, the farmer another St. Paschal Baylon. The same thing very easily could be continued in the fem-inine gender by one who knows the patronesses of girls who sell jewelry in the Five and Ten, girls who run elevators in Gimbel's, girls who serve aspirins in soaring airplanes, girls who daily pound their way towards heaven on typewriters, girls who slave at prosaic switch-boards, girls who teach nominative absolutes to bored high school seniors, girls who ease patients into dentists' chairs and money out of their pockets, and so on even to the girls who ride on motor-cycles, and the girls who engage in roller derbies. Everybody in the world is either an actual or a potential saint and should be viewed ¯ as such. If we are sharp detectives we shail discern the true dignity of the children who sit in front of us, the patients who lie upon our hospital beds, the employees who trim our lawns, run our errands, and mimeograph our notes. It is true that at meal time you may be tempted to say, "Young Jackson has big ears just like his father, and he is just as dumb." But you will know that God dearly loves both young Jackson and his father, even though He may have been lavish when he fashioned their ears and not when He doled out their brains. But it would be fatal to conclude that one can become an expert supernatural detective without practicing mortification of the eyes. Pretending that custody of the eyes is stupid is as absurd as pre-tending that Central Park is the Garden of Eden. If we really want "to trace I~he manifestations of God around us we must be willing to impose restraint upon gazing at anything and everything. If we sincerely desire to gaze forever upon the Beatific Vision we hav~ to restrict our gazing here below. The need of custody of the eyes as a bulwark for chastity is amply demonstrated by Sacred Scripture. Joseph was unjustly 115 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER Reoieu~ [or Religious thrown into prison because the wife of.Putiphar did not controi her eyes. King David, the boas~ of the chosen people, fell into a terrible sin because he permitted his eyes too much license. Here is what the Bible says of Holofernes when his soldidrs brought Judith to his tent: "And when she came into his presence forthwith Holofernes . was caught by his eyes." The sad story of the two evil ancients is but another proof that the eyes of young and old must be guarded. These two men were hel_,d in honor because of their age and their office. But they gazed immodestly upon' the chaste Susanna, and they were inflamed with lust for her. God saved Susanna arid con-founded the ancients and gave us the story as a concrete example of the meaning of the words of His Prophet Jeremias, "Death is come ,up through our Windows." But it is not into temptations against chastity alone that unre-strained liberty of the eyes can lead religious. If a Sister gazes with possessive eye, s at a statue or a book she sees in a store and determines to procure it without permission she can violate the vow of poverty. If a Brother gazes with undue complacency upon the saws, hatchets, or tractor permitted for his use, assured that he must have the latest and the best he may be guilty of faiIing in the virtue of poverty. If a priest, with satisfied superiority gazes upon his diplomas, citations, or signs of office he may be guilty of pride. That a religious might gaze upon the money in the community safe with avaricious eyes is not as likely as that he might gaze with eyes that are bigger than his stomach upon the steaks or lobsters in a choice restaurant. A Sister who with green eyes gazes upon .the new habit of another reveals tendencies towards envy. If to the detriment of his work and of his spiritual life a religious spends long periods of time looking over all the vacation-plan literature he can amass he may be guilty of sloth. One who watches the conduct of others with a view to censure them has not yet arrived at the perfection of charity. All religious can gaze upon holy water without any temptations whatsoever, but the same cannot be said of gazing upon fire-water. This could be continued in a figurative vein. To fail to see the hand of God in all the happenings of the day is to fail in the fullness of faith. To fail to see a friend of Christ in each member of the community is to bd weak in charity. To fail to see thewill of God in the commands of the superior is to be lacking in th~ complete spirit of obedience. To look only at the "dismal side of things is to reveal the absence of full trust and confidence in God. To look down 116 Ma~/, 1950 EYES RIGHT? upon others is a sign of pride, and to look up to others for recogni-tion and praise is an indication of human respect. St. Teresa tells us that she lost twelve years of spiritual growth because of her attachment to needless conversations. Who can measure the detriment to the interior life that is caused by unmorti- . fied eyes? The spirit of prayer may. be weakened, recollection destroyed, silence dissipated, andthe desire for perfection blighted by overindulgence in the reading of secular newspapers, magazines, and novels. Too much looking at television may not only drive a reli-gious to'an oculist; it may blind him to the importance of daily spir-itual reading. Too many movies, shows, and spectacles may per-manently stunt the growth of souls. But to walk around all day with our eyes closed or constantly cast down is to become something of a public menace. We might upset community life (if not a member of the community) if we were to fail to look where we were going. We might land in a hos-pital or a morgue if we refused to keep our eyes open while we were crossing city streets. Custody of the eyes does not mean that a reli-gious does not see the children in the classroom, the drugs in the pharmacy, the cows in the shed, or the fire in the boiler; it means that we do not allow dangerous images to remain in focus and that we do not lose sight of God no matter where we are. We can certainly better our spiritual vitality by using our eyes pr?perly. In every classroom, ward, shop, and corridor are cruci-fixes, statues, or holy pictures. What is the purpose of placing these pious objects in such obvious places?. Who but a novice "could ask that question? For who btit a novice could suspect that these objects have been placed where they can accumulate invisible dust and thus furnish the master or the mistress with ammunition for a daily cor-rection? On the other hand, some religious might be embarrassed if they were suddenly asked what picture hangs in the classroom they daily use or upon which wall in the tailor' shop does the crucifix hang. It should be easy for us to look long and lovingly at the crucifix, to see every detail of Christ's death, to read every line of the story of our redemption. St. Thomas Aquinas once asked St. Bona-venture whence he derived all his knowledge. Pointing to his cruci-fix, the Seraphic Doctor replied that from "this well-spring.of light and love"he drew whatever could be found in his lectures or writings. Armies of saints have learned the lessons of poverty, chastity, obedi-ence, humility, charity, patience, fortitude, self-denial, contrition, 117 RICHARD LEO HEPPLER zeal, gratitude, and confidence by spending long hours in the prayer-ful study of the crucifix. And it is comforting to know that we shall spend all eternity as the friends and companions of the saints upon whose pictures or statues we now look each day. Some people have strange vocations, and Mary Ann O'Donnell had one of the strangest. She was a blind girl who attended a Cath-olic college in the East. Each day, led by her seeing-eye dog, she came to class and took her notes in Braille and waited to be called on. The other students (they could see) resented the fact that the priest called on Mary Ann; they thought it was'unfair. But Mary Ann wanted to recite; she wanted to learn, and she did not want pity. MaryAnn stayed in college only two years; then she went away to recite the eternal praises of the Triune God and to gaze in rapture upon the Father of Lights. Probably she did not know that she was an apostle, but she did teach many of the collegians and the professors to thank God for the gift of sight. She could even have taught reli-gious who daily gaze upon the Eucharistic Lord as He is elevated at Mass or raised on high during Benediction to consecrate their eyes to God so that they may be sure to see Him face to face. SUMMER SESSIONS The Institute for Re.ligious at College Misericordia, Dallas, Penn-sylvania (a three-year summer course of twelve days in Canon Law and Ascetical Theology for Sisters), will be held this year August 19-30. This is the first year in the triennial course. The coubse in Canon Law is given by the Reverend 3oseph F. Gallen, S.3. that in Ascetical Theology by the Reverend Daniel ~1. M. Callahan, SJ., both of Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. The registra-tion is restricted to higher superiors, their councilors, mistresses of novices, and those in similar positions. Applications are to be addressed to Rev. ~loseph F. Gallen, SJ., Woodstock College, Wood-stock, Md. The seventh annual Psychological Institute will be conducted at the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children, ~lefferson, Wiscon-sin, from ,luly 19 to August 27. The Cardinal Stritch College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sponsors this workship course for teachers who are interested in special education of handicapped children, and who wish to understand and help slow-learning children in the nor-mal classroom situation. Bulletin available upon request from the (Continued on P. 130) 118 Conl:ormi!:y wi!:h Christ: in His Suffering C. A. Herbst, S.J. 44~ND I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things myself" (John 12:32). All things, especially lov.e, the greatest of all things, and the hearts of men. Love longs to be united with its object, to be assimilated to it, to be identified with it as much as possible. A worthy return love to Christ should be measured by the lengths to which His love has gone in loving me. "He loved me and delivered himself 'for me" (Gal. 2:20). One deeply in love with Our Lord has written: "Imagining Christ our Lord present and placed on the Cross, let me make a colloquy with Him: how from Creator He is come to making Himself man, and from eternal life is come to temporal death, and so to die for my sins. Likewise, looking at myself, what have I done for Christ, what I am doing for Christ, what I ought to do for Christ. And so, seeing Him such, and so nailed to the Cross, to go over that which will present itself to me." (Spiritual Exercises, Colloquy to the First Exercise.) What, according to the norm of worthy return love, will pyesent itself to me? St. Paul, a model for all who love Christ crucified, answered for all Christians for all time: "With Christ I am nailed to the cross" (Gal. 2:19). Christ was eager to suffer for me "hnto death, even to the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:8). He longed for that. "I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished?" (Luke 12:50). He was so eager to get to His pas-sion that the disciples could scarcely keep up with Him. "And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem: and they were astonished, and following were afraid" (Mark 10:32). And why not? Was He not born for this? .The angel told the shepherds the night He was born: "This day is born to you a Saviour" (Luke 2:11), and in the infinitely loving designs of God salvation would come through His passion and death. In contemplating the persons present at the beginning of His suffering life we are urged "to look and consider what they are doing, as making a journey and laboring, that the Lord may be born in the greatest poverty; and as a termination of so many labors--of hunger, of thirst, of heat and of cold, of injuries and 1i9 C. A. HERBST Review for Religious affronts--that He may die on the Cross; and all this for me." (Spiritual Exercises: The Nativity.) The shadow of the cross was already falling on the Child in the manger. In fact, it is hard to explain Bethlehem without Calvary. Christmas points to Good Friday. When Mary "brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and /aid him in a manger" (Luke 2:7), she presented the victim for the cross. Christ came "to give his life a redemption for many" (Mr. 20:28), and although, as His agony drew near, He naturally recoiled from it, He knew it must be so. "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause I came unto this hour." (John 12:27.) "Jesus' began to do and to teach" (Acts 1 : 1). He taught first by example, then by word. "I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also" (John 13:15). This is true also of His sufferings. "Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps" (I Pet. 2:21). No one of experience has to be told that life is full of suffering. We pray to Mary after Mass every morning: "To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping, in this vale of tears." We must unite our sufferings with Christ's sufferings and offer them with Him to God togethe~ with His own if they are to be precious in His sight. We realize this and do it every morning when we pray: "O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer Thee my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day." Even from the point of view of a good selfishness this is the wise thing to do. An old retreat master of wide experience told the priests making the thirty-day retreat: "Offer your miseries to God and they cease at once to hurt." Our Lord Himself then becomes our consolation. "For as the suf-ferings of Christ abound in us: so also by Christ doth our comfort abound" (II Cor. 1:5). Blessed shall we be if we are allowed to suffer something for Christ. The eighth and last and perhaps, judging from His own life, the greatest of the benedictions He spoke over His beloved fol-lowers was: "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven." (Matt. 5:I0-12.) The apostles understood this well, and after they had been scourged "went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer 120 Ma~ , 1950 CONFORMITY WITH CHRIST reproach for the name'of Jesus" (Acts 5:41). It is most logical and correct that the members of the true Church of Christ from then till now should take the cross as their emblem and rally around it as the battle flag of their religion. From Constantine to the High Middle Ages Christ crucified was the victorious king: "'Regna~it a. li~lr~o Deus'" ("God hath reigned from the Cross"). Then came the spir-itual giants and moulders of affective prayer like Bernard and Francis and Bonaventure, with their ecstatic love for the Crucified. The mystics who followed them and the men and women in modern times who were in love with Christ crucified are almost count-less. The prophecy is fulfilled: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself." All things, especially lobe, the greatest of all things, and the hearts of men. Conformity with Christ in His suffering, a longing to suffer with Him, to suffer because He suffered, to be identified as far as possible with Christ in His suffering life, to be crucified with Him--this is the aim of those who love Christ perfectly. Union with Christ in His suffering is the finest expression of love for God here on this earth. This is the perfect way to tear ourselves away from sin. "Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer" (Rom. 6:6). What with all his knowledge and ability Paul said: "I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:2). Nor was this a theoretical knowledge only nor a pious boast. It was St. Paul's glory to put into practice this knowl-edge. "God forbid that I should glory, save in .the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6: 14). Crucified and dead and risen to a new life: "And I live, now not I: but Christ liveth in me. And that I live in' the flesh: I live in the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and deliv~red himself for me." (Gal. 2:20.) This is to be a fool for Christ and with Christ. But "the fool-ishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men . But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise, and the weak things of. the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong. And the base.things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are." (I Cor. 1:25, 27, 28). The author of the Spiritual Exercises caught this spirit perfectly and put it into his Third Degree of Humility. "In order to imitate and be more actually 121 C. A. HERBST like Christ our Lord, I want and choose poverty with Christ poor rather than riches, opprobrium with Cbrlst replete with it rather than honors: and to desire to be rated as worthless and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world." He explains a little more at Iength in another place, "For as worldly men who follow the things of the world, love and with great diligence seek honors, reputation and the credit of a great name upon earth, as the world teaches them, so those who are advancing in spirit and seriously follow Christ our Lord, love and earnestly desire things which are altogether the contrary; that is, to be clothed with the same garment and with the livery of their Lord for His love and reverence; insomuch that if it could be without offense of the divine Majesty and without sin on the part of their' neighbor, they would wish td suffer [eproaches, slanders and injuries, and to be treated and accounted as fools (without at the same time giving any occasion for it), because they desire to imitate and resemble in some sort their Creator and Lord Jesus Christ, and to be clothed with His garments and livery, since He clothed HimseIf with the same for our greater spiritual good, and gave us an example that, in all things, as far as by the assistance of God's grace we can, we may seek to imitate and follow Him, seeing He is the true way that leads men to life." (Examen Generale, IV, 4.) A woman saint, too, of modern times, St. Margaret Mary, caught, lived, and expressed in her own simple but powerful and almost rapturous way the necessity of being conformed to Christ in His suffering life if one is to love Him perfectly. "Ah! I assure you," she writes, "that without the Blessed Sacrament and the cross I could not live, nor could I bear the length of my exile in this valley of tears, where I have never wished to see my sufferings diminish. The more overwhelmed my body was, the more my spirit rejoiced and was at liberty to be occupied with and united to my suffering Jesus, for I had no greater desire than to make of myself a true and perfect copy and representation of my Jesus Crucified." (.Autobiography, No. 86.) "He also inspired me with so ardent a desire to conform myself to His suffering life, that all I endured seemed to me as nothing. This made me redouble my penances, and, prostrating myself at times at the foot of my crucifix, I said: 'How happy should I be, O. my dear Saviour, if Thou wouldst imprint on me the likeness of Thy suf-ferings!' " (Ibid., No. 29.) He did notdo this, but "He asked me for my heart, which I begged Him to take. He did so and placed it in His own Adorable Heart where He showed it to me as a little atom 122 1950 CONFORMITY WITH CHRIST which was being consumed in this great furnace, and withdrawing it thence as a burning flame in the form of a heart, He restored it to the place whence He had taken it, saying to me: 'See, My well-beloved, I give thee a precious token of My love, having enclosed within thy side a little spark of its glowing flames, that it may serve thee for a heart and consume thee to the last moment of thy life . Although I have dosed the wound in thy side, the pain will always remain'." (Ibid., No. 53.) His very next words crowned this Cal-vary with glory: "If hithertO; thou hast taken only the name of My slave, I now give thee that of the beloved disciple of My Sacred Heart." Calvary must be crowned with glory. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him" (II Tim. 2:12) ; "If we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him" (Rom. 8: 17). "If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that when his glory shall be revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding great joy" (I Pet. 4: 13), "knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall you be also of the consolation" (II Cot. 1:7). Therefore I ought to count all things to be but loss "that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death" (Phil. 3:10). "For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us" (Rom. 8 : 18). For "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor bath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him" (I Cor. 2:9) by carrying the Cross and being fixed to it with Him. We should wish to be conformed with Christ in His suffering life out of worthy return love, because "He loved me and delivered Himself for me." Seeing Christ our Lord present and placed on the cross I ask myself: "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I do for Christ?" Th~ least I ought to do is offer lovingly to Him "my sufferings of this day" that they may console Him in His and be made precious' by union with His. We can make no mistake in accepting and offering patiently, lovingly, joyfully even to God whatever He permits to come or sends into our life. To want to have the sufferings and hard things that coffee our way because we then have what Christ had is to practice the third degree of humility and high virtue. We give clearer expression to tl~e "I want what You had" by inflicting physical pain on our body for love of Christ, by practicing corporal penances. This is a posi-tive, courageous, and "energetic ,approach towards conformity with 123 C. A. HERBST my suffering Savior, who first chose to suffer physical pain for love of me. "He loved me, and delivered Himself for me." To be wretched and miserable when we are not suffering with our blessed Lord, to pray with St. Theresa of Avila "to suffer or to die," is to have reached the heights. Conformity with Christ in His suffering has been the great aim and end of the Saints because His passion and death were the great aim and end of Christ. From Paul nineteen hundred years ago, who exclaimed, "With Christ I am nailed to the cross," to our own day when Th~r~se of Lisieux offered her life a sacrifice of love and repara-tion to God, this has been true. It must be true for. me, too, now, today, in a little way, finally in the full measure of the saints when we have grown to their stature. Yes, this is for me, too. After twenty, or thirty, or forty years, perhaps, but still for me. Mean-while I can pray: "I beseech Thee, most sweet Lord Jesus Christ, grant that Thy passion may be to me a power by which I may be strengthened, protected, and defended. May Thy wounds be to me food and drink, by which I may be nourished, inebriated, and over-joyed. May the sprinkling of Thy Blood be to me an ablution for all my sins. May Thy death prove to me life everlasting, and Thy cross be to me an eternal glory. In these be my refreshment, my joy, my preservation, and sweetness of heart. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen." (Roman Missal.) ATOMIC BROTHERHOOD CAMPAIGN The purpose ot: the Atomic Brotherhood Campaign, organized by the Franciscan Teaching Brothers of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is to secure the prayers of youth for the increase of vocations to the teaching Brotherhoods. Schools receive posters and pledge cards on which the boy or girl checks off a spiritual contribution. Prayers and devotions already common to Catholics are used. In return for this offering, each member is enrolled in the club membership and receives a card signed by the director of the movement and a card containing a prayer for one's choice of a state of life. Already some ~/0,000 children in elementary and high schools, as well as some college students, have made a spiritual contribution. Full particulars and supplies necessary to take part in the Atomic Brotherhood Cam-paign may be secured from: Brother Linus, O.S.F., St. Francis Mon-astery, 41 Butler St., Brooklyn 2, N.Y. 124 0t: :he I-loly Ghost: Who Proceeds As love Leo. A. Coressel, S.J. IN THE MASS of Pentecost Sunday we pray: "Come, 0 Holy Spirit, fill the hearts oi~ Thy faithful and kindle in them the fires of Tby love." In the sequence of the same Mass we salute the Holy Ghost under various titles: as Father of the poor, as Comforter, as the soul's delightful Guest, as Relief of us pilgrims, as Light of life. Tbis song o~ praise ends with the petition: Grant us in life The grace that In peace rnag die and ether be in jog before The face AlT2en.1 These truths recall to mind matters that we all too easily forget. We forget who the HoIy Ghost is and what we owe to Him, that He is God, that He is our sanctifier, our strength and joy in life and our reward after death. If once these realities were deeply embedded in our consciousness and appreciated they would give timely stimulation to spiritual progress and to zeal for souls. One way to quicken such a realization is to broaden the horizons of our knowledge of the Holy Ghost. This can be done by consid-ering the names by which He is known, Their meaning will unfold to us something of His nature and point to reasons for His activity as proposed to us in the Mass of Pentecost Sunday. The names by which the Third Person of the' Blessed Trinity is designated are many. Chief among them are the following: Holy, Spirit or Ghost, Love, Gift, Paraclete, Spirit of Truth. Less com-mon are: Bond or Union of the Father and Son, Living Fountain, Power of God, Seal, Ointment, Fire. We want to concern ourselves here with the names by which the Third Person is chiefly known. These names tell us of His nature and office. In this way they differ greatly from ordinary human names. For example, names like John, Elizabeth, and Mary have an entirely proper meaning, but as desig-nating definite, individual men and women, they tell us nothing of their personality traits and human qualities. It is far otherwise with the names of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. They not 1The Saint Andrew Daily Missal. 125 LEO A. CORESSEL Review/:or Religious only identify Him but also tell us much about Him. We have, perhaps, taken for granted the names by which the Third Person is known. As part of our Catholic inheritance they have been familiar to us since childhood. But we may quite frankly ask ourselves just why the Holy Ghost is so called, why He is called Love, Gift, and so on. Reverently done such a questioning attitude of mind will prove exceedingly fruitful. The First and Second Persons are called Father and Son because of their mutual relationship. The First Person is really and truly Father and the Second Person just. as really and truly is Son. The First Person begets the Second. The Father begets the Son in an eternal generation. This divine generation is more than a figure of speech. The Father truly begets. The Son is truly begotten. We should not regard earthly fatherhood as the real thing and the divine fatherhood as but the shadow of the great reality. The fullness of generation is predicated of God and only secondarily of creatures. As St. Paul says: "For this cause, then, I bend my knees to the Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named." (Eph. 3:14-15, Westminster Version. This version is also used in other Scripture quotations in this article.) We see now the reason why the Father and Son are so called. But why is the Third Person called Holy, Spirit, Love, Gift? We already recognize fatherhood and sonship from our own observa-tions. We know of human persons who are fathers and sons. But when we consider the Third Person we have no such guide to lead the way. We have, indeed, experienced love. We know the meaning of holiness and of spirit. The giving and the receiving of gifts are sources of joy. But we are not prepared beforehand for a person who is himself love, holiness, spirit, and gift. Such a person is out-side the range of our widest observhtions. He is beyond the realm of our natural knowledge. For these reasons the person of the Holy Ghost is more deeply obscure in the mysteries of faith than are the Father and the Son. The name by which the Third Person is most generally known is Holy Ghost. We may, then, begin with aft inquiry into the appropriateness of these two words as applied to the Third Person. The Father, as also the Son, is a spirit and is holy. Why, then, are these two words united and applied to the Third Person? St. Augus-tine tells us a reason: "Since the Holy Ghost is common to both, He Himself is called that properly which both are called in. common. For the Father is a spirit and the Son is a spirit: and the Father is 126 Ma~, 1950 OF THE HOLY GHOST holy .and the Son is holy." In other words, the Third Person is called Holy Spirit from the fact that proceeding from both Father and Son, He is called that which both have in common, namely, that they are holy and spirit. Another and a deeper reason why the Third Person is called Holy Spirit is found in the fact that He proceds from the Father and Son as Love. As this love, He is, first of all, rightly called Spirit, since the property of love is to move and impel; for example, love moves and impels the lover towards the beloved. But the word spirit also implies a certain impulse and movement. Hence He who proceeds as Love is rightly called Spirit. This is the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. He says: "The name spirit in things cor-poreal seems to signify impulse and motion: for we call the breath and the wind by the term spirit. Now it is a property of love to move and impel the will of the lover toward the object loved.''2 The procession of the Third Person may be further illustrated from our own everyday experience. We.are conscious of breathing as a movement of air into and out of the lungs. We know, too, that the word breathing is used of vehement acts of the will. We say that a man breathes out' love or hatred. Think of expressions like lovers sighing like a furnace, Saul breathing out threats. If we apply this to God, we can readily see why the Third person is called Spirit. Proceeding as Love from the Father and Son the Third Per-son is breathed forth by them. The Father and Son breathe forth a Breath, a Spirit, a Divine Person, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus as Spirit, as Breath of the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit proceeds from them. This last illustration may be stated in another way. The love which one feels inwardly for a person or object is oftentimes extern-alized by a deep breathing or sigh, which is expressed in Latin by the word spiritus. The Father and Son express their infinite, eternal love for each other in a profound sigh' or breath, as it were. This breath is Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Third Person, God, coequal with the Father and Son. As is true of spirit so als0 holiness has a relation to love. The Third Person proceeds as Love. But love makes one holy; it orders one rightly to God. Hence the Third Person is called Holy. This reasoning will appear "weightier if we recall that holiness in God is 2Surnma Theologica 1,, q.36, a.1. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 127 LEO A. CORESSEL Review for Religious love of His own infinite being. The Third Person, then, who is possessed of infinite being, as are the Father and Son, and who is the expression of the infinite love of the Father and Son, is peculiarly called the Holy. The names by which the Third Person is most familiar to us are Holy and Spirit. But He is also called Gift. In the Acts of the Apostles (2:.38) we read: "Repent ye, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The Third Person is not just a gift. He is the Gift, just as He is the Holy and the Spirit. When a gift is given, love is the impelling force. In fact, love itself is the greatest gift one can give another. Now the Third Person proceeds as Love from the Father and 'Son and has an apti-tude to be given to men. He is, then, rightly and properly called the Gift. In this sense He is spoken of in the Veni Creator Spiritus: Thou who art called the Paraclete Best gift of God above The living spring, the living fire Sweet unction and true love.z It will be noted that the three names of the Third Person examined so far, Holy, Spirit, Gift, all have a relation to love. It is by this title, Love, that He is especially distinguished from the Second Person. The Son proceeds by generation from the intellect of the Father.' The Holy Ghost proceeds in a mysterious way as Love from Father and Son. The word love is somewhat abstract, although its action and personification are very concrete to us. St. Paul personifies love when he says: "charity is patient, is kind; charity envieth not" (-I 'Cor. 13:4). But we are not now speaking of such a love. The Third Person is not love personified. He is Love personalized, a Divine Person. " All this is very strange to us. But we have an aid in our own mental processes to help us along the way. When one loves another, He has within himself love, an act of the will, frequently called an affection of the will. This affection may endure over a long period of time. But it also may be lost because of neglect. It may even be replaced by hatred. But when the Father and Son love each other there results a substantial love, one who is Love, a Person, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. We know this because each of the 3Translation from Roman Breviary, Benziger Brothers. 128 Ma~, 1950 OF THE HOLY GHOST Three Persons is God, because the Holy Ghost proceeds as a Person from the will of the Father and Son, and because the Fathers of the Church call the Third Person Love inasmuch as works of love are attributed to Him in Sacred Scripture. "And hope does not prove false, for the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom. 5:5). Another important name of the Third Person is Spirit ot: Truth. He is so called in the Gospel of St. John: "And I will ask the Father and he shall give you another Advocate . the Spirit of Truth" (I4:16-17). The Holy Ghost is called Spirit of Truth for several reasons; because He proceeds from Truth, that is to say, the Word, the Second Person; because He is sent to announce the truth; and lastly because He is the substantial love of truth and leads men to love the truth. This title should make us more aware of the neces-sity of daily invoking the Holy Spirit. We stand in danger of falling victims to the deceits of the world. We are in need of having divine truths brought home to us. Our heaven-given guide can and will enlighten us. He will also inspire us with a love of the truth that we may be able clearly to discern the wisdom of God in the midst of all modern deceits. , Finally the Holy Ghost is called Paraclete or Advocate. An advocate is one who defends his client, who pleads for him. He is an intercessor, a helper, a counselor. The Holy Ghost is our Para-clete, our Advocate. He aids us in our weakness, He pleads for us, He intercedes for us. St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (8:26- 27) says: "And in like manner the Spirit also beareth up our weak-ness. For we know not how we are to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself pleadeth in our behalf with unutterable groanings. And he. who searcheth hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, how he pleadeth before God in behalf of the saints." The Holy Ghost is also our helper: "And no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' save in the Holy Spirit" (I Cor. 12:3). The Holy Ghost is our counselor. He calls us to good and aids us in our endeavors. He gives joy in accomplishment. We have seen how the Third Person is revealed to us as Love, Holy, Spirit, Gift, Spirit of Truth, and Paraclete. These names give us a glimpse of His sublime personality. They disclose reasons for the various offices attributed to Him. Proceeding as Love, He is the Holy Ghost, intent on our sanctification, a work of very great love. As Love he is comforter, Father of the poor. As Love He is Gift, the soul's most delightful Guest. He is Spirit of Truth and Para- 129 LEO A. CORESSEL clete, guiding us along the paths ot: truth and holiness. For all these reasons we should love the Holy Ghost. We should try to bring Him more and more into our everyday conscious-nest, since we owe Him so much in life, in death, and in eternity. Since He is Holy, should we not strive to be holy? Since He is Spirit, should we not daily seekthe things of the spirit? Since He is Love, should we not ask Him to inflame our hearts with the purest love? He gives Himself to us as a Gift; then we should in return give our-selves entirely to him. He guides us in the ways of truth and grace; we should, therefore, be most grateful to him. We may w~ll try to have continually in our minds and hearts one of the thoughts of the sequence of the Mass of Pentecost Sunday: To Tb~ sweet ~toke our stiff necks bow, Warm with Tbq loue our hearts of snow, Our wandering feet recall.4 Summer Sessions (Continued from P. 118) Sisters of St. Francis, St.o Coletta School, Jefferson, Wisconsin. The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine will offer a special training course at the Catholic University of America from June 26 to August 5. The aim of the course is to prepare Sisters, Brothers, and seminarians for the various fields of the Confraternity program. ¯ The courses of study will be conducted by the Very Reverend Fran-cis 3. Connell, C.SS.R. ; Sister M. Rosalia, M.H.S.H. : and Miss Mir-iam Marks. The first course concerns doctrine; the second, methods of teaching; the third, the apostolate. Students must register for all three courses. For further information write to: The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Wash-ington 5, D.C. The Department of Education of Marquette University offers courses in moral and ascetical guidance. The ascetical course will be conducted by G. Augustine Ellard, S.J.; the moral course, by Gerald Kelly, S.J. These are graduate courses; enrollment is limited to Sis-ters. June 26 to August 4. For further information write to: The Registrar, Marquette University, 615 N. 1 l th St., Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin. The Religion Department of The Creight0n University offers: (Continued on P. 139) 4The Saint Andrew Daily Missal 130 Prac!:ical Applical:ion ot: Psychome!:rics Religious Lit:e Sister M. Digna, O.S.B. THE principles underlying the use of psychometrics in appraising applicants to religious life were discussed in a recent article.1 Although many communities do not hesitate to use the findings of the physician in determining the physical fitness of applicants to their congregations or orders, some religious are startled at the thought of utilizing the findings of psychological research in reference to religious vocations. Two recent studies2,3 indicate a new trend in the direction of establishing testing programs as one of the prelim-inary procedures for admission into the seminary and religious life. As communities employ testing techniques for diagnosing and asses-sing such factors as the intelligence, the personality, the interests, and the aptitudes of their candidates, they will discover that methods of therapy, amelioration, or control will bring about greater spiritual progress in their young religious. If the candidate enters religion from. purely supernatural motives, an objective ~self-analysis will eliminate much of the time often spent on self-scrutiny in trying to eradicate an overt fault that is rooted in a personality defect. With a better understanding of her own weaknesses and strengths, a young religious may approach the entire problem of self-improvement more intelligently. She will devote less time to self and more to God. Test results may be helpful in hastening the development of the super-natural life of the candidate, if admitted, and in screening out those who may be unfit for religious life. This report attempts to illus-trate in a concrete manner some of the predictive aspects of tests for ascertaining the possible adjustment or non-adjustment of applicants to religious life. Ordinarily the adjusted person is one who can adapt reasonably 1Sister M. Digna. "That God's Will Be Known." REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, VIII, (,July 15, 1949), 201-207. -°Thomas J. McCarthy, "Personality Traits of Seminarians." Studies in Psycholoog and Psgchiatrg from the Catholic Unioersitg of America, V, (June, 1942), 1-46. 3Sister Richarda Peters, O.S.B., "A Study of the Intercorrelations of Personality Traits among a Group of Novices in Religious Communities," Studies in Psgchol-ogg and Psgchiatrg from the Catholic Uniuersitg of America, V, (December, 1942) 1-38. 131 SISTER M. Review t'or Religlous well to any reasonably adequate situation. Father Curran,4 who supports or at least bases his interpretation of adjustment on St. Thomas, says, in part, that adjustment does not mean merely compromising or coming to terms with problems but delving into the nature of reality. In other words, adjustment implies self-knowledge. To support the proposition that psychometrics can be used in detecting factors that will predict the future adjustment to life in religion, a group of high school and college records of individuals who later entered religion were examined. The results of intelli-gence tests and personality ratings were used to classify these young women into three groups: those who could be predicted to adjust well to religious life; those who could be predicted to adjust but with some difficulty: and those who would very likely not adjust. Later, the major superiors who were well acquainted with the subjects sub-stantiated the classification in all but one instance. The American Council on Education Psychological Examina-tion (ACE) had been administered to all these high school seniors and college freshmen. The American Council on Education Psycho-logical Examination is designed to measure the type of ability required for most college curricula. Although not all prospective subjects for religious life must necessarily be mentally equipped to do college work, the scores do show roughly more about the mental alertness of the individual than could be ascertained in a personal interview; and a low ranking percentile score would indicate that the mental ability of the individual should be appraised more specifically by administrating some general mental ability test. However, since the American Council Examination is considered by most authorities as a reliable index of intelligence, these scores were used to study the correlation between in.telligence and adjustment to religious life. While the correlation was reasonably high, it was not perfect, for several young women who were evidently very intelligent had failed later to make satisfactory adjustments. In these cases personality factors entered the picture. Sister Richarda Peters, O.S.B.,5 came to the same conclusion in her analysis of a group of novices in religious communities. She writes that cognitive ability (intelligence) showed no consistent relationship with the absence of undesirable traits. Evidently, high intelligence is no guarantee that the individual has no 4Charles A. Curran. Personality Factors in Counseling. (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1945), pp. 260-264. 50p. cir., p. 28. 132 May, 1950 PSYCHOMETRICS undesirable personality traits. Whether high, average, or low intelligence plays an important or a not too important part in the adjustment of individuals to life in religion, personality factors do explain many of the maladjustments in that state. Frequently, several factors contribute in precipitating a certain disorder of personality or behavior, any one of which can be credited as the last straw that broke the cameI's back. After all, it is the combination of several elements--familial, physical, psychological, and social--that relates to behavior disturbances' and influences adjustment to life and particularly to religious life. The four methods of evaluating or measuring personality charac-teristics generally employed are rating scales, intensive inter'iiewing,. anecdotal records, and paper and pencil tests. The paper and pencil tests will yield surprisingly good results, for many of the questions: on the test could have been asked in a long oral interview. Common' sense should operate in determining the purpose of the ratings, for no single test can be diagnostic of the total personality. Certain. inconsistencies of scores should be checked by retesting, preferably with a comparable form or another valid personality test. That personality tests are useful for discovering maladjustments in religious life has been noted in a research conducted by Thomas J. McCarthy~ on "Personality Traits of Seminarians." His study was not inter-preted in a predictive sense for screening or counseling, but was carried on with the hope "that such an investigation would be of help later on in developing an effective personality testing program.''r In the present report, the results of the Minnesota Personality Scale were used in studying the personalities of those Who later entered religious life. The Minnesota Personality Scale, while not so well-known nor so highly recommended as the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory, the Bernreuter Personality Inventory, or the Bell Adjustment Inventory, is easily administered and is not too difficult to interpret. The scale is subdivided into five categories: morale, social adjustment, home and family relations, emotionality, and economic conservatism. Typical cases will be used here to indi-cate some of the possibilities of personality scales as a means of better understanding the individuals who desire to enter religious life. Where results of Strong's "Vocational Interests Blank" were avail-able, these findings were also included. The data on Student I who became Sister I was appraised. Every- 6Op. cit. rlbid., p. 1. 133 SISTER M. DIGNA thing pointed to an excellent adjustment in community life. The student ranked in the upper one-third of all college students who took the American Council on Education Psychological Test (ACE) throughout the countr)L The information from a questionnaire that Student I filled out as a freshman showed that. she was one of a large family in a good Catholic home. The other children in the.family had attended colleges and universities. Her schooling had been entirely Catholic. Her percentile score for morale on the Minnesota Personality Scale" indicated a wholesome attitude toward the Church, school, and government. Her social adjustment .percentile showed her to be reasonably gregarious and socially mature. The percentile score in the area of family relations was just on the borderline between good and bad: hence it needed interpretation. Here the data on the freshman questionnaire supplemented the results of the tests. From this data it was obvious that Student I had been wisely helped by her parents and older brothers and sisters to achieve a rather early emancipation from overdependence on her home and family. The student has no feelings of .rejection or insecurity, for her autobiogra-phy showed that her family life was contented, co-operative, and very happy. Her emotionality score indicated that she was emo-tionally stable and self-possessed. Her economic attitude was con-servative. Since this' student had taken the Strong's "Vocational Interest Blank," the data on her vocational interests were in the files. The basic interest types for Strong's Blank for women are five: (1) tech-nical, including interests paralleling those of dentist, physician, teacher of mathematics, and teacher of the physical sciences; (2) verbal or linguistic, embracing author, librarian, and artist: (3) business contacts, with interests in fields patterning those of life insurance saleswomen; (4) welfare, including the interests of those successful in teaching social sciences, lawydr, personnel worker, social worker; and (5) non-professional interests, as general office worker, nurse, stenographer-secretary, and housewife. The interests are further divided into primary pattern where the interest type shows a pre-ponderance of A- and B-plus scores on the specific occupat.ional keys: the secondary pattern is the interest type within which there are more B-plus and B-minus scores. Student I's primary interest pattern was in the area of authorship and teaching of English and social work. She possessed a high score in femininity, indicating that her interests were largely feminine in nature. It may be argued that much of this information about a well- 134 May, 1950 PSYCHOMETRICS adjusted girl would be self-evident and that tests, personality scales, questionnaires, and interest blanl~s were simply a waste of time. This example is used to illustrate that tests do have predictive value whether for reinforcing evidence at hand, or for detecting qualities. not so obvious. Student II, now Sister 2, was characterized also by her major superiors as "well-adjusted." Her intelligence score placed her in the lower third of the college freshmen group. Her profile on the Min-nesota Personality Scale showed her morale to be exceptionally high. One may predict, however, that an individual with a score as high as 'hers would likely take a naive and unquestioning attitude toward life; consequently, for her, obedience rarely will be ditScult. Her problem and that of her superiors will be to raise to a supernatural level her purely natural inclination to do what others command. Her social adjustment indicated a fair degree of socialization. This score, too, needs further interpretation. As an only child she was largely dependent upon her father for companionship, her social contacts with those of her own age were limited. Her high score in the area of family relations suggests overdependence on her family; in this case, on her father. In the area of emotionality, a score placing her in the "upper third of the group reveals that she. is emotionally stable a.nd self-poss~ssed. The results of the Strong's Interest Blank were available. A summary of the ratings demonstrates that Student II had primary patterns in three fields; namely, welfare work including social work, social science teaching, personnel, and law; the technical field as den-tistry, teaching of mathematics, and physician; and a third area, business. She had ~/ very low femininity score, signifying that her interests approximated those generally ascribed to men. Here the influence of close association with her father is observed. One of her expressed interests was that of music, but music fell into a ter-tiary pattern. In vocational guidance work, the counselor would encourage her to use music as a hobby and enter some other field more closely related to her primary interests. With her natural tendency to acquiesce to the wishes of her superiors, she may be able to adjust without resulting tensions to any work for. which she has aptitude. For Sister 2, if one were interested in test findings as a means of assisting young religious to adjust to the active part of their life, it might be advisable to retest her to ascertain whether or not any change of interests has occurred because of her close association with women. 135 SISTER M. DIGNA Review for Religious Sister 3, who was formerly Student III, is an example of how high intelligence and wise direction has resulted in a well-adjusted religious who definitely was faced with a serious fam!ly problem. With an ACE score that ranked her very high among college fresh-men, Sister 3 had both the spiritual outlook and the necessary in-sight tO give her a clear understanding of her problem. The Min-nesota Personality Scale indicated that her total score in the area of home and family relations placed her in the lower fourth percentile. This was very low. However, her other scores showed that she was socially apt and rather emotionally stable. She had developed spir-itual insights rather rare in students because she had spent her high school years under the guidance of a good spiritual director. With her natural qualifications and her confidence in God, Sister 3 is a good example of an individual who overcomes obstacles to the serenity and peace so essential to religious life. To illustrate further th'e possibilities of test results as one means for insuring a better adjustment, the records of Student IV, now Sister 4, were evaluated. This student had an unusually high score on the American Council Psychological Examination. She belonged. to a good Catholic family of five or six children. Her profile per-centiles on the personality test were: morale, very high; social rela-tions, low; family and home relations, high; and emotionality, very low. Her emotionality score in this profile may indicate that Sister 4 will need wise guidance and warm understanding. Her low average in social relations coupled with a low score in emotionality demon-strates inner tensions which may be due to a sense of inferiority or to an inclination to scrupulosity. An adequate analysis of the problem, the conflict, or the complex (be it a sense of inferiority, scrupulosity, or work dissatisfaction) will often ~eveal satisfactory courses of action for dealing with it. In young religious, it is important that faulty emotional s'tates do not become fixed. Usually such fac-tors are not rectified easily in middle life, but ordinarily these prob-lems can be corrected in young people. Hence in the case of this Sister some definite follow-up testing may be required, unless supe-riors have considerable time to devote to Sister 4 in order to help her overcome some rather dangerous natural tendencies and to supplant them with the supernatural motives of humility, confidence in God, and obedience" to spiritual directors. How do test results aid in such instances? They point out emotional states that .perhaps a gay exterior hides very successfully, and this very attempt to inhibit worries and anxieties should be avoided. 136 Mag, 1950 PSYCHOMETRICS Student V, or Sister 5, ranked in the lower one-third of the psy-chological examination. The personality profile would lead one to predict that this young woman would have considerable difficulty in adjusting as her score in the area of social relations was very low, implying that she is socially inept and is undersocialized with feelings of inferiority. In religion, she may be characterized as "unworldly" whereas she is definitely anti-social. Undoubtedly, religious life will be a decided asset in helping this Sister to overcome her sense of inferiority and social ineptness if she is helped to under-stand that her attitude toward externs is not necessarily a virtue but a personality defect. By working with this young woman, a supe-rior or another Sister may help her to see the introverted tendencies, not as commendable virtues, but as personality defects. Unworldli-hess should be based upon the supernatural life and not upon per-sonality disorders. The next four sets of records concern young women who entered religious life, but either withdrew or were asked to withdraw. The test results, if these had been used in a predictive manner, might have been means of guarding communities against accepting applicants who were very likely unable to adjust. Two of these young women might have been directed into other communities where their adjust-ment might have been more easily made. The profiles of Students VI and VII might have been interpreted to predict a poor adjustment or none at all. The score on the psychological examination of Student VI placed her in the lower five per cent of the high-school graduates who were going to college. This student would have had a difficult task in getting admitted into any college. Her scores on the Minnesota Personality Scale were as follows: morale, zero; social relations, low; home and family relations, very low; emotionality, very low; and economic conservatism, exceptionally low. Her low morale pre-dicted that superiors would have a difficult time to help her achieve a spiritual outlook on obedience. The fact that her intelligence was low would explain an additional difficulty--she would be incapable of any deep insight into her own personal limitations. The score in the area of family relations suggests that her home life had been unhappy. Superiors will need to scrutinize and to watch the motives of any candidate whose home life has been entirely unhappy, as the applicant, though totally unconscious of it herself, may be using religious life as an escape mechanism. The emotionality score would predict that this young woman will need the help of a psychiatrist in 137 SISTER M. DIGNA Reoieu~ ~or Religious adapting herself to normal living in the world let alone within con-ventual wails. Her low score in the area of economic conservatism indicates that she has pronounced tendencies toward a radical way of life. One may say that since this student was not very intelligent, she was unable to understand the test questions and, consequently, the results may be spurious. Even were that true, then the objection could be raised that that in itself would be sufficient reason for rejecting her since she would be unable to comprehend the duties and responsibilities of religious life. Her test score, however, indicated that sloe would fall among the low average of the total population, which is not an indication that she was a moron. Low average intelligence is no barrier to getting along in the world, and it may not be so for the convent; but supplemented by her personality traits, it would be a poor hazard for religious communities to accept an applicant whose intelligenc.e and personality traits were similar to that of Student VI's. Student VII entered the candidature of a community, but she remained there only a short time. From her personality test, one might have predicted a difficult adjustment because of her person-ality traits. Although her intelligence score ranked her in the upper fifty per cent of college students, or average, her personality profile showed that she would have difficulty. Both the scores attained in morale and social adjustment were very low: her family relations were average; her emotionality was also very low, and her economic conservatism was low. The prediction based on these results would be that the probability of Student VII adjusting to any community life is very slight. Two students who entered religious life without persevering might be representative of applicants seeking admission into the wrong type of community. Both young women had intelligence scores which ranked them in the upper third of the college freshmen in the country. The personality profile of one followed this pattern: morale, very high; social adjustment, average; family relations, very low; and emotionality, very high. This applicant may have had potentialities for developing into a good religious if her motives for entrance were 'supernatural, but the low score in family relations stresses the fact that unhappy home conditions may have exerted ~ressure in sending this girl into the convent. Apparently, she never revealed the home conflict to any one, but instead compensated by creating a fantastic family life for herself. Her overdrawn picture of her home led superiors and companions to question the honesty of 138 Mar , 1950 PSYCHOMETRICS the girl. She was asked to withdraw. The other student also ranked in the upper third of those tested throughout the country on ¯ the ACE. Her personality profile pointed to very high scores in all are'as; morale, social adjustment, family relations, emotionality, and economic conservatism. One may conclude that her high social score suggests that she does not like to be alone, or, more serious in its implications for religious life, that she may be flighty and unstable. ¯ If she is one who is definitely the extrovert type and wishes to con-secrate herself to God, she might be directed to an active order rather than to a community that emphasizes the contemplative life. This student, who withdrew from religious life of her own accord, still feels she has a vocation. This attempt to illustrate the predictive possibilities of psy-chometrics in a program for the recruitment and training of subjects for religious life is necessarily only exploratory in nature. If com-munities would develop even. a very simple testing program and exchange their findings, it might be possible at some future date to devise a definite type of measuring instrument to assess personalities, attitudes, and interests in terms of fitness for religious life. First, however, a certain antagonism which exists against the use of tests needs to be broken down. " Then communities may need to train one or more of their personnel in the construction and use of tests. The barrier is not insurmountable, for'a simple in-service program for those who are now responsible for the admission, retention, and training of young religious can be established. In a short time com-munities may discover further possibilities in the use of psycho-metrics, not as an only means, but as one aid for screening and devel-oping religious. A thorough understanding of the factors that make for better adjustment in religious life may pay off spiritual dividends that will insure better adjusted religious seeking God through self-purification and through work and prayer. "Summer Sessions (Continued from P. 130) Divine Revelation, by Leo A. Coressel, S.3.; and The Church of Christ, by Ph'ilip T. Derrig, S.3. Session will also include institutes on: Remedial Reading, Guidance Program, and Communication Skills. ,June 9 to August 3. For further information write to: Director of Summer Session, The Creighton University, Omaha 2, Nebraska. 139 Lay Religious and !:he Laws ot: Bishops on Cont:ession Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. ALL RELIGIOUS realize that they are subject to the universal laws of the Church enacted for religious. These laws are found in the Code of Canon Law and also in the instructions, decrees, and replies that have emanated from the Holy See since the promulgation of the Code.1 Religious are also subject to the local Ordinaries to the extent determined by canon law (canon 500, § 1). The local Ordinaries may exercise their authority over religious not only by particular directions or precepts but also by law. Subjection to a law creates also an obligation of acquiring a knowledge of the law, and this obligation is especially incumbent on religious superiors. The laws of the local Ordinaries are called particular laws, since their obligation is usually restricted to a partic.ular territory. The universal laws of the Code are of obligation everywhere for the Latin Church. These particular laws may be enacted by the individual Ordinary for his diocese or by many Ordinaries united in a council. In the United States the laws of the Second and Third Plenary Councils of Baltimore are of obligation in the entire country.2 The bishops of a particular ecclesiastical province may also unite in a provincial council and legislate for all the dioceses of the province. In a diocese the sole legislator is the bishop, who may make his laws in a synod or outside the time of a synod. About eighty dioceses of the United States have modern and printed diocesan legis-lation, published in book form and "obtainable from the respective chanceries. These diocesan statutes are almost universally in Latin, but an English translation, at least of the principal articles, is some-times appended. The purpose of this article is. to give Brothers, nuns, and Sisters an idea of the types of laws concerning confession of 1The practical way of studying such documents published to the end of 1948 is from T. L. Bouscaren, S.J., The Canon Law Digest, 2 vols. and 1948 Supplement (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company). Later documents can be found in ecclesiastical periodicals. 2Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis II. (Baltimore: John Murphy, 1868). Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis III. (Baltimore: John Murphy, 1886). 140 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF I~ISHOP£ the various dioceses and councils of this country that have been estab-lished for them or are of practical interest to them. I. General Norms Bishops promulgate their laws in the diocesan synod, the diocesan newspaper, at the conferences or retreats of priests, in pastoral letters, in the diocesan ordo, and in circular letters. From the very nature of law, the bishop wills that religious obtain a knowledge of any law that he has enacted for them. This is the reason for the common precept of diocesan statutes that the faithful are to be instructed in all diocesan laws that affect the laity. Some diocesan statutes explic-itly command all religious of both sexes to acquire a satisfactory knowledge of both the universal and the particular law concerning religious.3 It has also been established in a few dioceses that supe-riors are to have the laws and letters of the Ordinary that affect religious read publicly4 or explaineds in the religious houses. Reli-gious houses should thus possess either the complete diocesan statutes: or a list of at least the statutes that affect religious. Every religious house should also have a file under the beading of the diocese or the. local Ordinary. In this file all letters of the Ordinary that are in any way legislative in character should be preserved. Precepts or instruc-tions of a permanent nature given orally by the Ordinary should be reduced to writing and enclosed in the same file. This will help to. prevent the misunderstanding that is always a danger in. a mere oral expression of law, precept, or instruction, and it will also place this necessary knowledge at the disposal of future superiors. One or two. dioceses have commanded that all public documents concerning the relations between the diocese and the religious should be shown to the local Ordinary at the quinquennial visitation.6 II. Ordinar~t Confessors (canon 520, § I) Canon 520, § 1 commands that an ordinary confessor be appointed for.every house of religious women. Relying on a reply of the Holy See given before the Code of Canon Law, some authors have held that there is no obligation of appointing an ordinary con-fessor for small houses that number less than six Sisters. This is 3Fargo 158; Acta et Decreta Concilii Provincialis Portlandensis in Oregon Quarti 171. The councils and dioceses cited in this and the following footnotes are in-tended as examples, not as a complete enumeration. Unless otherwise indicated the numbers with regard to councils and dioceses always refer to paragraph numbers. 4Fargo 155; Port. Ore. Prov. 169; Trenton 108. SPort. Ore. Prov. 7: Richmond 69. 6port. Ore. Prov. 170: Trenton 109. 141 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reuiew [or Religious contrary to the better interpretation of the canon, since it is not in accord with the general wording of the canon nor with private inter-pretations given by the Holy See. The consequences of such a doctrine are also not desirable. Such small convents constitute a sizable fraction of the communities of a diocese. These convents are at least very frequently located in small and isolated towns, wh~re the only priest is the pastor. The pastor, since he exercises authority over the parish school and is well known to the Sisters, is not a desirable priest as confessor. The isolated location of so many of these communities would make the approach to another confessor most difficult. The evident intent of the Code is to give Sisters as much liberty and facility for confession as possible, but the opinion stated above would give many communities of Sisters almost no liberty or facility for confession. The Bishop of Belleville explic-itly states in his law that ordinary confessors must also be appointed for small houses.7 III. Obligations of Ordinary and Extraordinary Confessors (canons 520, § 1 and 521, § I) Diocesan law universally and insistently inculcates the obliga-tions of ordinary and extraordinary confessors of Brothers, nuns, and Sisters. The bishops demand that all ordinary confessors hear the confessions of tbelr communities once a week, on a suitable day and hour, agreed upon with the superior. One diocese has enacted that the ordinary confessor must never allow a second week to pass with-out hearing the confessions of the community to which be has been assigned,s The laws of another diocese oblige the ordinary confessor of religious women to report to the Ordinary if, for any cause, he has not fulfilled his duties for one month.9 At least two bishops state that wilful neglect of this duty can constitute serious matter.1° The following law is especially practical and opportune: "The ordinaries [i. e. ordinary confessors] of the Sisters are exhorted to be most zealous and self-sacrificing in giving ample opportunity to the Sis-ters, especially to those in isolated localities, of going to confes-sion.' ul The failure of the ordinary confessor to appear in convents in isolated localities causes an almost insoluble difficulty. The canonical solution is that the superioress should summon one of the supplementary confessors, but very few dioceses either in their statutes 7Belleville 34. 8Des Moines 81. 9Toledo 79. 10Davenport 32; Nashville 92. 11Davenport 32: Nashville 92: Owensboro 47. The italics in this and subsequent citations are mine. 142 Ma~t, 1950 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS or diocesan faculties have appointed supplementary confessors. The extraordinary confessor may reside at a great distance, and the reli-gious are rightfully hesitant to call on him constantly. The next effort at a solution is for the superioress to make the use of occa-sional confessors as easy as possible, but the very nature of an iso-lated community reduces this solution to legal theory. The pastor is at least very frequently the only priest in the place,.and the work of the Sisters and the isolation of the town may make travel to another town a practical impossibility. It is also true that places at no great distance from large cities can be practically isolated. Equal fidelity is imposed by diocesan law on the extraordinary confessors, who are to perform their duties four times a year, prefer-ably during the Ember weeks. The bishops emphasize that confessors of religious are to fulfill their duties with a conscientious regard for the direction of souls towards the higher life of christian perfection. As means to this end diocesan law quite generally commands the ordinary and extraordi-nary confessors of religious to devote themselves intensively to the study of moral, ascetical, and mystical theology, of the common law of the Code concerning religious, and of the constitutions of the par-ticular institute.12 A careful reading of the canons on religious will show that very few of them directly affect the daily lives of religious. The obligation of these laws is usually incumbent on stiperiors. Modern constitutions also do not give many norms of the spiritual life. In the present practice of the Holy See constitutions are com-posed in great part of canons and other legal articles that the Sacred Congregation of Religious demands. It will, therefore, be oftentimes much more practical for the confessor to study the spiritual directory, ~scetical summary, or custom book of the institute rather than its constitutions. An exaggerated idea of secrecy must not prevent the superior from giving these books to the confessor. IV. Special Ordinary Confessors (canons 520, § 2; 528) The Bishop of Wheeiing states very clearly the sane norm of 12Confessors will find the following books helpful for a study of the laws that gov-ern lay institutes: IDom Pierre Bastien, O.S.B., Directoire Canoniqt~e a l'usage des Congregations ~ Voeux Simples (Bruges: Ch. Beyaert, 4th edition, 1933): Creu-sen- Ellis, Religious Men and Women in the Code (Milwaukee: The Bruce Pub-lishing Company, 3rd English edition, 1940); Rev. Fintan Geser, O.S.B., The Canon Law Governim3 Communities of Sisters (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1938) : Rev. Bernard Acken, S.3., A Handbook for Sisters (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1931). Bastien is especially helpful, since he also treats the legal articles that originate from the practice of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. 143 ,JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reoiew ~Cor Religious conduct in this respect: "All Religious are admonished to use this privilege of requesting a special confessor only for their spiritual good and greater progress in religious virtues, apart from all human con-siderations. Should a special confessor perceive that there is no need of him, let him dismiss the Religious prudently."'13 The special con-fessor himself 'is in the best position to judge whether his work is necessary or proportionately useful. He should observe the prudent norm of the law quoted above also at the time that the religious asks him to be a special confessor. It is frequently possible for a priest to realize at the time of the petition that the particular religious will not profit by having a special confessor. It is even possible to encounter a religious who asks for a special confessor and yet has no idea of the purpose of such a confessor. It is not unknown for a reli-gious to be under the impression that all religious should have a spe-cial director. Even priests can be imbued with the same principle. Spiritual books and maxims can be misunderstood in this matter. V. Supplementarg Confessors (canon 521, § 2) Canon 521, § 2 commands the local Ordinaries to appoint at least two supplementary confessors available for each convent of reli-gious v~omen in their dioceses. These confessors may be summoned in particular cases for one or more Sisters or even for the entire com-munity, for example, in the absence of the ordinary confessor. The extraordinary confessor of the commuhity is always to be considered also a supplementary confessor. As has been stated above, very few dioceses mention the supplementary confessors either in their statutes or diocesan faculties, but their appointment can be and oftentimes is made by other means.In some dioceses all the pastors as well as all ordinary and extraordinary confessors of religious women are the supplementaries for all convents of the diocese.14 Harrisburg assigns this office to all pastors of the episcopal city and of each deanery for the religious women of that particular district.~s Other dioceses men-tion that the supplementaries will be announced in opportune time by the 10ca1 Ordinary.~6 VI. Occasional Confessors of Religious Women (canon 522) Sisters are well aware that, for peace of conscience, they may go to confession in any legitimately designated place to any confessor ~3Wheeling p. 52. ~4Buffalo, Dubuque, Peoria, Pueblo. The diocese of Des Moines has the same but excludes the pastor. 15Harrisburg 27. 16port. Ore. Prov. 188: Trenton 112. 144 ' Ma~ , 1950 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS approved for women. Diocesan law usually merely reaffirms the canon in this matter. However, there is a reminder that the right given by canon 522 does not free anyone from the observance of. religious discipline.17 VII. Place for the Confessions of Religious Women (canons 522, 909-910) The Code of Canon Law prescribes that the confessional for Sisters should ordinarily be placed in their chapel and that their con-fessions are not to be heard outside the confessional, except in case of sickness or real necessity, and with the observance of the precimtions prescribed by the local Ordinary. It is admitted that there can more readily be a justifying cause for placing the confessional of Sisters outside the chapel, for example, in the sacristy, a room adjoining the chapel, or some other convenient room. It is forbidden to hear the confessions of women and also of religious women outside of the con-fessional except for reason of sickness, weakness of old age, deafness, the probable danger of a sacrilegious confession or of seriou~ infamy, and for other reasons of like import. When a place is to be destined habitually for the confessions of Sisters, it should be designated by the authority of the local Ordinary or according to the norms that he has established. Diocesan law may command that it be designated by the local Ordinary.18 At such times as retreats it is frequently necessary to erect additional movable confessionals in the convents of Sisters, and practically always these confessionals are outside the chapel. " The designation of such temporary places of confession may be made by the superioress or the confessor. The Second Plenar~ Council of Baltimore~9 and diocesan law in general in the United States rigidly enforce the canonical prescriptions on the place for the confessions of women. One diocese has enacted a reserved suspension against confessors who violate these norms,2° and in some other dio-ceses a confessor is liable to a suspension for the same violation3~ For hearing confessions within the papal cloister of nuns of sol-emn vows the Holy See has prescribed the following precautions: "Two nuns shall accompany the confessor to the cell of the sick nun and shall wait there before the open door of the cell while the priest hears the confession, and accompany him again when he returns to IZ'Port. Ore. Prov. 183. ISSavannah-Atlanta 51. WConc. Plen. Bait. II, 295-296. 20Cheyenne I, 109, 115. 21Philadelphia 31: Pittsburgh 119, 1: Scranton 52, 2. 22Sacred Congregation of Religious, February 6, 1924. Cf. Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest, I, p. 318. 145 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review/or Religious the monastery gate.''22 Some diocesan statutes also prescribe that the door is to be left op.en while the .confession of any sick woman is being heard,va It is evident that the door is to be closed if there is any danger whatever of the confession being overheard. This excep-tion is also stated in diocesan law. The emphasis on place with regard to the occasional confessor of religious women has caused at times the error that the legitimate place is required for the oaliditg of any confession of women or at least of religious women. Place as such is required only for the liceity of the confession. Therefore, the legitimate place is not required for valid-ity in the case of the ordinary, special ordinary, extraordinary, or supplementary confessors of religious women. The same is true of any confessor wbb already possesses special jurisdiction over the reli-gious woman whose confession be is to bear, for example, a retreat master. It is certain from a reply of the Code Commission that the legitimate place is required for the validity of confession to an occa-sional confessor of religious women, not by reason of ~itself, but simply because the Code has made it one of the two essential condi-tions for gi~;ing him jurisdiction over the religious woman whose confession be is to hear and which be otherwise lacks. Even in this case there will be little fear in practice of an invalid confession. If the confessor has even probably and according to his prudent judg-ment any of the reasons listed above that justify the hearing of the confessions of women outside of the place of the confessional, the confession will be certainly valid. VIII. Opportunitg [or Confession (canon 892) Diocesan law in general reaffirms canon 892, which obliges pas-tors and all priests who have the care of souls to hear the confessions of the faithful in their charge whenever they reasonably ask to be beard. The bishops state that there are to be fixed days for confes-sion, which are not necessarily to be confined to Saturday but are to include as many days as are necessary for the particular church.24 Other fixed days are the vigils of feasts and the day before First Fri-day. Several dioceses command that confessions be heard before Mass on Sundays, holydays, and First Fridays, but these confessions must not be permitted to delay the beginning of Mass. Confessions are also to be beard at the reasonable petition of the faithful outside of tbes~ fixed times. 23Buffalo 73; Pueblo 148. 24Cf. Conc. Plen. Balt. II, 291. 146 May, 1950 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS A second and sufficiently large class of diocesan statutes prescribes that confessions are to be heard before and even after daily Mass in the parish churches.2s It seems strange that diocesan law, which has granted the daily opportunity of confession t6 the very pious faithful who attend daily Mass, has not extended a similar facility to reli-gious. One diocese has given the daily opportunity of confession to religious.2~ This singularity is intensified by the fact that the basic reason for the greater opportunity of confession could ~not have been unknown to diocesan legislators. Cardinal Glennon stated in his statutes of 1929: "It is clearer than the noonday sun that our Holy Mother Church, in favoring the frequent reception of Holy Com-munion, by that very fact demands that the faithful be given a fre-quent opportunity of confession even on weekdays.''27 It will be of interest to study the documents of the Holy See con-cerning the greater opportunity to be giv.en to religious for confes-sion. The first pertinent document is the Code of Canon Law itself, which in canon 595, § 1, 3° does not say that religious are to be given the opportunity of confession once a week but at least once a weeh. Th~ second document is the Reserved Instruction on Daily Communion and Precautions to be taken against Abuses.2s The instruction opens with a general section, which applies also to reli-gious. In this section the Sacred Congregation first reaffirms the principle of Cardinal Glennon: "Together with frequent Commun-ion, frequent confession also must be promoted.''29 The Sacred Con-gregation then speaks of the daily opportunity of confession before Mass: " . . but that the faithful who live in communities should not only go to confession on stated days but should be free to go, without any remarks from their Superior, to a confessor of their own choice, and, what is especially important, that they should have the opportunity to mahe a confession also shortly before the time of Communion.''~° The text of these words shows evidently that they apply also to religious. In the very next paragraph the Holy See reaffirms the same principles: "Accordingly Pastors of souls must make every effort to provide in each community, according to the 25Belleville 111; Boston 75; Brooklyn 175: Charleston 95; Evansville 71; Gal-veston p. 34; Indianapolis 69: Lincoln p. 35; Natchez 128: Paterson 155: Trenton 173. 26Raleigh 54. 27St. Louis 75. 28Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, December 8, 1938. The complete English translation can be found in Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest, II, pp. 208-215. 29Instruction II~ 2: Bouscaren II, p. 210. 30Instruction, ibid.: Bouscaren, ibid. 147 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious number of members, one or two confessors to whom each one may freely go. They must keep in mind the rule that, where frequent and dail~l Communion is in vogue, frequent and dail~l opportunitg for sacramental confession as far as that is possible, must also be afforded."zl The last pertinent document is the new list of questions for the quinquennial report to the Holy See, where we find the question: "'Do Superiors diligentlq see to it that confessors be easil~l available before Communion . . . ?32 This question refers to all classes of reli-giotis institutes approved by the Holy See. The Sacred Congregation of Religious could not reasonably ask religious superiors whether they were providing confessors before Communion unless, in some sense at least, it was incumbent upon superiors to make such provision. The do.ctrine of more frequent opportunity for confession, con, sequent upon the instruction quoted above, is not unknown in can-onical commentaries. Thus one author states universally: "Wherever frequent or daily Communion is practiced, adequate opportunity for sacramental confession must be provided frequently, i. e. at least two or three times a week.''3~ This opinion was written before the pub-lication of the new questions of the quinquennial report added greater weight to the doctrine on frequent opportunity for confes-sion, at least with regard to religious. The following conclusions appear to be evident: 1) It is at least the desire of the Holy See that local Ordinaries and religious supe-riors provide, as far as they can conveniently do so, an opportunity for confession before daily Mass to religious, and especially to Brothers, nuns, and Sisters. The greater necessity with regard to lay institutes arises from the fact that confessors reside in the houses of clerical institutes. 2) As a general norm, the priest who says the daily Mass in houses of Brothers, nuns, and Sisters is the one to give this opportunity. It would be incredible that the Holy See did not realize that this priest is ordinarily the only confessor who can be in the religious house, with any convenience, at the time of daily Mass. 3) The instruction quoted above warrants a wide interpretation of canon 522, which treats of the occasional confessor of religious women. Such a confessor may not only enter the confessional before 31Instruction II, 2, a); Bouscaren, ibid. 32The List of Questions for Religious Institutes and Societies of Pontifical Right (Rome: Polyglot Printing Press, 1949), q. 85. 33J. N. Stadler, Frequent Holg Communion (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, Inc., 1947), p. 134. 148 May, 1950 by the confessor. 4) should provide at least tunity of confession. able. 5) The time of confessions. LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS daily Mass when he is requested to do so by the superior or one or more of the religious but he may himself spontaneously enter the confessional at this time.34 The daily opportunity of confession is at least a directive of the Holy See and may thus be licitly introduced The designation of the place for confession one place that is suitable for the daily oppor- The chapel will very frequently not be suit-the daily Mass should not be delayed by such The practice of the daily opportunity of confession must also be commended because of its intrinsic merit. Many religious will occa-sionally take advantage of the opportunity and there will be no rea-son whatever to notice the religious who believes that he must go to confession before Communion. Some very highly esteemed authors have advised eliminationof precedence in receiving Communion, that the abstention from Communion by a particular religious might not be noticedP5 If the daily opportunity of confession is given, there will be no need of abstention from Communion. Furthermore, the efficacy of the elimination of precedence for this purpose, at least in the United States, can be very seriousl3) doubted. A glance at the Catholic Directory reveals at once that by far the greatest number of " religious houses is composed of convents of Sisters. I believe it also safe to assert that about two-thirds of these convents contain fifteen or less Sisters. A study of the number in the convents of four large Eastern dioceses grouped together reveals that 68 per cent of the con-vents contain 15 or less Sisters, 50 per cent have less than 12, and 41 per cent have less than 10. Convent chapels are also usually small. The consequence is that no matter what place the Sister takes in chapel or what order is followed in receiving Communion, her abstention will be very noticeable in the greater number of convents. IX. Mone~ Offerings in the Confessional All confessors in the United States are forbidden by the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore to receive even voluntary money offerings of any nature and for any purpose, including Mass stipends, in the confessional.36 This law is quite generally reaffirmed in dio- 34Cf. Regatillo, lnstitutiones luris Canonici. I, n. 670 to the contrary with re~ard to liceity. ssCf. Bergh, Review for Religious, III (1944) 262-263: Creusen, ibid., VIII (1949) 89-90. ~r'Conc. Plen. Balt. II, 289. 149 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious cesan statutes, which in some dioceses extend the prohibition to offerings made on the occasion of confession. The severity with which the Baltimbre law is urged is manifested by the fact that the" confessor who violates it is punished with a suspension in several dioceses.37 Religious, therefore, should not offer Mass stipends to a priest in the confessional. X. Interference in the Internal and External Government of an Institute of Religious Women (canon 524, §. 3) The prohibition of this interference by canon 524, § 3 directly affects only the ordinary and extraordinary confessors of nuns and Sisters. However, no one, unless properly delegated to do so, may assume or obstruct authority that is legitimately possessed by another. Therefore, from the very nature of the matter, this interference is forbidden to all, clergy or laity. Greater vigilance will be required from those whose office or duties render the transgressions of this pre-cept more possible, such as pastors, chaplains, the special ordinary and supplementary confessors, and retreat masters. The internal government is the authority proper to the superiors of a religious institute.Its object is the order of the day, community and spiritual exercises, the transfer and employments of subjects, permissions, dispensations in disciplinary matters, penances given by superiors, the observance of religious discipline, the admission to the postulancy, novitiate, professions, etc. By external government is meant the relation of the community to external superiors, that is, the Holy See, the local Ordinaries, and regular superiors in the case of nuns subject to regulars. This authority includes such matters as the erection and suppression of religious houses and tbe external activity of the institute. No priest or confessor should intrude his ;:lirections, counsels, and much less his commands in such matters. When asked he may give for the particular case the sense of the obligations of divine or ecclesi-astical law and he may also state what he thinks is the better, the more practical and prudent policy in a particular matter. He may not, however, authoritatively impose his will in these matters. For example, he may not command that the employment of a Sister be changed but he may advise her to ask the superior for such a chfinge. He may recommend a candidate for admission into an institute but he may not command that she be admitted. 37Altoona 41; Harrisburg 40, 1"; Philadelphia 32; Pittsburgh 118, 1"; Wheeling p. 32. 150 May, 1950 LAY RELIGIOUS AND LAWS OF BISHOPS The laws of the bishops of the United States manifest great interest in the protection of the internal government of religious institutes. The bishops adopt primarily a positive attitude by pre-scribing that all priests and especially pastors are, as far as possible, to aid religious in spiritual and temporal necessities and so to arrange matters that the religious may be able to live according to their rule.38 The bishops extend the' prohibition of the Code to all con-lessors, 39 priests?° and especially to chaplains41 and pastors.42 In some dioceses chaplains are-explicitly commanded to abstain scrupu-lously from all public judgment or criticism of the religious or of their actions.43 The avoidance of the appearance of interfering in internal, gov-ernment will oftentimes demand a very delicate and sensitive pru-dence from the confessor and especially from the chaplain. Sisters should aid and not obstruct priests in the fulfillment, of their obli-gation. It would be profitable for some religious to recall that they are obliged to fulfill not merely the directions of superiors of which they approve, that the directions of which they do not approve do not by that very fact constitute matter for appeal to the confessor or chaplain, that in the presentation of any grievance to a priest they use care to give not only the facts and arguments for themselves but also those against themselves, and, finally, if they repeat to others the advice of a priest, they are to use scrupulous care to repeat his advice accurately and completely. The priest in these matters is in a defenceless position. It is possible for a confessor or a priest to have some false prin-ciples in this matter. He should never verify the plaint of one mother general: "You would think that all confessors believed that all superioresses were always wrong." The presumption of the con-fessor should be that the superior is right; the contrary is to be proven. Otherwise he brings to the confessional a principle that is at least obstructive of authority. Sympathy for penitents is a most laudable and Christlike virtue in a confessor but it should not blind ¯ 38Fargo 160, 1; Lincoln p. 23; Natchez 275; New Orleans 275, 310; St. 30- seph 33. 39Fargo 160, 1; Indianapolis 46, 2: Los Angeles 64: Salt. Lake 47: San Fran-cisco 115; Savannah-Atlanta 50; Wheeling p. 53. 40Fort Wayne 158: Harrisburg 26: Los Angeles 64: Port. Ore. Prov. 179. 41Dubuque 68; Evansville 45: Fargo 137; Indianapolis 44: Nashville 68 (b); Omaha 104, 1"; Pueblo 68; San Francisco 108: Toledo 71. 42Fargo 160, 1: Nashville 68 (a) ; Salt Lake 47: San Francisco 115. 43Fargo 137; Omaha 104, 1". 151 ~OSEPH F. GALLEN him to the truth that a great many people are not good witnesses in a matter of self-interest. A very brief experience in the priesthood, if thoughtful, will reveal that personal difficulties have at least the tendency to focus the light on favorable facts and arguments and to leave in shadow and darkness the contrary facts and arguments. It is also to be presumed in matters of external conduct that superiors have a much more complete and accurate knowledge of the subject than the confessor. It is likewise to be realized that the discontented, insubordinate, and factious religious very frequently and eagerly seeks to ally priests to her cause. She does not always fail, and the accurate measure of her success is all too often and lamentably the consequent loss in religious discipline, unity, and obedience. Finally, the confessor must never forget that his primary norm is to direct a religious penitent to Christian perfection. If we take the example 6f a difficulty with a superior and suppose the confessor is certain that the superior is in error or even bad faith, the advice of the confessor should not always be to stand up for one's rights or to appeal the matter to a higher superior. The norm of perfection will very fre- quently be to submit to such an action of a superior at least with resignation; the higher degrees of perfection are to submit with glad-ness and joy, and even with desire. XI. Chaplains as Confessors (canon 522) Four or five dioceses forbid a chaplain to hear the confessions of the Sisters of the convent, unless he has the special jurisdiction requi-site for religious women. The sense of this prohibition must be that the chaplain is not to obt.rude on the duties and rights of the ordinary confessor, siiace canon law gives to any priest approved for the con-fessions of women the right of being validly and licitly the occa-sional confessor of any religious woman. Such a prohibition will also in practice not be in conformity with the daily opportunity for confession explained above. our CONTRIBUTORS RICHARD LEO HEPPLER is chaplain at the Novitiate of the Franciscan Broth-ers of Brooklyn. C. A. HERBST and LEO A. CORESSEL are members of the faculty of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas. SISTER M. DIGNA is professor of psy-chology at the College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota. ,JOSEPH F. GALLEN is professor of canon law at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. 152 .uesUons and Answers .~13~ Our constitutions prescribe that the Little Office of the Blessed Virgln be recited in common every day. (I) Must the common recitation be in Latin7 (2) If one is absent from the common recitation, is one obliged to recite that part of the office privately? (3) May one who is obliged to recite the Little Office privately do so in English? (4) Must the external rubrics (lowering of the sleeves, prostrations, and the like) be observed when one says the Office by oneself? (1) Unless the constitutions prescribe otherwise, religious who are bound to the recitation 0f the Little Office by reason" of their con-stitutions only, may recite or chant the Little Office in common in the vernacular, provided an approved translation be used. (2) The obligation of reciting or chanting the Little Office imposed by the Constitutions per se rests on the community, not on the individual. Hence if a religious is absent from the common reci-tation of the Little Office he is not obliged to recite it privately unless the constitutions or custom require him to do so. (3) When the constitutions prescribe that the Little Office must be recited in common in Latin, those who are excused from the com-mon recitation but still obliged by the constitutions to recite it pri-vately may recite it in the vernacular unless the constitutions pre-scribe otherwise. (4) In the private recitation of the Little Office the rubrics (kneeling, st'anding, and the like) need not be observed--much less such customs as are mentioned by way of example in this question. We may add a word here about the requirements for gaining the indulgences attached to the recitation of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. (a) When the Little Office is recited publicly it must be recited in Latin in order to gain the indulgences. But when it is recited privately the indulgence may be gained for the recitation in th~ vernacular (S. Cong., Indulg., 28 aug., 1903). (b) The recitation of the Little 'Office of the Blessed Virgin is considered private (as far as indulgences are concerned) even though it is recited in common by a religious community, provided that it is recited within the walls of the religious house, or even in the church or public oratory with the doors closed (S. Cong. Indulg. 18 dec., 1906). Additional informa-tion regarding the Little Office may be found in an article entitled "The Little Office of Our Lady" in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, Jallu-ary 1947, p. 18. 153 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religiohs 14 In order to obtain the plenary indulcjence at the moment of death attached to the so-called "happy death" crucifixes, is it necessary that the dylncj person hold the crucifix in his hand, or is it sufficient that it be attached to his person in some other way? The answer to this question is contained in a declaration of the Sacred Penitentiary given June 23, 1929, in the following words: "Anyone of the faithful being at the point of death, who shall kiss such a blessed crucifix, even if it does not belong to him, or who shall touch it in any way, provided that having gone to confession and received Holy Communion, or if unable to do so, being at least con-trite, he shall have invoked the Most Holy Name of Jesus by pro-nouncing it if he could, or if not, by devoutly invoking it in his heart, and who shall patienffy accept death from the hand of God as the wages of sin, shall be able to gain a plenary indulgence." [Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 21 (1929), 510]. It may be helpful to our readers to recall that this indulgence for the dying is one of the few that may be gained ?or oneseff outside of Rome during the Holy Year of 1950. IS What is to be said of the policy of lay rellcjious superiors (Brothers and Sisters) who forbid their subjects to fast durincj Lent and at other times when the law of the Church prescribes fastincj? Several points need to be recalled before this question can be clearly and satisfactorily answered. 1. Theologians and canonists speak of tWoodifferent standards of fasting, absolute and relative. Both standards allow only one full meal a day (dinner), which may be taken about noon or in the eve-ning. This is the only meal at which meat is allowed. The differences between the two standards concern the other two meals, breakfast and lunch (supper). These differences are described as follows in Theological Studies, March, 1949, pp. 93-94: "According to the absolute norm, there is a fixed limit for these repasts, which limit applies to everyone. This limit has been tradi-tionally phrased in terms of two and eight ounces, but these are merely moral estimates, and it is certainly safe to describe the abso-lute norm as allowing 'two or three' ounces for breakfast and 'eight or ten' ounces for lunch. "The essence of the relative norm is that it allows to some.ektent for varying individual needs." Each one is allowed what he needs at 154 Mag, 1950 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS breakfast and lunch in order to preserve his health and do his work. However, even the most ardent proponents of this norm agree that it has some limit. They agree that the combined quantity of the two minor repasts must not equal a second full meal; and they usually agree that it should fall notably short of this quantity, for example, sixteen to twenty ounces. But it should be noted that they allow this quantity to be divided, according to individual needs, between the breakfast and supper; they do not set a hard and fast rule that allows only a meager breakfast. "Quantity is the primary difference between the absolute and relative norms, but not the only difference, particularly as regards breakfast. Though some explanations of the absolute norm are ~ather vague as to quality, it is rather commonly said that the break-fast is limited to 'bread and coffee or some other drink.' According to the relative standard, the only universal qualitative limit is that meat may not be taken at breakfast or lunch." 2. The law of fasting applies to all the faithful who have com-pleted their twenty-first year and who have not yet begun their six-tieth year. However, the law is not intended to impose an extra-ordinary hardship or to defeat a greater good; hence those who can-not fast without extraordinary hardship for themselves or others or without interfering with the duties of their state of life are excused from fasting. The very first number of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (I, 42-46) contained a full explanation of these excusing causes, especially as they might apply to religious. .The canon law gives the power of dispensing from fasting to local ordinaries, pastors, and superiors of exempt clerical orders. Many other priests obtain the same power by delegation from one of these or from the Holy See. A dispensation may be given for any of the reasons usually assigned as excusing causes, and even for a less serious reason. But it may not be given without some good reason. Other priests besides those mentioned in the preceding paragraph cannot give a dispensation from fasting. But when they see that a person is really excused from fasting they may certainly tell him he is not obliged to fast. This may be done also by a prudent layman who knows both the law and the excusing causes. Hence lay reli-gious superiors (Brothers and Sisters) may certainly tell their sub-jects they are not bound to fast when they know that the subjects are excused. This is not an exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; it is simply an unofficial declaration of an existing fact: namely, that an excusing cause is present. 155 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Retffeto for Religious Strictly speaking, there is no obligation to ask for a dispensation when one has a reasonable assurance, based on one's own judgment or on the decision of a competent adviser, that one is excused from fasting. It seems that some religious institutes have a rule or custom to the effect that subjects must always consult their confessors about fasting; but, apart from such special provisions, there seems to be no reason why the confessor must be consulted when one. has a clear excusing cause. 3. It should be obvious from what has been said that the abso-lute standard more readily admits of excuse than does the relative standard. For instance, it seems that comparatively few religious engaged in the active apostolate could fast regularly during Lent according to the absolute standard without hurting their health or their work; whereas a much larger number could safely fast according to the relative standard. Until a few years ago the dioceses of our country consistently enjoined the absolute standard; lately there has been a noticeably growing tendency to establish the relative standard. We presume that the question we have been asked to answer refers to conditions existing under the absolute standard of fasting; and our answer is based on that supposition. Now, to answer the question: A lay superior may make a pru-dent judgment that a subject is excused from fasting; and, granted this prudent judgment, he may counsel the subject not to fast. Moreover, the superior may even order the subject n~t to fast if an order is necessary. In this case the superior does not command the subject to.disobey the law of the Church; for in the supposition that an excusing cause exists the subject is not bound by the law. The superior may exercise this power of discretion and authority with regard to any subject who is excused from the law of fasting. Ordinarily, however, he should be content with counseling the sub-ject not to fast; the use of a command would seldom be advisable. Moreover, the superior should not act arbit[arily. It may be true that under the absolute standard of fasting the greater part of a com-munity would be excused from fasting, but this would not justify a policy of telling the whole community they are excused from fasting. Some religious can fast without harm to themselves or their work, and the superior has no right to tell them not to do so. The fact that the rigor of the absolute standard made it impos-sible for large numbers of religious to fast seems to have brought about a very undesirable condition in.some pla'ces. There is a ten-dency to look upon religious who do fast as "singular." This is a 156 May, 1950 sorry state of affairs in a religious house. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 16 I have read somewhere that laymen are forbidden to bless. Yet we d6 meet religious groups of nuns where the mother superior imparts a blessing fo her religious, e.cj. after an instruction or after giving a permission to cjo out. Would you kindly explain the nature and value of such a blessing? A distinction must be made between a public blessing, that is, ~ne given in the name of the Church by a duly authorized minister, and a prit, ate blessing, given in the name of the person who does the blessing. -Obviously only one who is a cleric is empowered to bless in the name of the Church. On the other hand there is nothing to forbid a parent to call down God's blessing on his child. That is what a lay religious, superior does when he blesses his subjects according to the directions of the constitutions or by custom. --17-- I have often come across a reference to Caussade, "Sacrament of the Present Moment." Could you tell me where I can find this treatise or book? Perhaps your readers would be interested in the substance of the idea, if it can be put in a few words. Caussade's idea of the "Sacrament of the Present Moment" is thus briefly explained by him in his Abandonment to Divine Provi-dence in Book I, Chapter I, Section II, p. 3: "There are remarkably few extraordinary characteristics in the outward events of the life,of the most holy Virgin, at least there are none recorded in holy Scripture. Her exterior life is represented as very ordinary and simple. She did and suffered the same things that anyone in a similar state of life might do or suffer. She goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth as her other relatives did. She took shelter in a stable in consequence of her poverty. She returned to Nazareth from whence she had been driven by the persecution of Herod, and lived there with Jesus and Joseph, supporting themselves by the work of their hands. It was in this way that the holy family gained their daily bread. But what a divine nourishment Mary and Joseph received from this daily bread for the strengthening of their faith! It is like a sacrament to sanctify all their moments. What treasures of grace lie concealed in these moments filled, apparently, by the most ordinary events. That which is visible might happen to anyone, but the invisible, discerned by faith is no less than God operating very great things. O bread of angels! heavenly manna! pearl of the 157 BOOK NOTICES Review [or Religious Gospel! Sacrament of the present moment! thou givest God under a~ lowly a form as the manger, the hay, or the straw. And to whom dost thou give him? 'esurientes implevit bonis' (Luke 1, 53). God reveals himself to the humble under the most lowly forms, but the proud, attaching themselves entirely to that which is extrinsic, do not discover Him hidden beneath, and are sen.t empty away.'.' (English translation from tenth French Edition, by E. J. Strickland, The Catholic Records Press, Exeter, England, 1921). BOOK NOTICES LIFE AND MIRACLES OF ST. BENEDICT, by St. Gregory the Great, is now published in a new translation by Odo J. Zimmer-mann, O.S.B., and Benedict R. Avery, O.S.B. This excellent trans-lation of a little spiritual classic is the first to appear in twenty-five years. It is the second of the four books of Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church; and, apart from the famous Rule of St. Benedict, it is the only source we have for the life and character of the founder of Western monasticism. Tile trans-lators have succeeded in preserving the charming simplicity of St. Gregory's account, and the dialogue form gives the author an opportunity of making moral and doctrinal reflections on the miracu-lous events of Benedict's life. Gregory puts into the mouth of Peter, his deacon, questions we all would like to ask: "What an astounding miracle! . , . How is it possible for anyone to see the whole universe at a single glan.ce?" Then Gregory explains the wonderful vision of St. Benedict. This little treasure of spirituality, written primarily to encourage the Italian people in a time of war and devastation, contains an excellent and timely mess~ige for the world today. (Col-legeville, Minn.: St. John's Abbey Press, 1949. Pp, xv q- 87. $2.00 [cloth]; $.90 [paper].) I1qIGO DE LOYOLA, by Pedro Leturia, S.J., portrays the early life of Ifiigo, before he was wounded and converted and set on the jour-ney that led to his using the name of Ignatius and founding th~ Society of Jesus. The work is scholarly and scientific, not popular. The translator is A. J. Owen, S.J. (Syracuse, N. Y.: LeMoyn~ College Press, 1949. Pp, xiii ÷ 209. $4.50.) THE SPII~ITUAL LIFE OF THE PRIEST, by Father M. Eugene Boylan, O.C.R., is a collection of articles which originally appeared 158 May, 1950 BOOK NOTICES in The Priest. Purposely dir.ecting his essays to the American clergy, with American conditions in mind, and with his usual pru-dent and fearless approach, Father Boylan discusses several aspects of a priest's spiritual life in an unmistakably practical way. His pur-pose is to help the priest form an attitude of mind rather than to map out a program. "If that attitude is correct and sincere, and has its roots in a man's heart and in his convictions, he should not have over-much difficulty in planning his own spiritual life with the help of a competent adviser, and adapting his plan, without destroying it, to each set of circumstances." Worthy of special mention is the chapter on clerical celibacy. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1949. Pp. 161. $2.50.) SCALE THE HEIGHTS, by Canon Paul Marc (translated by Rev. Joseph A. Fredette), is a collection of brief, meditative essays written to inspire lay persons to seek for perfection. The subjects treated include the Mass, prayer, the use of time, the Blessed Virgin, the value of life. The simplicity and fervor with which the book is written cannot fail to impress the reader; at times, however, an over-charge of emotion mars the effectiveness of some of the chapters. Though written originally for the laity, religious will find the book helpful in appreciating the motives thatshould direct their lives. (New York: Frederick Pustet Co., 1949. Pp. xii + 236. $3.00.) The Church wants Catholics everywhere, even in mission areas, to study the history of the Church in their own locality. Up to now, the lack of a suitable textbook has been a hindrance to such study in the seminaries of the United States. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES, by Theodore Roemer, O.F.M.Cap., fills this need. At first sight, one would think the organization of the book most artificial, as each chapter covers a ten-year period. But the story r'eads with a sweep and without ever losing sight of the fact that Catholic history in the United States is just a tiny part of the larger story of the Church universal. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Com-pany, 1950. Pp. viii + 444. $5.00.) FAIR AS THE MOON, by Father M. Oliver, O.Cist.R., is intended to portray "the sweet humanity of our mother." The author makes Our Lady imitable in every respect: as child, as young maiden, as a real mother. He reveals the too often neglected human side of Mary in such a way that it inspires a truly warm, personal love, and com-plements reverential love. (Dublin: M. H. Gill U Son, 1949. Pp. xi q- 235. 12s. 6d.) 159 BOOK NOTICES Reoieto /:or Religious Another book on Our Lady is MARY THE BLESSED THE BE-LOVED, by Father Timothy Harris. It presents in a succinct and readily understandable way the Church's teaching on the Blessed Virgin. A thorough reading of this book will help the ordinary person to grasp the dogmatic foundations of devotion to Our Lady and to disl~inguish what is of faith from what is mere opinion. Each chapter refers to some definite feast or liturgical season. For this reason the book should be useful for special readings about Mary, as well as for sermons and conferences on the occasion of Mary's feasts. (Dublin: Clonmore ~ Reynolds, Ltd., 1949. Pp. 119. 7s. 6d.) Among the latest competent and well-documented volumes that describe the development of individual religious congregations of women are Sister Mary Borromeo Brown's HISTORY OF THE SISTERS OF PROVIDENCE OF ST. MARY-OF-THE-WOODS, Volume I (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1949. Pp. xiii + 826. $6.00), and two volumes on the history of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Monroe, Michigan, by Sister M. Rosalita: No GREATER SERVICE and ACHIEVEMENT OF A CENTURY (Detroit: Evans-Winter-Hebb, Inc., 1948. Pp. xx ÷ 863, and xiii + 299. $15.00 per set). Both congregations are responsible for part of the magnificent development of the Church around the Great Lakes region. All three volumes are decidedly readable and valuable addi-tions to the history of the Church in North America. Those interested in theology for the layman will welcome the publication of GOD AND THE WORLD OF MAN (Pp. viii ÷ 318), by Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., and THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES (Pp. xi -k 361), by Charles E. Sheedy, C.S.C. They are the first two volumes of the University of Notre Dame Press religion series. The first volume includes a chapter defining theology and explaining its sources and another chapter on the nature, obligation, rule, and subject matter of faith; and the remainder of the book is given to these tracts of theolbgy: The One God, The Holy Trinity, Creation, The Elevation and Fall, The End of the World'and of Man. The second volume contains the course on Christian morals that has been given to students at the University of Notre Dame during the past several years. It includes the moral theology treatises on Principles and Precepts. In general, both volumes seem excellent for their pur-pose and should make good texts for college and university classes, as well as for summer sessions in theology for Sisters. For the most part, both texts avoid disputed questions, and the treatise on moral 160 May, 1950 BOOK NOTICES " theology contains no "problems for discussion." There is much to be said for these methods, but they have disadvantages, too. Avoidance of disputed questions helps to avoid confusion, but it also tends to undermine confidence when the students later find out that there are different opinions. And the avoidance of the discussion prob-lems, besides keeping the book from becoming too large, also prevents an unwholesome "casuistic" attitude. However, without working problems the students will hardly learn moral theology; hence teachers will have to supply them. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University

Transcript of an oral history interview with W. Russell Todd conducted by Joseph Cates at the Sullivan Museum and History Center on May 16 and May 19, 2016, as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project. W. Russell Todd graduated from Norwich University in 1950 and was president of the university from 1982 to 1992. In his interview, he discusses his thirty-two years of active duty in the U.S. Army as well as his experiences at Norwich University. ; 1 W. Russell Todd, NU '50, Oral History Interview Interviewed on May 16, 2016 and May 19, 2016 At Sullivan Museum and History Center Interviewed by Joseph Cates JOSEPH CATES: This is Joseph Cates. Today is May 16th, 2016. I'm interviewing General Russell Todd. This interview is taking place at the Sullivan Museum and History Center. This interview is sponsored by the Sullivan Museum and History Center and is part of the Norwich Voices Oral History Project. OK, first tell me your full name. RUSSELL TODD: William Russell Todd. JC: When were you born? RT: I was born on the first day of May, 1928, in Seattle, Washington. JC: What Norwich class are you? RT: Class of 1950. My father was 26. My son was -- I'll think about that. JC: Well, we'll get back to that. Tell me about where you grew up and your childhood. RT: For the first year of my life we lived in Seattle, Washington. Dad had a job with a lumber company out there, getting experience to come back to work for his father, who ran a lumber company just outside Milton, Massachusetts. So I grew up for the first nine or ten years in Milton, Massachusetts, a very nice place, right on the edge of where Mattapan and Milton come together. There was a lot of traffic. Well, just for an example, during that period of time I came up with my dad to his fifteenth reunion, and the difference in traffic between where we lived and what we found up here was considerable. When I got back to school on Monday the teacher said, "Russell had a day off. He's now going to tell us what he saw." Well, nothing came to mind, and I stood and told them that I had seen something they had never seen, miles and miles and miles of dirt roads. Now I live on one. (laughs) JC: Was that the first time you were ever at Norwich? RT: Yeah. JC: What was your impression of it when you first saw it? RT: It was a very interesting period of time. It was just before World War II affected the United States, and many, many people were sending their sons to Norwich -- rather than perhaps better prepared schools -- because they could get a commission. They assumed that everyone was going to go to war, and the opportunity of getting an education and a commission together at the same time really appealed to a lot of people. Our football team got everybody we wanted of great quality. We won all the games in that time 2 frame. And we had some very, very fine people who came back in 1946, the year I entered the university, and they made a big impression on my life. JC: I'm sure. I assume the buildings were the same. There weren't any new buildings between the time that you went and -- RT: As a matter of fact it was 1941 I believe, and two buildings on the main parade ground were being dedicated. One wasn't quite finished, and the other was, and two new dormitories shows you an example of what I was saying, how it was a golden period in Norwich's history. But saying that, the opposite is true when the war ends. You remember that we had, what, 15 cadets come up here after the Civil War. They all got off the train, (laughs) yeah, we don't think much about that. It's happened each time there's been a war. The incentive, or the idea, or the concept of perhaps having to serve didn't appeal to a lot of people at the end of wars. JC: Right. You kind of have a boom before the war and a bust after the war. RT: Yeah. JC: What made you decide to come to Norwich? RT: I think probably that trip did, that and the fact my dad was always talking about it. He would make us on Saturday nights -- eating beans and franks -- to sing Norwich songs around the table. (laughs) JC: Do you remember any of those Norwich songs? RT: There's a good one. What is it? "Oh, My First Sergeant" "Oh, my first sergeant, he is the worst of them all. He gets us up in the morning before first call. It's fours right, fours left, and left foot into line. And then the dirty son of a buck, he gives us double time. Oh, it's home, boys, home. It's home we ought to be. Home, boys, home, in the land of liberty. And we'll all be back to Norwich when the sergeant calls the roll." JC: That's wonderful. (laughter) I've heard in some of the oral histories "On the Steps of Old Jackman," but I haven't heard that one before. (Todd laughs) So when you came here with your father, was that during homecoming? RT: Well, homecoming and graduation were the same period of time. It was fascinating to me. It was a cavalry school. They had all kinds of drills that we went to and watched, and prizes were awarded. People loading up the water-cooled submachine guns on horseback and racing around, then taking them down, and putting in ammunition blanks, and firing -- you know, first, second, and third prizes kind of thing. Oh, yeah, that impressed me. Then, of course, the parades were fun to see. But it took about three days to get through graduation and homecoming as a single entity. JC: When you came to Norwich what did you major in? 3 RT: That's an interesting story. As I said, Norwich was having trouble at that time recruiting people, and I got recruited by the president of the university. We met in Boston, and he asked me all the things I was interested in, and to him it looked like I should be an engineer, and he wanted me to take an exam that would carry that forward. Well, I took the exam, and I became an engineer, and about the first part of the second semester I discovered you really had to do the homework. I really didn't like that much, and I wasn't doing very well, so I changed my major to history and economics. I really found that fascinating. JC: Well, tell me about what it was like being a rook here. RT: Yeah, another interesting thing. I was sold on the rook system, and my dad had always talked about it. When he brought me up here, people would drop off their suitcases, and go right out onto the parade ground, and start being ordered around by the corporal. I thought that was great. I never seemed super. But I didn't have many followers on that. I was very anxious that my father leave, and get out of there, and go home, and I convinced him to do that. But after, oh, maybe a month the class, who had elected class officers by that time, called a class meeting, and we all got together -- I've forgotten where now. "We got to stop this. We got to tell these guys we're not going to put up with this nonsense. We've got to show our power." I stood up and said, "Gentlemen, this isn't what we want to do. We want to put up. We want to show him we can do it," and I got booed right off the stage. However, they eventually made me class secretary, so I didn't lose all my friends that day. (laughs) JC: Now let's talk about post-war Norwich, because you did say there's kind of a bust. There isn't as many people. RT: Yeah, I think we had 200 in our class, and there was no really classes of Bubbas. Norwich toward the end of the war, when they were really desperate to get money to pay salaries to the faculty, had a high-school level. I think it was two years, the high-school level, and many people went into that and came up here, and that toward the end made some income for the university. But what it did for us, as an incoming class of freshmen, we had our officers, lieutenants, who were younger than we were, but they'd been here two years. You know, that didn't sit over very well either. That was difficult. JC: And the cavalry was still here at that time. RT: It was, yeah, for the first two years of my term and tenure at Norwich, at that point. JC: What do you remember about the horse cavalry? RT: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Well, let's just put it this way. The first person I visited in Northfield when I came back as president was my old sergeant [Kenoyer?], who we hated. He was tough. But on the other hand, we really liked him, and I felt very, very sorry for him, and I really wanted to see him. His son had won entry into West Point, and 4 about two nights before he was to report in he and a bunch of his buddies were in an automobile accident. I think they were hit by a train and killed. Sergeant [Kenoyer?] was never the same after that. He continued to ride horses in the parades in Northfield and that kind of thing. But he was a character. His education was perhaps at the level he was working, taking care of the horses, and taking care of the riding. He was a good man, but, for example, I had a roommate named George Pappas who was scared to death of the horses, and some of the horses knew it. They knew when you were afraid. And old George would step into the stable area, ready to put on the harness, and that old horse would just back him into the wall and lean on him -- oh, you win. Then, of course, [Kenoyer?] would come by and say, "Kick him in the neb with your knee!" Well, no one was going to do that, trapped in there. So George, he decided that he would skip equitation classes, and instead he took 10 demerits for every single class that he was supposed to be at, and he spent his first semester walking around the parade ground on Saturdays carrying a rifle, doing tours. Many things can be said about George. That's a whole other story of absolute wonder. But it was difficult. We only went down once a week actually to use them, but there really wasn't a hell of lot you can learn in one-hour time once a week. But toward the end of the freshman year we were out trotting around in the neighborhoods, etc. I remember one time one of the captains in the Army ROTC program there, officers, Army officers, lead us on a parade, and we went out across the railroad tracks and up into the hills. And on the way back the horses got the idea they themselves would like to jog back to the stables, and we came charging down that hill totally out of control. Some of the horses and men went all the way to downtown before they came under it. I went through the football practice. (laughs) It wasn't everything it was cracked up to be. Now there were some people here, including a classmate by the name of Bob [Bacharat?] [00:13:18] who really was a polo player. He came from Switzerland. I think that's the reason he came to Norwich was to be able to play polo, and we played polo in that time frame with people like Miami who flew their horses up here. Now, I never saw the plane, but we were told all this and a few years earlier, before the war, that Norwich was playing the big colleges and winning. Toward the end of the first year we played something called broom polo, which they'd throw out a basketball on the floor, and then you'd have to hit it with a broom to get it to go to the goal. Those kinds of things were fun to watch. I remember one time George, my roommate, in skipping class went up into the stands, which are on the south end of the hall, but up above in a balcony, and he opened the window and got a snowball, several of them, and put them up there. When somebody would go by, the stove down on the floor -- there were four stoves in that place -- they'd get red hot, but they really didn't make a hell of a lot of difference when the temperature was 30 below or whatever it might have been outside. And the horses, when you'd take them from the stable to the riding hall, would fight you all the way; they didn't want to go out in that cold. But George, on one occasion, dropped snowballs on those red-hot stoves, and you can imagine, they hissed. As the horse went by, this great hiss came out, and the horse would throw the guy, or run for the far -- I went hell bent for election to the far wall. And when he stopped, I went right up onto his neck and was hanging on. Sergeant [Kenoyer?] came over and gave me hell, you know, "You didn't take control of that horse." (inaudible) [00:15:36] There are people lying down all 5 around, and the horses are running around. Well, there's a certain romance in having the horses, so long as you're sitting in the stands watching a polo game. (laughs) JC: Had you ever ridden a horse before? RT: No, never. JC: So you didn't have any experience with horses. RT: Neither did anybody else. Yeah, yeah. They were wonderful animals though, for the most part. JC: Now you said a lot of the people that were there before the war came back after the war to finish up. RT: Mm-hmm. A lot may be too much of an adjective to use, but Alumni Hall was essentially filled with non-married veterans, or veterans who hadn't brought their wives back. Civilian clothes and having nothing to do with the military. The rest of the dormitories were filled with 200 and whatever it was cadets, and the very few upperclassmen like the one I mentioned who came up through the high school route. We didn't have a lot to do with them, and they were very serious about their studies in the classrooms, very serious about their studies. The fraternization took place after the first of the year when we could go into a fraternity house, and I remember the older veterans -- older, 22 maybe -- who were in Theta Chi, where I was, were a remarkable bunch of people and very, very much appreciated. They didn't always come to dinner with us, but they were in the house and participated with it. They ranged all the way from a parachutist in Europe to a lieutenant colonel in the air force. So that's a big gap. But they were great guys who made fraternity life reasonable. JC: Well, tell me about Theta Chi. Why did you choose that one? RT: Oh, yeah, the same old story, the same reason I came here. My dad was a Theta Chi. Why, of course that's what I'd do. This is my father's fraternity, you know. JC: So what were the fraternities like? RT: They weren't too bad. When General Harmon eliminated them, I thought it was the right thing to do, because there weren't fraternities at other military colleges. And when they were started I really believe they were very useful. They were much more an eating club, and since there wasn't a mess in the university in the 1850s. If you look into some of the old records you'll see at graduation time they invited the alumni back to have dinner, and they had dances. They had inter-fraternity baseball and football, etc. We were trying at my time, in my fraternity, to replicate that. It wasn't perhaps as successful as it might have been. It was great fun to beat SigEp in baseball or something. But it was a different part of the university. I remember one time when I was a corporal, and one of the men in the rank under me, in the barracks, was in the fraternity. We get down to the fraternity, 6 and he would give me a hard time for giving him a hard time. It wasn't what I thought it should be, but it was a good time. I mean, don't misunderstand me. Well, it was a fraternity. (laughs) The girls came in by train, if they were away. Carol came up several times on a train to spring break, or a winter carnival, and that kind of thing. That was good sport to have a place where we could party. There was no drinking - baloney, there wasn't. (Coates laughs) I remember one time we were having lunch, and one of the seniors, one of the veterans that had come back, was the president of the house, and he said, "Our Theta Chi member on the faculty, old Professor Woodbury, is going to be our chaperone for the party. Does anybody know Professor Woodbury?" "I know Professor Woodbury. My father told me about him. I've met him once." He said, "Good. You and your date will sit in the living room with the Woodburys while we're down in the basement drinking." (laughter) It wasn't much fun that night. We had the bars hidden behind sliding doors, or doors that pulled down, and all this kind of stuff, so if we got word that there was someone from the faculty coming we could close it up and all sit down, smile, and look like there was no alcohol in the place. JC: Can you tell me a little bit about winter carnival and some of the dances that you all had? RT: They were good sport. Much of the fun though centered around the fraternity at that time. Yes, of course we went to the dance, etc., but before going to the dance we probably went to the fraternity, and certainly after the dance we went to the fraternity, and that was really good sport. In my senior year my roommate, Rollin S. Reiter, from Ohio decided that in his fraternity they were going to have a special Christmas party. Now, it didn't make an awful lot of sense, because it was right at exam time. We took exams right in that time frame, so he really had to work to get these guys. They were going to do it in tuxedoes, not in our uniforms, so that slowed it down a little, too. But one of the guys, Chubby Jordan, who has since passed away, he was a brigadier general in the Massachusetts National Guard later on, an ex-marine. He didn't want to go do it, so they convinced him that he had to do it, and they would get him a date. When he went to the fraternity house, he was introduced to the worst looking girl in the place, and he immediately started drinking beer and avoiding her and all this. It wasn't even the girl they were going to match him up with, and they just were teasing him something awful. When he got very sleepy they put him on the pool table, laid out flat like in a mortuary and put two lit candles, one at either end of him on the pool table. It was a sight for sore eyes. (laughs) JC: I bet it was. Now you were on the rook committee while you were there? RT: Yeah. In my sophomore year I was the head of the rook committee, elected by the class. During the summer period of time I had to get together with the printers and the university and go through this business. There were big posters that said "Beware, Rook, Beware," and then they listed all the things down. We'd get them printed up here by John Mazuzan down in the Northfield Press, and then we'd sell them to the rooks at $1 apiece. I don't know what we did with the money, in the class coffers I guess. Yeah. I remember that President Dodge, who had no military experience previous, but was a very, very well known scientist and had been the dean of one of the big Midwestern schools in that area, 7 he was brought in by some hefty people on the board of trustees. He didn't fit. He didn't understand us. He was a great academic and did some very fine things for the university. But he called me in one day, as head of the rook committee, and said, "When will this period end?" This was right after supper. I said to him, "Sir, it's very clear. It's right on the chart." He said, "I want it to end at Thanksgiving." I said, "Sir, I don't think you're talking to the right guy. You should really be talking to the commandant of cadets, your left-hand man." He said, "Well, I don't know if I can convince him," and I thought, oh, my God, what have we got here, you know. (laughter) He was a fine gentleman, but the minute it was possible for the alumni to discover that General Harmon might be available, in May of my senior year, Dodge was gone. The alumni just -- it wasn't working the way they wanted to see it work. JC: So Harmon was not president any of the time that you were here? RT: His inauguration was held at the same time as my graduation. It was one thing. He had been here for maybe a month, and I remember that we had a football banquet, and they invited General Harmon to come. And he stood up and told us all that he had been here as a cadet, and he had come back in 1935 as the commandant of cadets, and he loved and understood this university, and he was going to make it famous, you know, kind of, "Yeah!" Just the kind of story we needed. Then he told us a story that just curdled me. It was a dirty story. I'd never heard some guy stand up in a dinner and tell a dirty story. It sort of surprised me. He had that reputation. As a matter of fact, one time later in my career, when I was in the army, I was asked by my boss if I would go back to Hamilton, Massachusetts, where I had lived at one time and see Mrs. George Patton, and tell her that her son-in-law -- as a brigadier general -- was about to be sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky. He was married to one of Patton's daughters, and he is now a bachelor. I was to go with three sets of quarters' plans and say, "Which of these, General, would you choose, because we at Fort Knox can now get the house painted up and ready for you, and all this kind of stuff ahead of time?" Well, Mrs. Patton agreed. When the time actually came general orders was late in his itinerary and couldn't be there, so she said, "Why don't you and Carol just come to dinner, and we'll talk about this? I will pass your message to Johnny when he comes through next week, and your leave is over." So that was just fine. But we had a quiet period in that Mrs. Patton was at one end of a long table, and I was at the other end, and Carol was in the middle, and there was a little old maid with a bonnet on her head, and an apron moving around quietly around the room. Everything went silent, and I said, "I can handle this." I said to Mrs. Patton, "Mrs. Patton, do you happen to know General Harmon?" And she said, "Indeed, I do, Russell, and he's a very disgusting man." (laughter) Now as it turns out, she gave an award right after that, she gave an award at Norwich of a similar pistol of General Patton's famous (inaudible) [00:29:38] to the leading cadet. But she was clear. (laughter) JC: Yeah, I've heard stories about General Harmon. RT: He did a great job. He stayed too long, but he did a great job. 8 JC: Well, what clubs were you in when you were here at Norwich? RT: Yeah, I went out for football. I'd come from a little school in Wenham, Massachusetts, where we played six-man football, and if one guy was sick, it didn't look like we were going to play, you know, kind of thing. I went out for football in Beverly High School, and that was danger. I mean, I wasn't up to that. When we got to Norwich I said, "I'm going back out for football. This looks like --" They were mostly freshmen. There were some veterans that came back, and there were some very good veteran players who came back but weren't interested in playing football. They wanted to study and have a family life. So Norwich had a terrible football team during that period of time. About the second day of practice Joe Garrity, who'd been a friend of my dad's who I had known, put his arm on my shoulder as we walked back to the locker room and said, "I've got a job for you." And I thought to myself, I'm going to be quarterback for the freshman team. And he said, "You're my manager, how about that?" and I said, "Oh, OK." Later in life, when I became president, the alumni director here, Dave Whaley, took me out to visit various alumni clubs. In Chicago a fellow named Hale Lait, who played football and was co-captain in his senior year, started to walk up to us, and Dave says, "Mr. Lait, do you know General Todd?" Hale Lait says, "Shit, he used to wash my jock." (laughter) And it was true! We had a big laundry over there. JC: Were you in any other clubs while you were here? RT: Yeah, I'd have to think upon it. We had an international relations club that I became president of at some point of time under -- oh, come on, his name is skipping me. I'll come back to it. But we brought I people to speak on the issues, and then Norwich formed an alliance with the other colleges where we were all working together, and that was sort of fun working that out. Oh, incidentally, when I was manager for the freshman team I had to write all the letters to the other schools and make all the arrangements, all that kind of thing. It sort of surprised me that the university wasn't doing that; the athletic department wasn't doing that. JC: Did you have a favorite professor when you were here? RT: Yeah, and I just told you I couldn't remember his name. (laughter) Sidney Morse. JC: Oh, OK. RT: Old Sidney Morse was a terrible lecturer, but he was a genius, you know. He understood American history, and that was his forte, and he also was a wonderful human being and understood us. He really got me to dig in and start getting decent grades. He would lecture, but he would have side comments on this thing, and there we are taking notes left and right. I never wanted to miss a class under any circumstances. He invited some of us -- one of them being me -- over to dinner, and he was just a great sport. He was not a big man in stature, but a big man in intellect. JC: Was there a professor you particularly didn't like? 9 RT: Oh, there were some who I'd rather not name who I didn't appreciate or think that they were at the level they should be. JC: What was the favorite class you ever took here? RT: I guess it was history. That's what I worked at. Let me go back to what I didn't like. We lost -- somehow, I don't know how -- one of the economics professors, and President Dodge brought in somebody in mid-semester, and this guy had written many books and was well appreciated around the world, but he was terrible. He couldn't remember any names, he refused to take any attendance, so people didn't come. You could answer him back and forth. I was told, I can't vouch for this, I was told by the people that say they did it. They invited him out the night before his final exam to join them for dinner in Montpelier, and when the time came, they picked up the tip, and went down to the railroad station, and put him on a train going to Montreal. (laughter) I believe it was true. But he just wasn't accustomed to teaching at our level in that circumstance. He was someone that should have continued writing his books. He was essentially a sociologist, but that was a while. I got called in by the dean for skipping class, and the dean was a great guy at that time. I was a little embarrassed by it, but the class was mostly veterans in this particular -- in economics. You know, they had their way. They weren't required to come to class. If they didn't come to class it chalked up one of a series you could have freer, but cadets didn't have that, so I just played like I was a veteran to old Mumbles [McLeod?]. That's what they called him, Mumbles. When the dean called me in, I got right back on it. JC: Decided you'd rather go back to class. RT: Yeah. JC: Did you ever get in much trouble when you were here? RT: Not really. I came close a number of times. Well, let me go back and talk about Carol. Carol and I met one time when we were in about the ninth grade. She was in Beverly, Massachusetts, and we were living in Hamilton, Massachusetts, at the time, and the Congregation youth groups met at a third place, Essex, Massachusetts. There were lots of people of our ages. You know, these groups didn't know each other. And I spotted her. She was -- wow! Wow, yeah. But I never got to speak to her before we broke up and went back. A couple of years later in Beverly High School -- we'd moved to Wenham, and Wenham didn't have a high school, so I went to Beverly High School. Todd with a T and Wyeth with W happened to have lockers opposite each other on the wall, and I said, "My God, there's that girl." I went over and spoke to her, and she invited me to her birthday party, and that'll show it all started with us. But it came to a point in our sophomore year when I had changed from engineering into history and economics. I had to make up some subject material that I didn't get in the first part, and I went to the University of New Hampshire trying to make it up. I went down on the weekend to her house in Beverly, and I stayed with her aunt 10 who lived next door. She was on my team. But Carol when we were -- she said, "Let's stop this tennis game for a minute. I want to talk to you." We walked up to the net, and she said, "You know, I'm through with this relationship. You're never going to be serious about anything you do in your life; you're going to be a perennial sophomore. I want to do more with my life than you are going to do, and this isn't going to work out." OK, I'll show you. I came back and studied like hell for the last two years I was here and sort of caught up. But it was interesting, when I was invited back at graduation time to be the officer who commissions everybody, and at that time the university ordered a master's or a PhD, you know, honorary to the speaker. Loring Hart didn't tell me whether I was supposed to say anything or not, so I had in my pocket a little thing I would say. It went something like this. It is indeed an honor to be here. I represent my classmates in this ceremony, and I'm very proud of the way Norwich is moving. But I would like you to know that 25 years ago, this very day, I received a letter from the committee on academic degrees and standings that read to this effect: "Dear Cadet Todd, The committee has met and has agreed to allow you to graduate (laughs) based on the circumstances that were not your fault." (laughter) So, you know, that's the way life went for me. I dug in and did relatively well. But another interesting thing about that. I don't know about anybody else, but I had a picture in my mind of VMI, and the Citadel, and all these places as being superior to Norwich in their military training, etc. But when I got in the army I discovered that 50% of them were duds, and it just changed my life around and my feelings about my institution. Yeah, it was strange. JC: When you graduated from Norwich what was the first -- you went into the army. RT: Yeah. JC: Did you go straightaway into the army, or was there a period? RT: Well, some of us -- I think it was 12, maybe as many as 15 -- received an opportunity to go into the regular army, not into the reserve army. I was one of those. About half of my classmates who were given that ability to do that chose not to do it, so there were a number of us that went. Upon graduation we received our commission in the United States Army Reserve, and then two weeks later I was brought into the regular army with another commissioning thing, which happened to be by my father's Norwich roommate, Colonel [Rice?] in Boston. He was running something in Boston for the army at the time. That was sort of fun. Then I went immediately off. We graduated about 15 or 17 May or something, June rather. On the second day of July, I reported in to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Light at Fort Meade, Maryland, as one of these people you had a regular army commission. So there wasn't any time -- there was time enough in between that the family all went down to Cape Cod for a two-week vacation, but I graduated and went into the army. JC: Now did you get married before you were in the army? 11 RT: No, no. No, no. I was still trying to get back in Carol's good graces. Before I left -- well, I went, as I said, to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Now the army was doing something really stupid at that time. They had been told to reduce the army's personnel requirements, and rather than reducing in any reasonable way, they chose to take one-third of every squad, one-third of every company, one-third of every battalion, one-third of every regiment. It was a paper army. It couldn't really operate well at all. But when the war broke out in Korea they took from those drawn-down forces and sent them over as individual replacements, supposedly to go into units that also had the same kind of vacancy that was created now. So we had almost no reasonable training while I was in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment before going to Korea, and these people went into units for which they were not trained. The army was really messed up, really messed up. General Abrams one time in discussing this with a group of officers, after he'd become chief of staff of the army, had tears running down his face. "No army should ever do that to its people. There is no excuse for it, and as long as I'm chief of staff I guarantee you that our units will be ready to fight, if we have to fight." You know, oh. It was a terrible mess over there. So before leaving that unit in which I had a miserable career for that short period of time. For example, it wasn't two weeks later that the post's military police battalion left Fort Meade and went to Korea. Company A of my organization, of which I was a lieutenant, became the post's military policemen. Now, we know nothing about being the post's military policemen, not a thing. There wasn't anything in ROTC, there wasn't anything that lead us to believe. What I knew about policing was I'd seen in movies, and I hid behind the "Welcome to Fort Meade" sign in my sedan, and chased down someone that was speeding, and discovered it was the chief of staff of the post. At midnight I went over and had a bed check in the post's prison, to see that there weren't any knives in there. But I got called in and said, "Hey, come on, get off it. You can go to jail for what you're doing," you know. (laughs) It was crazy. I was trying to do my job as I knew it, but no one was there to supervise me in any way. JC: And how long were you doing that? RT: I left there in September. I went in in July, left in September, and got to Korea in late November, first having leave and then going to the West Coast, going through the checks and balances of travel over there. Just about that time MacArthur announced that the war would be over by Christmas, and as a result the army slowed down the number of replacements they were sending over. This was just about the time that the marines invaded Inchon, and it was followed up with the 7th Division behind them, and trapped the North Vietnamese soldiers below us. It was really a magnificent maneuver. So we were just sitting around in California waiting to get orders. Every weekend we'd go into town, and we'd go into some bar and then talk out loud about how we've got to go, and waiting to go to war, this kind of thing. Somebody would pick up the bar tab. (laughs) Then we crossed the Pacific during a hurricane, and that was something most unusual, as you might imagine. The piano broke loose in the lounge. It had been a troop transport in World War II, and they converted it to be a troop ship but for families to go to Japan or other places. At that time these ships were the property of the army, it wasn't the navy. 12 I remember distinctly there was a captain on board, mostly lieutenants, but this captain on board was a ranger, and he'd a big, puffed-up chest, and walked among us, and told us to stand up straight, and "Take your hands out of your pockets." When he'd get tired of doing that he decided we should have bayonet drill, and issued the bayonets, put them on our rifles, and went up on the deck. Oh, God. I said, "I'm not playing this game." There was a ladder still going up the funnel, in wartime where they had a station to look for submarines, OK. I went up there while everybody else was screaming and hollering down below and got away with it. It's a wonder I ever went anywhere in the army. (laughs) JC: So what was Korea like? RT: Well, let me describe it. We arrived the day before Thanksgiving in Inchon, got off the boat. There was a long, long tidal process; the ship couldn't get close to the docks or anything else. So they threw the nets over the side, and we were to go over the side of the ship and climb down into a small boat to go in. But we had all our personal gear with us. We were carrying great bags of stuff. I had two bottles of whiskey in my bag, and some damn fool says, "Drop your bag into the boat." I did. (laughs) But as a matter of fact, they took our uniforms away from us at that time and said, "We will hold them here, because if everybody goes home at Christmas it won't affect you for a while, and you'll be in a regular army uniform." But we got on the boats and went on the shore. They fed us what was left over from the Thanksgiving dinner, and a lot of canned fruits, put us on a train, and sent us up to North Korea. Each of us, each lieutenant, was on an open freight car, you know, enclosed but with doors on both sides, and each one of them had a little stove in it. It was cold, and we headed north, and every time the hospital train came south on that one track we would pull over maybe an hour before it came by, and then stick around and get back onto the thing. In my one car I had 27 people. Those cars were small. They were Japanese-style freight cars, and they were small. We had nothing but straw on the floor and a sleeping bag, but it was a summer sleeping bag, not a winter sleeping bag, and the stove didn't really heat the thing at all. There were slots in the side of the thing. Anyway. We didn't have any ammunition, and we would get shot at on the train. Now, nobody I know of got hit, but it made quite an impression. But still they didn't issue us any ammunition. There was a major in charge, and he was in the last car, which was a caboose kind of car, tight, a good stove, etc., etc. So whenever the train stopped we as lieutenants would run back and sit in his car with him and then take off again. Many of the soldiers would get off and run in to find somebody in the little town we stopped in and buy rot-gut whiskey. Boy, they were in trouble. One of the people in the car behind me, I was told, went blind on the spot. Maybe he was cured later, but it made an impression. We finally got to the capital of Pyongyang, and they put us on trucks and took us to what used to be a hospital. We went on about the fourth floor and were on cots, or on the floor, kind of thing, and at midnight that night some captain in the army came in and said, "OK, everybody out. Get down on the truck below. Let's go. Get your gear together." Well, we all didn't get there first, and the last of us were turned around and sent back. That batch was never heard from again. The next morning we were loaded on trucks and sent up. But before going they fed us a good breakfast. We went down into 13 the basement of this place -- it was steaming and dark down there -- and we had breakfast on some slate or granite tables. Steam is pouring out of the coffee pots, etc., and I filled my cup with coffee and took a big drink to discover that it was maple syrup. I went forward that day sick as a dog, sitting at the end, at the tail of that truck yurking all the way. I'm sure all those men I was traveling with, "Look hey there, look at that lieutenant. He's so scared he's puking," you know. We went on and eventually we came to a stop, and the captain who was leading this convoy came back and told us to get off the trucks and go into these schoolhouses that were available, right immediately, I mean, just saw them and said, "Take them." We went into the schoolhouse, and he turned around and went back to get "another load," quote, unquote. We never saw him again; he never came back. Here we are with no ammunition, carrying guns, living in a schoolhouse, and the Chinese are moving in on us. They were moving down the mountains on both sides of this thing, and then there was a tremendous, tremendous loss of life up the mountain further, coming toward us. The 38th Regiment that I joined after we got out -- I get the men out, and then I jumped on a mess truck headed south, all trying to find where the headquarters for the 38th Regiment was. The 38th Regiment was part of the 2nd Division, and it lost in about two days, coming through a real tight trap -- there was a river, there was a road that wasn't wide enough for two tanks to pass, and then there was a mountain again on the other side, and the Chinese are up on both sides just raking the convoy. One truck stops, you know, they've got to push it off the edge to get the convoy going again. Now I wasn't a part of that, but I joined the company that did, and when I finally caught up with my unit, it was because I had stopped in from the schoolhouse when I saw the 1st Cavalry Division people pull on in close to us, so I went over and inquired. I walked into the TOC, the tactical operation center, and there was a major sitting in front of a map, on a stool, making little marks on it. I waited a while, and he didn't notice me, and finally I said, "Sir, could you tell me where the 38th Regiment is?" and he turned around and said, "No, but where's the division? Where is the 2nd Division?" I said, "Sir, I have no idea. We're trying to find it. We were left off down here." He said, "I don't know where they are. If you --" It was that confusing. They lost something like 4,000 men coming out of that gap. Now, I wasn't affected, not at all, in any way. I was scared to death at times, but then after that I joined the 38th Regiment. When I went in to meet Colonel Pappal -- yeah, something like that -- he shook hands with one, and passed me a bottle of whiskey with the other one, and said, "Son, you're going to need this." I reported in to the battalion commander, and he at the time was meeting with his staff in a little hutch where the Vietnamese -- the Vietnamese -- the Koreans built their houses of mud and mud brick, and they would cook in an open room attached to the house, and the smoke would go under the floors and heat the house. We were sitting on one of those floors, warm and toasty, and they were passing the bottle of whiskey around this circle as we talked about (inaudible) [00:59:47]. By that time the bottle of whiskey got pretty hot. (laughs) It was a very strange circumstance. When he finally got to it, the battalion commander said to me, he said, "Todd, you're going down to A Company." I said, "Sir, and who commands A Company?" He said, "You do." I had about as much opportunity to learn infantry tactics and lead a rifle 14 company as nobody at all. My buddy who I was traveling with who had some experience in World War II in combat in Europe, came back and went to the University of Illinois, and then came into the army the same as I did, through the (inaudible) [01:00:34], he was sent down to a company that already had an experienced commander. You know. Nobody was thinking. I sent the first sergeant back to division headquarters, he got commissioned, and he came back, and essentially he told me what we ought to be doing. Then we did it. Until MacArthur issued an order, that probably came to him to do it, that said all armored officers that had been assigned to infantry units are to be returned to armored units. So I went down to the regimental tank company of the regiment where my company commander, before coming over there, was an infantry officer who was aide to camp to the commanding general who gave him the tank company in the 38th regiment who didn't know a damn thing about tanks. It was really screwed up everywhere. At a point when I was running the rifle company, I was told that a replacement was on the way, flying in, and he would replace me as company commander. Oh, great, that's good news. The guy showed up, and during World War II he had been in the air force as a bombardier. He had absolutely no infantry experience. He had joined the nearest reserve unit to his home when he was discharged. It really wasn't working out. Where we got replacements, the adjutant would go down and say, "Has anybody been through armored training?" Nobody. Nobody. So there wasn't anybody to send to the armored company except the people that came in (inaudible) [01:02:41]. So we were training these guys, but we weren't -- there were some old sergeants that really knew what they were doing, and that's we made. We eventually had a pretty good tank company. I remember my sergeant was a gruff, old son of a bitch. I walked up to a formation he was holding one day, and his back was to me, and I was walking toward the platoon. And I heard him say "The kid says we got to --" I said uh-oh. "Sergeant [Beach?], come with me," and we went in to see the company commander. I told the company commander that I couldn't resolve this one. He said, oh, very well, I'll assign someone else." Sergeant [Beach?] remained behind. Wow, I've done it. Sergeant Beach comes out. I said, "What happening Sergeant?" and he said, "I'm going to be the lieutenant in charge of the other platoon." Ahhh, God, you know. (laughs) It just wasn't the army I knew later on. Yeah. It was a very sad arrangement. It really wasn't until General Walker was killed in a jeep accident, and he was the 8th Army commander, and they sent General Van Fleet over to run it, and we by that time had moved 125 miles to the rear. We were running as an army. Word got out very quickly that General Van Fleet's orders were "I don't want to see your plans of defense, I want to see your plans of attack." And everyone says, "Sure, sure, General. You look at them, and you'll be all alone up there." Well, by God, he took that army and straightened it out and moved it forward and stopped the Chinese, without much additional support. It was amazing to see that happen. I'll never forget that, that one man deciding that he's going to turn the army around and you'd better fall in line. I did have one experience before that happened when I was with the tank company, and I was in a jeep riding down a road, and the division commander had decided that since we had all these losses, and we're all screwed up, that he had a way to make us all feel proud of ourselves and identify. The methodology he used was that one regiment would have a mustache, another regiment would have sideburns, and another 15 would have goatees. Crazy, just crazy. But I'm driving down the road, and an assistant division commander, a one star, is coming this way, and he went right by, and I saluted, and then he stopped and hollered back at me. I jumped out and ran down to his jeep. He said, "You're not obeying the division commander's orders." I said, "Sir, what do you mean?" He said, "You shaved." I said, "No, sir, I've never shaved." (laughter) God. Yeah. But General Van Fleet really pulled that into order, and he relieved a lot of people. He relieved my brigade commander, gave us a lieutenant to be the colonel's slot in the brigade, who turned out to wind up with four stars in the end. They made the mechanism work. JC: Amazing. Now, you were awarded the Medal for Valor in Korea, weren't you? RT: Yeah. I got a Bronze Star for Valor and a Silver Star for Valor, neither of which I really want to talk about much. I think somebody else would have done better to have them than me. I mean, I was pleased, happy to receive it, proud to wear it on my uniform kind of thing, but there was a lot of that going on to bolster up morale of everybody. JC: Is there anything else you want to say about Korea? RT: I don't know. At the end it was a pretty good experience. When we had gone into a stalemate, we started a rotation system back to the United States, and it was a point system. If you came within a certain period of time, then you could go back at a date specific, so we all knew when we'd be going back. There were points for the kind of job you had and all this kind of thing. It was interesting, I went back to Japan, spent a few days in Japan. When we got on the boat I was assigned -- as I had on the way over -- to a large stateroom, and I think there were 12 of us in it, and up and down cots. It was the same gang I went over with. You know, the timeline of where you engaged in combat were the same for all of us, in different units, and that was really pretty special. Two of them, only two of them, didn't come back, and they were both infantry officers. To the best of my knowledge, from the 38th Regiment that I was familiar with, the lieutenants didn't go back whole. The majority of them were killed. Those that were wounded were wounded seriously enough that they didn't come back to the unit. So it was us armored guys that, essentially, came back together, went over together and came back together. Stopped in Hawaii on the way back, pulled into the port, and there's all these hula girls down on the thing, people with big signs, "Welcome Home, Veteran." I said, "Hell, I'm not a veteran. That's a guy that sits outside the post office trying to sell pencils." (laughs) That came as a bit of a shock to us. But, yeah. JC: Well, once you got back to the United States where were you stationed? RT: Before I got back to the United States, on R&R in Japan, I knew of my rotation date. I called Carol, who by that time had finished her year after Smith at Radcliffe, taking the first year of the Harvard Business School program at Radcliffe -- business school faculty, business school-devised location, Radcliffe. I called her and said, "How about meeting me in New York City on such and such a date at the Biltmore Hotel? We'll meet under the clock." Now, meeting under the clock, there'd been a movie about that whole 16 business. So she did, and we went to my family's house. They'd moved to Scarsdale, New York, at that point. I asked her to marry me. She said, "Give me a couple of weeks." So I went back to visit my family. They're not my immediate family, my grandparents in Quincy, Massachusetts, and my other grandparents in Dorchester, Massachusetts. I went to -- my uncle, my mother's brother, ran a hardware store that had originally been his father's, and he said, "What are you going to do about a car?" I said, "I got to get one." I sold my car before I went over. He said, "Well, I've got a good friend who's honest, and I think we can get a good car." So I went over that afternoon and bought a car and called Carol, and I said, "I bought a car today." She said, "A convertible?" and I said, "Yes," and turned it in the next day and got a convertible. (laughter) I'd do anything to make sure she's sweet. She said yes, we were married on the nineteenth of June of that year, and she obviously had to quit her job to become an army wife. JC: So where did you all go after that? RT: The first station when we returned, and I'm talking now about the same group of army officers that went over and came back together, also went to Fort Knox, and we lived in newly-built quarters that were built by a civilian contractor on the edge of there, which were great for a newly-married couple, but they certainly weren't anything special. George and Joanne Patton lived next door to us, a small world, yeah. I've lost my train of thought here now. (break in audio) JC: And we'll get back started. All right, so we were talking about Fort Knox. RT: Fort Knox being a first assignment together in the army was really great. So different. I mean, Fort Knox was organized. Everything was working well. People were happy. Not that we weren't working hard, because we really were. My first assignment was to a training division. It took the number of the division, the third, and replicated it and then trained, basic training. I was in the 2nd Brigade headquarters working on the planning and that kind of thing. I really was disappointed that I wasn't one of the company commanders, but it turns out that that was a tough job. In the tank company, the guy that headed the tank company had more tanks than a tank division, and it was a mess to keep them all straightened out and going around. So one day I went back home for lunch, and Mrs. George Patton, Sr., was sitting in the living room of our house talking to Carol. She had come down to Fort Knox because George and Joanne had just been married, and Joanne got some kind of disease when they were on the honeymoon in the Caribbean. And I reintroduced myself to Mrs. Patton, and we sat down and talked. She asked me what my job was, and I told her. I said, "But I've got to go. I've got an appointment this afternoon to see the commanding general. They're looking for an aide to camp to the commanding general, and I really don't want that job. I really would prefer to get an opportunity to command a company in the division here." She said, "Russell, General Collier is a very, very fine man. He has a 17 fine family life. He is a very, very successful soldier who commanded the 2nd Armored Division at the end of the war in Berlin. You could learn an awful lot working for him." So I went over, and I got the job, and for the next two years I was the junior aide to the commanding general. I did such things as travel with him when he went to different places for different purposes. My buddies all got a hold of me when they found out I was going to do this job, and all had things they wanted changed at Fort Knox, and I was to be their agent in telling the commanding general how he could change the place. Very early on we went out of the headquarters, down the steps, into the car, went past the post theater. I thought, well, here goes. I said, "Sir, do you realize that on this post now an officer must be in his full dress uniform in order to go to the movies?" He said, "Yes, I know that, and it will remain that way." I didn't have many new ideas for him after that. (laughs) He'd go over to the armor school, and the people that are teaching in the combat kinds of business would say, "This is what we're doing now, General, and what do you think? We'd like your approval of it," and I'd sit in the back of the room and listen to what was going on, and understand it. I would hear the people that had served in combat talk about what you ought to do, and I got a great education. Also, every year there was something called the Armor Warfighting Conference. Twice I was there for that. They bring in all the people that belong to the Armor Association, or were serving in an armored position, all the senior people, and they'd talk about what the army ought to be doing in armor. One of my jobs was to go into the airport in the general's big sedan and his chauffer and pick these guys up and drive them back to the post, and I'd chat with these guys, and it was really fun. I got to know an awful lot of people, army commanders, army staff members, and all this. I really felt pretty special that I'd had this kind of an opportunity. Then we also had at Fort Knox in that time frame an armor board. This armor board, when General I. D. White was the commander at Fort Knox -- before General Collier -- that the chief of staff of the army was not pleased with the way the chief of ordnance was managing the tank program and gave the responsibility to the commanding general at Fort Knox. All the bigwigs gathered at Fort Knox to make decisions about what the next tank would look like, what the next armored personnel carrier would look like, etc., etc. Again, I sat in the back of the room, and young captains and majors, most of them West Point graduates who'd gone off to graduate school and were coming back and using their talents. It was a great, great opportunity for me. We were always invited to the house when the Colliers were having a party, and people would say, "Oh, you're going over there and pass the cigarette butts around with them, aren't you?" "No, we don't do that. We're part of that group." Mike Popowski here in town, his dad was one of those colonels on the post at that time. I really got to know all those people. Not that it was doing me any good, but I learned from them, you know. I learned how to act, I learned when to shut up. It was very useful, and it was a great time. The Colliers were magnificent to us. We had a child while we were living there -- it was Tom, and Tom got burnt badly in an accident at our house. He was crawling across the floor, and there was a coffee pot that started percolating, and he looked up and pulled on the cord, and it came over and broke open on his back. The Colliers came over and relieved us of our 24-hour duty, and they took it over; they sat with that baby. We were their family. It was amazing; it was wonderful. 18 Yeah. I began to really understand what the army was about, that it could be a good army. JC: Well, after Fort Knox where did you go? RT: Let's see. Oh, yeah. When General Collier left, he was to be promoted and going to go to Korea, and he offered me the opportunity to go with him, and I told him that I would much prefer to have a tank company in Europe. While I loved the guy and his family, I wanted a tank company in Europe. He said, "We'll take care of that," and he called up the commanding general of the 2nd Armored Division in Europe, the one that they call Chubby Doan, and told him the situation and that I would be on orders to go over to the 2nd Armored Division and a tank company. He said, "I'll give him a tank company." So, wow! You know, we made it, and off we go to Europe. We pull into Bremerhaven, which is the northern port in Germany, and they send forth a little craft to meet the boat. A sergeant first class climbs up the rope ladder and comes over and starts telling people what their orders are going to be, and I was ordered to something called the 13th Military Intelligence Group. I thought, oh, my God, something's wrong here. The colonel who was in charge of us all on the boat, for the boat trip, he got his orders, and he opened it up, and it's the 13th MIG. He said, "What's an MIG?" I said, "The best I know it's a Russian airplane." (laughs) It turned out that he thought he was going to the 1st Infantry Division for a regiment. Well, we got off the boat, and both of us went down to this intelligence group, went through two different fences, guards posted in towers and all the rest of it, and slept in an open bay area over the officers' club. There were a number of other offices there, and they said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I don't know. I'm here by mistake. I'm headed to the 2nd Armored Division." They said, "No, no, you aren't. We're all in the same business, fellow. Tell us where you're going." And I said, "No, no. I'm an officer, and I'm going to --" They said, "We understood an armored officer was coming, and he was going to go underground and behind the Iron Curtain, and report on the Russian movements." Holy Crow! That's not for me. So the next morning I went down and asked authority to see the commanding officer of the 513th [sic] MIG. He spoke with me, and he said, "No, you're going down. You're not going to do that; that's rumor. You're going down to the headquarters in Heidelberg, and you're going to be an intelligence officer in that headquarters." I said, "I'm not an intelligence officer." He said, "That's your orders." OK. So I went down to Heidelberg. General Jim Phillips was the G2 at the time, and I asked to see him, and I went right up to his office and told him my sad story, that I was going to go to the 2nd Armored Division -- and he was an armored officer -- "Now here I am an untrained specialist in your department." He said, "What were you going to do?" I said, "Well, General Doan in the 2nd Armored Division had accepted me to come and be in tank company." He says, "I'll talk to him about that," and he reached over -- they had a red phone system that red phones went to the different generals in different locations -- he picked it up and dialed 27 or whatever it was, and General Doan answers the phone, and I'm sitting there. He said, "I got a young captain sitting here that tells me he's supposed to be in the division. Tell me about him, what are you going to do with him?" Well, poor old General Doan hadn't remembered much about the phone conversation a couple of 19 months before or something, and said, "Well, I'm going to make him my aide." And he said, "Like hell you are. I'm keeping him here for that." (laughs) I did it all over again for another two years in the headquarters at [Usera?]. [01:26:32] It was a great experience. General and Mrs. Phillips were a mother and dad to us; they'd invite us to Sunday dinner, and little Tom would crawl around the floor or under the table, and General Collier would feed him peanuts or something. It was a wonderful time, and when the Colliers would take a trip and borrow the commander in chief's train, we went with them. It was marvelous. I saw all of Europe. I knew most everything that was going on in the intelligence field, and it was a great experience with wonderful people. But when he got assigned to go back to the United States, I took the Colliers up to the port to put them on. When I came back, this again on the commander in chief's train, I had the train stop in Mannheim, and I got off in Mannheim. I wasn't going to be stopped again and reported in to the 57th Tank Battalion and for the last year there had a tank company. That was probably the greatest experience of my life. It really was a good experience. We were hard training, we were well trained, good people. In the beginning we had a wonderful commander who was a major, and the division commander, General Doan, didn't want to put a lieutenant colonel in that slot. He wanted this man to get that experience, but eventually they had to pull him and let -- the lieutenant colonels were backing up. So we were out maneuvering and we came to the last day of the maneuvers, and the new battalion commander arrives, and we have this party in a beer hall. The new commander arrives, and one of the company commanders in Charlie Company walked up to the head table with two boots of beer. You know what that is? Glass things that replicate a boot. Big. He puts one in front of each of the two commanders and says, "Let's see who's the better man." This poor guy that has just got off the train coming down from Bremerhaven and crossed the ocean picks up his boot and starts to drink. The battalion commander we love drinks it down and wins the contest, and the new battalion commander was so tight from drinking that beer too fast his feet slipped out from under him as he sat at that table and went right down under the table. (laughter) That was his first day of duty, and he didn't improve much after that. We were all pretty cocky, the company commanders; we were doing a lot of good things. But he knew nothing about it. We told him -- we were told that he had served in a tank battalion in World War II, and that's all we knew about him. It sounded great to us, a guy with some real experience. Well, it turns out that he reported in to a replacement company, and they said, "Take this truckload of men and go forward to point A. There will be a sign on the road at so many miles or kilometers. Turn left in there, and that's where your unit will be." Well, he got down there and made the turn, then went up, and three Germans come out and say, "Achtung! Put him in the compound!" and he went directly to the prisoner-of-war camp. He never had any experience. He'd been a public information officer before, and he was terrible. He was so bad that in a morning meeting every time, when he would suggest something the other three company commanders, we'd sort of nod or shake no. And "Well, what's the matter?" You know why? We didn't get any leadership out of him at all. When it came time to leave there, I had probably the most frightening experience in my life. He stood up in front of the entire battalion officer group and said, "Well, now that Captain Todd is leaving maybe I can take command of this battalion." Oh, my God. 20 Oh, my God. He gave me an efficiency report that would sink anybody, but it just turned out that in that moment of time the army changed the efficiency report system whereby your commander rates you, and his boss rates you, and then a third person rates what they did. Well, the third person turns out to have been the fellow that had been recently the brigade commander, and he knew me, he knew my performance, etc., and he sent back the efficiency report to be redone. Ho. (laughs) Yeah. Those were good times though, good times. Scary times, but testing, really testing you. JC: Because you were right there in Germany during really the height of the Cold War. RT: Yeah. As a matter of fact, one time we were out on maneuvers, 200 miles from our base, when the French and British moved into Suez, because the Egyptians said they were taking over the canal. There we are sitting out in the woods saying, "Oh, my God," because the president had said, "Oh, no, you don't." Eisenhower said, "No, you don't. You can't do that. We give you a lot of money to bring your economies back from the war, and we'll stop it tomorrow unless you withdraw." But we didn't know all that, and my guys are saying "We're going to gyro to Cairo," you know, that (laughter) kind of stuff. We finally came back. But if we'd had to go, I haven't seen a unit that would be any more ready than we were. Yeah. It was really a great exper-- In a company command, everybody doesn't have to bypass the battalion commander who's a dud. But when you do have to do that, then you're really thinking on your feet. It was great. JC: What was your next assignment after that? RT: Would you believe back to Fort Knox? JC: Oh, really? RT: Yeah. I went back there to go to the Armor Officer Advanced Course, which was a nine-month course in there, in which they were teaching you at the next level. Now the course we took before at Fort Knox was a course we should have had before we went to Korea. I came away with a great impression of how good that was. It was excellence. When I saw General Collier working with the instructors and telling them how to handle this kind of thing. When I came back three years later, it was a well-organized organization. In fact, General Abrams had been there as the head of the command department. It was a first class education. I really and truly look back upon my Norwich experience as not up to that standard that the army was producing there. At the end of that course I had talked my way into becoming one of the instructors in the command department, and I was thrilled to death about that. On graduation day I'm sitting in my chair on the aisle, and as the assistant commandant went by my seat he stopped and said, "You're going to be working in my office." (laughs) So I then worked for Colonel Chandler, who was a first-rate soldier. He had been horse cavalry, in the Philippines, and was on the Bataan death march. He was really very much a gentleman, very much strong willed, and very much of a tutor, and I worked out of his office. My job was to arrange the schedules of the classes, and we had all kinds of classes -- enlisted classes, officer classes -- so that they would mesh how 21 many people, how many classrooms do we need, how many instructors do we need, on what day are we going to do it? I was bringing home page after page of long paper, and on the kitchen floor working out the details of making this thing work. It was great, but, again, there was an intermediary. There was a lieutenant colonel who was my immediate supervisor who, again, I thought to be a dud. On my first day of working there he said, "That's your desk right over there." And I'm, "Yes, sir." I went over to my desk. Now what do I do? Here I am, I found my desk. There was a major sitting at a desk facing me who never looked up. He was just scribbling away, scared to death of this guy evidently. A few minutes later he came over and said, "Well, here's the first project I want you to do. This is it. I want you to study this, and then rewrite it, and we'll discuss it." Fine. It wasn't five minutes later, he came over and said, "No, I want you to do this one instead." I went through about six of those before I understood what I was doing. I was hopeless that anything was really going to happen. That same day he came over and looked over my shoulder, and I looked up, and he said, "What are you writing there?" I said, "Well, sir, I'm writing myself a note so that I will be able to put these things in the appropriate order." He said, "Well, you're not saying it very well." (laughter) It was awful. My out was Colonel Chandler, and a major got assigned to the office, and he very quickly understood what was going on here and went in and talked to Colonel Chandler, and Colonel Chandler moved him out. Again, we got a very, very fine operating organization going. It was good; it was very successful. But, you know, every time there's some kind of a roadblock in your career, you've got to stop and figure out how the hell you're going to get around it. JC: What was after Fort Knox? RT: Twenty more years of -- let's see. I graduated from Fort Knox. I was selected below the zone for a promotion. Do you know what that means? JC: Uh-uh. RT: When you're considered for promotion a board meets in Washington, and everybody whose career appears between this date and this date is considered. Isn't that right? Well, what they started, and I don't know if they're still doing it or not -- I think they are -- they would go below this zone and choose certain people to be examined with this group, and I was lucky enough to do that and really jumped ahead. In the headquarters there was Major Howard from Norwich University. Major Howard didn't graduate from here, but he was an instructor when I was a student here. He was in another department, or I didn't see much of him. But when I came out on the below-the-zone list, there were two of us at Fort Knox that came out on it, and he called me on the phone, and he said, "Well, I thought Frank would make it, but I never thought you would." (laughter) So things are weird, but Leavenworth was an exciting time. I was a captain. The majority of people were majors and lieutenant colonels. A real shock of my life in the first day was seated at tables, and there's a blank card in front of you, and the instructor said, "Now write your name on it, not your rank. Write your name on that card." Well, the guy sitting opposite me was a lieutenant colonel, and I was a captain, and I don't know his rank. What do I call him? We were all calling each other by their first names 22 rather than you find in a unit. That (inaudible) [01:41:04] like that, I'm up against it here. So I worked hard, harder than I've ever worked, and at the end of the halfway mark in the course they gave us standings of where you stand in the course, and I was number five or something. I said, "I'm working too hard." Yeah, that was good, a good period in our life. We had Saturdays and Sundays off. I had a little golf group I played with on Saturdays, and Michelob beer was local out there. We'd buy a pitcher -- the loser would buy a pitcher of beer, and that was a big deal. That was a big deal. JC: So when did you go to graduate school at the University of Alabama? RT: Strange you should ask that. When I came to the end of the course at Leavenworth a general officer, a brigadier general, came out to the course to announce to the armor officers, to the infantry officers, etc., what your next assignment would be. About the third name he read was a good friend of mine, and when he read off where he was to go this guy went "Ooohhh." The general looked down at him and said, "What's the problem?" He said, "Sir, I don't think anybody in your office ever read my request." "Oh." He said, "Major so-and-so, come out here." The guy comes out from behind the curtain with a big notebook, and the guy flaps through it, and he looks down, and he says, "I don't know what you're complaining about. It says right here, 'Anywhere in the world but Fort Knox.' And you're going to Fort Knox, your second choice." (laughter) Then he got to my name, and he said, "I want to see you right after this." I thought, oh, God, what now? So I went in, and he was in his office. There was a temporary office. And he said, "We've got a problem here," and I said, "Sir, what is it?" He said, "Well, they've got you going to graduate school, and as the chief armor officer I want you to go to an armored unit." I said, "I have a choice?" He said yes. I said, "Where will I go if I go to an armored unit?" He thought for a minute, and he said, "You'll go to the tank battalion in Hawaii." I said, "Can I discuss this with my wife at lunch?" and he said, "Sure," and I came back and said, "We have decided that we're going to go to graduate school," and that's how that worked out. JC: So you went to Tuscaloosa instead of Hawaii. RT: Yeah. (laughs) JC: Now, what degree did you get at Alabama? RT: MBA. It was a good tough course, but it was in the process of changing the curriculum of business schools, and some of it was very tough. Part of it was very simple, but some of it was very tough. I established a schedule where I went in very early in the morning, got in there before 7:00 every morning, went down to the basement of the library where I had an assigned carrel and started working until it was time for a class to begin. I'd go up to the class and go back to the basement, eat my lunch in the basement, go home at 5:00, and hardly ever did any midnight work at home. We lived a good, wonderful family life in Tuscaloosa. Now, it wasn't all easy. There had been the problems of the colleges not admitting blacks, and the president of the United States pushing hard to make them do it. 23 Then there were the riots at Ole Miss, right at that time. The army sent down its chief person who determines whether the applicants will go to college -- army applicants -- and to which college they will go to. So we all gathered, and there were people taking nuclear physics, and [we have to?] discuss with him, and he talked it back and forth, etc. Finally one young captain in the back said, "Sir, this is all very interesting, but the army's practically at war with our citizens. What the hell happen-- What do we do? What are our orders, and what are our instructions here at the University of Alabama, if the same kind of thing breaks out on this campus?" This poor old duffer who'd been the president of some college someplace sort of shook his head and said, "Well, I hope you'd be on the side of the government." (laughter) That hit right in the heart of soldiers. But it was a good program. When I left I was going to be assigned to the headquarters in US Army Europe in the comptroller's office, and you're required to stay in that position for three years to make up for your being chosen for that job. They want to use your knowledge and experience. Just before I left they changed it, and I went to the US Army Support Command in France, which had 57 separate organizations that it commanded, to include a pipeline that came in at St. Nazaire and went out to all of the air bases and army refueling, etc., and repair of tanks, repair of everything. We took German factories over, used Germans. It was a very, very exciting assignment in terms of technology, but I got assigned to the comptroller's office in that damn headquarters, and I was one of three soldiers. The rest were all civilian employees, or French. One of the people that worked for me was from Yugoslavia; he'd escaped Yugoslavia. So it was a mixed up kind of place. We lived at a French house down by the railroad station. We didn't want to live in the government quarters, we'd done enough of that. We wanted to have an experience in France. From that point of view, it was wonderful. The job was terrible, just terrible. They expected me to know everything that they did in their routine because I'd been to this business program. Well, I had to really move fast to catch up with them. My boss was a man by the name of [Birossi?]. He'd been an Italian-American soldier in World War II who married an Italian and never went home, and when they created the support command then he stayed on in Europe and became a very important man in the headquarters as the budget manager of this very vast organization. I worked like hell to try and get it straightened out. They first gave me the responsibility of working the budget of a couple of the major organizations, one the tank rebuild plant, which was -- God, it looked like General Motors out there. I finally got frustrated with it all. We'd all sit in a room, roll out our papers, and bring in the guy, the comptroller, from that organization, and you'd sit facing each other with Mr. [Birossi?] looking over your shoulder, and you'd work out a budget for them. How the hell did I know? I didn't have any basis for doing it, but we'd discuss it to get it. When this was all over and calmed down I said, "This is stupid as hell," to [Birossi?]. He said, "What are you talking about?" And I said, "We've got the world's best information technology program right in this headquarters, those guys that are working the plants do it all by technical means, punch cards, and here we are sitting around trying to argue about a number on a sheet of paper that doesn't mean a damn thing." He said, "What do you suggest?" I said, "I suggest we go to talk to them, get onto their system somehow, and work this thing out that we can make a reasonable stab at it." He said, "OK, wise guy, do it." 24 Now, there was a lieutenant colonel in this overall office who was Birossi's boss, and I went to see him and told him, I said, "Now, I'm not competent to do this. There's no question about it. However, if you give me two of those young captains of finance that work down the hall from me, I can get this thing started and going." So he assigned these two guys to me, and we changed the whole system of how we did the budgeting of US Army Europe. I got some kind of an award for that. Then they put me in another job where I had all kinds of stupid responsibilities. I had a responsibility for efficiency of each of these many, many organizations, and I got permission to send people -- Frenchmen -- back to the United States to be trained in each of those depots to do it. Then we pulled all of this together right as the secretary of defense had initiated a program to improve work force relationships, his program, and they sent it out and said, "Everybody in the army, navy, and the air force will use these procedures." And my two-star boss said, "No, we won't. We're not doing that. We got a god system, we just got it started, and, well, that's the way it will be." OK, you're the boss. So six weeks later, maybe two months later, there's a message sent to the commanding general that said "We're sending over someone from the Department of Defense to look at your program." I got called in to the CG's office, and he said, "You got two weeks to put this program in place." Well, you know, I was put into a position where I got attention, and I could do what I wanted to do, and I could get help to do it, and everything just sort of worked together. It was a great experience. But, again, it's a case of speaking up and saying what you think is wrong and finding a way to do it. I went in on the train from Orleans into Paris to the IBM plant with boxes of punch cards in my (inaudible) [01:53:43] and brought them into IBM, and we worked it out with them to do it at first before we turned it over to our own organization. That's because if we screwed it up, we'd screw them up badly. But those two finance captains did all the work. I just plowed ahead. Another time, in that same job -- I really thought -- when I got there I said, "My career is ruined. My career is ruined. Who's going to believe that I was in a damn headquarters for a support group? No, uh. I'm an armored guy. No." But anyway, they came up with another program, again, out of the Department of Defense. This time it was to work specifically with -- I can't remember the name of it, but, again, it came out of the secretary of defense's office, and again I got the job to do it. But this time I had an opportunity to start from the beginning with it. It was a matter of saving money, and we were supposed to put out programs, out to our subordinate units, and help them find money and other ways of doing business (inaudible) [01:55:09]. We started with the laundries, a simple thing, and went into the laundries with the people we trained, and they would say to the laundress, "How can you do your job better?" They'd say, "Well, I've been working at this for six years. If we did this, and that, and the other thing," and all of a sudden we weren't doing anything but saying "How do you do it?" and then helping them do it, and getting their boss to agree to it. Well, then you had to take all this information and turn it over to another agency who would check your figures, and numbers, and back and forth, and everything. That all seemed to work out, and things were going along rather well when they put me in for an award as the civilian of the year for product improvement. I was called (laughs) into Heidelberg, and they put on a parade, and the commanding general and I are -- there were other people, for other reasons, being recognized that day. I'm standing 25 beside the commanding general when the troops are passing in review, and he said, "What the hell are you doing here? This is a civilian award." I said, "Sir, you signed it." (laughter) And off we went. I just kept working. Living there was great sport, except the French are crazy. We lived in a neighborhood, as I said, on Rue de la Gale, and the house was an old one. It was rent controlled, and we had to slip the landlord money on certain days, and you'd walk up to his house with a paper bag full of money. A door would open, a hand would come out and grab the paper bag out of your thing, the extra money for the -- crazy. In the neighborhood we never made close friends except in one instance. Our youngest daughter, Ellen, went to French school. The other two kids refused; they were smart enough not to do it. Ellen and her friend [Pascale?] (inaudible) [01:57:36] walked to school with her mother and Carol, over to school. The ladies walked back from school. After lunch, walked over, back to get, march them over, again, at the end of the school day. And they talked, and they talked, and they talked. Not a single word of English was ever spoken for three years between these two women. We get back to the United States and got a very nice letter from her, in English, and she said, "You never would have improved your French the way you did if you knew I had been a nanny in Great Britain and speak English." (Cates laughs) Now, that's the dirtiest, rottenest trick I can ever imagine happening. (laughter) When we had a problem with the house, you'd try and go out and find someone that would fix the faucet. Now, there are four sizes of pipe, and there are 12 sizes of faucets, and there are 14 sizes -- and they ask you which one do you want? You don't know. So somebody has to come and measure it and go back, and two days later you've got water running again. When it came time to buy coal, we went down to the place you buy coal, and it was a storefront on the main road, right in the main store, and he's got little glass canisters with different kinds of coal in the window. You don't buy coal that way anywhere else in the world. We went in, and he wanted to know how many radiators we had in the house, and how many veins each radiator had, and how many sections were in the stove, and then he could figure out how many tons it would take to heat the house. He didn't ask if there was any broken windows, or open doors, or boards off on the roof. They did it totally unscientific. Then when you come to that decision, then they say, "Now do you want it from Belgium? Do you want it from --" you know, down the list. We want anthracite from Belgium, OK. Then they come and dump it in the house with buckets in the window of the cellar, and the whole house is covered with coal dust everywhere. And it was expensive. Living there was not easy, but we made a pact that we were going to go once a month with the kids to Paris, every time, every month, and we did, and we traveled a lot. Not any great distances, but we loved parts of France. But the French were very difficult to live with. JC: Oh, I'm sure. I've been there once. (laughs) RT: The worst one was my father had a cousin who was, in relationship to Dad, it was about six up from him in the corporation, and he was the chairman of the board. We got a call that he was coming to visit the French company that was owned by the American company, and they were going to come down and see us in this hovel (laughs). And just about the time we knew that they were coming but not exactly when they were coming, 26 the French left us with a bit of a problem. When they put in the sewer system, they left the septic tank in the house, in the basement, made of clay, and it began to leak. Do you have any idea what living in that house was like? You couldn't flush a toilet. When I'd go off to work and leave Carol, they had a deal with these crazy guys coming in, and eventually they came in. One guy came in, and he took off the top of this thing, and then he went away. She chased him down, and he said, "Oh, you've got to hire somebody else. The union won't allow me to put the hose down in here and suck out what's left. You've got to find that guy." And it went on, and on, and on, and trying to live in that house. Fortunately we got it cleaned up before Uncle George showed up for lunch. (laughter) JC: Sounds like it was quite difficult living in that house. RT: It was very difficult. Every single day one of us crossed the street to the bakery that was directly across the street from us, and we'd order a demi pan, and bring it back for breakfast, or something else. And every single day that one of us went, my own experience was I'd walk in the door -- "Bonjour, Madame." (laughter) The only guy that spoke to us lived next door, and the reason he spoke to us was that nobody else in the neighborhood, or the town, or the city would speak to him, because he had been a butcher during the Nazi occupation and gave the Nazis all the best cuts of meat. We had no phones. It took three years to get a phone, and it was a three-year tour. If you got a phone, you had nobody to call; they'd all gone home. They're crazy, just crazy. (laughs) JC: So what was the next assignment after France? RT: Well, while in France the Vietnam War broke out, and people lieutenant colonel level in Europe were being pulled back to the United States and given a command in Vietnam. So I applied to get a command in Vietnam, and they said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, you haven't finished your tour for having gone to graduate school. You can't possibly go." This is talking to somebody back in Washington. Then another job opened up, and they needed a lieutenant colonel in an armored battalion, and I called them back again. I said, "I'll come back to this job after that. How about that?" "Nope, we can't do that. We can't do that." Eventually they said, "OK, when you come home from --" I put enough pressure on them. "When you come home from France, we'll send you to Vietnam." And when we came home from France, they said, "No, you're going to go to the Armed Forces Staff College. You've been selected among the army, navy, and air force to go to the Armed Forces Staff College, for six months. After that, we'll get you a job that will get you to Vietnam." Well, you know, it's frustrating, just terribly frustrating. After the Armed Forces Staff College they told me I would go to Vietnam, but first I would go to pick up 57 tanks that had just been manufactured of a new design, and I was to form the tank battalion in the United States, train it in the United States, and take it to Vietnam. When that day came, ready to go, we had three rounds blow up in the chamber back at Aberdeen Proving Ground, and they said, "Hold it. You're no longer on the list to go. But you are going to go to the Naval War College." I couldn't get to Vietnam! It was very difficult. 27 JC: What was the Naval War College like? RT: Terrible. The Naval War College, well, we called it the sleeping room. They had two major speakers every day, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. That was fine. I mean, I loved to hear them, and they did have a message, but it wasn't work. It was sitting there like you're turning on the television. There was no challenge to this thing at all. Now you could go and get a master's degree along with it from George Washington, but I couldn't, because I had a master's degree, so they weren't going to let me take that program. So they hired somebody the University of Massachusetts had fired from their Economics Department, an old man, to be my mentor and take me through a separate program -- nothing comes out of it other than a dissertation at the end. OK, I'll put up with it, but he was awful, and it was a waste of my time. You never had time between these people to really go to the library and do something. It was 20 minutes. What can you do in the library in 20 minutes? No, you don't. Everyone went and get good coffee, sat around and talked, etc. Oop, time to go back into the bedroom. There was nothing going on in terms of substance in the place. When I had my first time as directing my little group, I worked long and hard on the assignments, and came in the next morning and said, "OK, let's see. Now we had readings in this one, and then we had a differing opinion from this requirement, and then this one, and another one. Commander Jones, what do you think about this?" "Oh, shit," he said, "You don't think I pay any attention to that, do you? I'm in the George Washington program. I'm not going to do any of this." That was a general attitude. There wasn't any depth to what we were doing. One day the admiral in charge, who'd married a British lady and had just come back from another tour in London, said, "How would you like to have lunch at my house with a guest speaker, Todd?" I said, "Gee, that would be very nice, sir." I got up there to discover there were 12 or 13 of us at separate tables and he and the speaker was at another table. What did we do? We sat around and chatted, and ate his food, and left. He said, "How'd you like that?" I said, "What are you referring to, sir?" He said, "Well, the opportunity to be with the speaker." I said, "We weren't with the speaker. You were with the speaker." "Well, how would you handle that?" "I'd put in a round table, and we'd all sit around and talk." "What a great idea." Really, really bad stuff. So he did, and then he invited me to come, and I went, and he said, "How did that go?" I said, "Sir, that was wonderful. But if you did that in the classrooms it might help, too." "We don't have round tables in the classrooms?" He'd never been in a classroom. We didn't have one single naval officer who was nuclear qualified come to the course. They sent them to the National War College. We didn't have one single graduate of a senior college who was on the faculty. I could go on, and on, and on about how bad it was. But one day, in Vietnam, I was sitting at my desk outside General Abrams's office, and I got a call from the naval head in Vietnam. I'm trying to think of his name. I know it as well as I know my own. But anyway, he called me and said, "Russ, I got to see General Abrams." I said, "Well, he's tied up at the moment. Come on up and sit down, and I'll get you in just the minute I can break into it." He said, "Good," and he came up. We sat there, and he said, "I got to talk to General Abrams. They're going to announce this afternoon that I'm the new chief of naval operations, and I don't want him to hear it from anybody else but me." I said, "Oh, have I been waiting for this." He said, 28 "What are you talking about?" I said, "You can do something about the Naval War College that I couldn't," and I laid it out for him, and he fired the guy when he got back there. This is Zumwalt, Admiral Zumwalt. He fired the guy and changed all the programs. I mean, they were tough on him, and they've got a good school there now, or at least the last I knew of it, a very good school that has been accredited. But it was awful. JC: Did you finally get to Vietnam after the Naval War College? RT: Yeah, that's why I was sitting in General Abrams's office. I was to be sent over to be on the command list, which meant this list of people the army feels are capable of doing a job as colonel in a combat unit. They sent my name over, and then they called me back and said, "We've withdrawn your name." (sighs deeply) I said, "Come on, guys. This isn't fair." He's "Hold it, hold it, hold it. They're looking for an assistant to General Abrams, and we've sent your name in." I said, "Look, I've met General Abrams a few times. I don't think he was very impressed with me. I don't think he'll select me off of any list of yours." He said, "There is no list. We only sent your name." (laughter) So I went over there, and I sat for, oh, eight months I guess in General Cao Van Vien's office, who was the head of the Vietnamese armed forces, and I acted as a liaison between General Abrams and General Cao Van Vien, of which there was no requirement. Those guys talked to each other whenever they wanted to. But I represented General Abrams when General Cao Van Vien called the other -- the Koreans, the Australians, the New Zealanders, etc., etc. -- together on a Monday morning to have a meeting, and that was interesting, and I learned a lot, and I met a lot of people. Eventually the secretary of the staff rotated home, and I took his slot. You actually work for the chief of staff, but I read and decided which messages that came in that night would go into General Abrams the next morning, so I got to work very, very early and stayed very, very late, day after day after day, seven days a week. But I really loved working for the guy. Every Saturday morning we would meet with the commanders of the army, navy, air force, etc., the CIA, in the basement of our building, and it was general so-and-so, admiral so-and-so, etc., and Colonel Todd. And Colonel Todd sat in the back of the room and checked -- again, a great learning experience. Watching the interrelationship between these very, very senior commanders was a great experience. Then I went with General Abrams every Monday morning down to brief the ambassador. We'd drive down in his sedan. On Sunday I'd prepare a book for him that he'd go over, and then he'd have that in front of him. He never read it. He never sat in front of the ambassador and read it. I'd be on pins and needles all the time that he'd turn to me and say, "What the hell's this?" (laughs) But he was great. Then I got a command. I left the headquarters and went out and joined the 24th Division as a brigade commander, and I'd been there about eight days when it was announced that the brigade was to go home. (laughs) The next day I got a call on the radio, out flying around in my helicopter -- I had seven battalions in the brigade at the time -- from the corps commander, General Davidson, and General Davidson said, "Meet me at coordinates so-and-so," and we both flew into a point. He said, "I'm pulling you out of this. I've got a problem with the Royal Thai Army. The officer we have working 29 with them is not acceptable any longer to the Royal Thai Army. I need somebody tomorrow, and you're it." That was the craziest thing I've ever been involved in. Wonderful, wonderful Thai commander, who began his military experience at age five in a military academy run by the government. He finished his education in France. The French owned Indonesia. Thailand (inaudible) [02:16:30]. So there we were. Day in and day out, he and I would receive the same briefing. He'd get it in Thai, and his aide-de-camp would give it to me in English. We never ever, ever came to the same solution. We were generations in thought apart. For example, in World War II Thailand never declared war on anybody, but went to war against the Allied forces when they thought Japan was winning. This fellow was a captain in the Thai Army, and he did something very spectacular -- whatever it was, I don't know, very heroic. He was called back to the capital, and he was given the Royal Order of the White Elephant or something. They'd give out five for every war. This was something very, very special, parades, the whole business. He went back to his unit, and then the Thais decided that the Japanese weren't winning the war, and they changed and became our allies. Now you're not going to believe this. They called him back and took the medal because he was fighting on the wrong side. (laughs) I could go on forever on this. My brain couldn't absorb it. When I'd left that and gone back to the United States, I guess when this happened -- I don't remember where I was, but anyway, I wrote him a letter, and I said, "What in the world is going on in Bangkok? You were the commander of the 1st Division, responsible for the security of Bangkok. Your father-in-law is the dictator. They're rioting in the streets, and, to the best I know, nothing's happening." He wrote back to me, after some (inaudible) [02:19:06] time, and said, "Well, you just don't understand our way of thinking. The soldiers had killed some civilians who were rioting, so I went back to my BOQ and stayed there two weeks, and when I came back my father-in-law had been deposed, and the fighting was over." Huh? (laughs) And it wasn't that he wasn't a good soldier, and it wasn't that he was afraid of anything. No, we'd fly around in his damn helicopter and take it places I never would have gone. On the other hand, he had some VIPs coming over, and he said, "We can't take the helicopter today. I'm going to use it tomorrow for some Thai VIPs, and I don't want any fingerprints on it, I don't want to make sure there's no bullet holes in the thing. We'll just take this other thing." What? We couldn't come together. At one point, the real one that almost got me in trouble -- I think it was on Thanksgiving -- our base camp also had three units in it from the 1st Cavalry Division, and the Thais, and the Thais who were responsible for the security, and I was responsible to the US headquarters. Well, on the big army base, maybe 15 miles away, on Thanksgiving night everything went up in the air, flares, and shooting, and machine guns, and all the Thais thought this was great, and they all did it. He called me in the next morning, and he laid me out. He said, "No Thai would ever do that. Your Americans did this." Well, OK, I'll suck it up. "I assure you it won't happen again, sir." So come New Year's time, I put out to my staff with each of his units, where they normally served, to stay with them all night and record everything that happened in that TOC. Next morning he got me again when I went in there. I said, "Sir, before we say anything else, I suggest you talk to your TOC officer." He went down there, and those 30 guys, we made them record everything, and he discovered that it was his units that were doing it. What do you suppose his answer to that one was? JC: I don't know. RT: He called in his senior officers and said, "I'm resigning from the army. You've let me down." And he went back into his hooch and stayed there for about three days. I woke up at the end of three days early in the morning, and the whole goddamn Thai Army that was posted in Vietnam was out there in a formation. I walked out to see what was going on and stood behind him -- he was up on a platform -- and they all apologized, etc., and he forgave them, and they went back into the woods to their positions. They'd left their fighting positions to come back and apologize to the commanding general. JC: Oh, wow. RT: (laughs) You can find one worse than that, I'll bet. My goodness. JC: Want to stop again? (break in audio) JC: Let's stop here, because we've done about another hour and 10 minutes. (break in audio) RT: Let's -- (break in audio) [02:23:15] JC: All right, this is Joseph Cates. Today is May 19, 2016. This is my second interview with Major General Russell Todd. This interview is taking place at the Sullivan Museum and History Center. This interview is sponsored by the Sullivan Museum and History Center and is part of the Norwich Voices Oral History Project. So when we left off last time we had gone through Vietnam, and you're ready for your next assignment. What was that? RT: OK. When the Royal Thai Army left Vietnam I moved out to a brigade, as I said earlier. But the time with the brigade was very unsatisfactory to me as a professional. It was a little more than a month, and that's not what I considered to be a command. So thinking about what would happen when I got home, I called to the Pentagon, talked to the people in armor branch. A lieutenant colonel sits on a desk and shuffles the papers for colonels and helps make the decisions. I told him I wanted to have a particular command at Fort Lewis, Washington, that I knew the command was about to change. And they said, "Oh, we've already appointed somebody to that port. But you are coming back to go to the Pentagon." 31 I had fought off the Pentagon earlier in my tour. When I was working for General Abrams I got a call from the Pentagon that said "We're bringing you back to the United States because a new position has opened up, and it calls for a brigadier general, and although you're only a colonel, we want you to fill that position." And I said, "Tell me about it." They said, "Well, you're going to be the army's first drug-and-alcohol-abuse officer." I said, "You've been watching what I'm drinking." He said, "No, this is what we've got in mind for you." And I said, "That isn't going to work. It just isn't going to work. I'm over here on a two-year tour, and if you want me to leave here, I'll give you General Abrams's telephone number, and you can call him and ask him to release me." Well, no, they didn't think they would do that. (laughs) So when I went back I went to the Pentagon, and there I went to work for a four-star general who I had met several times, because he traveled to Vietnam back and forth, General Kerwin, a wonderful, wonderful soldier. And when I reported in he told me that I was going to be the head of the department that he supervised for the Modern Volunteer Army. My job would be to coordinate all of the programs that were going on both at posts, camps, and stations around the country and around the world, and also within the Pentagon, to evaluate where we ought to be going. Well, OK. It wasn't my first choice. I had about, oh, 10 lieutenant colonels working for me in a very small office that didn't have any windows, and there was a lieutenant general working in the chief of staff's office whose title was the chief of modern volunteer army. So I was torn between two very senior officers who didn't agree with each other very often, and the job went on, and back and forth, and up and down, but a lot of answering letters from the Congress and this kind of thing, and then evaluating things that came from the field. Well, one day I was up in the next level in the Pentagon, because I'd been called by that lieutenant general, and he started chewing me out just something awful for reasons I couldn't explain. Finally he said, "I'm going down and see General Kerwin." My boss. What the hell's this about? So I was standing alone in his office. He went out a side door, and I said, "I've got to get to General Kerwin quick." So I picked up -- they have red phones that go between the very senior officers. I picked it up and dialed General Kerwin's office, and he has to answer that, no matter what's going on. And I said, "Sir, we got trouble," and told him what was going on. I saw him later in the day. He said, "Thanks. That really made a difference." From that moment on, he treated me like I was one of his best friends and had faith in what I was doing. Now, they did bring back in a major general who had just stopped commanding the 82nd Airborne Division, and he came in, and he was my immediate supervisor. But General Kerwin made a proposal -- not a proposal -- instructions to everybody about that time that said "Everybody that works for me in the deputy chief of staff personnel office is going to spend four years in this job." I could see my chances of getting a second shot at a brigade just going out the window. Carol and I had bought a house in Washington, the first home we ever owned. In France it was a rental, and everything else was army quarters. So this was special. She loved that house. She took a job in Washington, DC, in the personnel department, and then she had done a lot of that before, and that was sort of a big part of what she had done at Radcliffe after Smith, and she loved that job. In fact, everywhere we went she tried to find a job that would keep her busy and active. 32 So there we were, balancing back and forth. Now what do I do? Well, I'll go back to my old trick and call the people in my branch on the phone, and I called this young man early one morning before anybody else was in the office, and he happened to be there. I told him my plight, that I'd been really cheated in that one month I'd had in the thing, and General Davidson had said I was coming to Europe with him to command a brigade, and that didn't work out once he found out I'd never been in the Pentagon. "So I want a command, and I want to lay it out right now. I want you to start working on it." He said, "Sir, I'm not sure I can do that." I said, "Well, what time do you come to work?" He said, "Well, I'm in here by 8:00 every morning." I said, "Get in at 7:30 on Monday, because I'm going to call you every goddamn Monday I'm sitting at this desk," and I did. Eventually he said, "I've made an appointment with you with my boss, Colonel [Touche?], who oversees all the branches for colonels." I walked over, and it was my old friend from Fort Knox who had been the senior aide when I was the junior aide to General Collier. He had talked it over with the committee that makes these kinds of decisions, and they were going to put my name in nomination to go back onto the brigade commanders list. Great. A few weeks later I get a phone call that says "We put your name before the committee, and you are on the list, and you're number two." Uh-oh. I'm supposed to spend four years working for General Kerwin? (laughs) So a little later they call back and said, "Whoa. Wait. In the 2nd Armored Division the brigade commander has moved up to be chief of staff, and that brigade is open." I said, "OK. Now you guys call General Kerwin and tell him that you're pulling me out." They said, "Like hell we will." (laughter) So I went to see General Kerwin, and he sort of grimaced and (inaudible) [02:32:24]. He said, "You know my policy." I said, "Yes, I do, sir, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me." And he said, "I'll tell you tomorrow." So the next day he called me, and he said, "Against my better judgment I'm going to let you go to that command. But let me tell you this. The day that's over you're coming back to work for me." I said, "Yes, sir. Thank you." I ran home. (laughs) A little later, in time, the moving truck was in front of the house. I'd gone home, checked out of the office, done everything appropriately, and gone back, and there was a phone call waiting for me at home. General Kerwin. He went on to say what he really wanted me to do, wouldn't I know, is that -- "Sir, we've made our deal," and he says, "OK, but remember, I'm going to get you when you get (inaudible) [02:33:21]." And that was very pleasing to me. I loved the idea of working for him. But, again, it was a matter of just working your way through the system. It was terribly important to my career and to me. People were telling me that "You don't have to do this" kind of thing. You know, "You've done all those kinds of things." But no, that wasn't the career I wanted. So I went to the 2nd Armored Division and took over the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas, and that was a real fun thing. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of good people working for me. Some of them went on to become general officers later on. The first thing that happened was they told me that the brigade in one month is going to move to Germany on Operation [Forger?]. Does that mean anything to you? Well, in the Cold War we had built all kinds of home hutches and places to store tanks and materials that take a lot of time to get into the theater. If they said, "OK, the balloon went up. Come over here," you wouldn't have had any -- you'd have to wait for your 33 tanks for a month. So they had all those vehicles and stuff over there, and every year we went over and exercised the idea of flying over -- not me, the army did. It was my brigade's turn, and it was just great. I had planned that thing for every possible contingency, in my mind, and we laid it out with the staff. I said, "Now if this happens, or that happens, or this happens, this is what we'll do. Plan A, B, C, and D." And damn, I figured everything except it was going to snow at Fort Hood, and the air force wouldn't show up. (laughter) So we were about two days late getting there, and it slowed things up. But we went out on maneuvers for about a month and a half, and that was a great experience. I'd done it as a company commander when I was stationed in Europe, but as a brigade -- when I went over I've been detached from the 2nd Armored Division of the United States and attached to the 1st Infantry Division, when I got over to Europe. There for the first time I met a fellow named (laughs) -- I met someone, a senior officer, a brigadier general who, because my brigade wasn't part of his division, I had to go through the ropes of him looking over my shoulder for the first three weeks of what we were doing. It wasn't easy. Eventually he and I had a good reputation among each other, and then we're good. It worked out pretty well. Well, his name is Fuller, Fred Fuller. Just to move that part of the story a little further forward, when I went to Forces Command he was the DESOPS, and I was the assistant -- correction, he was the DESPER, personnel, and I was the assistant DESOPS. And again, good friends, you know. No, sir. I had to prove myself all over again to him. That was tough. That was tough. Then when I became division commander at Fort Hood, would you believe they made him the corps commander, and my boss again? And again, I went through the process. I called it rook training, he wanted to test me on everything that was going on, and then eventually he agreed, and we got along. That was a very difficult relationship I had with that individual. So we came back from Germany after the Reforger, and it was time to change division commanders. A general officer that I had met once or twice but didn't know came in as the two-star commanding the (inaudible) [02:38:26]. This was a fight for my life. He, in my opinion, didn't represent a good soldier. He would drive in his jeep with the two stars on the front, down the street, and the men in the division would say, "Hi, General," and he'd wave back, "Hi." No saluting, none of this. He would come around in my battalion and ask the company commander and the battalion commander to see their operational reports, and particularly the readiness reports, whether or not this tank would go or that one. He required them, not required them, but pushed hard for them to like take something off this tank and put it on that tank, and now we've created another tank that this one isn't working, this one if you take the parts and put it on this one, that's one less tank, but will look that much better. It was everything how you looked. Eventually he was promoted to lieutenant general and shipped to Europe, and his chief of staff caught on to his way of life, reported it. He got thrown out of the army, reduced to major general, and was retired. But that was a tough fight, that was a tough fight. In town now there's a major general, retired, John Greenway. Maybe you've met Phyllis. JC: I have. RT: Well, John Greenway was my chief of staff in the brigade, and I don't know how many times he saved my life. He'd say, "No, no, no, don't go up there and tell that general off. 34 Don't do it. Stop here." One time I actually said, "The hell with you, John, I'm going up there." I was really mad. Again, he had ordered my people to do something that was not proper. So John called up the division chief of staff, who was a good friend, and said, "Russ is on the way. Stop him." (laughs) So I never got in to see him, and I calmed down, and the chief of staff discussed it with me in a way. But it was a difficult, difficult system to live with, but I had wonderful people working for me. JC: Well, that's good. RT: Yeah. JC: What year is this? RT: Oh, my God. (inaudible) [02:41:04] I can't remember my birthday. (laughter) It was about '60 something, yeah. I came back to the United States, and I was assigned to forces command, where General Kerwin was, the man that said, "You're going to go work for me," and I went to work for General Kerwin just as I'd been promoted by the system to be brigadier general. I worked for him for two years and then another year with General Rogers, who went on to be the chief of staff of the army, and it was great. Real professionals who understood various ways of handling people beautifully. I must admit, he had a chief of staff who wasn't quite up to speed in my opinion, and as a result I found myself bypassing the chief of staff, which really isn't a very good idea. But both General Kerwin and General Rogers, when I was there, would call me on the phone directly and ask me to do something. As the junior brigadier general at Fort McPherson, Georgia, they immediately appointed me to be club officer, and to be the president of the Association of the United States Army chapter at Fort McPherson. I was really the junior guy in that headquarters as far as a general officer is concerned. The biggest thing that happened to me really there was that that's when we had the baby lift out of Vietnam, and then we had the evacuation of Vietnam. In the operations business at forces command, we had the responsibility of preparing those units in the United States, wherever they might be involved, to prepare them for the influx of people. I was up a lot of nights and really mad at the air force sometimes. They would bring in planes early, before we could finish taking people off the previous planes and get them, kind of thing. They finally came around. But it was a real wonderful experience as far as I'm concerned. I had the thrill of getting a thank you letter from the president and being called in by the State Department, who had the responsibility of taking these people once they arrived in the United States -- when they arrived in the United States the army was responsible for them. We took old barracks and tried to fix them up to be for families and all the rest of it. And the next step was to put them out into the population in America, and that was done by the State Department. At the end of this, the State Department gave me an award and invited me over to Foggy Bottom, and it was carried out in the formal part of that. It's a very ordinary-looking building, but inside, on the top floor, they have collected and put in there all the furnishing and antiques of America. They would go to somebody that had something that the State Department wanted, and they would say "We would like to have it, and we will replicate it exactly, and give you back the replication." They built -- it's a museum, it's a wonderful, wonderful museum of 35 American furniture through time. I was really impressed with it being there. I wasn't that impressed with the State Dept- people in Vietnam. (laughs) It was very interesting. JC: Yes, sir. So this was around 1975, that would be (crosstalk; inaudible) [02:45:47]. RT: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I did one or two year. JC: Where were you from Fort McPherson? RT: From Fort McPherson, when my immediate boss left General Rogers called me in and said, "I want you to be my full-time top guy and deputy chief of staff operations." I said, "No, General, that isn't right." "What are you talking about, it isn't right?" I said, "You want someone that's been a division commander to be in that job. I mean, you're dealing with all those division commanders, and if the guy that's passing the instructions hasn't had the experience of being a division commander, it doesn't come through right." And he said, "All right. All right." About a year later I was on a board in Washington. You're sent in to do a lot of those things. Interestingly enough, on this particular one I was the head of the board for captains being promoted to major, and I got in trouble with General Rogers. The instructions we had were "These are the formulas, etc., that you follow when you're looking at the history of their being in the service. You can add to this other things, if you, as a board, want to do it." The first thing we added to it was that any captain who had served a normal period of time as a captain in the combat arms branches and had not had a company wasn't to be promoted on this occasion to major. Passing up a captain, you pass up the real army and the real understanding of the army, and, oh, boy. It turns out that we eliminated from being promoted five captains at West Point, instructors, and that reverberated around the world. (laughs) General Rogers finally calmed down. Then on another occasion when I was away in Washington he called me on the phone and said, "The major generals promotion list has just come out." I said, "Oh, good. Who's on it?" and they said, "You are." Oh, wow. After I went back he called me in his office and said, "Now, I'm going to send you to Fort Hood to command a division." Previous discussion, you got to have a command. I said, "Oh, my. Where's George going?" And he looked at me with this great strain on his face and said, "George who?" I said, "George Patton, 2nd Armored Division." I had been in the 2nd Armored Division twice. Four men have commanded the 2nd Armored Division, three of them during World War II. I knew that was my place in life. Well, he said, "You're going to the 1st Cav." Of course, when I'd been there as a brigade commander the 1st Cav was the enemy. (laughter) It was a little difficult to change my mindset that I was now the head of the 1st Cavalry Division, but it turned out to be a good assignment, too. We were immediately assigned a mission of working on something that was called Division '86, and this was the '76-'77 time frame. What we would do is to experiment with different organizational concepts, try them out, and another R&D organization would evaluate whether this was a good idea, or whether it wasn't a good idea. But, man, was that a lot of work. We had soldiers picking up their mattresses and marching over two streets, and then joining another company, because now we were trying -- we were going to have tank platoons with only four tanks rather than five tanks, 36 and these guys had to fill in for the -- you know, back and forth, and up and down. It was a crazy time, but it was very, very rewarding. We lived next door to George Patton and Joanne Patton, and as a matter of fact we had become very close friends over the time we were in the army. We went home on vacations sometimes by accident at the same time, back in New England, and other times purposefully. But we celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary together, both divisions, at the club, and it was officers. It was really good sport. JC: Was that your last command? RT: No. They sent me to -- at one Fort Hood, after two years of commanding the division, I went down and commanded something called [Tecada?] [02:51:38], which was a research and development experimental station kind of thing. I was doing to the rest of the world what they'd been doing to me, for two years I guess, at which point I was shipped over to Europe to be the deputy chief of staff for operations under General Kroesen. He was one of the most magnificent soldiers I'd ever met. I worked for him once before for a short time, but he was first class. Then I got a call from Loring Hart, president of Norwich University, who I'd gotten to know -- over his 10-year span as president -- pretty well. In my traveling around at various times, I was the head of the Norwich Club of Georgia, the Norwich Club of Fort Hood, the Norwich Club in Europe. They'd come over to visit, and we became close. I had come home on leave to see my dad, who was in bad trouble health wise, and I got a call from Loring Hart to my dad's home down in New Hampshire. He said, "I need you to come up here. I need to talk to you; it's important." And I said, "Gee, I don't know. Dad is not well, I don't know how long he's going to live, and I can't be here very long, so I really and truly want to see as much of him as I can." He said, "Well, afterward, after this weekend" -- it was a big alumni weekend -- "I'll stop in to see you." I said OK. Well, Mother got a hold of me, and Dad got a hold of me and said, "Go on up there." Dad said, "Get a hold of my classmates and tell them I'll be there next year." Well, I knew most of his classmates. When I arrived I found them at lunch in the Armory, and I walked down to the table, the half where they were, and started saying this lie about my father, he's going to be getting well, and he'll see you next year when he comes. All of a sudden the most unusual thing happened. There was this great noise in the Armory, and it kept getting louder and louder and louder. As this individual coming into the room got closer to our table, I discovered that it was General Harmon coming back, and all of these people were saying, "Ernie, Ernie, Ernie, Ernie." I couldn't believe it, you know, really and truly. It showed me just exactly how much he was loved by this institution. That doesn't mean he didn't make a lot of mistakes at times, but he really pulled us out of the woods. So Loring Hart stops in at the house and says, "The board at Norwich University has told me that 10 years is enough, and I'm going to retire. I want you to put your name on the list to be considered." I said, "You're a PhD, you taught English, you became the dean of the university. I don't have any of that." He said, "And you don't need it either, because I'm absolutely certain they're going to choose a soldier." I said, "What do you know, I'm qualified." I went back to Europe, told my boss, and then came back. I made a couple of trips back and forth. I told my boss, which was General Kroesen, what was 37 going on, and then went to see the chief of staff of the army to tell him that I was putting in my papers. You know, after you've been division commander you owe the army something, because of the experience they've given you. So I went to see General "Shy" Meyer, who I'd known in Vietnam, and I was a little dubious here. What will he say? So I told him, and he jumped up from behind his chair, rushed around to my side of his desk, shook my hand, and said, "Boy, that's just exactly what I want to do when I get out." (laughter) Then, unfortunately, and this doesn't have to be spread around, he told me that my name had been submitted to be promoted to Lieutenant General, and it is now before the Congress. Had I not put this in and had I been selected, I was going to go to one of two different jobs, and neither one of them sounded as much fun to me as coming home. Not that I could change my mind. Once you've told the army you're retiring, you're retiring. You don't change your mind. So that's how I got here. JC: What were the other two choices? RT: To be the chief of staff of USEUCOM, which was for the European theater of all of the activities there, and the other one was on the joint staff, doing the DES-OPS kind of work, which is called the J5. JC: So you come to Norwich. Talk a little bit about the application process, because I know Phil Marsilius says in his oral history that they gave you an eight-point plan that they wanted implemented. RT: Yeah. Very unusual I thought, and very useful. Before I get to that (laughs), Carol and I came. We went to New York City and joined a committee of the board who were involved in the selection process. The plane was late, the taxis weren't running, and we were late getting to this thing. Carol was a little nervous that that showed that maybe we weren't working hard enough to get there. They said to me, "We've just finished lunch. Do you want something to eat?" and I said, "Oh, yeah. How about a bowl of onion soup?" Carol said to me afterward, "You could have chosen anything but that cheese dangling out of your mouth." (laughter) But, to me, we had a wonderful conversation, and quite frankly I left in the cab going back to the airport with a member of the board who sat there and congratulated us, because they were certain that the board was now going to select us. Yeah, interesting. Where were we in our discussion? JC: The eight-point plan. RT: Yeah. I can't tell you what the eight-points are right now, but they were all reasonable, one of which was to make Vermont College work, the system of the two institutions together, and that's interesting, too. On that point I tried very hard -- they put a lot of pressure on Loring to go up to Vermont College at least twice a week. He'd go home, changed out of his uniform into civilian clothes, go up to Vermont College, and I don't know what he did, presumably he did good things, and came back again. I got into that routine with him, and I found that Vermont College was in deep trouble, I mean, in my opinion. Over time Vermont College had reduced the quality of their education in order 38 to sustain the number of students they needed, and they had all kinds of programs going that didn't make a lot of sense. They had a nursing program that was excellent. Excellent. They had just bought some programs from -- oh, what's the name of it? JC: Goddard? RT: Goddard College, and they were difficult to mesh into the family. For example, I hadn't been here very long, and I got a call from Mrs. Lippincott, who was the chief officer of Vermont College and had previously been Loring's assistant. I got a call that said, "There's going to be a graduation on Friday" -- this was about Wednesday -- "and it's going to be outside at Vermont College. It's going to be one of the Goddard programs that's graduating at this time. They would like to invite you to be part of their graduation." So I said, "Fine, I'll be there." But before I went I hadn't heard anything more, so I called up to find out, and I said, "Now, what's my role in this? Do I hand out the diplomas? Do I make a speech, do I congratulate them from the platform? What do I do?" They said, "Oh, no, they just want you to sit there and be present. They do all this themselves." OK. I can live with that, and we'll see what happens. The first student to graduate came up, gave a little speech, each one of them, and then took their diploma and put it from their left hand to their right hand, and went back to their chair. The institution wasn't involved. This happened seven or eight times before I really said this is something we've got to look at. Then they decided, or they didn't then decide, the next thing was to have a musical rendition. They had a fellow with a fife and a piano player, and they pushed the piano out toward the group, and the front leg broke off pushing it through the grass. They somehow got it jacked up and started, and the flute player -- well, it was awful, just awful. The next day I said to my vice president, Jim Galloway, major general, retired, I told Jim what had happened, and he said, "You know, you weren't the first. I was the first. The same sort of thing went on, but it was crazier when I was up there." I said, "Tell me." He said, "The flute player was in a tree." (laughter) So we spent some time trying to bring it into the focus. Quite frankly they had some fine professors. They just didn't have a system involved. JC: I've always heard Goddard is a little strange. RT: Well, put it this way. One time Carol and I invited the president of -- oh, in Burlington. JC: UVM? RT: N

Issue 60.2 of the Review for Religious, 2001. ; Making Connections Livin g S p i r i tu ally C o,mmunjty Living Refl:ections MARCH APRIL 2001 VOLUME 60 NUMBER 2 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faithful to God's universal call to boliness by making available to them the spiritual legacies tbat flow from the cbarisms :of Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis Universi .t-y 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 ° \Veb site: u~'w.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'~ Seminaw; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2001 Review for Religious Perlnission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) coutained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law, All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. 0 for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm ¯ Judy Sharp " James and Joan F~lling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos AI Sevilla SJ Patricia Wittberg sC MARCH APRIL 2001 VOLUME 60 NUMBER 2 118 139 Feeding the Beast: Postmodern Anxiety and Generational Challenges Christopher Robinson CM reflects on the question "Who are you and what do you mean?" asked by a postmodern consciousness or sensibility. Community and Communion: Making the Connections Doris Gottemoeller RSM presents four dimensions of a powerful analogy between Eucharistic life and religious community life that sheds light on both and shows between them a common spirituality. 152 Contemplatiori to Attain Love: A Paradigm for Apostolic Prayer Gerald M. Fagin sJ explains the four points of the final exercise in the Ignatian Exercises as a description of the prayer of an active minister. 162 What to Know about Discernment Ernest E. Larkin OCarm provides a succinct explanation of the cognitive, affective, and mystical ways of evaluating our experiences which we identify as discernment. Review for Religious 171 179 Apostolic Community in the Assumptionist/Augustinian Tradition John L. Franck AA sees, with St. Augustine, that religious communities work to shape our very lives and thus our very work in the world. Mission and Community in the Neighborhood: A Personal Reflection Catherine M. Harmer MMS shares her experience of being a religious community m(rnber living and participating in the community and ministry of neighborhoods. 187 196 201 Taking the Psalms to Heart Francis Dorff OPraem walks us reflectively through St. Romuald's Brief Rule so that we may live the psalms wholeheartedly. The Cross of Auschwitz: A Lenten Reflection Dennis J. Billy CSSR enters us into the silence of Auschwitz and its mystery of evil met by the mystery of the cross. The World Will Be Saved by Beauty Joan L. RoccasalvoCSJ revives, in ways both simple and subtle, an awareness of, a yearning for, the several transcendentals that have their warm, bright oneness in God. epzr me s 116 Prisms 206 Canonical Counsel: Incorporation into an Institute of Consecrated Life or a Society of Apostolic Life 212 Book Reviews March-April 2001 As John Paul II closed the holy doors at St. Peter's in Rome on January 6, the day that the Jubilee of the Year 2000 ended, he issued an apostolic letter titled "At the Beginning of the New Millennium." Similar to the apostolic letter issued in November 1994, "As the Third Millennium Draws Near," this letter challenges all Catholic people in the everyday practice of their faith. The pope acknowledges that in the first letter it was easy to name specific themes and suggest certain practices as he outlined a program of preparation for us Catholics as we looked towards the new millennium. Now that we are living in the new millennium, it appears more difficult to suggest some sort of schedule for a seemingly unending roll of future years. Not to be daunted, the pope sums up his approach in his call to contemplate the face of Christ, with the manifold ways that this face appears to us in all life's circumstances. He grants that he is not inventing some kind of new program, but rather looking afresh at the program found in the Gospels and in the living tradition of the church. What receives strong emphasi~ is the pope's desire for us to make our own a spirituality of communion. This phrase, spirituality of communion, the pope had identified in his 1994 ap6stolic letter, Vita consecrata, as describing the mission especially appropriate to Review for Religious members of consecrated-life institutes. No matter the charism that specifies the mission of particular religious lifeforms, the pope had requested that all men and women vowed in conse-crated life embrace a spirituality of communion. Religious were encouraged to consciously work at a communion spirituality as an essential part of the gospel spirituality which all share. This spir-ituality of communion needs to inform their community life and their mission. By his extension of the call to a spirituality of communion to others, John Paul II has not taken away his invitation to those living the consecrated lifeform to be grounded in a spirituality of communion. Proclaiming now that all Catholics have a respon-sibility to work at developing this spirituality of communion for our times, the pope underlines a special charge for those vowed in consecrated life to both educate and form others in the Catholic community to understand and live this spirituality of communion. He tells us that this effort will make the church "the home and school of communion." Such creative energy is a spirituality that enhances our awareness of the trinitarian God dwelling within us and embracing us with a divine life of communion. It is a spirituality that makes come alive our real-ization of the mystical Body in which we see our brothers and sisters truly living a life that is "part of us." It is a spirituality that brings us to see and appreciate the gifts of others not only as gifts from God to them, but also as gifts from God and them to us. It is a spirituality that teaches us how to make room for all our brothers and sisters, so that we truly exclude no one from the table of God our Father and accept what it means to bear one another's burdens. What is so often lacking in the services that are provided secularly (and perhaps we need to examine our own ministries too) is not the actual "body'-' of services but the "soul" people must put into those services. We must take any "mechanisms" of service and put a soul into them, a soul that gives them full meaning through fullness of communion. In a postmodern culture, a wise and holy man has proposed linking our Catholic growth in holiness with the special needs of our new millennium. The spirituality of communion he proposes is a privileged and relevant way of imitating Jesus, our incarnate and redeeming Lord. David L. Fleming Sy March-April 2001 CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON Feeding the Beast: Postmodern Anxiety, and Generational Challenges A little story in Charles Lamert's 1997 book on post-modernism seems pertinent to many current discussions on the past, present, and future of religious life: One fine morning the residents of a small village woke to find a very big but not unfriendly beast well settled in the center of their small town and mundane lives. Being by nature trusting and kind, the people repressed fear and welcomed the beast. In spite of its enormous height and girth, and the mass of its settled flesh, the beast posed no threats. All he did, in the most matter-of-fact way, was say "Feed me." The villagers complied. Upon devour-ing what he had been fed, he simply repeated his demand, without inflection, "Feed me." Eventually, without vote or complaint, feeding the beast came to be what the village was about.' Concern about the future of religious life and its unique contribution to the church has been around for as long as I can remember. It has become, for some of us, an all-too-real version of the village beast. Let me try to clarify just exactly what I mean. In the preface of her recent book Finding the Treasure, Sandra Schneiders says that "virtually every Christopher Robinson CM is completing a doctorate at Louvain with a focus on the theology of religious life. His address is Leopold I Straat 41; B-3000 Leuven; Belgium. Review for Religious question raised today leads directly into the issue of what religious life is and means.''2 The questions I raise here are directly related to what religious life actually is, as distinct from what religious may do. The question of meaning is related, as Schneiders shows, to the pervasive postmodernism in Western industrial countries. At least in the United States, this has affected the young people; they have been socialized from birth with a postmodern consciousness. Whether or not religious life in the West continues depends upon having a plausible description of it that is intelligible to those who are significantly affected by this consciousness. My hope is that either we can befriend these questions of being and meaning, our village beast, without constantly serving it or we can actually turn the tables. The village beast might be capable of feeding us. .What Is Our Village Beast? In the context in which I found it, the story of the not-unfriendly lumbering beast refers to the effect that some ques-tions of meaning have upon the people who entertain them: "Before long, it grows to become that which preoccupies, even defines, the villages.''3 Today many of us are preoccupied with the nature and meaning of religious life. The question of who we are and what meaning we offer to the church and the world is not a non-friendly one, even if it is consuming our energies. It is not non-friendly because postmodernism, the sensibility operative in the West, is not by its nature hostile. Though postmodernism has been defined in many ways and will continue to present itself as a sensibility worth studying, here I wish to highlight its more pos-itive attributes without discounting negative ones. Postmodernism is playful, it deligt]ts in the unique, it is non-linear. It is suspicious of universals and of supposed evolutionary trajectories that are bound to arrive at bigger and better things. For it, there is no self-evident center of all meaning. Postmodern sen-sibility distrusts global institutionalization and celebrates nonuni-formity. Intrinsically pluralistic, it rejects exclusivist claims and triumphalist truth statements. Schneiders emphasizes three postmodern characteristics that are necessary for locating religious life in the contemporary con-text. She says that postmodernism is "a child of and a protest against modernity.''4 In other words, postmodern sensibility rejects the unifying yet reductionist approach of modernity that subjects March-April 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding the Beast reality to what can be proven, manipulated, or categorized by an objective scientific method. Postmodernism is radically conscious of how science has both enhanced human life and brought enor-mous risks to it and the environment. It insists that modernity has not lived up to its claims of creating a better world through rationality. Second, Schneiders points out that the postmodern con-sciousness has eroded or simply refused to acknowledge the foun-dations upon which many modern projects have risen: "Who is to say that any construction of reality, any set of beliefs or mode of behavior, has universal validity and therefore any claim on me?''s On the negative side, this position means that postmodern thought is relativistic. On the positive side, postmodern thought has effec-tively eroded the foundations of ethnic hatred, anthropocentrism, sexism, and so forth. Third, postmodernism rejects the idea that there is a grand story, a metanarrative, that can provide universal meaning for all people of all times in all places. The metanarrative purports to present the ideal of what all people should be; persons who are not in the story are hounded until they come around to the group's way of thinking. Postmodernism's suspicion of the grand story subverts such use of force to make all people over into a general-ized image, an image devoid of particularity or difference. On the negative side, postmodern consciousness may produce alienation because no acceptable common story bridges the distances between people.6 Meaning and Being Our village beast is more complicated than the brief question "Who are you and what do you mean?" The beast is this ques-tion as asked by a postmodern consciousness or sensibility. The question threatens because many religious congregations and communities (if not all) are firmly rooted in modernity, not post-modernity. Consequently, the beast appears threatening but is not unfriendly. The postmodern question is really not unfriendly because postmodernism is not necessarily antagonistic and may be favor-able. For example, postmoderns are captivated by the unusual, and what could be more unusual in the contemporary world than a life characterized by celibacy? Postmoderns reject the negative Review for Religious and sometimes disastrous effects of metanarratives because meta-narratives envision all people as the same. Religious men and women have a similar view that often puts them on the margins of society for rejecting metanarrative rhetoric that would keep the alienated far from the resources they require for self-actual-ization and fulfillment. Such rhetoric includes the opinions that "if they would only work hard enough they wouldn't be poor" and "if they would stay at home and have children they wouldn't be harassed." Particularly in the Western world, certainly in the history of the United States, religious communities have consis-tently promoted human well-being through education, healthcare, and social service regardless of the creed of those receiving assistance. What could be more postmodern than that? Religious often find themselves in prophetic positions in relation to the univer-sal church. Such elements of decentralization are, in a way, the human side of the gospel message lived out through the charisms of particular communities made up of particular persons. The explicit goal, obviously, is not to decentralize the church. But the human face, voice, and touch provided by dedicated religious create a space in which people hear the gospel in unique and specific ways. Such efforts and understandings of decentralization are postmodern. So what is the problem? The postmod-ern phenomenon has entered our lives and, in a manner neither unfriendly nor always unattractive, asks: Who are you and what do you mean? The problem is that we continue to feed the beast, this lumbering postmodern.collection of con-tradictor~ images, with rationalizations that stem from modernity. Of course, feed it or not, it is not going to go away. The beast story describes the lives of the villagers as mun-dane. Postmoderns have critiqued modernity for exactly that, being boring and mundane. Universals are boring. Nondifferentiation has no room for distinctive and entertaining attributes. Whether or not the perception is true, the postmodern West sees religious men and women as being just like everyone else, and so we are largely Postmodernism rejects the idea that there is a grand story, a metanarrative, that can provide universal meaning for all people of all times in all places. March-April 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding the Beast invisible. We have done a good job of assimilating and affirming the world. We live individual lives in individual ways in individual spaces. Postmodernism consciously ignores anything that is "the same" in favor, of the new, distinct, unusual, entertaining, distracting, and so forth. There is a dangerous .and antihuman element to this that includes consumerism, materialism, trivial distraction. There is also something of positive value. I have not claimed and would not and cannot claim that, because of postmodern consciousness, religious need to create distinctive-lifestyle enclaves that provoke the curiosity and interest of the others in society. To keep the postmodern sensi-bility entertained, we would have to have general chapters and assemblies adopting new gimmicks every six months. The question of our invisibility is, however, a serious one. Because postmod-ernism disdains rationalistic answers, seeing them as dank mush-rooms emerging from metanarratives, it is not going to wait for an explanation from us about our lifestyle. As soon as a religious begins, "Well, you have to understand that once upon a time the Second Vatican Council created a spirit of openness to the world that we as religious had forgotten," the postmodern mind closes down. Even for the educated young adult Catholic, Vatican II is "that great thing that happened sometime in the middle of the last century. Have you read it? The language is hopelessly gender exclusive." The revolutionary event that altered the course of religious life is now considered a metanar-rative from a time long past. Add to this that the same Vatican is now the source of documents like DominusJesus that remind every-one that there is only one true and universal Christian church. " Truth claims aside, such statements sound to the postmodern mind like metanarratives. Postmodernism is fast paced and will not wait for us to explain endlessly our being and meaning through solemn discourses, province plans, and mission statements. This is particularly true when the observable reality does not live up to the written ideology. We appear as more of "the same." Modernity Is Still Operational There is a certain logic to keeping our roots in modernity. First, our charisms, congregations, communities, and reforms are based on great stories, not the least of which are the gospel nar-ratives. Second, it is Vatican II that ushered us into the modern Review for Religious world. Ironically, it did so just as the world was on the brink of postmodernity. The call to return to the charism of the founder resulted in a great deal of historical research and theological reflection. Much of this was dependent upon the historical-crit-ical method that typifies modernity. Third, through our com-mitted lives we are striving in God's name to make the world a better place for everyone and everything. Without nuance this can be translated by radical postmoderns into a universalizing, nonparticularizing amalgamation of all peo-ple into one standard of living, one creed, and one political system. So the village beast that has lumbered into our midst is the postmodern question of being and meaning. It is a not-unfriendly thing, but it is a very intimidating, beastly thing. From the modernist perspective, reli-gious and their communities have welcomed the beast into their villages. It has been ana-lyzed, considered, weighed, measured, and .continuously fed with the best sociological, historical, and systematic information in the hope that it will remain docile or maybe even go away. But our numbers continue to shrink, morale among the membership is precarious, and questions about our congregations; future often preoccupy at least some of us. The popular perception today might be that feeding this beast is what we are all about. It seems we have'not found a solid faith-based solution to the vocation crisis through the human sciences--which, to the modern mind, have always served humanity well. Postmodernism is a sensibiiity. The West itself still operates according to the rationalism of the modern era and will most likely continue to do so, with some revision. And so we religious are challenged to find our own methods of drawing together the best of both expressions of reality: postmodern sensibility and the dependability of a reformed modernity. This is not as difficult as we may imagine--given our access to resources, the security of our traditions, the creativity among us, and the presence of the Spirit of God, who called us into being in the first place. The challenge, however, is to discover how the village beast, the ques-tion of being and meaning, has begun to create internal conflicts The village beast that has lumbered into our midst is the postmodern question of being and meaning. t23 -o- ~lqarcb-Aptql 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding the Beast within congregations and communities, particularly between moderns and postmoderns. The Village Beast Is a Member of the Community The postmodern questions about meaning and being will not simply disappear. There are two ways of dealing with the ques-tions, two ways of feeding and befriending the village beast. Oversimplifying for brevity's sake, I would say that postmodernism is present in religious life in two different forms. Religious over forty have assimilated surprising amounts of postmodern sensi-bility, and religious under forty were practically born with a post-modern consciousness. Accordingly, many believe that the vocation crisis is a solvable problem while others see it as a sign that reli-gious life is incomplete or inadequate for the present age. These are modern assessments. We are working against ourselves if we seek answers in modernity when we ourselves have assimilated or have been socialized by postmodern sensibilities. We will not accept modern answers if we are postmoderns ourselves. Community leadership, usually held by persons over forty, seeks modern rational avenues for vocation initiatives or charism rein-terpretation while living mostly postmodern lives themselves. Being born into the postmodern culture is distinct from assim-ilating it. Se~in D. Sammon FSM, in his "Last Call For Religious Life," expresses well the internal and external collisions occurring in religious life between Baby Boomers and the Thirteeners, those who constitute the thirteenth generation produced by the United States.7 Others have referred to this cohort as Generation X or Gen-X, although Thirteeners is a more accurate term for those born between 1961 and 1981. Identifying the tensions that exist between generations is, I believe, as important as identifying the darker side of the postmodernism that has crept into religious life through assimilation. Postmodernism as Assimilated The Future of Religious Life in the United States (FORUS), a study by Miriam Ukeritis CSJ and David Nygren CM, alerted congre-gations to many things, two of which I will emphasize here. First, the data showed that many individual religious have attitudes and lifestyles, values and behaviors, that reflect cultural assimilation. Review for Religious This cultural assimilation is not necessarily indicated by the clothes we wear or the style of housing we have adopted, but it is observable in attitudes. The individualism indicated by the FORUS data in areas of career, self-determination, and affective-support systems reflects current postmodern sensibilities. Many religious find that their ministerial careers, whether parochial, diocesan, or institutional, require dedication and energy that prevent their participation in projects and activities within their congregation,s Their primary relationships begin to reflect their ministerial setting. In this, Baby Boomers and Thirteeners share a similar postmodern attitude. Sammon notes, "Most Thirteeners feel that the people with whom you have day-to-day contact and share meaningful conversations and a sense of closeness consti-ruie family. They trust their friendships over all other relation-ships.'' 9 FORUS indicates that day-to-day contact with their community is, for many, minimal or nonexistent. Assimilation is not necessarily a good or a bad element pre-sent in contemporary religious life. It is data. The interesting thing to consider, I think, is that many religious over the age of forty have accepted various attitudes and lifestyles that reflect postmodern culture and yet continue to live under a rule that assumes only the modern. For example, religious who live alone and work diligently within a nontraditional ministry might, in spite of efforts, find it difficult to follow various aspects of their constitutions, such as communal prayer, daily Eucharist, annual retreat, and general chapters. True to postmodern sensibilities, the same religious might also defend their right to exercise their ministry in ways that elude strict modern principles. They do not abide by their constitutions or statutes or provincial norms with exactitude because, in their assessment of their specific ministerial context, it simply cannot be done. In other words, the postrnodern question "What are you and what do you mean?" cannot simply be answered by handing over the constitutions. Members of teaching communities (founded to teach the chil-dren of immigrants) who are now pastoral administrators cannot point handily to a founding story to explain their doing this particular ministry. The members each have different, unique stories that are loosely connected to their community's charism as reinterpreted by its mission statement over the past twenty or forty years. This, in my view, is evidence o.f postmodern assimilation. I25-- Marcb-Ap~ql 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding. the Beast L Postmodernism as Culturally Intuited Add to this the complicated problem of generational corn-munication. What those over forty have assimilated through expe-rience and reflection, those born after 1961 know intuitively. Their entire way of interacting with the world is steeped in postmod-ernism. Sammon clarifies this issue when discussing the current tensions between the Baby Boomer generation and Thirteeners: Many midlifers judge Thirteeners to be a disappointing ¯ bunch: ill-informed, intellectually dull, politically inactive, religiously conservative, and hopelessly materialistic. [Thirteener~] have grown tired of hearing their foiebears take credit for things they believe their elders did not do: invent rock and roll, start the civil-rights movement, stop the war in Vietnam, reform the Catholic Church single-hand-edly with Vatican II. The vast majority of Thirteeners ques-tion the self-perception of a number of boomers that they and their middle-aged compatriots have been the most creative, idealistic, morally conscious generation in the his-tory of the nation and church, if not the world.~° Those in midlife have assimilated certain postmodern sensi-bilities without having been to the manner born. This is why their sense of individualism and meaning can be distinguished from that of Thirteeners. Many midlife religious, looking back on their for-mative years with love-hate nostalgia, may find themselves won-dering why their younger compatriots have not had to work very hard to get to where they are: The latter were not put through rigorous formation practices, tests of blind obedience in trivial matters, the wearing of strange garb; they have not feared the imposition of some penance for having a particular friendship as we were! Such memories and ~eflections would indicate, to a degree, the older generation's dependence upon a grand story or metanarrative. The younger generation have not "earned their place"!--which is an assessment based on modern values, not post-modern ones. On the other hand, midlifers, with their assimilated postmodernism, refuse to alter certain lifestyle patterns that appear to be departures from the constitutional religious life they still see value in. Thirteeners are genuinely suspicious of any all-encompass-ing story that is supposed to somehow explain reality for them: What lies behind this aversion is [Thirteeners'] opposition to the sixties idealism of their older brothers and sisters. Young people of the 1960s won many gains for those who previ- Review for Religious ously had no voice. The decade failed, however, to achieve its promises. One generation's gains eventually became the losses of another. With their high ideals, baby boomers (born between 1943 and 1960) undertook organized social actions--but with what results for the generation that followed? An AIDS epidemic rather than sexual liberation; nuclear anxiety rather than peace; skyrocketing college tuition instead of low-cost education. Xers quickly came to the conclusion that they had been left with a culture in crisis,n Tension and Deeper Irony There is yet a deeper irony contained within this tension. Efforts in the 1960s to raise social consciousness were truly suc-cessful. Now it is quite common for parishes and parochial and public schools to engage in ~fforts on behalf of the poor and dis-possessed, the underrepresented populations, and also to be con-scious of global justice issues. The irony inherent in this dynamic is simple: Thirteeners are not interested in religious life for the good works the previous generation did accomplish and still strives to accomplish. Their postmodern minds and hearts take their awareness of the need for ecohuman well-being for granted and assume that efforts for such well-being will continue. What the Thirteeners want and seek is the spirituality and the communal life that have consistently been the essential meaning of conse-crated religious life, whether contemplative, monastic, mendicant, or apostolic. Sammon says, "Xers ultimately have a yearning, both implic-idy and explicitly, for an almost mystical encounter with the human and the divine. They find the religious more readily in personal experience and regard their own experience as superior to the accounts of others or truths handed down by way of creed or cus-tom.'' 12 A ramification of this sensibility is that Thirteeners who are currently members of or interested in some religious congre-gation remain or join because 'of who the community are for them, not what works they perform. This does not mean that the work is not important or attractive or life-giving or God-sent. But rarely does a community member do a ministry that could not be done without the benefit of religious life. The focus on practical purpose is a trait of modernity that the older generation of religious retain. On this front, there can be little agreement between Baby Boomers March-April 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding the Beast and Thirteeners, both of whom exhibit the extremes and incon-sistencies of their cohort characteristics. The difficult task, in my opinion, is to admit that the post-modern village beast is in our midst, in the form of the tension between the assimilated postmodernism of the Boomers and the socializing postmodernism that has enveloped and permeated the Thirteeners from the day of their birth. It is present in the ways that religious have--for forty years and counting--been assimi-lating various cultural sensibilities such as individualism and careerism. It is present each time younger religious hear with skep-ticism of the solidly valuable accomplishments their elders are justly credited with. The postmodern questions of meaning and being are not merely coming at us from the larger society. They are a part of who we are. I mentioned earlier that many of us, of several generations, are concerned and sometimes even preoccupied with the question of our future as religious and members of vowed institutes. Our future relates directly to the question of who we are and what we mean in the contemporary world. The several generations approach and answer these questions differently. Taming this beast so that it does not define us--becoming what we are all about, becoming our very identity--requires two things. We need to understand explicitly and clearly the culture in which we find our-selves without making knee-jerk negative judgments, and we need to engage in unavoidably difficult conversations about genera-tional tensions. The Media as Language In contemporary American culture, postmodern sensibilities are inculcated most clearly through the mass media. The obvious places to start identifying postmodern tendencies are television, popular music (especially so-called alternative radio stations), movies, videos, and cyberspace. This may appear to be old news. But I mean more than simply watching or listening and letting a previously adopted metanarrative do the interpreting. We should not approach the media with dismissive attitudes. The media are the languages of the culture. Languages themselves are not flawed, unjust, shallow, or materialistic, though much that fills the media is all of the above. Still, there is a message to be heard beneath the glitz and glitter, the shallow sounds and images. In recent years the Review for Religious number of films without a "happily ever after" ending perhaps indicates a low-grade belief that the metanarrative that brings everything neatly together in the end is over. Many popular songs contain spiritual images, perhaps indicating that Thirteeners and their children are not as materialistic as people imagine. Many websites come up if one types in the word God, too many to inves-tigate in a single sitting, and they run the gamut of traditions and expressions. If we understand the media somewhat, or at least are alert to the undercurrent messages they may be communicating, we can begin to tame the question of meaning among ourselves. Patricia Wittberg SC has claimed that religious life's attractiveness for potential members relates directly to how well we understand and con-verse about our specific culture's areas of social discontinuity. Her claim, supported by others such as Sammon, is that Thirteeners particu-larly are looking for community and spiritual-ity. This seeking shows perhaps the deepest anguish of Western industrial culture and calls attention to the dark side of postmodernity. On the other hand, specific works of religious communities are directed at poverty, abandonment, alienation, and other symptoms of a society's anguish--but such symptoms are not the anguish itself. This anguish is expressed by a society's operative language; in our case, this is the media.'3 Understanding postmodernity involves engaging the media. One example among many is the ability to live and relate vicari-ously or virtually. In this world of what has been called hyperre-ality, the communication accomplished through media images is perceived as more real than the things themselves: reality is what is communicated in this hyperreal or superreal way. Charles Lamert, noting the effect on viewers of a movie like Dead Man Walking, asks: "What is the power of the movies to evoke deep feelings in such an artificial environment, bad popcorn and all? Somehow this is a medium that by projecting images before us causes us to project ourselves into those images, drawing out feel-ing from our unconsciousness . When a movie is over we leave, and leave behind the feelings."~4 In other words, because our primary means of gaining infor-mation and making sense of our culture is the media, our sensibility Understanding postmodernity involves engaging the media. March-April 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding the Beast might last only as long as what is immediately before us. The feelings have been real. Television sight-and-sound images of Balkan ethnic cleansing produced real horror, genuine sadness and empathy. But, simply by watching CNN, we cannot say we have experienced ethnic cleansing or known anyone who has. We do, however, tend to base our belief about the world and our involvement in it on these feelings evoked by real experiences that in fact we have not experienced. Consequently, we are living virtually. Engagement and Risk Virtual living can be translated into virtual ministry if one is not careful, and so it is essential to be aware of this dynamic in order to respond to society's deepest anguish, recognizing that longings for the spiritual or the transcendent, and for a real and not merely a virtual community, are true 10ngings deserving of true ful-fillment, not virtual fulfillment. I recently removed my name from a list-serv so as to distance myself from the temptation to live vir-tually- isolated from the real. One list member wrote, "All of you are my community." Of the more than one thousand subscribers, I have never consciously met a single one in person. The feelings shared, the stories told, and the wisdom exchanged were valid and also hyperreal. I was personally moved by many of the stories and certainly prayed for many who requested prayers. The dark side of postmodernity, however, its alienation factor, is in the inevitable realization that this "community" of mine consists of more than a thousand persons with whom I have never had a face-to-face con-versation and never shared a meal. Religious life offers people real, not hyperreal, community and a real context in which to explore spirituality. From the mod-ern perspective, the ability to connect and interact electronically with thousands of people is a miracle. For those born into post-modernism, it simply is not real and cannot provide real commu-nity. Perhaps it is now time to ask whether offering invitations to religious life's real community may not itself be a valid ministry-- as valid as any other social-welfare ministry! My own congregation has been reminding my confreres and me that, as a society of apos-tolic life, we live in common for the sake of the mission. What I am suggesting is that, in light of postmodern questions of mean-ing and being, we notice that common life itself is a mission in a culture that hungers for real community. Review for Religious We can come to a clear understanding of this culture and its anguish only if we understand its language. We cannot use the various forms of media well enough to change the image of con-secrated life in the popular mind if we do not speak this language. It is futile to use postmodern media to send modern messages. Resisting the temptations inherent in the media culture (such as virtual living) and simultaneously becoming fluent in mediaspeak are the means to make the postmodern beast begin feeding us. Intergenerational Dialogue This leads us to the complicated issue of intergenerational dia-logue. We feed thevillage beast through our intergenerational struggles. Baby Boomers have indeed assimilated much of the media culture, but have done it selectively. Thirteeners, on the other hand, learned to communicate under the broad umbrella of the media; for them it is not a learned or second language. Consequently, differences in communication become apparent when identity and meaning are discussed in relation to the vocation crisis. If we cannot in some way formulate a cohesive self-image and rationale for existence among ourselves, no amount of media expo-sure can change the pattern of decreasing membership. I believe that for some communities and congregations, if not most, the intergenerational challenge is greater than the reality of overall diminishing numbers. Sammon states, "So great is the suspicion about Xers among a few midlife priests, sisters, and brothers that they would go so far as to risk. the future of their congregations rather than admit a significant number of them to membership. Xers in religious life find their situation equally oppressive.''~s The generations share the suspicion equally. Boomers accuse younger religious of conservatism, materialism, and an absence of passion about social issues. Thirteeners are weary of being measured against a supposed Vatican II norm of authenticity, namely, the Boomers' sense that their own Catholic understanding of the contemporary world is better than their elders' understanding of it; the Thirteeners are also weary of the ineffective ideological psychobabble they perceive in many for-mation programs. It is important, then, to find concrete ways in which both groups can genuinely share each other's wisdom. Recalling Patricia Wittberg's use of social-movement theory to examine religious life, one can say that a group or a community March-April 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding the Beast succeeds when it speaks to a specific discontinuity present in soci-ety. For Boomers, discontinuities include poverty, oppression, dis-crimination, sexism, and racism. Baby Boomers, having lived their formative years during an age of idealism and social activism, speak well to these discontinuities, tl~ese signs of deeper anguish. Thirteeners, having spent their formative years recovering from effects of some misplaced 1960s idealism, have unavoidably embod-ied the anguish itself in their longing for transcendence and com-munity. The original anguish and its subsequent effects are elements of the same reality. Schneiders says: "The distinguishing characteristic of reli-gious life (in any of its forms) is the exclusive commitment to the God-quest that precludes any other primary life commitment, such as that to spouse and family, profession, or project . For religious the love of Jesus, unmediated by any other primary com-mitment, is the constitutive factor in life.''16 Whether one's energy is centered on social discontinuities themselves or on consequences of efforts to deal with them, the primary commitment to God in Jesus Christ through the Spirit provides common ground. Schneiders goes on to explain that the fundamental call to religious life belongs to the nature of charism on the first level. This call as "lived in and through the love and direct service of the neighbor" belongs to the nature of charism on its second level.17 While it would be scientifically inaccurate or simplistic to divide the Baby Boomer and Thirteener generations into clear categories, I tend to believe that one generation can more properly be described as on one level, the other on the other. Schneiders locates religious life on the margins of culture: The relation of the religious to culture is one of voluntary marginality rather than total absorption. By not undertaking one's species role as reproducer of the race, by not partici-pating in a capitalistic economy by the acquisition or use of wealth for personal purposes, by not exercising political power for individual goals, the religious situates herself at the edges of the systems that make the culture function. From this marginal position, religious share in the "hermeneutical advantage of the poor," the vision of the sociocultural sys-tem from the standpoint of those who are not primary ben-eficiaries of that system but often its victims.~8 In other words, the me.aning of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience is the site from which to begin genera-tional dialogue. Whether initially motivated by a longing for corn- Review for Religious munity and transcendence or by a love for justice and for the socially disadvantaged, both Baby Boomer and Thirteener reli-gious are characterized by their voluntary marginality in rela-tionship to the culture that produced them. This is common ground, which we call the evangelical counsels. The Unity between Postmodernism and Modernity My point here is that discovering the common ground between generations provides the space in which to discover the other's world. This is of utmost importance, given these genera-tions' responsibilities for taking religious life into the future. There are two ways of approaching this common ground. The prophetic character of Baby Boomers, which gets them involved in the social activism, corresponds well to Schneiders's views of the centrality of the vow of consecrated celibate chastity. The existential angst of the Thirteener generation corresponds well to Michael J. Himes's reflections on the vow of poverty last year in this journal.~9 Granted that trying to offer a clear-cut typology is risky at best, it can serve as a point of departure for some interesting discussion. The particular strengths of the Baby Boomer generation and of the Thirteener generation are all-too-able to keep the ques-tion of being and meaning at bay and thus to keep anxiety about the future our primary concern. These strengths are likewise capa-ble of eliminating any future whatsoever for many religious con-gregations. But let us look more closely. Schneiders says, "The constitutive feature of religious life as a state of life, in other words, that which both organizes it as a form of life in the church and distinguishes it from other forms, is lifelong consecrated celibacy." She adds, "Celibate solitude is the root of immediacy to God as a mode of Christian experience and of social marginality as a position in the world which, oper-ating together, ground religious life as a prophetic lifeform in the church.''2° During the renewal efforts that followed the Second Vatican Council, many religious congregations and communities took being prophetic as that which distinguishes religious life. Engagement with the world had been motivated by the zeal to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ, particularly among the most abandoned. In order to be prophetic, religious entered into study, discernment, and activity that placed them truly on the far margins of contemporary society and away from the large institutions which Mard~-.4pril 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding tbe Beast had previously defined or identified them. This was in line with the social activism of the generation and found support from many quarters. The movement was into the world, into social justice, into solidarity with the materially poor and into a variety of direct-service ministries. How does this connect with Schneiders's views on consecrated celibacy? First, one's commitment to the God-quest is clear within such a consecration, at least theoretically. Second, making Jesus Christ the center of one's life includes loving the people whom Jesus loved, particularly the most abandoned. Finally, the prophetic witness of consecrated celibacy needs to be concrete and incar-national. This appealed to a generation that had not been as close to the breakdown of marriage as the Thirteeners were. For them the consecration to celibacy involved a far greater prophetic com-mitment than to marriage. There is a twofold dynamic operating here. On the one hand, committing oneself to God stirs up zeal for justice and people's welfare, and, on the other, seeing the image of God in those who are served stirs up zeal for the commitment. Combining Strengths The Baby Boomer generation has been and is an active, "doing" generation. It believes that it can make a difference and is willing to live consecrated celibacy for the sake of those whose lives are improved by their commitment. The vow enables the religious to serve more people expeditiously and well. This, in a sense, touches again upon the issue of modernity. Baby Boomers were socialized within a modern world that was on a continuum towards better and better things. The utility of the vow is consis-tent with this mentality. For its part, the Thirteen generation is characterized by its existential poverty. This is altogether distinct from the issues of either material poverty or affluence. By existential poverty I mean that the Thirteener generation has been given no great social quest, does not believe in unlimited linear progress (because modernity has failed it), and perceives that it has not contributed greatly to the larger social reality. Sammon claims that Thirteeners appear to be "the cleanup crew of this century: whatever conse-quences America must face, they'll bear the brunt of it.''21 The resulting attitude constitutes a certain existential poverty. This generation has no grand story to tell, it has grown up living virtual Review for Religious instead of actual reality, and it has been left to confront the future with something less than hope. Members of this generation have experienced a great deal of death by way of suicide, drugs, and local violence, such as drive-by or school shootings. Although often caricatured as a materialistic, spoiled genera-tion, middle-class Thirteeners were provided with a great number of things by the previous generation, who considered such accu-mulation a sign of success. They watched as success ripped fami-lies apart, leaving them the first victims of what some have called America's divorce epidemic. Sammon states, "They are., the first generation of Americans whom other people took pills not to have. From the very beginning of their lives, this message was passed along to them: Children are avoidable or, in the case of abortion, disposable.''22 These social perceptions include an intuitive sense of the poverty of the human condition. Material well-being is a secondary issue. Michael J. Himes has proposed that "poverty is the key value in the vows . It is to recognize that there are radical limits on me.''23 Thirteeners have internalized the entire postmodern critique of modernity's limitations. Regarding relationships, Thirteeners draw on their experience of watching their parents divorce. Regarding beliefs, Thirteeners have carried the brunt of religious pluralism, picking up the notion that every belief is as good as the next because none can be proven and all have been touched by some kind of scandal. Regarding institutions, ,they are aware that the social-security system may ~ail and leave them without its benefits; they know that a good university education may not provide a lifelong upwardly bound career. In their perception of the world, everything is suspect because everything is radically limited. I would suggest that Thirteeners, through their sense of rad-ical existential poverty, have something important to contribute to vowed or consecrated life. It is no wonder that they turn instinc-tively towards community and spirituality. They do not appear to be seeking definitive answers because they would not believe them anyway. But their ability to live with ambiguity without idealism provides a different edge to prophecy. As Himes says, "Your life is a public witness to the fact that unfulfillment is what is character- The Thirteen generation is characterized by its existential poverty. March-April 2001 ,Robinson ¯ Feeding the Beast istic of being a human being.''24 Fo~: the Thirteener who has made the God-quest her primary life-commitment, the clear message is that only God provides fulfillment, not the promises of modernity or the fleeting, noncommittal character of postmodernism. So what does feeding the village beast have to do with the above generalizations? Those who feel an affinity with Schneiders's sense of consecrated celibacy can say, "I am a person whose pri-mary affective life-commitment revolves entirely around Jesus Christ. Because of this, I continue to do what Jesus did in order to announce the good news to the poor." Those who resonate with Himes's view can say, "I am a person whose primary affective life-commitment revolves entirely around Jesus Christ, who taught us that only God can satisfy the deepest of human longings. I gladly live a life proclaiming this message, particularly to those who are most abused by the lies of materialism and the false belief that it can provide fulfillment." These two essential stances can help keep beastly postmodern anxiety at bay and not allow our lives to be consumed by obsession about our future--or about whose vision of the future is most accurate and correct! The challenge, then, is to find ways of sharing equally valid expressions of our primary life-commitment. One emphasis is no less valid or worthy than the other; both of them result from generational experiences, perceptions, and worldviews. We can begin honestly and peacefully to identify in ourselves and in one another which tendency manifests itself in our lives together, together in our communities and in our ministries within the larger church and world. No One Answer From the perspective of modernity, we are challenged to come together to discuss the constituent factors of our form of life, par-ticularly as they are embodied in ourselves. From the postmodern perspective, we cannot allow one emphasis or one manifestation to be considered the grand story, the metanarrative which will solve all problems. There is no one answer, there is no universal solution, and in a sense there is nothing to be repaired. As Schneiders points out, religious life is a lifeform, an organic reality that has the abil-ity to grow, develop, change, and move through space and time. I have covered a great deal of territory in this reflection. It began by identifying a dynamic that is operative in many congre- Review for Religious gations and communities, namely, a preoccupation with our future. One of the reasons that we are confronted by this village beast is the presence, in different degrees in two generations, of a post-modern sensibility, a sensibility most clearly evident in contem-porary society's operative language, the media. The postmodern question of meaning and being presents itself not only from outside our community boundaries but also within the community itself. The Baby Boomers retain the idealism of their modern upbringing, but have indeed assimilated selectively some aspects of the postmodern sensibility. Thirteeners, on the other hand, were socialized into postmodernism from birth. Consequently, the question of meaning and being takes on different characteristics for the two generations. In order to stop being menaced by challenges that our future presents, I believe that all the generations in religious life, par-ticularly Baby Boomers and Thirteeners, need to discover the common ground of their basic life-commitment. I believe that the language used in this discovery will indicate that the prophetic activism surrounding the idea of consecrated celibacy, as out-lined by Sandra M. Schneiders, can peacefully coexist with the language of existential human poverty, as outlined by Michael J. Himes. The question about our future may lumber around and not go away altogether. This not unfriendly village beast may continue to say, "Feed me." But feeding it must not be what we are all about. Notes J Charles Lamert, Postmodernism Is Not What You Think (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), p. 5. 2 Sandra M. Schneiders IHM, Finding the Treasure: Locating Catholic Religious Life in a New Ecclesial and Cultural Context (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000). 3 Lamert, Postmodernism, p. 51 4 Schneiders, Finding, p. 111. 5 Schneiders, Finding, p. 113. 6 See Schneiders, Finding, p. 113. 7 See Sefin D. Sammon FMS, "Last Call for Religious Life," Human Development 20, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 12-27. 8 David J. Nygren CM and Miriam Ukeritis CSJ, The Future of Religious Orders in the United States: Transformation and Commitment (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1993), p. 158. March-April 2001 Robinson ¯ Feeding the Beast 9 Sammon, "Last Call," p. 15. t0 Sammon, "Last Call," p. 17. " Sammon, "Last Call," p. 17. 12 Sammon, "Last Call," p. 16. 13 Patricia Wittberg SC, Pathways to Re-Creating Religious Communities (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1996), pp. 81-85; Sammon, "Last Call," p. 20. 14 Lamert, Postmodernism, pp. 29-30. 15 Sammon, "Last Call," p. 17. 16 Schneiders, Finding, p. 313. J7 Schneiders, Finding, p. 314. 18 Schneiders, Finding, p. 327. 19 Michael J. Himes, "Returning to Our Ancestral Lands," Review for Religious 59, no. 1 (January-February 2000): 21. 20 Schneiders, Finding, p. 129. 2, Sammon, "Last Call," p. 16. 22 Sammon, "Last Call," p. 16. 23Himes, "Returning," p. 21. 24Himes, "Returning," p. 22. In a Time of Trial In my Friday-grief I seat myself by your shrouded body in the dark stone-stopped tomb while I await the sudden trembling of the earth, the harsh scraping at the entrance, the rustle of spice-scented linens, and know that I can now step out with you into the sun-drenched dawn of an Alleluia-day. Franklin Cullen CSC Review for Religious DORIS GOTTEMOELLER I Community and Communion: Making the Connections p~.pe John Paul II speaks of some aspects of the Eucharist in ta consecrata, his postsynodal apostolic exhortation on the consecrated life: By its very nature the Eucharist is at the center of the con-secrated life, both for individuals and for communities. It is the daily viaticum and source of the spiritual life for the indi-vidual and for the institute. By means of the Eucharist all consecrated persons are called to live Christ's paschal mystery, uniting themselves to him by offering their own lives to the Father through the Holy Spirit. (§95) These words of the pope describe an ideal that seems far from the daily experience of most religious I know. It is not that we do not affirm the ideal. But the realities of community and liturgy seldom come together in the life-giving way envisioned in Vita consecrata. The reasons are many and complicated, and the solutions will require imagination and passionate desire. Here I want to explore some factors that inhibit the integration of Eucharistic devotion and community life, to identify some values common to both, and to name some steps we can take to reanimate our communal and Eucharistic life. First let us describe the present reality of Eucharistic practice among religious. I will focus in this section only on common, Doris Gottemoeller RSM presented this paper first at the Eucharistic Congress in Washington, D.C., on 7 October 2000. She is Senior Vice President for Mission and Values Integration at Catholic Healthcare Partners; 615 Elsinore Place; Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. March-April 2001 Gottemoeller * Community and Communion L J Religious community is meant to be a tissue of daily relationships, the context in which we realize all the other dimensions of our vowed life. observable practice. Let us begin by looking at large community houses such as motherhouses and retirement communities. Many of them still have the benefit of a daily Mass, but a significant number can no longer count on the daily presence of a priest. Since these sisters tend to be old and infirm and unable to go out to a parish, they substitute a communion service on the days a priest is not available. Sisters in smaller local communities seldom live in traditional parochial convents; even if they minister in a parish, they may well choose to attend Mass at a different parish. Where two or more sisters live together but work in different ministries, they may well attend different parishes. In short, the practice of a community attending Mass together is becoming increasingly rare. A few sisters minister in settings too far from a resident priest to expect to attend Mass more than once a week, if that often. In some cases, what counts toward the choice of where to worship is convenient location, convenient time, and a congenial celebrant. At times anonymity and speed are the operative criteria for selection. Add to this general picture of behav-ior some frequently expressed thoughts and feelings: "I cannot attend Mass daily and have it be a real celebration. IfI go less frequently, each cel-ebration becomes more meaningful." "My ministry requires me to work long hours, and there is no liturgy that fits into my sched-ule." "The Church's exclusion of women from presiding at liturgy and the use of exclusive language in readings and prayers make Mass attendance too painful for me to endure." I make no attempt to quantify these practices or feelings--only to note that they are part of the experience of at least some religious and therefore, in a sense, part of the experience of us all. What about the experience of community life today? Elsewhere I have suggested that our inability to be clear about what community living means or what it calls us to is our Achilles' heel.' Even raising the topic provokes equivocation, defensiveness, rationalizations. Everyone affirms community as an ideal, but few agree on how to realize it in practice. In the same vein, we are Review for Religious not clear on how it relates to, shapes, or determines our practice of the evangelical counsels and ministry. Going deeper, we have not chaJlenged ourselves to articulate a theology or spirituality of com-munity living adequate for our time. In the complicated process of adapting our way of life to modern and postmodern realities over recent decades, we have been clearer about what we were dis-carding than about what we were setting up as a corporate choice. Hence we find it difficult to say with any clarity or assurance what we are inviting potential and new members to share. Given our uncertainties and ambivalence about Eucharistic devotion and community living, it is no wonder that the ideal of Eucharist-centered consecrated life, for both individuals and com-munities, seems a dream still to be accomplished. The foregoing sketch of the present situation may sound somewhat pessimistic. But there is, I believe, a renewed hunger among religious today for authentic expressions of the deepest meaning of our life, and so these considerations are important. I suggest that there is a powerful analogy between Eucharistic life and religious community life that can shed light on both and show between them a common spirituality. The analogy has four dimensions. The Word Is Made Flesh Religious community and the Eucharist are incarnational. There is a physicality about each that is intrinsic to its nature. Our Eucharistic belief and piety embrace the concept of the Real Presence: that under the appearances of bread and wine the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially present. If the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity had not assumed human nature, human soul and body, there would have been no Last Supper and no enduring Eucharistic presence today. The accidents of bread and wine are able to be seen and eaten; they are tangible. We know that religious community is also tangible: it is a social experience in which real people, through their physical senses, relate to one another in significant and mutually supportive ways. Sometimes we speak of community as an abstraction, one that is easy to affirm because it makes no demands on us. But reli-gious community is meant to be a tissue of daily relationships, the context in which we realize all the other dimensions of our vowed life: prayer, poverty, celibacy, obedience, mission. Take poverty as an example: not only do we share our income in common, but we March-April 2001 Gottemoeller ¯ Community and Communion also discern together how much is enough, whether for the present living situation or for future needs. Living religious community requires interacting in significant ways with companions whom we can see, address, challenge, praise, forgive, and even embrace. A priest celebrating Mass alone, without the company of an altar server or any other worshiper, is an anomaly. So, I would suggest, is a religious living alone. Something intrinsic to the expe-rience of Eucharistic or religious community is missing. Carrying the incarnational analogy further, we may say that both Eucharist and religious community are preeminent realizations of church. As Vatican Council II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy reminds us, "The liturgy is the outstanding means by which the faithful can express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nafure of the true church. It is of the essence of the church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly endowed . Day by day the liturgy builds up [the mem-bers] of the church into the Lord's holy temple, into a spiritual dwelling for God--an enterprise which will continue until Christ's full stature is achieved. At the same time the liturgy marvelously fortifies the faithful in their capacity to preach Christ. To out-siders the liturgy thereby reveals the church as a sign raised above the nations" (§2). In short, when the faithful gather to celebrate Eucharist, Church "happens." The Synod on Consecrated Life also saw a unique ecclesial manifestation in this life. Vita consecrata (§§41 and 42) calls com-munity life "an eloquent sign of ecclesial communion," that is, of the church's fundamental identity. Community demonstrates that sharing in trinitarian communion can change human relationships and create a new type of solidarity, built not on family ties or nat-ural attraction, but on common values and commitments. "In this way it speaks to people both of the beauty of fraternal commu-nion and of the ways which actually lead to it. Consecrated persons live 'for' God and 'from' God, and precisely for this reason they are able to bear witness to the reconciling power of grace, which overcomes the divisive tendencies present in the human heart and in society." Community is described as a "God-enlightened space in which to experience the presence of the risen Lord." In literature the figure of speech called synecdoche uses a part to represent the whole and thus even to contain the whole. Perhaps this figure of speech can illustrate a similarity between the Eucharistic assembly and religious community: each in its own Review for Religious way, limited in time and space, is a special manifestation of the church, past, present, and future, throughout the world. Do This in Memory of Me Whenever Mass is celebrated, the story of our redemption is retold and the stuff of our lives is incorporated into that story. In the penitential rite we are reminded that Jesus heals the wounds of sin and division, and then we recall our sins and ask and receive forgiveness. Scripture readings highlight some aspect of salvation history, and the homily applies it to our lives. In the creed we recite the ancient truths and affirm our contemporary belief. In the offertory our gifts are brought to the altar in order to be become Christ's Body and Blood. The words of consecration recall the Last Suppe~:--for the sake of the present action. The telling and retelling of the story of salvation is not a sterile repetition, but an opportunity for us to be drawn into an ongoing story and to make it our own. It is ultimately a transforming story. One day recently the postcommunion prayer included the words "become what we have received." We could never exhaust the meaning of that short phrase. Nourished by Christ's Body and Blood, we are incorporated into him and become Christ in the world. Each religious institute also lives by a story. The circumstances of the founding, the teachings of the founder, the sufferings and hardships of early members, accounts of new missions undertaken, tales of saintly individuals--all of these are elements in a congre-gational history that is still being written. A new member is grad-ually introduced to that s~ory in a process analogous to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. Bit by bit she learns the stoW and becomes a part of it. The story is more than facts: it includes beliefs, values, and customs which have to be interiorized if the new member is to be really incorporated. These are best instilled by example. The new member lives in a community that shows her in a natural and unselfconscious way what it is to be a Sister of Mercy or Daughter of Charity or Franciscan. Gradually she takes on the new identity and lives out of it in an authentic way. Both processes--Eucharistic and congregational incorpora-tion- illustrate the meaning of theological tradition. This term refers to the preservation and development by which some truth, whether divine revelation itself or a founding charism, is made available to succeeding generations. Through successive genera- March-April 2001 Gottemoeller ¯ Community and Communion t_ions of recalling and living and praying that truth, new persons are enabled to enter into the community of belief and practice and to contribute their insights. The words used may differ, as languages and cultures change, but the essential identity perdures, under the guidance of the Spirit. Eucharistic community and religious com-munity are communities of memory, nourished by retelling the story. The words of the Evangelist John apply to both, "What we have seen and heard, we proclaim now to you, so that you may have communion with us" (1 Jn 1:3). That All May Be One No group on earth is more diverse than the community of Christian believers. A Coptic Christian in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, a campesino in the highlands of Peru, a Midwest tourist at St. Patrick's Cathedral, all take part in the same liturgy, albeit in different languages and rites. Nor does the diversity end there. Even within the same national or ethnic group, vocational choices, personal gifts, economic circumstances, theological tendencies, and spiritual preferences may differentiate worshipers from one another. Just look around the church some morning and appreci-ate the diversity present there. Retirees, business executives, stu-dents, factory workers, a few street people--all feel comfortable. The church's identity as communio means that all members share a fundamental unity, rooted in baptism. Whatever their differ-ences, the liturgy inspires the faithful to become of one heart in love by being "filled with 'the paschal sacraments'" (Sacrosanctum concilium, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, §10). The sociologist Robert Bellah asserts that the fundamental practice that tells us who we are as Christians is worship? When we all gather to partake of the same Eucharistic banquet, we are drawn into an embodied world of relationships and connections, a world of human solidarity. Furthermore, he suggests, this soli-darity is an antidote to the radical individualism so characteristic of modern society. Every Eucharistic celebration is an opportunity to model hospitality and inclusive love. When we detect that dif-ferences have become barriers to communio, we must seek recon-ciliation and the restoration of harmony. Religious community has its own diversity. Before renewal we often ignored our differences or tried to eliminate them through adherence to minutiae of rules and customs. Once we began to Review for Religious recognize and appreciate individual differences, however, we did not always differentiate between wholesome and destructive diver-sity. Perhaps more accurately, we did not always differentiate between accidental differences, which can enhance community, and substantive differences, which can erode common meaning. We easily think of examples of diver-sity within a single congregation: national origin (especially if it is an international institute), ethnicity, age, personality types, education, professional expertise, ministry experience, tendencies in theology and spirituality, preferences in art, music, and recreation. On the one hand, this variety of gifts is a wonderful treasure. On the other, it creates a formidable obstacle to the unity of mind and heart which is the ideal of religious life. If this unity is to flourish, it must include a common under-standing of the core commitments of the vowed life and a common passion for the mission, and it must be nourished by the sound traditions of the congregation. For we are not on individual spiritual journeys that intersect only occasionally; we share one journey on which everyone's successes and failures challenge all to be better pilgrims. Successful integration of the varied gifts within a religious community mirrors ecclesial community and contributes to its flourishing. Hospitality and inclusive love are characteristics of both Eucharistic and religious community celebrations. The sociologist Robert Bellah asserts that the fundamental practice that tells us who we are as Christians is worship. Go Forth to Love and Serve the Lord As the liturgy draws to a close, we are sent forth on mission. In the prayers of petition, we remembered the needs of our fam-ilies, friends, community members, church, and world. We offered ourselves with the bread and wine, and now Christ has incorpo-rated us more deeply into himself so that our hands will be his hands, our hearts his heart, on a mission of service to others. Each liturgy ends in a commissioning that echoes the commissioning of Jesus' disciples before his ascension: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father Marcb-April 2001 Gottemoeller ¯ Community and Communion and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always until the end of the age." The message is not "Keep safe and stay well until we meet again," but rather "Go forth to love and serve me in the least of my brethren. What you have received, give freely. And, when next you gather at my table, bring the cares and needs of your neighbors with you." Liturgy is not a place to retreat from the world's problems for an hour of spiritual comfort. It is a time to penetrate more deeply into the meaning of the world's problems through the lens of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Communion should help us see with his vision. This means seeing beneath the surface of events to the roots of the world's problems. Seeing with Christ's eyes-- we call this contemplation--is necessary for entering into the strug-gle against evil in the depths of human hearts and in the structures of society. Similarly, religious community life is oriented toward mis-sion. "Nor for ourselves alone" should be the watchword. Consecrated life is apostolic in its very essence. This means, not that persons in religious congregations do apostolic works or have individual ministries, but that our whole way of life is for the sake of making the love of God visible and attractive. Community life, therefore, as an intrinsic element of the consecrated life, should be mission oriented in both intention and expression. An apostolic community welcomes neighbors and friends and even, at times, aliens and strangers. An apostolic community weaves the needs of the world into its spiritual consciousness and common prayer. An apostolic community shares its resources with people who are poor. An apostolic community responds to the needs and priori-ties of the larger congregation and also welcomes new members, introducing them to this way of life. In short, an apostolic com-munity is not turned in on itself, isolated and self-sufficient, but receives from others and shares with them. Eucharistic and reli-gious communities--both of them generate apostolic engagement and support. Reanimating Our Eucharistic and Communal Life At the beginning of these reflections, we noted that one of the challenges of living Eucharistic and religious community enthu-siastically is the dailiness of the two experiences. Building on the Review for Religious strength of the analogy between them, let us imagine some ways to make each experience more life-giving. In order to do so, you may want to recall some especially meaningful community cele-bration- perhaps a patronal feast, a jubilee or anniversary, a pro-fession ceremony, even a funeral. Are there elements of that well-remembered celebration which can be incorporated into daily experience? Let me suggest a few. The first dimension of any celebration is anticipation, together with preparation and planning. We look forward to community celebrations, choosing the time and place with care, sending out invitations, preparing the space, devising a menu. If the celebra-tion is to include a liturgy, additional preparations are made--a celebrant is engaged, the choir and musicians rehearse, programs are printed, the altar is adorned. Far from being a burden, these preparations add to the greatness of the occa-sion. We enjoy imagining what the result will be. We look forward to the delight others will experience, perhaps to elements of surprise or special beauty they will enjoy. By our antici-patory efforts we are giving the message that what is to follow is important. In some way the element of anticipation and preparation can be incorporated into the daily rhythm of our Eucharistic and commu-nal life. A simple way to anticipate the Eucharist is to reflect on the scriptural texts before Mass, to pray for grace to hear the word of God and to live it gladly. If we have options, the choice of a time and place to attend Mass is also part of the anticipation. Because community life is not a single event, but an ongoing rela-tionship, the note of anticipation may not seem applicable. I believe, however, that we have to be every bit as intentional about when and how we will gathei', what we will do to enhance the meeting, who we might invite to join us. Mealtime, prayer times, and recreation--three common points of encounter--can all be enriched by thoughtful anticipatory gestures. Gathering flowers for the dinner table can say to your companions, "You are important to me. I am happy to spend this time with you." After the preparation comes the event itself, the celebration of Eucharist, the experience of community living. Harking back to the The element of anticipation and preparation can be incorporated into the daily rhythm of our Eucharistic and communal life. March-April 2001 Gottemoeller ¯ Community and Communion community celebration we specially remember, we note that pres-ence to one another and attention to detail are key ingredients. A sister that I lived with for many years told me this story not long ago. She recalled returning from a trip very late at night and very tired. We used to gather for our community prayer at 7:15 each morning. The following morning she was very tempted to sleep in and skip prayer; she felt she was too tired to contribute anything to the community's effort. But she came, and she had a vivid expe-rience of being borne up and carried by the prayer of the rest of us. Then, when she went to morning Mass with us, she had the same experience at church. The presence of the other parishioners, many of whom we did not know by name but recognized from seeing them frequently, "bore her up." Their faith sustained and animated her. This story is, I suggest, a parable about the nature of Eucharistic and religious community. In times of fatigue, dis-traction, boredom, the community is there for me. When others are similarly challenged, I want to be there for them. Attention to the details of presence enhances Eucharistic cel-ebrations and community experiences. The visibility of sisters, at least occasionally attending Mass together in a parish church, gives a clear reminder that we are still here, that ours is an ecclesial vocation, that our apostolic works are rooted in a life of commu-nal and liturgical prayer. Participation as a lector, Eucharistic min-ister, choir member, or bearer of the offertory gifts can help focus our attention on what we are doing together. Attention to our posture, dress, and demeanor can all help us remember that each celebration, no matter how frequently repeated, is an incalculable opportunity to be united with the whole church living, striving, and praying throughout time and space. Similarly, in local community settings, cultivating habits of courtesy and thoughtfulness can ele-vate the daily humdrum into graced encounters. Finally, a meaningful celebration is prolonged beyond the event itself. The liturgical year supplies us with a cycle of special feasts, but, except for Christmas and Easter, the celebration is usu-ally over and forgotten by eight o'clock in the morning. Are there ways in which we can remind ourselves and one another of the morning's scripture reading, the day's feast, or the spirit of the season (the anticipation of Advent, the joy of Christmastime, the penitential spirit of Lent, the daily challenge of Ordinary Time)? Our community gatherings give us the opportunity to prolong the Eucharistic celebration into the rest of the day. Review for Religious All of these suggestions, simple as they are, are ways in which we can integrate our communal and liturgical prayer. And, of course, there are ways in which all of this can relate to our personal prayer. If one dimension is weak, neglected, or underdeveloped, the others suffer. Each part of our spiritual journey is meant to sup-port the others. In these reflections on the connection between liturgy and community life, I have suggested that there is an anal-ogy which illuminates each. Each in its own way is incarnational and ecclesial, an experience of living memory, a manifestation of varied gifts subsumed into a common unity, and a sending forth on mission. Of course, every analogy is limited, and I do not mean that the two realities are comparable in all respects. Perhaps we can switch for a moment from analogy to metaphor--my English teacher would be so proud! Both liturgy and community life are paths to the same goal of union with God, and so it is not sur-prising that, the closer they approach that goal, the more they converge. The metaphor is limited too, however, for in this life of ours we can take both paths at the same time. I found the intimate relationship, the reciprocity, between Eucharist and community summed up in the following passage by Marcello Azevedo SJ: "The Eucharist is the soul and inspiration of community [living]. The Eucharist makes community viable and challenges us to live up to its truth. And community provides a way for the Eucharist to become authentic. Where community cracks or becomes truncated, where there is community but not a living communion, there we find less of an opportunity for the Eucharist to be consistently credible. There may be a formal cel-ebration, but the very act may empty the meaning and implica-tions of what we are celebrating."3 Azevedo goes on to say that it is necessary to assist young and not-so-young religious to under-stand the immense and unique implications of the Eucharist for community life. He comments that, if we do not make the effort to teach them, daily Eucharist will seem a meaningless legalistic obligation to the young. The not-so-young, for their part, having become accustomed to a disciplined ritual, may not be aware of a problem. But, while attending the Eucharist faithfully, they might fail to grasp its new dimensions and appreciate its many benefits for the life of the community. Before closing let me return to one of the issues identified at the beginning of this reflection, namely, the alienation of some women religious from liturgy because of their feelings of exclusion. March-April 2001 '!49-- !50 Gottemoeller * Community and Communion At times the institutional church--which publicly validates our lives through canonical recognition and affirmations of many kinds--also seems to go out of its way to distance us from the Eucharist through clericalist assertions. As a result some women have sought to nourish their communal spirituality by retrieving women's rituals from Native American, Eastern, and ancient pagan sources. This issue, this phenomenon, has not been the focus of my remarks, but, because of its relationship to the overall question of Eucharistic participation by women religious, it is important to at least touch on it. Mary Collins OSB provides some relevant insights in her essay "Is the Eucharist Still a Source of Meaning for Women?''4 After noting that the Eucharistic Christ has brought prayerful women-- including our congregational founders--to a depth of spiritual identity, vision, and power generation after generation, she says: "This meaning and power do not lie exclusively in the past; they have a present and future for those who trust themselves to Eucharistic action in troubled times. To insist upon construing Eucharist solely as a symbol of male power is to squander a known source of spiritual vitality in the Catholic community." She addresses the issue of substituting other rituals for Christian liturgy: Where such impoverished constructions of the Catholic Church's Eucharistic tradition have been accepted as the whole truth or the only significant truth, some Catholics have begun to identify themselves as post-Christian and to look elsewhere for the way, the truth, and the life. Will a neopagan quasi-retrieval of rites of empowerment for women guarantee a better future for the human community than the service of the gospel and the Eucharistic celebration of the mystery of salvation? Nobody has ever been able to pre-vent people from squandering real assets when the lure of fool's goal overtakes them, nor from risking a solid future on the futures market. Neoclericalism and neopaganism both look like fool's gold to me.s Collins challenges us to hold fast to the treasure which has been entrusted to us and to the whole Christian community. As reli-gious living a communitarian life, we have a special affinity for the communal dimension of Eucharist. I hope that our reflection on these matters will stir our imaginations and irrigate, from the wellspring of our communal religious lives, our desire to celebrate Review for Religious the Eucharist. I hope that the Eucharist will be for all of us what it has been and is: our "daily viaticum and source of the spiritual life." Notes ~ "Community Living: Beginning the Conversation," Review for Religious 58, no. 2 (March-April 1999): 137-149. 2 "Religion and the Shape of National Culture," America (31 July 1999): 9-14. 3 The Consecrated Life: Crossroads and Directions, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), p. 87. 4 Living in the Meantime: Concerning the Transformation of Religious Life, ed. Paul J. Philibert OP (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), pp. 185- 196. ~ Philibert, Living, p. 195. Easter Jesus rose like a gleaming daffodil, starting a trend of risings from cold mud - purple crocus and wild violet, pale narcissus looking too fragile for spring blasts, and the hooded heads of tulips waiting to unscarf themselves in coral and flame. You feel again your own mud and wonder each drab day what seeds unknown to you might be risii~g from the humus of your Lenten days and almost ready for your alleluias. PatSchnapp RSM March-April 2001 GERALD M. FAGIN Contemplation to Attain Love A Paradigm for Apostolic Prayer Every Christian faces the challenge of integrating prayer and ministry, for every Christian is called to a contemplative relationship with God and a life of service. Baptism missions a person to labor with Christ in building the reign of God in our world, but the desire and energy for that mission must come from an experience of God, a relationship with God that is fos-tered by a life of prayer. Prayer encourages and informs a life of ministry, and ministry enriches and gives renewed motivation for prayer. Our traditions provide a rich variety of definitions and methods of apostolic prayer. In this article I will suggest that the final exercise of Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, the Contemplation to Attain Love, offers a helpful paradigm and even a partial description of the prayer of an active minister. It names the qualities of an apostolic prayer and outlines the stages of growth in such a prayer. There is no evidence that Ignatius pre-sented this exercise as a methodology of prayer, but in obvious ways the four points of the contemplation indi-cate the kind of prayer that best suits an active Christian. Many commentators point out that the Contemplation to Attain Love describes the summit and Gerald M. Fagin SJ teaches theology at Loyola University; 6363 St. Charles Avenue; New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. Review for Religious summation of the Spiritual Exercises and captures the heart of Ignatian spirituality. Michael Bucldey, in an insightful article on the contemplation, parallels the four points of this exercise with the Exercises' four Weeks.' As the four points recall what we have received, how God dwells in the gifts, how God labors in the gifts, and how the gifts lead us back to the Giver, so the four Weeks center on God's gifts of creation and redemption, on God's indwelling in the world in Jesus, on Christ laboring in the pas-sion, and finally on surrender to and union with Christ risen in glory. The grace prayed for in the contemplation also sums up the graces prayed for in the Exercises: "To ask for interior knowl-edge of all the great good I have received, in order that, stirred to profound gratitude, I may become able to love and serve the Divine Majesty in all things" (§233).2 The goal of the Exercises is to bring one to freedom to hear God's call and respond in love and service. That also articulates well the grace prayed for in any apostolic prayer. Apostolic prayer must begin with attentive listening that presumes an open heart. It results in a commitment to service that flows from a loving desire to share gospel truths and values. The contemplation at the end of the Exercises also enables and facilitates the transition from thirty days of prayer in solitude to the active life of the minister of the gospel. Prayer that was nurtured in the solitude of the desert now must find a way of expression in everyday life filled with demands and distractions. Contemplation must become a certain contemplation in action, and the God found in the quiet world of retreat must be found in all things, in all the people and events, the joys and challenges, of everyday life. This is not an easy task. The felt intimacy and strong resolutions often experienced in retreat prayer can quickly dissi-pate when confronted with the challenges of family life, commu-nity life, and ministry. Prayer must take a shape and an expression appropriate for an active and engaging life. Prayer must attune the heart to the many revelations of God in life. The four points of the Contemplation to Attain Love invite us to four forms of prayer that define the minister's relationship to God. As with the four points of the contemplation, there is a certain sequence to these prayer forms, but the rhythm of prayer implies a constant interplay between the forms. All four expressions of prayer must continually inform and enrich one another and enliven the minister. Marcb-April 2001 Fagin ¯ Contemplation to Attain Love First Point. Recall the Gifts I Have Received I will call back into my memory the gifts I have received-- my creation, redemption, and other gifts particular to myself. I will ponder with deep affection how much God our Lord has done for me, and how much he has given me of what he possesses, and consequently how he, the same Lord, desires to give me even his very self, in accordance with his divine design. (§234) Without a sense of thanksgiving, there is no true motivation for Christian service. The foundational grace of the Christian life is the grace to know God's personal love for oneself. God's love finds expression in the gifts of creation and redemption as well as in the endless other graces poured out upon us. All of life is seen in faith as a gift from the hands of a loving God who, as Ignatius indicates, finally desires to share God's own life with us. Ignatius experienced this powerfully in his own vision at the River Cardoner, where he saw all of creation coming down from God as a gift and returning to God. This dynamic view of creation defined for Ignatius the rhythm and meaning of life and the flow of all of life and salvation history. Our response in prayer to God's plan of salvation begins, then, with a sense of gifted-ness in our creation and redemption. We stand before God as a creature totally depen-dent on God and as loved sinners aware of God's forgiving and healing love. Christian prayer begins as a response to God's initiative toward us, a response first of profound gratitude for all that God has given us. It is no wonder that Ignatius recognized gratitude as central to Christian life and a sure measure of Christian faith. In the grace prayed for in the contemplation, Ignatius presumes that an interior knowledge of all God's gifts would "stir one to profound gratitude" (§2 3 3). The prayer of an apostle must be rooted in gratitude. Without a sense of thanksgiving, there is no true motivation for Christian service. Gratitude leads to magnanimity, to greatness of heart, and impels one to service. To sustain and enliven ministry, Christians must return to a sense of being gifted and rekindle desire to share all the gifts received and to proclaim to others the presence of God's gifts in their lives. One central goal .of ministry is to enable others to notice and claim their own gifts from God and then to Review for Religious foster those gifts in others. The first point of the contemplation reminds us that all prayer and all ministry flow from a grateful heart. The prayer of every minister must first be a prayer of gratitude. Second Point. God Dwells in All Creation I will consider how God dwells in creatures; in the elements, giving them existence; in the plants, giving them life; in the animals, giving them sensation; in human beings, giving them intelligence; and finally, how in this way he dwells also in myself, giving me existence, life, sensation, and intelli-gence; and even further, making me his temple, since I am created as a likeness and image of the Divine Majesty. (§235) The prayer of a minister must also be a prayer of contemplative presence. Ignatius reminds us in the second point that God dwells in all of creation, is present in every dimension of reality. To be a contemplative is to notice and be in touch with the presence of God. Ignatius spoke of acatamiento or reverence, an awareness of God's presence, a sense of awe that resulted in love, a sense of the utter gratuity of creation.4 Contemplative presence implies paying attention to God and becoming absorbed in God dwelling in and revealing himself in the world about us. God reveals himself in nature, in the events of life, in other people, and in ourselves. First, contemplative presence enables us to listen to God in nature. The beauty and grandeur of creation, the majesty of life expressed in plants and animals, the power of nature manifested in wind and storm--all of these reveal the splendor and majesty of God and call forth awe and wonder that draws the human heart to the presence of God alive in the world. The beauty and wonder of creation invite our hearts to move beyond what we experience and become centered on God. This calls to mind the simple act of contemplation that Julian of Norwich describes: seeing a tiny hazelnut, she recognizes that God made it, loves it, and preserves it.s Her heart is lifted to God her creator, her lover, and her pro-tector. All of creation is a manifestation of God that guides us into a deeper awareness of God's loving presence all around us. Second, contemplative presence also attunes us to God present in the events of our lives, events of joy and grace as well as painful and challenging events. God dwells with us, supports and strength-ens us, and faithfully walks with us in significant, life-changing March-April 2001 Fagin ¯ Contemplation to Attain Love events and in ordinary, routine events. We can recall significant moments of insight or forgiveness or renewed hope or grief at the loss of a loved one--moments of grace as dramatic as the birth of a child or as simple as a consoling word spoken in love. A con-templative presence enables us to find God dwelling in all life's events. Third, God dwells in a special way in the people we encounter in our lives. A contemplative presence gives rise to reverence and awe before others. We recognize and acknowledge God dwelling in them. We give thanks for the giftedness of others and see the face of God in them. We recall experiences of friendship that have been powerful sacraments of God's love in our lives. As the poet Hopkins proclaims it, "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." God is revealed as well in community, in the people God calls together. "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Mr 18:20).6 How often we find God in our sisters and brothers called together in word, sacrament, and service! God dwells powerfully in the com-munity of humankind and in the more particular communities of family and church that surround us with love and support. Finally, God dwells within our own hearts--creating us, loving us, and sustaining us. We find God in our needs and feel-ings and desires, in the movements of our hearts. God forever desires to make his home with us. Jesus' words to Zacchaeus are spoken to us each day, "I must stay at your house today" (Lk 19:5). We can recall the searching words of Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Ga 2:19) or the words of Jesus in John's Gospel, "Abide in me as I abide in you" (Jn 15:4). These words of Scripture call to mind the mysterious truth of the life of grace: God dwells within us. Contemplative prayer puts us in touch with that intimate presence and fosters our shared presence with God. The second point of the contemplation, then, elicits the grace of finding God in all things. For the Christian in active ministry, the grace of finding God in the flow of life means more than bringing the fruit of our prayerful contemplation to our ministry. It implies being contemplative in the midst of our action, finding God present in the events and people in our lives. So often we long for and wait for epiphanies of God in our lives, those dramatic and unmistakable revelations of God that capture our attention Review for Religious in sudden and unpredictable ways. A contemplative presence empowers us to notice the constant diaphanies of God, the ways God shines through all of creation and all the events of our lives. Contemplative presence is a prayer of the apostle because it allows us to find God in life and to be present ourselves to God present to us. Third Point. God Labors in All Creation I will consider how God labors and works for me in all the creatures on the face of the earth; that is, he acts in the man-ner of one who is laboring. (§236) In the third point Ignatius highlights how God is at work in all things, how God labors to bring all things to salvation. The Christian is called to labor with God to bring all of creation to salvation. Apostolic prayer, then, is always a prayer of discernment about choices and decisions.7 If Christ labors in the world, redeeming it and bringing it back to the Father, the ques-tions before the minister are always: How do I become part of this labor of Christ? What is my role in salvation history? Ignatius experienced this in his mystical vision at La Storta where the Father placed him at the side of Jesus carrying his cross. Ignatius was to labor alongside Christ to bring the world back to God. The challenge was to discover what laboring with Christ meant in the con-crete circumstances of his life. The chal-lenge for every minister is to come to decisions that are true to the mind of Christ and apt for building the reign of God. What can I do for and with Christ in my life situation? A decision flows out of a conversation between my gifts, the needs of the Christian community, and the particu-lar call of Christ in my life. Discernment is the art of finding God's will in the concrete details of my life. Discernment is a gift of the Spirit that attunes our heart to the heart of Christ so that our min-istry is shaped by the hopes and desires of the Lord and not our own agenda. The challenge for every minister is to come to decisions that are true to the mind of Christ and apt for building the reign of God. March-April 2001 Fagin ¯ Contemplation to Attain Love In the second Week of the Exercises, Ignatius invites retreatants to an imaginative prayer that leads them into the events of Christ's life. The invitation to be present to a person or event in the Scripture calls them to be present with Christ in a given mystery of his life. The grace prayed for is a deep-felt knowledge of Christ and love for Christ. Ignatian imaginative prayer or con-templation also teaches one to discern God's will in the specifics of life. Where am I to be inserted into God's plan of salvation as it unfolds today? How I am to labor with Christ to make this plan a reality? This twofold purpose of imaginative contemplation in the second Week of the Exercises--intimacy with Jesus and discern-ment-- corresponds to the grace of the second Week: to know and love Christ by being present to him in the events of his life and to follow him by learning my role in salvation history day by day. Returning to the Contemplation to Attain Love, the second point focuses on God dwelling in the world. For a Christian, focus-ing on God means being present to Christ and noticing him in the world. The third point of the contemplation centers on God laboring in the world, especially in Jesus' life, passion, and death. As the second point suggests a prayer of contemplative presence, so the third point encourages a prayer of discernment, of finding God's will in my life. Ministers of the gospel must grow into dis-cerning hearts that define and direct their service. The gift of dis-cernment enables them to sift through interior movements to discover what is from God and leads to God and what leads them away from God. Without such discernment, choices in ministry are not founded on God's call to labor with Christ for God's reign. Fourth Point. From Gift to Giver I will consider how all good things and gifts descend from above; for example, my limited power from the Supreme and Infinite Power above and so of justice, goodness, piety, mercy, and so forth--just as the rays come down from the sun, or the rains from their source. (§237) The fourth point shifts our focus to God, the source of all good. God is loved not simply for what he has done for us, but for who God is. If apostolic prayer begins in gratitude, grows into contemplative presence, and finds expression in prayerful dis-cernment, union with God and others remains the goal. "Our hearts are made for God and they are restless until they rest in Review for Religious him.''~ Prayer is the language of relationship, a posture of listen-ing and responding to God that gives expression to our faith, hope, and love and grows into a shared presence with our God who desires to draw close and be one with us. Prayer is creating a space where God can be welcomed and intimacy nourished. Prayer is the experience of our hearts being one with the heart of God. Jesus, in John's discourse after the last supper, voices his desire to be one with us as he and the Father are one. He uses the image of the vine and the branches to speak of the dynamic connection between his life and ours. He invites us to "abide in his love" and share in the love the Father has for him. Jesus promises his disci-ples that "whoever loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him" On 14:23). They are to be disciples on a mission, but dis-ciples rooted in mystical union with God. Prayer ultimately leads to this familiarity with God, this union, this sharing in the very life of God. This should be true for apos-tolic ministers. As the gifts lead us back to the Giver in the fourth point of the contemplation, so a contemplative prayer of discern-ment leads our hearts to a deeper union with God. The graces of the third and fourth Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises, to be united with Jesus in his suffering and in his joy, lead a person into a prayer of union and in the end to the total surrender to God expressed in the prayer of the contemplation: "Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and also my will--all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you, O Lord. All of it is yours. Dispose of it accord-ing to your will. Give me love of yourself along with your grace, for that is enough for me" (§234). This is the prayer of total detachment from everything that is not God, a prayer of union that finds ultimate fulfillment in God alone. In his second preliminary observation for the contemplation, Ignatius says: "Love consists in a mutual communication between the two persons. That is, the one who loves, gives and communi-cates to the beloved what he or she has, or part of what one has or can have; and the beloved in return does the same to the lover" (§231). Love finds fullest expression in union and mutual shar-ing. Intercommunion and personal communication, mutual giving and sharing, lead to a profound union. Apostolic prayer finds ful-fillment in a profound union of heart and desire between God and the apostle. March-April 2001 Active ministers must find God in the midst of their ministry and not simply in solitude and quiet prayer. t60 ' Fag~n ¯ Contemplation to Attain Love Apostolic Prayer This essay suggests that the final exercise of the Spiritual Exercises provides the retreatant not only with a summation of the four Weeks and a synthesizing grace of the Exercises, but also with a guideline for apostolic prayer. Implicit in Ignatius's four points in the contemplation, which moves the retreatant from the world of retreat to a world of active ministry, is a description of the forms and qualities of prayer necessary to sustain the retreatant in a life of ministry. Active ministers must always center their hearts on the gifts of God so as to be continuously grateful for them. Without such gratitude the minister's heart will narrow and grow cold and lose the expansiveness and generosity essential to ministry. Ministry flows from a grateful heart. At the same time, active ministers must find God in the midst of their ministry and not sim-ply in solitude and quiet prayer. Though such solitude and quiet time is absolutely necessary, ministers must foster a contemplative presence that is attentive to God in all the dimensions of life. Such contemplative presence joins prayer and ministry, action and contemplation, and makes it possible for the minister to find life and consolation in ministry. Genuine ministry will always be the fruit of discernment and prayerful decision making. Ministers must grow in the gift and art of dis-cernment so that their ministry carries on the ministry of Jesus in service of the reign of God. To labor with Christ presumes a heart in union with Christ and a heart free to hear God's personal call to service. Apostolic prayer nurtures a discerning heart sensitive to the ongoing call of God in our lives. Finally, all prayer moves us back to the Giver of all gifts. Apostolic prayer reaches its goal in total surrender and union with God. Ignatius, in his Spiritual Diary, records the depth and full-ness of his own prayer of union with God. Ignatius's Trinitarian mysticism was the fruit of a life of prayer and service and his final surrender to the Giver of all gifts who dwells and labors in cre-atiom This is not only a prayer for the select few. It is the desire of God's heart for all believers. Review for Religious The four points of this Ignatian contemplation invite us to a prayer rooted in gratitude, embodied in a contemplative attitude, focused on discernment of God's will, and brought to culmina-tion in a deep union with God and creation. Such a description seems at least a partial summary of Ignatius's own prayer and not far from naming the gift of prayer Ignatius would ask for those who make his Spiritual Exercises. Notes ~ Michael J. Buckley SJ, "The Contemplation to Attain Love," Way Supplement 24 (Spring 1975): 92-104. Buckley's interpretation of the contemplation lays a foundation for my reflections on the prayer forms suggested by the Ignatian Contemplation to Attain Love. ~ Spiritual Exercises citations are from The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, trans. George Ganss SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992). 3 See Gerald M. Fagin SJ, "Stirred to Profound Gratitude," Review for Religious 54, no. 2 (March-April 1995): 237-252. 4 See Charles O'Neill SJ, "Acatamiento: Ignatian Reverence," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 8, no. 1 (January 1976). s Julian of Norwich, Showings (Long text), chap. 5. 6 All scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard. Version. See Buckley, p. 102, St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 1, chap. 1. March-April 2001 ERNEST E. LARKIN What to Know about Discernment One of my teachers in Rome was the famed Dominican Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. He often shared bits of worldly wisdom like the following: A young teacher teaches even what she does not know, a middle-aged teacher teaches only what she knows, and an old teacher teaches only What is necessary. Twenty years ago, as a middle-aged teacher, I wrote a little book on discernment, called Silent Presence. Recently, as an old teacher, I was asked to write a summary statement on the topic. Here it is. It will appear as an epilogue when Dimension Books republishes the book, which is undergoing wholesale revision for its renewed life. What, then, is necessary for discernment? Discernment as Process and Problem Discernment has two focuses: process and problem. It is pro-cess insofar as it is a progressive awareness of the movements of the spirits in our consciousness. The "spirits" are thoughts, desires, and affective moods, which are the telltale signs of the Holy Spirit or opposing influences. In the discernment process we become more sensitive to the movements of grace or the temptation to sin in our lives. Discernment is mindfulness, recollection, centeredness. It is being aware of what is going on spiritually. Ernest E. Larkin OCarm wrote about St. TMr~se for our September- October issue last year. His address is Kino Institute; 1224 East Northern; Phoenix, Arizona 85020. Review for Religious Discernment as problem solving is interpreting thespirits in order to determine God's will. Where are these feelings and sen-timents tending? Are they moving the person toward or away from God? What behavior and choices are they suggesting? Discernment is not concerned with the emotional or physiological sources of these feelings, but only with their trajectory or orientation. Where are they pointing? God leads us by means of these secondary causes. The two functions of discernment coalesce in our daily, moment-to-moment responses to God calling us forth in the concrete situations of daily life. This process is the "obedience of faith" (Rm 1:5), which is saying no to selfishness and yes to tran-scendence. We are called to live beyond rote rules and in accord with God's particular will for us. The ordinary teaching and ministry of the church provide the boundaries or the playing field. But God leads each of us one by one in the community of the church. God's project for me is that I become the unique person I was created to be. Discernment is the tool for the process. The How of Discernment There are three ways of evaluating our experiences. One is cognitive: we use our heads to analyze the experiences, we objectify the experiences, and we hold them before our eyes to understand and interpret them. The other two ways involve our heart: I call one mystical, the other affective; in these two ways we feel our way to the conclusion. Cognitive discernment stays on the level of thinking. It thinks about holy thoughts and desires and their unholy counterparts as well. It asks which are which, with a view to following the good and avoiding the evil. It makes a judgment based on theoretical knowl-edge about what is virtuous and what is not. This endeavor prescinds from the affective states; in cognitive discernment the feelings are beside the point. The norm is right reason and good sense. Mystical discernment is the experience of ourselves being lifted up to God in loving surrender. At the time there is no contrary movement of affectivity; experiencing a mystical grace, we have no doubt that we are in God and God is in us. Affective discernment involves an awareness of the comings and goings of a divided affectivity. We note the ambivalence in our lives between yeses and noes to God. We observe both positive and negative March-April 2001 Larkin ¯ What to Know about Discernment affections over the same one issue, the positive ones being love, peace, commitment (all of which are signs of God's presence) and the negative ones being anxiety, alienation, rebelliousness (potential obstacles between us and God). In the to-and-fro of this experience, we sense the calling of God. A simple image may clarify this matter. Each of us is like a cone standing on its point and divided by a horizontal plane halfway up. The upper half is our conscious self, our soul or psy-che; the lower half is our spirit. God dwells in the depths of our spirit at the point of the cone. He may activate his role as the point of the cone by letting our whole being sink more deeply into himself so that our deeply spiritual sense of contact with him is now much more than a point; it is a complete circle, a divine interface, a total saturation--this is the mystical grace referred to above. Or his action, instead of being mystical, may consist of helpful waves sent from the point through our being, waves that reverberate in our consciousness along with contrary movements from our old self. Affective discernment takes note of these contrary and selfish iinpulses as well as the resonances of God's presence. A sense of that presence and absence emerges. Discernment takes place in the upper, conscious level of our being. In the mystical grace, the spirit dominates the psyche; the whole person feels raised up by God, by the sovereign action of Love. The consciousness of this divine gift is the mystical dis-cernment. The person experiences wholeness, peace, humility, a joyous faith, hope, and charity, along with immense gratitude and all the fruits of the Spirit (Ga 5:22). There are no contrary affections as long as the experience lasts. The recipient knows and loves God and all that God stands for; at this point there is complete submission to the divine will, which is intimated in the exchange. The action of grace in our being is not usually so total. Grace builds on nature and meets people where they are in their spiritual journey. Most people do not have perfect purity of heart; they are divided in their allegiance to God. So the Holy Spirit enters their consciousness via holy thoughts and desires; these are actual graces. They vie for attention and acceptance against the contrary entice-ments of the world, the devil, and one's own unredeemed self. God's action does not wholly envelop the person. Part of the person is lifted up in noble sentiments, but another part is reneg-ing and lagging behind; part is saying yes and part no. Affective dis- Review for Religious cernment senses these two directions in the affections themselves and interprets them intuitively as by a sixth sense. We thus have three ways of doing discernment, one of them following objective norms and two of them reading the affections. In actual practice, discernment usually is a mixture of the cogni-tive and the affective, with occasional experiences of the mysti-cal. We now address each of these three at greater length. Cognitive Discernment Cognitive discernment applies appropriate knowledge of the spiritual life to the issues at hand. Teresa of Avila puts a high pre-mium on learning in spiritual directors, whose function is to assist in the process of discernment by confirming or questioning the conclusions of the client. Her teaching on the importance of knowledge in the spiritual life is germane here. She wants both experience and learning in the spiritual guide. But, if forced to choose between the two qualities, she favors experience (see her Autobiography, her Vida, chap. 13), but she always prizes the confir-mation of a learned person. What knowledge is involved in discernment? Knowledge of God's ways as revealed in the Scriptures, wisdom gleaned from the sages of Israel, from Jesus, and from the New Testament, knowl-edge of the spiritual life as it has developed in history. The knowl-edge is about human beings as much as it is about God. Today some knowledge of depth psy-chology is presumed. The ancients and the medieval writers did not have the benefit of Freud, Jung, or Adler, but they knew human nature in its mysterious vagaries. Applied psychology in programs like the enneagram, Myers-Briggs, transactional analysis, and the stages of growth in Erikson and his successors is helpful. All sources of knowledge about ourselves and our world are potential helps: anthropology, biography, literature, even journals of current events that record "signs of the times," indications of what God is doing in the world today. Discernment usually is a mixture of.the cognitive and the affective, with occasional experiences of the mystical. March -April 2 O01 Larkin ¯ What to Know about Discernment Cognitive discernment is the way for beginners, who by def-inition struggle with disordered affections and moral limitations and cannot trust their feelings to be indicators of the divine presence. Beginners need to recognize their feelings, own them, and act beyond them by hewing to the line set by objective crite-ria.° This is the teaching of the rules for discernment for the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. The rules suggest what feelings to expect at the beginning and along the way and how to handle them. The beginners' immediate goal is purity of heart, freedom of spirit, detachment, indifference, all of which terms are basically synonymous. This condition is the prerequisite for exercising affective and mystical discernment. Cognitive discernment is not limited to beginners. Mature Christians use it when they are not experiencing turbulence or strong desires. At such times they work up the pertinent informa-tion in two columns (pros and cons) and make a rational decision, confirming the decision if possible by a subsequent affective dis-cernment. St. Ignatius calls this mode of decision-making the "third time," his "first time" being mystical discernment and his "second time" affective discernment. Prayer and consultation are part of all discernment, as is confirmation by the community, usu-ally through a representative like a spiritual director. The execution of cognitive discernment may be assisted by one or more of the following suggestions: (1) Examine an area of your life such as pra~er, relationships, or ministry by reading some basic reflection on the topic and consulting your conscience on your own performance. (2) Look for models or ways to proceed in people who faced similar questions or situations (such as making a vocational choice or dealing with a significant loss). (3) Listen attentively tO what others say about you in praise or criticism for insights into self-knowledge. (4) Collect words of wisdom that may help you understand a specific question,, such as the follow-ing words of Anthony De Mello about relationships: "You are pre-cious to me, but you are not my life. My life is distinct and separate from you. I thank you for coming into my life. Good-bye." Mystical Discernment "The love of God poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Rm 5:5) orients one's life to God. It roots a person in God and constitutes the state of grace. One may experience this grace Review for Religious as a special mystical gift. This experience is an awareness of one's whole person surrendered to God in faith, hope, and love. This experience is the perception of one's true self in a pure state, with-out any mixture of contrary desire. It is called mystical discernment because it depends on God's free action and the content of one's mind and heart, and their contentedness, are entirely of God. Mystical discernment is the first principle of affective discernment, for it represents the fullness against which subse-quent movements toward God are measured. These lesser affective movements are not the experience of total surrender; they are graces promoting love for God and are experienced positively because they are consonant with the original experience of the pure love of God. St. Ignatius calls them consolations. They are virtuous affections, expe-rienced as harmonious with the fun-damental option; they come across as feelings of well-being, authen-ticity, peace, and love. Their opposites are called des-olations by Ignatius; they obstruct one's surrender to God. They are negative feelings or reactions, and they come across as disruptive, alienating, and destructive. While the good movements are con-gruent with one's ultimate orientation to God, these bad spirits or sentiments oppose submission to God. Affective discernment.moves back and forth between these two sets, whereas in mystical discernment there is only consola-tion- in Ignatius's classic words, "consolation without previous cause" (Spiritual Exercises, §330). This grace is the spontaneous, unmerited inbreaking of God that absorbs the whole person in the love of God. No previous acts of the person explain its presence. It is the gustos of Teresa of Avila, which she calls the prayer of quiet; it is the experience of mystical union in both Teresa and John of the Cross. In this experience one discerns one's true self, not through knowledge about one's self, but through personal, intuitive con-tact. One "knows" God and knows one's self in the union with God, in the way St. Paul wants to "know Christ and the power of Mystical and affective discernment do not establish what is right and wrong; these matters are to be decided by moral reasoning. Malvh-April 2001 Larkin ¯ What to Know about Discernment his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering" (Ph 3:10). Paul seeks an affective experience, not abstract knowledge. This affective knowledge is not new truths or objective moral theology about right and wrong. Mystical and affective discernment do not establish what is right and wrong; these matters are to be decided by moral reasoning. The discernment has to do with one's sub-jective stance before God; it is about recognizing and responding in freedom to grace, and thus it is about being good, not about being right--just as people sometimes do the right thing for the wrong reason. In mystical discernment there is no intrusion of the false self. The false self is the part of one's being that is not rooted in God. It does not come out of the spirit, but is the construction of one's own ego, a figment of one's imagination and feelings. One must be careful, therefore, not to confuse mere euphoria or "sensible con-solations" in prayer with this special grace. Visions and locutions, even when miraculous, are likewise experiences of the psychic self, on the level of imagination; they are not the same grace as "con-solation without previous cause." The distinctive mark of this truly mystical grace is wholeness: body, soul, and spirit are touched by God. The true self includes all of these. What happens in that mystical union with God, therefore, is totally of God. The false self may awaken after the event and masquerade as part of the gift in the afterglow of the mystical experience. Ignatius warns about this danger (Spiritual Exercises, §336). These subsequent thoughts and affections, like visions and locutions themselves, are to be treated like all other particular ideas and feelings: they must be submitted to cognitive or affective discernment. Typical questions that may help to identify the mystical expe-rience are the following: (1) Is the experience a fantasy, euphoria gone wild, a projection, or wishful thinking, or does it represent my actual self, my reality, my truth? (2) Is the exaltation of this experience corroborated by high standards of moral attitudes and behavior? (3) Is there congruence between the experience and my deepest desires? Affective Discernment The true self and the false self at work in ordinary conscious-ness are good handles for grasping this normal and recommended way of doing discernment. Both of these parts of one's being Review for Religious express themselves in thoughts, desires, feelings, moods, and sentiments. The true self is in touch with the spirit as well as with the soul or psyche. When it operates, there is an element of whole-ness and peace along with other virtuous attitudes and movements. The false self has no roots in the spirit, is superficial and disinte-grated, and acts only at the level of imagination and emotion, with no regard for basic spiritual truth and goodness. Its hallmarks are fragmentation, alienation, irritation, and the seven capital sins. Ordinary Christians live in the state of grace; they are com-mitted to the true self. But whole areas of their lives ha

Issue 45.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1986. ; Vocation Ministry A Sociological View of Commitment Religious and Secular Institutes Imagination Within the Act of Faith Volume 46 Number 2 March/April, 1986 REvIEw FOR REI,IGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at'Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REVIEW EOt~ REI.IGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, M O © 1986 by REVIEW FOR RELtGIOOS. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $ I 1.00 a year; $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (postage). Airmail (Book Rate) $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor March/April, 1986 Volume 46 Number 2 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of p~int~ issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major po~on of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY I0010. The Vowed Life in a Secularized World Desmond O'Donnell, O M.I. Father O'Donnell's earlier "Focused Freedom: To Someone in Formation"appeared in the issue of January/February, 1985. He is a General Councillor for his community and, though often on the road, may be addressed at its Generalate: Oblati di Maria; C.P. 9061; 00100 Roma Aurelia, Italy. ouring out a plethora of easy answers to complex questions does not bring us any closer to permanent solutions. Neither is it helpful to offer a new one-word solution for everything taking place in the Church at this time. And yet secularization might be a useful umbrella-word ~,to explain much, of what is taking place both, to the Church and to the vowed life today. If it is in fact found to be a satisfactory seminal term, it will also help us to focus rather than to diffuse our response. It can aid the process of discernment. Situating the Question The good news about our way of life is that a deep spiritual renewal is being experienced by many and that the importance of prayer is being rediscovered. There has been a notable updating in theology and real--if not always successful--attempts to build authentic faith-communities. There also is a growing freedom and practice of discernment about our apostolates and about our private lives as well. There is other news which does not' seem so obviously good, such as the large numbers who left us, the small numbers joining and the increasing median age. In some places, community life is moving towards becoming politely-shared space, enclosing many unspoken polarizations about deep realities among us. Authority has tended to go from heavy-handedness to 161 "i69/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 ¯ laissez-faire and so consensus about anything of serious communal signifi-cance is often hard to come by. Governments gradually move in to take over our institutions, either because we have chosen to let them or because they have helped themselves. The degree to which all this is related to secularization is disputable, but related it is, and I will try to show why this is so. Before we go into this, may I look at some more personal experiences of vowed people in most countries today--experiences which I think are related to secularization even more deeply than those mentioned above. Many of us have been through more or less severe vocational question-ing of some kind in recent years, because the rationale of our way Of life did not seem capable of answering the questions popping up all around us. Maybe it was triggered off by simply seeing one of our now-married novitiate companions do equally good apostolic work and do it well. It may also have been that we grew tired of mobility, or just vaguely short of motivation for the continual questioning of our chosen lifestyle. Many of us have found some new difficulties in prayer, as God seemed to withdraw and leaqe the world to evil pebple. Or maybe the emergence of so many small friendship-groups has left us out in the cold called "com-munity life." The variety of new prayer-forms and so many seminars, have a way of increasing our desire for some stability and wondering if it might not be found elsewhere, In response to'all of this, many felt the growing ambiguities and endless updating led them to personal selectivity in belief and practice. Others moved to the edge~of the storm by choosing some form of fundamentalism or an atheism' which expressed itself in mere social horizontalism while still remaining in the ~3ongregation. Some of us chose to becom~ left-wing unloving critics of the present and others moved to become right-wing uncritical lovers of the past, as the middle ground grew unpopular and became such a solitary exprience. These deeper and more personal phenomena~ are related to modernization and secularization too, as I will try to demonstrate. And so the response to these experiences, might first be to understand the meaning of modernization and the resultihg secularization-experience. Modernization The amount of knowledge in the world continues to increase because of constant research and it is rapidly diffused through very efficient communicatioh systems. Modernization is what happens when the knowledge is~ transferred into technology, which then has ~increasing and unforeseeable effects on economic growth, on social systems and on political decisidns. Inevitably the individual too is affected in his or her The Vowed Life in a Secularized World / 165 values, attitudes, beliefs and behavior. Most of us remember the discovery of plastic 'in the 40s, of the transistor in the 50s, of computers in the 60s, of microcomputers in .the 70s and now we observe technology move forward into genetic engineering in the 80s. All of these have affected people and systems in serious and often irreversibl~e ways. This march of modernization shows no signs of slowing down and often appears to have its own~self-propelled, autonomous momentum. It took one hundred twelve years for photography to go from discovery to commercial product, fifty-six for the telephone, thirty-five for the radio, fifteen for radar, twelve for television and only five for transistors to find their way from the laboratory into the market. Again, as each of these products comes on the market, it touches--and in the case of genetic engineering, tampers with human nature and human systems in often lastingly significant ways, It is with the human effects of modernity that we are concerned and these are sometime.s good, sometimes evil, and often ambiguous. Moder-nity can lead to human community and comfort,-.or to pollution and poverty for millions; it can facilitate or disrupt human values; it can enrich °a poor country or steal its unrenewable sources of energy; it can help in the diffusion of truth or of lies through the media and it can pass on productive information or child,pornography. In each of our .lives it can .make the superfluous become the convenient, ~the convenient become the necessary and the necessary become the indispensable, thus changing human nature itself. ~ Peter Berger's definition summarizes, all this: "Modernization is the transformation of the world, brought about by the technological innova-tions of the last few centuries having economic, social and political dimen-sions all immense in scope." With many otherwriters he goes on to outline the many very,personal effects resulting from the economic, social, political ones in his definition, Secularization is a very significant one of these. Secularization It is important to stress that we are not talking here about secularism which is a theory, an ideology denying the existence of God or at least his action and relevance in the world. Nor is secularization .to be equated with atheism when in fact it might be the very opposite experience for many who are desperately trying to hold on toGod who seems to be withdrawing from them. And certainly it would be simplistic to think that secularization is the same as materialism, Secularization is claimed to.be more a fact than a theory, a reality more than an ideology, a process taking place more than.a point of view. While it "i64/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 can lead to secularism, materialism, or atheism, it is in fact none of these. Some religious people find words like secularism, materialism and atheism convenient labels for what is happening in the Church or in_the vowed life today and it may be a description in some cases, but it is not addressing the deeper and more pervasive reality we call secularization. Secularization manifests itself when explanations of reality previously attributed to mythical or religious sources, are shown to have .rational ones, as when the~scientist takes over from the witch doctor, the. psychologist assumes some previously priestly functions or when a technological discovo ery,disintegrates a theological theory. A group of Animists in Java lost their gods a few years ago when a new seismographic station began to foretell and explain volcanic eruptions more accurately than the local holy man, The Diak people of Borneo lost their fear of and their belief in their forest gods when bulldozers razed the jungle. For some people, the study of a good theology of providence could have a similar effect. These people are experiencing secularization. In a similar way, many modern Christians first felt uncomfortable and then felt their faith questioned by a good church-history book, an accurate TV documentary, a skilled psychiatrist, two men on the moon, an old law proven pointless, a church authority found unworthy, a symbol disappear-ing or a culture collapsing~-all more or less the result of modernization. The resulting discomfort and questioning within the individual person, is close to the secularization-experience. It is an experience of no longer having one overall reference-point--a feeling of increasing disintegration. If you are experiencing that somehow God is withdrawing because religious explanations are increasingly less necessary, that the quantum of the secular is increasing at the expense of the sacred, that maybe~ God is now less necessary as a postulate for human living or that because of modern evidence your longheld experience of God is no longer a comfort-able one, you are probably undergoing the pressure of the secularization-experience. This is not a decisionnor even a desire to become an atheist; even if it could lead to it. Nor is it necessarily the result of "giving in" to materialism or to less-than-moral behavior, admitting, of course, that both of these can easily increase its momentum. If you are not undergoing the experience of secularization, then it is still important to uiaderstand it, because most of the peopl~ you are trying to evangelize, especially in the developed world, are probably experiencing it. It is from this fact that the present great missiological question arises--how announce the Good News of Jesus Christ to a secularized world? Moderni-zation and its result in secularization are now recognized as cultures, new cultures, ever-changing cultures and it is at this point that we recognize the The Vowed l_Jfe in a Secularized World / 165 break between faith and culture today. Thus for the modern person, secularization is a feelin~ of dissonance in .trying to hold together what is happening in the world and what the Bible seems to say about God's providence or what is often said in churches and what is taking place in real life around us. It results in discomfort with one's present experience of God. Any naive belief in the immediacy of God will be challenged .by secularization and modernity. Old fashioned god-words and some ecclesiastical jargon will appear increasingly irrelevant to sincere secularized persons everywhere. Secularization can be defined as the grad-ual disappearance of mythical and religious legitimations or explanations of society. Living with the ambiguities of the secularization-experience leads to a temptation to take refuge in fundamentalism which can be described as believing more and more in less and less in order to feel secure, or in agnosticism which is a lazy neither-nor ~land excusing one from the strug-gles, doubts and decisions which are part of any faith. Let us now try to analyze the challenge and opportunity which secularization offers the vowed life. The Vowed Life For the vowed life, secularization can be a deep call and a deep grace. Lumen Gentium calls us to enrich, challenge, encourage and stimulate the Church by our lives and our action (Par. 44). This is all the more reason why we must study, understand and give a gospel response to seculariza-tion, to a secularized world. Because secularization implies change at so many levels of human existence, we should recall that sociologists stress the vital importance of internal consistency for all groups in time of change. This internal consis-tency- our basic authenticity measured against what we claim to be--is now a matter of survival. Institutions which lack internal consistency are likdy to disappear in tim~s of rapid change, especially if their external image is also unclear. For these reasons, we who profess the vowed life must address the phenomenon and the grace of secularization. May I suggest that there are five areas where God might well be speaking to us in all this? ~ansmitting a New Integrating Presence of God Secularization, as we saw, forces us to find a new presence of God, a presence which permeates, integrates, energizes for action and which brings human and divine values into secular realities. Karl Rahner spoke of the vowed woman as having a profession which has no justification from the "166 / Review for :Religious, March-April, 1986 secular point of view even if she performs many useful secular tasks. What then might her iprofession and that of vowed men be? It is surely--as it always was--to give or rather to share with people their own experience of God. This is a demanding task; it demands that we each have such an experience first of all. We will have to pass on "so.mething which we have seen with our own eyes, that we have watched and touched with our own .hands" (1 Jn l:l'b) and it will be vital that "in Christ we speak as men of sincerity, as envoys of God and in God's presence" (2 Co 2:17), It seems to be a call to discover and lead in a new integrating mysticism as this quote from John Macquarie expresses: ¯ It is interesting to note that Bonhoeffer, though he advocated a 'worldly' Christia°nity, made it 'perfectly explicit that the kind of w0rldline~ss that he had in mind has nothing to do with the immersion in"material pursuits and enjoyments that we commonly associate with the "worldly' man. Bon-hoeffer makes a :statement that ought to be'pondered by those who invoke his support for a thoroughly secularized Christianity. He says: 'In Christ we are offered the possibility of partaking in the reality'of God and in the reality of the world, but not in the one without the other The reality of God discloses itself only by setting me entirely in the reality of the world, and when I encounter the reality of the world, it is always already sus-tained: accepted and reconciled in the reality of God.' There is a dialectic here that takes us beyond any naive world affirmation, just as it rules out any false religiosity. God,is met in the world, but the world is known in its reality only as Grd's world? Back in 1970, Karl Rahner wrote: Maybe we [he was addressing his own Society] ourselves have been super-f! cialized by the consumer society. Maybe we ourselves have not come to any original experience of God. Maybe we have not taken .the .trouble to let others participate in the mystical technique leading.to such an expe-rience. If all that is the case, we have of course, no alternative but to take refuge in a secular horizontalism which tries to interpret and live our own lives on the same level . The coming thing is the spiritual dimension, the experience of God, the taste of eternity no matte~ how valid our social involvement (with ~regard to which we have a terrible'lot to make up). The coming thing is sober peace, in face of all the absurdity of existence, the absurdity which no social involvement will spirit away. That rather bour-geois- chequered spirituality which was found--to outward appearances at least--in the orders before the first world war and which influenced reli-gious life too much~ may belong to the past and the young may say rightly that it is useless.from the start. But a new spirituality in religious life and in the Church will be assured of a real future. Whatever form this new spirituality will have, it must surely~be a very 7he Vowed life in a Secularized Worm personal "faith in the Son of God who loved me and who sacrificed himself for my sake" (Ga 2:20) and a very integrating one, enabling us to "bring everything together~ under Christ" (Ep 1:10). This--it seemsto me--is the most serious challenge which secularization puts to vowed communities today. Integration Through Reflection As we saw, one of the deepest effects of secularization is disintegration. There is no longer any one overarching human legitimation for the think-ing person today. We, even as vowed people, stand and struggle side by side with the modem person in loneliness, doubts, fears' and feelings of disinte-gration. We too are among the "new poor." The third world is closer to us than we think; it is inside our shirts especially if we have already chosen the still greater poverty of fundamentalism with iis moral, dogmatic and spirit-ual naivet6 and ~elitism. We are, however, expected to .stand with our fellow Christians in seren-ity and in a "peace which the world cannot give" (Jfi 14:27). We stand with them in a spirit of confidence too, as Jesus did with his disciples, when for him and for them everything seemed lost; "I have told you all this so that you may find peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but be brave; I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:23). Only a life of prayer can discover and sustain this peace, this joy in the midst of a secularizing experience. Jesus led a busy life and had constant calls on his service, but we find the source of his power in the actual physical withdrawal, to be with God: "His reputation continued to grow and large crowds would gather to hear him and to have their sickness cured but ~he would always go away to some place to be alone and pray" (Lk 15:16). The form of prayer for today would seem to be what Macquarie calls "prayer as thinking";5 it is a prayer.which reflects on what God is doing in the world more than on what he,has done in scriptural times, without of course neglecting this latter. It is a praye~: which keeps our spiritual faculties alive. All reality, especially fast-changing or disintegrated reality~ is opaque and this is especially true in the m6dern world when ambiguity is part of life everywhere. We need to sharpen our spiritual eyesight to see what Bonhoffer described as the "holy depths" of.things and events. It is not so much a prayer "giving us time to refuel, but a prayer'which gives us increased awareness for better and deeper involvement and which motivates us for the human task of offering the world salvation from '~'everything that oppresses the.human person especially sin and the .evil one" (EN n. 9). Lest we ourselves succumb to the burnout of compulsive activity or the dropout of ceaseless seminars this life of "prayer as thinking" 1611/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 seems essential. . A long time ago, Christopher Dawson observed: "Men today are divided between those who have kept their spiritual roots and lost their contact with the existing order of society, and those who have preserved their social contacts and lost their spiritual roots." Could this be a descrip-tion of vowed persons today? Relativization of All Reality ~ I read somewhere that the Talmud says we will be held accountable to God for all the legitimate pleasures we have not enjoyed. When all this is said and dqne, there still remains the fact that so many of life's legitimate-- or even essential--pleasures are denied millions today, in even our devel-oped world. There also stands the fact that "we have not here a lasting city" (Heb 1:3:14) ahd that we possess only the certaintY of Christian hope: "We have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away because it is being kept for you in the heavens" (1 P 3:4). One part of our mission is to keep.Christian hope clearly before people and thus relativize reality, both good and evil. Secularization or not, the human person has a tendency to appropriate goods, material and spiritual, to hold them closely and even to be possessed by them. Our lives if they are lived in the simplicity and detachment which we .profess, will relativize the enjoyment or deprivation of material things and remind others that t.hey are to be shared: "Warn those who are rich in this world's goods, that they are not to look down on other people and not to set their hopes on money which is untrustworthy but on God, who out of his riches, gives us all that we need for our happiness. Tell them that they are to do good and be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share"(l Tm 6:17,18). We can do this "telling" by our lifestyle, before we do it in words, the opportunity for which may never come our way. We also speak to the poor enabling them to relativize their desire for justice and to recall that while they struggle for their rights, there isan opportunity for growth in their poverty too. "Listen, my dear brothers, it was those who are poor accord, ing to the world that God chose to be rich in faith and to be heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him" (Jm 2:5). Modernization has created so many who are enduring forced celibacy through broken marriages or infidelity and who are still avalanched by the media's sexual imperative. We can support these people even without speaking, because our lives experience the same yearnings and our minds are exposed to the same urgings and yet we struggle successfully on, with-out the assurance of genital involvement. But all this depends on our Vowed ~'fe in a Secularized World / 169 manifesting balanced and happy personalities, as people who have inte-grated their relationships and their sexuality in a healthy way. For secular-ized persons--many of whom suffer from confused psychosexuality--we can be supportive signs of survival and of fulfilled happiness through our lived celibacy. Individualism is a mark of the secularized person, coming very often as it does from hurt, insecurity and alienation. This can be so in our own communities too. The insecure person lives ambivalently between a desire to be accepted through cooperation and a fear of being dominated by submission. This is part of the disintegrating experience of modern life. If alienation is the pathology of our age, individualism is one of its clearest manifestations. By our vow of obedience lived out and seen not as "doing what one is told" but as discernment of what is best leadership in and through a caring community, we have much to say to the modern person about finding his or her own best expression of self in a confused world. It is even humanly true that "none of us is as wise as all of us." The secularized person, tempted to extreme individualism needs to rediscover this; for the good of ¯ families, local groups and for national and international survival, o Process.and Pilgrimage , It is clear that we vowed people will not be on the edge of the human experience of secularization and its consequential feeling of disintegration much longer. We share with men and women everywhere their search for stability and for lost certainties as the river of secularization tries to move all of us up, down and forward. To an extent, we found ourselves insulated from the human condition until recently, but no longer. Even if it were. not through necessity, we know that if we are to hold conversation with and to evangelize the world, we must pitch our tents within it; as God did. We must be prepared to pilgrimage our way once again and enter into the human process which we'should never have deserted. The fact that we accept this, will help so many others who find it difficult and who drop out into drugs or other forms of anomie and despair. Again, our vows lived authentically prepare us for the pilgrimage, ready us to keep moving, because we have publicly professed not to hold on, not to settle and not to be held. By our lived poverty, we refuse to be possessed by any material consideration and by our vows of chastity we also refuse to be possessed by ahy relationship. Obedience enables us to keep listening and looking at the map of moving events with eyes of faith and lbve. To quote Karl Rahner again from the same article: "The concrete future of Christianity, the Church and religious life remains largely hidden 17{I / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 from us . what historical and social form the Church and ecclesial Christianity will take in the future, remains largely hidden from us., we have to fight for victory without.a prognosis of victory" (p. 136). He was not° referring tothe effects of secularization at that time, but what he wrote is truer than ever now, and it puts us side by side and hopefully hand in hand with the modern man or woman as they endure the sec-ularization- experience. Interdependence and Involvement Our communities are not islands of isolated peace in a troubled uni-verse. No, they are sources from which we. emerge to makea more human and so a more godly world. Our vows enable us to do this; having freed us from, they also free usforLin a liberating way. ~',~ Our vow of poverty truly lived, makes us free for involvement. Because we have nothing to lose, we can carry the struggle for justice .further and when our lives are skilled in dispossession, we are not open to criticism from the rich~whose lives we question for the sake of the poor. Our good news for the poor has to be in some way perceived as bad news for the rich and they will readily point to any beam or bank account in our own lives if these are obvious. Only 'by relinquishing the power of possessions .can we demonstrate our competence to communicate freedom. Our vow of chastity makes us free to keep moving and to freely ask even our close friends: "Do you want to go away too?" (Jn 6:67). Again, we can take risks which married people with concern for their,families and for each other cannot be asked to take. Obedience, as we saw, offers us a freedom to live out a ,radar-like listening to God's word in the world around us. Truth comes only with listening :and discernment and these take. place best among a group of sharing people~ Obedience is .a public statement, that we bind ourselves to listen within and are missioned by a community through its leaders. This offers a model~for others to do the same in the Church. The quality of relationships and of concern for anyone at a distance suffers greatly in this time of disintegrative secularization, as each one looks to his or her own very personal success or survival. Nations do the same. This di-ama is, played out on a smaller scale every day in the average city too. Surely our communities have something important to say to people in this bleak situation. In our public interaction with one another° and for those who visit our communities,.the prayer ot~Jesus for his whole Church must tend towards .fulfillment: "_May they all be one, Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me" (.In 17:21). The Vowed Life in a Secularized Worm / 1.71 In' conclusion, I submit that we are approaching the ideal today, as we find the vowed life standing less at a point of comfortable distance from the world and more at a point of painful dialectic with it. At this point it must be ready to say a confirming yes or a challenging no--and do this by its life and activity--to all the results of secularization. To quote .the Anglican writer, Macquarie again: Here it must be said with regret that the trouble with some of our less responsible contemporary Christian secularizers is that they have taken up the ideal of holy worldliness, but seem to have promptly forgotten the adjective and reduced the ideal to a worldly concern tout court. They tell us that Christianity is a purely secular movement, their ideal of the good life seems scarcely distinguishable from the one that is so assiduously propagated by Madison Avenue, and the more extreme among them, in their horror at any supposed 'withdrawal' from the world, come near to advocating that the time has arrived to replace "poverty, chastity, and obedience with affluence, promiscuity, and autonomy as the highest goals for human life, or even as (he new evangelical counsels! The s!ogan for all this'is that w'e sho.uld 'say yes' to the world. But I do not think thata simple world affirmatioa will either help us to find God in the world or help the world to know his presence.6 - ~ Indeed, if we are to follow the words of Lumen Gentium, Chapter VI, par 44, the vowed life must say yes and no even to the Church itself. NOTES ~Facing Up to Moflernity, New York: Basic Books, 1977, 2John Macquarie, New Directions in Theology Today, Vol. III, p. 67, Philadelphia: 1981. 3"The Future of Religious Life" in Supplement to Doctrine and Life, Dublin: Domini-can l%_blications, May, 1972. 4The Greek' word anakephalasiosastai~is used in secular literature to express the con-ceptof many different ideas being subsumed under one theme. 5John Macquarie, Paths in Spirituality, Chapter 3, SCM Press, 1980, 6Op tit 2, p. 66. Vocation Ministry: Continuing the Invitation of Jesus Thomas E. Clark, ES.C. Brother Clark, Associate Vocation Director for the Chicago Province of the Christian Brothers, sees his work to be very much a ministry. This article is based on a presenta-tion he gave to the faculties of his congregation's schools in the Chicago area. He may be addressed at his .office: 200 De La Salle Drive; Romeoville, lllinois 60441. y ~vork 'as a full'time vocation minister for my community has often given me the opportunity to speak with young people, both individually and in groups, about the experience of being called by the Lord. My message to them is nearly identical to that of hundreds of other vocation ministers: each of us is called by God, each of us has a vocation, and it is up to each of us to discover what that vocation is. Onthe surface, the message seems clear, theologically sound, and understandable. However, what I have become aware of recently is th~at, in the two years I have been deliver-ing the message that each of us is called, the feeling with which I have been delivering that message has sometimes left something to be desired. Rather than offering a challenge to the young people with whbm I speak--a ch~allenge to discover a meaningful and significant way of living the Gospel ¯ in today's world--I've often felt that I am offering instead an apology for the choices I have made. It is as though the challenge of the Gospel might be just a little too naive for today's world, and to invite anyone to take it seriously may seem foolish and unrealistic. And even more foolish might be the invitation of young people to consider religious life and Church ministry as real options for themselves, ways of living out the Gospel challenge. I would certainly be out of touch with reality, I sometimes feel,-if I were to think that these people sitting in front of me--healthy, normal, 172 Vocation Ministry American young adults might consider religious life and Church ministry as serious-options for themselves. Thus when I speak with them, my invitation is sometimes clouded over with justifications ("I'm here today simply to make you aware of some choices I've made"), or sprinkled with "escape clauses" ("Any career you choose can be ministry"). The'underlying message, of course, is "I don't really expect you to consider any of these things for yourself." (In citing the above examples, of justification and "escape clauses," I do not mean to imply that there is no place in vocation ministry for "awareness education" or for a broad understanding of minis-try and community. On the contrary, these two approaches are essential to vocation ministry. They do not, however, constitute the whole of vocation ministry, and are sometimes used to avoid its more challenging aspect: that of invitation.) In speaking with a number of religious who are involved in vocation ministry, I have discovered that they, too, have much the same experience at times. Put simply, there are times when I do not believe there are any people who would be open to considering religious life as an option for themselves. Such an attitude is easily communicated to others, though it may not be directly stated,'and has the effect of turning away anyone who may consider religious life as a personal option. Further, a religious who holds such an attitude could never extend a confident and joyful invitation to an individual to consider religious life. It is my belief that such an attitude will keep religious not just from extending invitations to people to consider religious life, but on a deeper and more fundamental level, will keep us from fulfilling the responsibility we have to call people to build the kingdom of God. It is this invitation to the kingdom which is at the heart of vocation ministry, and which I wish to explore in more detail. In doing so, I shall consider several related topics: the model of invitation which Jesus gives us in the Gospels; vocation ministry as a means of living out that model; the philosophy of vocation ministry which has emerged in recent years; and finally, the challenge which we religious have been given in regard to vocation ministry. Jesus: Model of Invitation A simple perusal of the Gospels will show that Jesus had no hesitation about inviting peopl~ to follow him. His invitations are clear and concise. There is no misunderstanding what he means; the challenge is laid out on the table and nothing is hidden: Come after me and I will make you fishers of men (Mr 5:19). Follow me (Mr 9:9). Come and see (Jn 1:39). 1"/4/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 While such invitations may have been disarming or even~ unne ,rying to his listeners, it is difficult to imagine their being misunderstood. Jesus .has asked someone'to be his follower; it is as simple as that. ~ Neither does Jesus fail to make known to his followers his expe~ctations of them. In fact, his~requirements are so clear that~ sometimes they sound almost harsh. Whoever wishes to be my follower must deny his very self, thke Up his° '~ cross each day, and follow in my steps. Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it (Lk 9:23-24). ~.Let the dead bury their dead; come away and proclaim the kingdom of God (Lk 9:60). The requirements of following Jesus are great. He knows this, and does not hide this frown those whom he invites. At the same time, the invitation is issued with a certain excitement stemming from urgency of the call as well as its promise: Tliis is the tim~ of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Refo~-m ~our lives and believe in the Gospel! (Mk 1":5). Go a~d sell what you have and give to the poor; you will then have treasure in heaven. After that, come and follow me (Mk 10:21). This last invitation of Jesus was issued in response to the question of the rich young man, "What must I do to share in everlasting life?" (Mk 10".17). An.d it is here that we find out why Jesus issues the invitation t[iat he does: He knows everlasting life, and wants to share that with us. Again and again, Jesus promises us the kingdom and all that goes with it: fullness of life (Jn 10:10); complete joy (Jn 17:13); knowledge of th~ true God (Jn 17:3); the freedom of the truth (Jn 8:32); his own peace (Jn 14:27); the hundredfold and ~verlasting life (Mk 10:30). Jesus knows the k.ingdom and the gifts of the kingdom, and wants that experience for those to whom he has been sent. Herein we find the motivation behind his in~vitation, his c~all to take up the cross, [o sell all our possessions, to follow him. It is becaus~ he knows it will lead to the kingdom and everlasting lye,, arid he wants nothing less for us. It is love which has produced the clear, concise and even harsh invitation we find in the Gospel. With what kind of response .did Jesus' invitation meet? The Gospels sl~ow us pictures of every kind of response imaginable: Peter and Andrew "abandoned their nets and became his followers," as did James and John (Mt 4:20-22); Matthew left his post as tax collec~tor (Mt 9:9). The rich young man went away sad because of his many possessions (Mk 10:22). In a particularl~ poignant episode ~ecorded in John's gospel, Jesus' teaching leads many of his disciples to protest and ultimately to break away from his company. On seeing this, Jesus asks the Twelve if they, too, will leave him. Vocation Ministry / 175 Peter responds, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words :of eternal life" (Jn 6:60 ff.). Thus, the responses to Jesus' invitations are many and varied, for Jesus always allowed the individual to respond freely. What is evident, however, is that Jesus never stopped inviting, no matter what kind of response he met with. For Jesus, the important thing is that everyone be invited to follow him and to proclaim the kingdom. Negative responses, while disheartening, must not keep one from continuing to:issue the call, for all people deserve the opportunity to respond to the call. It is a matter of no :smalLsignificance, I believe, that the final words of Jesus in John's gospel are: "Follow me" (Jn 21:22). Continuing the Invitation: Vocation Ministry What does this never-ending invitation mean for us religio.us? What does it tell us, not only about our own response to Jesus' call, but about the mess-age we takb to the ~vorld? We have noted that Jesus' invitation flows from his expe~rience. He knows the Father, and the life that the Father gives~ Be.cause he knows, he Can ~nvite clearly, concisely and with authority. As men and women who have made life choices for the kingdom, and who have shared, at least in part, in the life of the kingdom, we too can invite others to embrace th~ kingdom. As men and women who have clearly chosen community and. ministry in the Church, we can invite others to conside~ community and ministry in the Chhrch as optionsfor.themselves. As men and women who have experieficed joy and. peace and life in these choices, as well as hardship and even pain, we can invite with the same confidence of Jesus, for we, too, know the burden and the gifts of the kingdom. In fact, Oot only can we continue to issue the invitation of Jesus, but in a certain sense, we have a responsibility to issue that invitation. !n a world where nuclear holocaust seems imminent, where starvation is the daily experience of millions, where poverty, unemployment and illiteracy a.re the lifestyle of whole ~egments of the world population.---in such a world, we who have been given the knowledge of the kingdom have a responsibility to call others to build that kingdom. In a world where people, especially young people, are searching for meaning and significance in their lives, where many live in confusion caused by crises of every kind, where whole societies are caught in the race for economic and political superiority--in such a world, we who have been promised the everlasting life of the kingdom have a responsibility to share that gift with this world. It is not that we .are holier o.r wiser than the rest of the world. Rather, we have been given the gift ~of a vision of how things can be. It is not our vision; it is God's vision that we have been given. And because we have 176/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 been given the vision, we must also bear theresponsibility--sometimes the burdgnsome responsibility--of calling others to God's vision. As religious, we have publicly proclaimed with joy and faith our desire to be a part of the kingdom, and that desire has been accepted joyfully by God. Now we must set ourselves to the task of inviting others, with our lives, to the ultimate meaning and significance which God's vision, the vision of the Kingdom, holds for the world. In the course of this lived invitation, we, like Jesus, must invite others clearly, concisely and directly to join us in bringing about God's vision for the world. We have the responsibility to say to people: "Sell all you have, give to the poor, and come away to proclaim the kingdom of God!" We must invite those with whom we work and pray and live to "Come and see" what we have seen. Like Jesus, our invitation will have authority if its motivation is love and its roots are found in our lived experien.ce. Thus, if we have found the meaning and significance of the kingdom in our religious commitment, in our community life, and in our ministry, then we must invlte others to that same experience. If religious life has been the context of God's kingdom for us, then we must invite others to consider that same context for themselves. We cannot deny others the opportunity that is ours, the gift we have been given in religious life. I believe that not to make others aware of this gift, not to speak of God's vision for us, and most importantly, not to invite others to consider this gift for themselves would constitute such a denial. I believe that vocation ministry if you will, the ministry of invitation and discovery--can be a powerful means of carrying on the invitation of Jesus. A Philosophy of ¥ootion Ministry Vocation ministry has emerged in recent years as a valid and accepted ministry in the ~Church. This emergence is due in large part to a new u~nderstanding of vocation ministry, an understanding which has its foun-dation in the model of 'invitation which Jesus provides in the Gospel. Unfortunateiy, this approach to vocation ministry is not' understood by many religious, and consequently keeps them from supporting the voca-tion efforts of their communities, and even more importantly, from involv-ing themselves in these efforts. As we have seen, vocation ministry, when considered as a ministry of invitation, is modeled by Jesus. But such an understanding of vocation ministry is relatively new. There was ~ time in the not too distant past (and which still e~xists today in some circles) when vocation ministry was consi-dered to be "recruitment," and the person who did this work was known as the "recruiter." This designation was appropriate at the time, for the person Vocation Ministry / 177 who served as a recruiter for a religious community attempted to find and enlist people, especially young peol~le, who seemed suitable for her or his particular community. The religious recruiter was searching for people to carry onthe work--the good work---of her or. his congregation. The job of the religious recruiter was similar to that of recruiters for the military, for schools or for corporations: namely, to ensure the continuance of the group's interests. The beneficiary of this process was the group and in 'the case of the religious recruiter, the beneficiary was her or his community and the people the community served. The term "recruitment" and the philosophy ~vhich it designates does not fit what Jesus does in the Gospels when he invites people to follow him. I believe that as the work of "recruitment" becomes more and more pat-terned after the model of invitation which Jesus provides, we need to call it by another name. It is at this point that we can begin to speak of "vocation ministry." The difference in language is reflective of the difference in philos-ophy and practice. It is, in fact, the difference between "recruitment and ministry," and it is shown in a new role for the person who does this work. This role is no longer one of serving primarily the needs of the congrega-tion, but is one of serving the needs of the people with whom the vocation minister works directly, the people whom she or he assists in discovering how and where and with whom the Lord calls them to build the kingdom. The priorities of the vocation minister have changed, from a focus on ensuring that the life of her or his congregation continues by enlisting people into the order, to a focus on ensuring that people discover who it is that God calls them to be. The agenda from which the vocation minister works has changed, from being primarily the order's agenda, to being primarily God's agenda. To some, such differentiation rhay seem too subtle to be of any impor-tance; .it may even seem like hairsplitting or word games. I believe, how-ever, that it is not too subtle, nor is =it hairsplitting, nor is it word games. For when looked at from the perspective of the person attempting to discern God's call, and especially the young person faced with fife-choices to make, there is a world of difference between the recruiter who wants that person to be a sister or brother or priest, and the minister who wants to help that person discover where God calls him or her to build the kingdom, where life will hold the most meaning for him or her, with no preconceived notion of where that might be. I contend further that, when considered from God's perspective, there is an ~ven more profound difference between "recruitment" and "ministry." It is the difference between the recruiter who believes that the continuance of her or his congregation is in the recruiter's hands, and that it is up to the recruiter to supply the needs of the order; and 1711 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 the minister.who trusts that God callg people to build his kingdom as sisters,, brothers, priests, married people and single people, and belieVes that her or his role is to act as Jesus did in inviting people to listen for God's .call and to act on it. Such a stand places the responsibility for supplying the needs of the order in God's hands, and~ recognizes the responsibility of the vocation minister and° the members of the congrega-tion to act as instruments-of his call by issuing the invitation to the kingdom. ~ Vocation ministry, and not recruitment, is the responsibility of every religious. It is a responsibility which stems not from fear for the future of religious life, but rather from the fact that each of us has been given a great and wonderful gift in religious life, a gift which must be shared with others. Our invitation to religious life is given in the context of the kingdom: because we have known the kingdom in our life and ministry with one another, we'invite others to that same experience. It is not recruitment for a particular order that vocation ministry is about; it is an invitation to nothing less than the kingdom of God that we,. as religious, must be about. The Challenge to Re!igious When vocation ministry is seen not as recruitment but as a ministry whose foundation is the model of invitation, which Jesus himself offers, an entirely new challenge is given to .religious. It is a challenge which brings about a n.ew set of questions: --Have I ~experien~ed the kingdom of"God? Where and with. whom was that experience~of the kingdom ? --Is the experience of living in religious community and doing Church ministry an experience of the kingdom for me? --Do I sense both the responsibility and the desire to share the king-dom with others by inviting them to build the kingdom? -~Am I willing to invite others to consider religious community and Church ministry as a way of building the kingdom, a way which has been life-giving and Satisfying for me? I believe that we religious can continue to invite others to join us i~n community and m~nistry. Some Of those whom we invite will join us; others will find another flay of building the. kingdom; still others~will go away sad. But vhatever the response, we can continue to invite, secure in the knowl-keidngged otmha~t,, tion wouhric rhe lwigei oinuvs i~teo mthmosiet mwehnotm, w we eh maveee tb. eOenu rg iinvveinta"ati osnh ai'sr.em iont it-he vated not by fear of the fu(ure, but rather by a sincere desire to share the gift we have been given, With joy ~and confidence we can coniinue to spe~k the invitation of Jesus: "Come away and proclaim the kingdom of God!" Gentle Exile: Reflections on Formation Mary Ellen Dougherty~ S.S.N.D. After a long stint in formation work for her community, Sister Dougherty has returned to the teaching of English. Sh.e may be addressed at The College of Notre Dame of Maryland; 4701 N. Charles Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21210. Shortly.before I finished a long term in formation work, I told myself that eventually I would write an article that might be of use to others in that ministry. I waited. I needed distance. After a year or so, subjectivity settled into uncertainty. I did not know what I wanted to say. Now, more than four years later, I think 1 do. ~ Initially, I would have commented on the characteristics of candidates currently interested in religious life, the inevitable challenges in dealing with them, and the necessity of both structure and latitude in a formation program. I would have talked about the generosity of young people in ministry, their ambivalence about vows. Now, however, I would like to focus on formation, personnel. 1 address my remarks especially to those who are in the work, and to those who .are considering it as ministry. In more than.eight ye~ars in this ministry, I worked, directly, in various team arrangements, with eight different directors. As director of novices, I participated, with the novices, in intercommunity programs in which directors shared on a regular basis. I speak, then, out of my own experience, and out of some ongoing reflections with at least two dozen directors, men and women. And I speak, still, tentatively. These are my insights now. In many ways I was nbt an effective director. In some ways I was. I have learned from both. I do not think there is a standard profile for a successful director~ There are countless variations on virtues that could be 179 1110/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 considered. Certainly a consistent attitude and practice of prayer, along with a keen mind and a clean heart, are essential. Inner freedom issuing from a clear depth of uncluttered spirituality is central. It is not my intention, however, to explore these here. That, perhaps, is another article. I would like, instead, to address three fundamental areas which, in practice, prove t.o be crucial: experience, affectivity, and integrity. Experience Age, I think, is only a factor for the director insofar as it permits experience. What one has done is not necessarily what one has experienced. To receive experiences of poverty, failure, darkness, in the light of grace, balanced with experiences of fulfillment and productivity, requires time; one must have lived long enough and well enough to know the inevitability of the rhythm, to expect the seasons to change. In that sense, age is important. It is not just what one has experienced, but what one has not experienced that should be consid~reff. One who has been given the time to live as well as the time to die, and has learned to receive both with equanimity, has lived long enough. And one who has not, should not be expected to deal with her own discoveries easily in the context of formation work. Events may always surprise us; the curr~nt of life should not. Affectivity I am not professionally equipped in terms of academic background t6 talk about the psychology of affectivity, or stages of affective development. My observations are purely practical: when the affective or relational life of a director is undeveloped or undernourished, there are generall~ relational problems with those she is directing; these are Often lodged in some variation of dependency, usually mutual. The director, from my observa-tions, usually takes the relationship more seriously, in the long run, than the candidate; the director seems to have some expectations of permanence, whereas the candidate, especially if she is young, is more than likely to tr~insfer her emotions rather quickly. There often is, however, some degree of mutual destruction. It is essential, 'then, that formation directors have the capacity for, and the activity of, peer relationships, that over the years they demonstrate an ability to interact in friendship with inutuality and absence of unwarranted dependency. The demands of formation work are constant and draining, especially if the director is living ~vith her directees. Candidates, especially younger ones, often exhibit a love-hate response toward authority. Unless the director has a belief in her own lovableness, created by a deep personal sense of God, and the experience of significant peer relationships over the years, she can be quickly undone. So can those Gentle Exile / 1111 she directs. Oia the other hand, a director who has a variety of relationships, and who is secure in at least a few of them, is not likely to need her directees. She may, over the months or the years, develop some friendships among them, but these will be a matter of choice, not of necessity. Integrity, Given a person who has lived long enough and loved hard enough, we come to the point of integrity, which I use in a limited sense here. I speak only of that dimension of integrity which enables one to experience some independent clarity about the truth, and to be faithful to it in spite of opposition. It is not my intention to suggest moral judgments. Like many people in positions of authority, formation directors must be able, if necessary, to stand alone. They must be capable of making and living out graced decisions which may create great conflict. And they must be as capable of independent thinking as, they are of consultation. A director who is not comfortable thinking for herself, who relies too heavily on approval and too little, on her own graced instincts, is usually transparent to her directees; wittingly or unwittingly, they may use her. While the need for dialogue, for collaboration, for consensus cannot be overstated, neither can the need for slow, clear, independent decisions that begin in the deepest level of self, where, in the face of opposition, integrity, a matter of grace, becomes a manifestation of courage. When all is said and done, it is fidelity (or infidelity) to the graced self with whom one must live. There is nothing new under the sun. The ability to receive experience and to let it become wisdom; the calbacity to love and to be loved without ownership; the self-possession and the faith to risk a gentle (or not so gentle) exile--these are characteristic of any authority who claims Jesus as her source. If formation work is anything, it is daily. If anyone needs Jesus as her source, a formation director does. Working with the Young Adult with Temporary Vows Vito Aresto, EM. S._ Brother Aresto is Vice Provincial and .Director of Formation for,the Poughkeepsie (NY) Province of the Marist Brothers. Heohas been ,working with brothers under temporary profession for more than six years. He may be addressed at his Vice-Pro-vincial Office: 4200 W. l i5th Street; Chicago, Illinois 60655. Much has been written over the last several years about_the conditions and problems of the yoeng adult within formation programs of, religious life. Since many of the young people who come seeking this new lifestyle come after years 9f college or work experience, formation directors are finding that the traditionally tried and true methods, of formation~seem to contain significant gaps when dealing with this new kind of person. The problem becomes even more complicated when the young person is in t~emporary vows. In this paper I would like to delve into some of the significant areas that have emerged in my working with our temporary professed. For the most part they are young men who have achieved rather comfortable recogni-tion professionally. They have taken their first vows in their middle twen-ties and look forward to years of growth and service within religious life. Final profession comes somewhere around age thirty. Developmental psychology has examined this period of growth young adulthood with great earnestness. Clearly, it is being recggnized that as life develops it confronts, struggles, and tackles successive issues in life's fabric and resolves them only to move forward to confront still newer issues towards growth. Such progress is noted as maturation, growing in one's potential, developing into a full human person. ~Vorking with the Young Adult . When the issues of spirituality are overlayed upon this rich process, we begin to see something of the concept of conversion. Obviously, when one begins to probe conversion, there is a point where even the best of the social sciences"pales before the mystery of faith: But nonetheless, we can learn much about growth and developmenL particularly in the struggles of a young adult who is attempting to find his or her place within a religious .family. This unfolding of life's grandeur and mystery is not at all easy. It can never be pain free if it is authentic. For the formation personnel working with young religious a good grasp of this process is obviously needed. Crisis needs to be viewed as part of the human drama, and neither .overstated nor underplayed. Rather the formation director can be a calming influence for~ individuals as they probe the' issues and unravel a course of action. In this light it is also very important to note that the director ~should be very comfortable with assisting the young adult to tap into such helping services as therapy or spiritual direction. It is important to realize that the varying issues which emerge are not all vocational conflicts. Rather some very necessary growing-pain situations may be interpreted as "vocational,' which in actual fact are merely struggles with growth issues. At other times personal,life issues may be confused as stress issues needing therapy, but are deeply vocational. Finally, there may be.a blend of both. It is the task of the formatioh director .as calming influence to help the young person wade through the issues, and recognize where they lie. In naming the dil~.~a, the course.to resolution becomes less threatening. For most young religious the transition from novitiate life to active ministry carries with it some straining adjustments. There is a great differ, ence between accepting the need to integrate the essential elements of reli-gious life and actually attempting to do so. This strain to interpret and realize the ideal can either bring about growth in young persons, or have them develop a selective sense which, ma~y in the long run distort growth. Each person must face honestly that the balance of the essential elements of the religious life structure cannot be merely put aside for some personal notion of the greater good. In the long run true growth for the young religious only takes place in confronting each aspect of vowed life as important, and then developing a proper rhythm for themselves. Fidelity to their vowed commitment must be presented as their primary work, By doing this they will be realistic in discerning this lifestyle within their congregation and how it truly fits into their own needs ~ind response to the Lord and his people. This approach, one that asks young persons not to compromise any aspect of their vowed commitment, even when faced with the tremendous 11t4 / Review for Religi~ous, March.April, 1986 pressures of the varying adjustments of prayer, community and apostolate, is utterly honest in recognizing and treating religious as adults. The fact remains that as they unravel their dreams and expectationsi they must also be totally immersed in what actually is the life they now share in their new religious family. This task can become even more burdensome as the young religious begin to recognize and feel the depth of confusion, and even sinfulness within their chosen religious family. Yet, within this sobering reality one fundamental task for.the temporary professed religious is to come to real-ize whether their dreams can be honestly integrated within this particular congregation. If this cannot be done then an honest and courageous act would be to depart. The Lord is not asking anyone to surrender his or her dreams, nor is he asking the impossible in great and massive adjustments to what a person holds sacred to the purpose and direction in life. It becomes the task of the formation director to help and accompany the young religious in this discerning process. But the director should never water down or compromise in the name of charity what he or she knows are realities incompatible to the values and goals of the congregation. Furthermore, the director must a.lways make the distinction between fidel-ity to a lifestyle and fidelity to the Lord. The young must come to realize that commitment to Jesus as their Lord can be lived in all the genuine forms and calls to holiness within the Church. Hopefully, the novitiate process has solidly grounded these young persons in their commitment to Jesus. Temporary vows must focus on the parameters of this particular religious family and charism as one valid and true means towards holiness for this young religious. Therefore, a truly respectful and, honest relationship must exist between the formation direc-tor and the young religious so that.real growth and integrity can develop. It is of paramount importance then, that the young,~religious' dreams must be found to be possible in the congregation they have chosen to enter. This is not only vitally important for the growth and development of the young religious, it is also vital for the growth and development of the congregation. The life given to this young religious by God is also a gift of life for all the members of the congregation. When such interaction is in process a certain sense of peace and purpose prevail. When it is. not present one readily begins to sense and hear bitterness, sarcasm, and resentment., Understanding the vital need of a dream in a young religious' life must therefore be one of the important areas into which a director must examine and explore. The novitiate will set up ideals that are solidly grounded in spiritual and scriptural foundations, but these ideals will not be realized except in the attempt at the actual riving out of community within, a local Working with the Young Adult / 1115 setting. It must be realized that each local community is itself struggling to unravel the full meaning and purpose of its shared life direction. Although young religious may leave the novitiate in full recognition that life is a process of growth and integration, it will only be in the experience of community that they will begin to understand the journey with their broth-ers or sisters that they have begun. Therefore, understanding the dreams and also knowing deeply the real struggles of this religious family is a task that each formation director must grasp when dealing with temporary professed. Ultimately, the focus must be turned completely on the Lord. He must remain the very purpose and intention of the young religious. Service will only .spring from the well of deep commitment to the Lord who loved all people even, unto death. More times than not, the young religious' grasp of the importance of intimacy is also wrapped up in their understanding of their dream. They do not enter religious life accepting the fact that there will be little or no intimate relationships in their lives. Obviously, religious life does afford the opportunities for a rich relational life; but that can only come through the struggle of integrating the vows in the light of each one's intimate relational needs. For young religious who must deal with this issue through the maze of the various transitional periods of growth, the very issue of intimacy can become pivotal to successful integration, and thus to peace within this chosen lifestyle. The movement towards dealing with one's~relational life also has impli-cations for community and ministerial life. In community this can expand one's depth of compassion, and in ministry it can help focus one's work beyond the notion of career to an expression of the Lord's service con-tinued through his Church. Each step of this awareness will heighten the young religious' recognition that he or she has truly been called by Another. Gradually imprinted upon the life and work of each young reli-gious is the paschal ,mystery, each one's transformation into Christ. The weathering of growth issues can therefore be the seed for a deepening of vocational understanding that is not only personal but intimate with the Lord. As young religious move closer to their thirtieth year there is to be noted a very subtle but careful evaluation taking place. Some significant issues have emerged and been confronted. The young religious also begin to recognize.that all the aspects of their dreams and aspirations may not be completely realized. They begin to feel, and not merely know, the implica-tions of being chaste and obedient. The cultural values of their society, with its push towards success, ambition, and recognition weigh on their poverty. Ultimately, as final commitment approaches, so does the trauma of the 186 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 "second calling." It is at this moment that the formation director must gently accompany~the young religious. The time for mentofing has ended. It becomes important that unconditional acceptance pervade the whole relationship, If the journey through those years of temporary vows has been honest and rich in successful and mature handling of life issues, then the response to this second calling--a permanent commitment to the Lord within this congregation--will~ be made with the totality possible to this young adult. Fundamentally, as one accompanies young adults~through their initial years of religious commitment, one quickly realizes that formation is.lrela-tional growth. The young religious come eager to respond to the Lord~. Their response has been wrapped and colored within their dreams of Ltheir future life and ministry. Novitiate naturally assists in a solid grounding and underpinning, but it°is not until there is full immersion in the daily routine of life in common and in ministry that they begin to confront and grow within their religious commitment. For the formation director the journey of this pilgrimage is one of trust and love. Ultimately, the individual must come to a sense of'personal peace. This peace is only born in the honest relational growth between each individual and the Lord, between the individual and his or her brothers or sisters, and the individual and the people they are sent to work with and serve. This peace should become the full flowering of a love that rests solidly on the motivation and direction of a life-decision made to the Lord and his people, within this special band of disciples that he or she chose for a religious family. '~ Reflectively, we can turn to Jesus as the model for the formation director who works' with young adults. Particularly is this so if we. focus upon his dealings with Peter. Here we note the care and compassion that must be evidenced by the director. For three years Jesus guided, taught and challenged Peter. These lessons werenot ~beyond the scope of correction and prodding, but they were also done in sincere and tender cbncern. And yet when the supreme :momefit for Jesus arrived, his hour of glory, Peter was still unaware of the magnitude of Jesus' mission. Much like the novice who enters first profession, Peter needed to continue to grow and ~be challenged, even in the darkness of near despair. It was not until the depth of his relationship with the Lord was securely grounded that Peter was ready to shepherd. Only then did he fully comprehend the-initial call that was repeated in the marvelous second calling at the end of John's gospel, "Do you love me? . Come, follow me!" Strangely enough in that rich relational bond between Peter and the Lord did his fondest dreams become rei~l. He no longer needed~io hold Working with the Young Adult / 187 tightly to privilege or rank. Now he no longer saw himself as solely the "rock," but rather could he challenge all that he shepherded to be "living stones," part of the "edifice" of the Lord and his Church. He understood clearly all that was needed to continue the process of growth, a journey into wholeness and holiness. For the young religious the journey is similar. The director must guide and accompany them so that the echo of the initial call of the Lord can be profoundly realized and incorporated into the very identity and dreams of these young persons. Permanent commitment becomes a full expression of a relationship that is central to their meaning and purpose. Christ the Center of Our Vowed Life by" ~Boniface Ramsey, O.P. Father Ramsey's three articles on .,the vows of religion are available as a single reprint: i - The Center of Religious Poverty ii - Christocentric Celibacy iii - Cru~ciform Obedience Price: $1.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review ~or Religious Rm 428 ~3601 Lindell Blvd. St: Louis, Missouri 63108 Commitment in a Religious Order: A Sociological View Joseph C. Doyle Dr. Doyle teaches at Seton Hall University (South Orange Ave; South Orange, Neff Jersey 07079), where he may be addressed. There is a special quality about people who are committed to something, whether it be to another person, a group, an organization, a career, or an idea. That quality can be captured by such words as "loyalty," "allegiance," or "steadfastness." For to be committed is to be involved in a relationship which has priority in one's life over alternative relationships or only one-self. This does not mean that a person's other involvements are ignored bu.t only that when push comes to shove this relationship has singular importance. Obviously, this is a key feature of religious life, for the purpose of religious orders is to foster growth in each member's commitment to Christ. In fact, it has often been assumed, both by people within and without such institutions, that this is the sole ~ocus of the members' ~om-mitments-- that they "have the faith." In the past fifteen years or so, how-ever, the large scale exodus of members from the various forms of religious life has raised serious questions in many quarters concerning this one dimensional view of religious commitment. In particular, such authors as ~Marie Augusta Neal,~ Helen Ebaugh,2 Lucinda San Giovanni,3 Richard Schoenhern and Andrew Greeley,4 and Patricia Wittberg5 have all attemp-ted to shed a social scientific light on some of these questions. This paper is meant to be a reflection on some themes developed out of this tradition. It will attempt to present the results of some findings gleaned 188 Commitment in a Religious Order / 1119 from interviews with twenty women involved in a religious order in the eastern United States. Its major interest will be the way commitment in religious life passes through different forms, forms which seem to be affected by the kinds oof structures established by religious orders and by the way their members respond to these structures. It is, of course, danger-ous to generalize from a group 6f this size. Thus, the following remarks should be read as an'effort to explore some pertinent issues in the quality of commitment rhther than to offer a definitive statement on these issues. I. Sociology and Commitment Because this paper relies upon insights developed in sociology, perhaps it would be helpful to first briefly explain some key sociological ideas concerning commitment before delving into the material from the in/er-views. Over the past thirty years or so, sociology has developed a number of concepts for dealing with the experience of commitment. By and large, these ideas are rooted in the perspective that c6mrnitment is the result of certain ,mechanisms operating in groups or organizations that mold indi-viduals into loyal members. Thus; the primary attention is on how these social factors operate to produce a committed person. One of the more prominent efforts in this field can be found in the work of Rosabeth Kanter, particularly in her book Commitment and Community.6 While the analysis that follows utilizes these insights, it also attempts to show how individual members of a religious order responded to these forces and tried to grow beyond them. Kanter views commitment in terms of three interrelated dimensions: instrumental, affe.ctive.and moral. In addition, each of these dimensions is the result of a set of factors bY which a community leads its novices into full membership. By instrumental commitment Kanter means a felt attachment to a social role that is more rewarding or less costly than the roles outside of the community. In this kind of commitment the person wants to live up to the behavioral expectations that others in the community have of him or her. This attachm~ent is achieved, according to Kanter, by having the novice undergo experiences ,whereby the individual has to invest her time and energy in doing the work of the community and to sacrifice her own possessions on behalf of the community. In this way the person finds himself or herself wanting to remain because of all that has been expended ¯ in the effort to achieve full membership. As Kanter puts it: When profits and costs are considered, participants find the cost of leaving the system would be greater than the cost of remaining; "profit," in a net psychic sense, compels continual part;_cipation.7 190/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 By affective commitment Kanter means an attachment to a set of relationships whose ties are more gratifying than the ties with .alternative relationships. To find a particular,~set of relatio, nships more gratifying than others means recognizing that set as the,primary source of. affection and support in one's life. This dimension is realized by having novice members renounc6 all previous ties of affection as being primary for them and by involving them in communal activities with members of th~eir group. In these ways the new participant comes to develop emotional ties with these others and a cohesive bond develops amongst them. Finally, by moral or normative commitment'Kanter means an alle-giance to the values and norms of the community and a willingness to obey the authority structure of the community as the ultimate interpreter of those norms and .values. However, this allegiance doesonot necessarily develop after a careful evaluation of these norms and structures. Instead, Kanter sees this dimension arising from a set of beliefs and values that have been internalized in an often irrational or unc_ritical way. In Some respects, commitment to norms and values resembles the concept of superego, which binds the evaluative components bf the self t6 norms of a system through an internalized authority.8 The moral commitment of members is achieved, Kanter notes, by techniques that encourage novices to'deny significance to their own ideas and desires and to place their trust more in the community than 'in them-selves. Thus, new members come to see the way of life of the coinmunity as more meaningful than that of competing alternatives. This sociological view of commitment may, at first sight, be rather upsetting to people who form a community in order "to ddepen their rela-~ tionship with God. '-I Would suggest that this reaction is a rather well-founded one. For what sociology has uncovered, and what many of the" religious women 1 interviewed realized after being in their order for a few years, is that there can be a very real difference between commitment to God and commitment to a religious organization. For this latter institution attempts to offer its members a way to God, but lhis "way" is embodied in historically realized rules, procedures;practices and customs that can often become ends in themselves in the minds and hearts of these members. The sociological point, of course, is that a religiouscommunity hasto empha-size these aspects if it is going to survive and so it has to foster commitment to them. Naturally, a religious institution hopes that its" members will develop spiritually by such practices, and many have done so. Nevertheless, as the' following analysis will show, the danger can also be that the corn= mitment does not get beyond these dimensions. How that can'happen and what can be done about it are the concerns of the rest of this paper. Commitment in a Religious Order / "191 II. A Sociology of Commitment in Religious Life A. Internalizing a Theme ~ The model of commitment presented by Kanter can be a useful tool for interpreting the experiences of the twenty women I interviewed. While these women all came from the same order, they varied as far as age (32-63), length of time in the order (9 years to over 40 years), and the kind of positions they held at the time of the interview (teaching, pastoral and the central administration of the order). Nevertheless, they all described their early years in religious life in ways that can b~e captured by Kanter's categories. 1: Internalizing the Instrumental Dimension One of the interesting findings of these interviews was that many of the nuns felt that the years taken up by their training were preoccupied with the proper performance of their duties, with what they called "the externals." In Kanter's terminology they were committed to the role of a religious person. She claims that it is possible for a person just to behave in a committed way, i:e., remain in the group but not necessarily care about the ideals or values of that group.9 While she'herself did not think that this was a full commitment, she did seeit as a possibility. When the nrns were asked about significant changes in their lives, one of the events frequently brought up was when they recognized that they had been caught up in the mere activity of being a nun. For example: when I came to religious hfe I switched to the externals because that is what I thought I was supposed to do and that was what was always talked about., how you dressed, how you performed this and how you did your chores, but I wasn't co~mfortable with that. When we first entered, the activities were important as you grow into being a member of the community. I think at some point you get caught up in the reception of the habit., that is a big day in your life., and you try to act like the pdrfect nun and" that sort of thing. ~ In addition to acting out the role of a reli~gious woman, many of the respondents reported recognizing, a period in their lives when their minis-try, or more pr.ecisel3~, their work, was mrre important to them than any other dimension. Years ago, I guess I was work-oriented and it was the thing that people saw. And the thing I could let go of was my prayer life because no one ever saw that and I wasn't accountable for it. I cou.ld go to confession and say I didn't haeditate that week and that wruld t~ike care of the guilt part. But I never made ~ny cofinectionJwith the rest of iny life. 192 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 As these quotes indicate, the focus on minist.ry and on the proper fulfillment of the "externals" of the religious role were the dimensions to which most of these women became initially committed. ,And, for some of these sisters, the ministry remained central for them well beyond the period of their training. However, while this was a key feature of religious life for many of these women, they eventually began to question the validity of this preoccupa-tion, and for some this orientation is no longer dominant in their lives. 2. Internalizing the Affective Dimension Kanter's second type of commitment was also evident at an early stage of the nun's training. For some of these women, this. involvement in community life coincided with their involvement in ministry. What did you think you were committing yourself to at that~time? I thought I was committing myself to ministry and to community life but not to a deep personal prayer life. I was still struggling with thaIt t.r.i.e. d to take time for it but more often than not, that got pushed aside. What was there about ministry and community life that made you want to commit yourself?. I just" saw goo~d in it. I saw myself functioning very well in it, being comfortable in it, not having any kind of desire not to be there. Some of the other nuns, however, found that a focus on community followed, in time, a commitment to ministry, and sometimes the tension between ministry and community would be resolved in favor of community¯ , ¯. I consider myselfa community-minded person; for whatever reason, ~ prefer working within the community., like coming to the infirmary and working right here with our sisters. I was more than happy todo that. I didn't find myself looking to go really outside of the community. (I. Why was that~ Well, I guess in that it's doing for my own sisters, primarily, rather than people on the outside¯ You are doing the same kind of thing but for whatever reason my preference would be my sisters first. Thus, while ministry may be seen as rewarding, by itself it does not suffice. For this woman and for others, it was and still is a matter of the emotional bond one has with the group with whom she rhinisters that is crucial. Where ministry can be judged in terms of rewards and costs, more non-rational considerations have to be used to judge the relationships one has with others. However, ~s was seen in the discussion of instrumental commitment, this affective dimension did not r6main as dominant for all the nuns. As the following quote suggests, this orientation is no longer as crucial as it once was. Commitment in a Religious Order / 1~ ¯ I really don't know how we remained faithful then. I'm sure if it was another type of community, I don't know, maybe it's because we're more of a family, you know, we feel for one another, um, and that was always our sister, and if you didn't hang in there because your superiors were no good, you'd hang in there because your friends were there. Your commitment to them kind of seemed important to you. 3. Internalizing the Normative Dimension Finally, the third of Kanter's types of commitment was also a focus of allegiance for most of the women during their training. This is particularly obvious in the way many of them had accepted the authority of their superiors during that period. ¯. 1 never felt pressured or stepped on or however people fed. I never felt that. I guess as I entered community it was something I wanted to do. or the Lord called me to do, so I did what I was supposed to do . However, while there were nuns who were very compliant, some found themselves questioning the purpose behind some of the orders. For them, willing obedience was built on an obedience motivated by a fear of being dismissed. Were there people in your class who questioned a lot? Yes, they are no longer here. In novitiate I was very docile. I was probably stupid. If they told me tO do it, I did it because if you didn't do it, they were going to send you home. ~. So you did it out of fear more than anything else. Yes. Yet I liked the days of formation and everything else, but if they said do it, I did it; and when we did it and thought it was crazy, we Used to laugh about it, but we still did it.°, there was no heart in it or anything like that, but we did it to shut them up and get them off our backs. Whether this emphasis on atithority and obedience was complied with willingly or out of fear, it had a dual effect in the training period: it seemed to focus attention on role conformity or the "externals," as was seen before, and it created a sense of dependency on the leadership of the community in many of these women. But in the minds of some Of the nuns, this would often translate into valuing obedience to the rules 'over the needs encountered in one's ministry. Let's say the mother of one of the children was pregnant and her husband had just kicked her in the stomach and kicked her downstairs, and she came to me after ~chool, as did happen once, and when I tried to share with her and show her a little sympathy, I got in trouble because I stayed over in school even though it was that type of thing. I didn't mind getting into trouble, but ! just couldn't understand that whole thing. And in those 1~ / Review for Religious, March-ApriL 1986 days, if she came again, I would probably say "I can't see you," thinking that obedience was the greater thing at that time~ While some of the evidence suggests that many of the nuns interpreted this dependency on authority as something they have left'behind, this is not so for all of them. Even with the much publicized changes in convent life, with the "loosening up of the structures," the importance of the normative dimension of commitment still comes through for many of them. As this following quote demonstrates, however, it is internalized dependency: The change that has been significant has been in the individual being responsible for he~'self. We still have in our community superiors in our local convents. However~ the emphasis has been on individuals being responsible for themselves, for the cbmmitment that they have made, for' living according to the rules and the constitution, for keeping the vows . B. l/ariations on a Theme . ~ Hopefully, the preceding exploration has shown that the women I interviewed responded to the demands made upon them in their formation years in the convent .in ways that the order wanted them to respond. In effect, they internalized the theme of religious life espoused by their order. This, of course, is not to pass judgment on the sincerity of intention of any of these women or on the integrity of those tesponsible~for their training. It is instead to recognize what most of these sisters have realized and what Kanter's model of commitment can help us to see: religious commitment is more than simply doing religious things. When attention is concentrated on the activity of being religious without an ~ffort at helpi~ng the novice to discern the place of these activities in an overall lifestyle, then the only result will be religious conformity and a commitment to the means established to realize a life in Christ rather than to that life itself. However, as many of the above quotes intimated, the story of the commitments of these women does not end in mere conformity. Most of the nuns found that by the time of their final vows or in the five years or so after final profession, t.hey had begun the process of perso~nalizing many of the practices they had learned. This effort at personalization took one of two forms: varying the order's style of religious life to meet o~ne's own personality and characteristics, or creating a style of religious life that was in keeping with the core values of that lii~ but no longer was solely modeled on their order's particular historical interpretation of those values. I would now like to explore the first of the~e responses which I will call "variant commitments." In the third pai't of this paper, I will examine the second form.- The term "variant commitment", refers to a more reflective response to 'Commitment in a Religious Order the demands of convent life than the conformist response did. The idea for it comes from another sociologist named Robert Merton.~0 Writing in a different context (but, nevertheless, in one that is still applicable to our purposes), Merton referred to people who were sensitive to the demands of their institutions but were willing to test some of the limits of those demands. He had in mind men of science like Pasteur or Einstein who were committed to the goals of science but who engaged in the kind of research that resulted in new ways of conceiving the world around us. In a similar way, many of the nuns I interviewed were very much committed t9 the goals of their order, but they were also involved in efforts to alter its style of religious living. Where their training had taught them to exhibit routine adaptations to the expectations of the order, they later became more willing to modify these demands while still remaining within the normative character of the community. By briefly looking at some examples of these variant responses in the light of Kanter's model, it will. be possible to show concretely the kind of changes that took place in these women, 1. Variations on the Instrumental Theme It will be recalled that in this dimension of commitment members involved themselves in the performance of those activities that hdped maintain the community as an ongoing entity. In religious life, one of the more important of these role expectations was a faithful participation in the liturgy. For sisters in training the ordinary round of prayer activities became part of the behavior of the "ideal" nun. By the time of final vows, these activities had become second nature to them. Following the Second Vatican Council, however, the order began to loosen its rather rigid structure, and local convents wer9 allowed to establish their own format for commu.nal prayers. This usually involved a group decision concerning the times to be set aside, as well as the particular style the prayer activities would take. In addition, there was also the expectation that individual sisters would develop their own schedul~ and forms for their personal prayer life. Thus, new regulations were made which allowed for more decentralized variation and individual freedom in fulfillment of the order's goal to develop prayerful sisters. The result of these reforms appears to be a more conscious involvement on the part of most of the nuns in this dimension of their lives: The .emphasis, I think, in the younger days was not on my personal religious or spiritual development, as much as it is now., the job is important but the prayer part of it is more important. Ifa decision was to be made that I would have to give up my prayer life to be an 1~ / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 administrator, I think I would give up the administrator part. I'm sure years ago I couldn't have said that. I'm going into my fifth year here, and I was very nervous coming here because I had heard about their prayer life~ But it's really been good. It's more spontaneous than at other places. Like we do the reading of the day, and then we share with each other what they are saying to us or one of us will give a homily. As these quotes indicate, within the overall values of communal and personal prayer, the nuns have sought to fashion attitudes and practices that reflect a more conscious appreciation for these features than was true in their earlier days. This consciousness in some cases was an attitudinal shift, such as the rededication of oneself to a life of prayer;'or in other instances, it was a greater willingness to participate in a variation of public prayer that had not been tried before. In'both examples though, a shift to a more reflective response is evident, and this allows for personal and local variations of a communal expectation. 2. Variations on the Affective Theme The second area of religious life to which most of the nuns can be said to have been reflectively responding is the communal dimension. On both a formal and an informal basis, it is expected that the members will participate in the affairs and functions of the community and that this group will be primary in each person's life. In the period before the Vatican Council, these expectations usually meant a high degree of uniformity among the order's members. In the years following the Council, they frequently have involved rather innovative attempts to develop a greater sense of camaraderie among local community members. This can be seen in the following instances which suggest a changing vision of the meaning of community and a willingness to put into actual practice what some have only been able to dream about. What is your vision of community? I would like it more personal, um, with small groups where there is sharing not only of your work but of your basic spirituality, your vision, and maybe with people that you could work it out with so that your vision could: become a reality. I think the great disillusionment with religious life is that your vision remains a vision and there's not too many to share that vision. We were pioneers. My first year in grad school and after that we lived in a convent and commuted to school. We used to pray together and just try to share our lives. We could do creative things like alternative prayer styles and a lot of sharing about community and about the Lord. Commitment in a Religious Order Of course, not all the women in the group were as originally so enthusiastic about this new style, as the above excerpts may suggest. Nevertheless, those who have tried it have overcome their initial restraint and now see it'as a more beneficial way of living than the older style. Once again, a relaxation of rather rigid structures has allowed for a greater amount of reflective expression and thus for the introduction of alternative approaches to a goal of the order. 3. l/'ariations on the Normative Theme The final dimension that exhibits the effects of a more reflective response to religious life concerns the commitment to the norms and values of the community. According to Kanter this commitment is demonstrated in the supportive attitudes members have toward those in authority and toward the ideology of the group. One of the areas in convent life where an important shift in this dimension has occurred is in the vow of obedience. In the days when the nuns I interviewed first entered and until quite recently, obedience to the "Will of God" meant, in fact, concrete submis-sion to what the s,uperiors interpreted what that "Will" was. Today, this submissiveness, while still expected on a daily practical level, is somewhat tempered by the recognition, in their order's rule, that all the sisters share a genuine responsibility for th6 goals of the community. This basically seems to mean that the individu~il sisters are left alone to freely do what is expected of them rather than have a local superior enforcing each of the rules. Naturally, such a situ~ttion leaves room for individual variation, both attitudinally ahd behaviorally. I guess my attitude is that this is not somebody or something imposing on me, or the constitution saying I have to do it, or I feel that my superior is going to say that you are not doing this or that. There are days, for exahaple, when I don't spend much time in prayer at all for one reason ~or another, because it's ministry, or I'm getting in at midnight and I can't function the next day. But ifI don't do it for a couple of days, I know it and I really.have to say, I have todo it tonight regardless of what else turns up, so that it becomes a priority. I think it puts more responsibility on the individuals for their own lives. Ten years ago the superior was saying no, you may not go. I think it places more responsibility on the individual not to maybe abuse missing prayers or Mass or house meetings or meals . . . there is a little more freedom and people are more relaxed . , . to be more responsible for themselves. As these quotes indicate, members are freer to interpret when a particu-lar rule should be obeyed and when it should not. Of course, this does not i911 ] Review for Religious, March.April, 1986 mean that they can or would do whatever they please with no sense of normative .obligation, Thus, the conscious choice on the part ~of~the member is to decide when there are legitimate exceptions to a given rule and toact on those exceptions. In the long run, however, the orientation of the nuns is to the normative expectations of the order. - ~ C. Creating a Theme Hopefully, the previous section has shown that the story of the com-mitments of the twenty women I interviewed took a new turn in the years after their final vows. Because of the changes in the formal structures of the order, these nuns were able to move from a rather conformist-oriented appioach to religio.us life to an approach that reflected more of each individual's perso~nality and needs. However, while this newer style was more personalistic than before, it still was within the definition of religious life as formulated by the order. Thus, it is still possible for members to be committed to the instrumental, affective, and moral dimensions of their community (albeit, in their contemporary forms) rather than to the com-munity's underlying purpose, i.e., to one's life in Christ. Of course, as I indicated earlier, this is not necessarily in all instances what has happened. Instead, it is to point out a continual danger in community life, a d[inger that some of the nuns themselves have recognized: structured behavior and attitudes, even when they are loosened up, can become a substitute for personal responsibility for the purpose of those structures. This danger and a potential way to avoid it can be captured more clearly by examining the second type of reflective response that the women I interviewed exhibited. Nine of the twenty nuns responded to the ques-tions I raised in a way that was somewhat different from the others. I have called this type of response "creative commitment." By this I mean a commitment to a notion of religious life that reflected the women's struggle with an appropriation of a set of ideals and interpretations that trans-cended the institutionalized approach in which they found themselves. This did not mean an outright rejection of their community. Rather, it was an attempt to combine themes learned from sources outside the order with the basic values learned from the community into a more personal style of sisterhood than the one in which they had been trained. Their involvement in the community, is now no longer predicated on the constraints the institution can bring to bear on them. Instead, since their commitment is to a vision~of what religious life can be, they have relativized the role that the community has in their lives. This rather abstract definition can be made more.concre[e by compar-ing some of the "variant responses" some of the nuns made to the questions Commitment in a Religious Order / 199 I asked with the "creative responses" nine of the women mad~ to the same questions. As before, these responses can be presented in terms of the model developed by Kanter. I. Relativizing Instrumental Commitment The first dimension of concern will be the attitudes of the nuns toward the role of a sister. In order to ascertain the overall quality of a member's role involvement in the order, I asked what perception each one had of herself as a sister. As the following quote exemplifies, many of the~s.e women have adopted the role of a nun as traditionally defined, ~that is, as one who is supposed to represent in a special way the presence of the sacred in human life. To be sure, they do not appear to be caught up with the prestige symbols of the role--the habit, the title, the little signs of respect. But they dowish to see themselves perceived as religious women, as part of a religio, us organization, and in this sense, the institutional role is important to them. How do you see yourself as a sister? That's hard to answer. I guess. I am living out what I think I am called to be, but I am not just living it for me. but for other people~ Do you mean what effect you have on people? ¯. Yes, like when people ask me to pray for them or for members of their families. I'm not just some fixture or some teacher. Do I convey the o message of Christ to people? Do I carry the name of (order's name) well, and what that community is about, or do I downgrade the community? In comparison with this perception, the following nun appears to dis-tinguish herself and her role as. a sister. While being a nun is important to her, it is not her whole self. This type of perception cropped up °quite often in discussions with these nine women. In effect, the role has been redefined from being a place in an overall organization to being a vehicle for allowing a more personal style of religious life to be expressed. What that,style is depends upon the individual and how she understands herself; but in general, it seems to encompass an effort to live out the central values of Christianity as these are being interpreted by contemporary thinkers. This woman's notion that "sisterhood" includes her relationships with whom-ever she meets is an indication of this redefining process. when I first came to the community, I saw a sister as functional, whereas now I see sister as a relationship that is not only to the people that I work with but it is. much more universal in a sense. It is me as I relate to whoever it may be . It's much more a sense of I am who I am and a good part of who I am happens to be a sister and what lproject is all of me, the totality of life. 200/ Review for Religious, March,April, 1986 2. Relativizing Affective Commitment The second area of discussion deals with the emotional ties members develop toward the relationships they have in the order and toward the order as a whole. The quality of these ties can be captured by the reaction of members to questions concerning the possibility of the order disbanding. While this is an admittedly hypothetical situation, the reactions of the sisters revealed their attitudes towards the community as a whole. For example, as the following citation suggests, many of the sisters see their well-being as tied up with the well-being of the order.~ Because they tend to seetheir lives as coextensive With the life of the community, these women can be said to~ have Committed themselves to the institution. What would happen if your community died? I would be very sad. As a person I think it would be devastating. I guess the charisma of the (order's name) community is important to me. I chose to belong to a group, and this group meant something to me. for whatever reason they became important. I chose to make final vows, and I chose to make it something permanent in my life. When this response is compared with the following one, however, a different understanding of this relationship is revealed. According to this woman, the institution exists to serve a need; and if it no longer can do this, then the nuns should disband and find other communities. This willingness to let go of what must be a home for this woman suggests a degree of autonomy that was also present in the other more innovative nuns. But this autonomy should not be interpreted as a cold independence from the order for-it seems to rest, for each of these women, on a distinction they have made between tbeir particular order and their understanding of religious life in general. In their interpretation of the order, it exists as a means to realize their religious ideals. Thus, religious life is always broader than the order's way of approaching it and for them it is their approach to that life that counts. I don't know exactly. I don't know if I would; then I would look and see if another group would like to get together to form something else, or if I would join another group. I don't think I would be upset. I wouldn't feel that my whole life has gone because I think what this community has done UP to this point has been very good and very worthwhile, and if it is not necessary, it's not necessary. I don't feel any urge to prolong somethin~g that is no longer necessary, so that would not bother me. Another indicator of the relativization of the order in the lives of these women is their willingness to look beyond it for sources of emotional support. While they.were in training, the community encouraged them to develop their personal relationships with their fellow members by severely Commitment in a Religious Order limiting outside contacts, even with members of their own families. Although these nine women still have deep personal ties within their order, they have also consciously developed friendships with others outside of that community, including laypeople. A couple of them have also become part ofqocal communities that are made up of nuns from bther orders instead of the more traditional, homogeneous units. Most of my really close friends have left the community., but it's not quite as dramatic as it sounds because I do have a couple of very good friends who have been very supporting, one who is married who has always supported me. Then. one who I'm even closer to who was in the community who has left. She continues to be one of the most supportive people in my life. It's fine with her that I am here; ~nd it's fine with me that she is there. How many friends do you have outside the community? I'd say that it's probably about fifty-fifty between people within the com-munity and people outside that I really consider myself close to. Four of us broke off from that larger grou.p because we are for'a simpler lifestyle, and we are now living in a house., the three of us from our order, one happens to. be the school person, and two of us who are in .other ministries and then the fourth sister who is from (another order) who is also in another ministry. That's working out pretty well now. 3.' Relativizing Normative Commitment ~ The third area deals with the willingness on the part of members to allow the community to control their lives. Over the past fifteen years or so, the order has loosened up its authority structure somewhat so that now the nuns are encouraged to speak their minds more so than they were in ~he past. Nevertheless, the ultimate expectations for many of the women is .that it is their duty to obey the wish of the superior. As this example demon-. strates, the notion that "the voice of the superior is the voice of God" dies hard. My attitude towards religious life, I don't think, has basically changed in the sense that I still fed that my superiors, those who are in charge, whatever they would ask I would accept it in the same wa~y I did years ago. I would question now, not saying that I wouldn't.do what they asked, but I would question it now. While the above quote demonstrates an attitude toward obedience that can be characterized as superior-oriented, the next citation reveals another approach to this subject. Instead of first looking to what the superior wants, this nun believes that one should first be obedient to oneself. The distinction is crucial for it places the sister on a par with her superior.and 902/ Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 enables her to exercise genuine responsibility for her own life. This is probably the most important characteristic of the innovative nuns because it seems to be that which distinguishes them most clearly from the others. Although these others often spoke about the necessity of being self-respon-sible, their 6rientation very frequently was to the community and their superiors. On the other hand~ the innovative nuns more frequently were willing to look beyond the institution for grappling with the issues of religious life and to examine any ideas in terms of where they might fit into their own lives, I believe in obedience to the Lord in tune with what is going on with my own inner' feelings, as contrasted to what I may believe in terms of the' voice 6f the superior although I don't deny that. I think you have to listen ¯. but I would say I would be more in tune with obedience to God; I would say that it's a little more,obedience to myself than I would say obedience to the vow or to the superior. Interestingly enough, one of the ways in which these women have sought to take responsibility for themselves is precisely in the area of the vows. One of the features that comes across very clearly is their desire to distinguish their understanding of the vows from the institutionalized ver-sion. This does not seem to mean an idiosyncratic interpretation of them that is divorced from what other approaches, even institutionalized ones, may offer. Instead, it seems to involve an effort to formulate a conception of the vows that takes into consideration what others,may say; but at the same time, ~it-attempts to create out of ,them an understanding that responds to the personal needs and goals of the individual herself. It should be pointed out that by the term "other interpretations" is meant sources of meaning outside the order, including the general culture, contemporary sourcbs' within the order, as well as the more traditional interpretations, whether they come from formal or informal sources. What seems to be crucial, .in any event, is the consciousness of these sisters of the difference between saying what others have understood what the vows mean and saying ,what they personally think they mean. I took these vows, but I thought. I'm doing my job, I'm praying, so don't b~ther me about the vows . !~ow looking back, I probably detached the vows from the life, or I said I have to take these vows in order to live this religious community life that I want to live. Now what's it like? ~ Now it's thinking about it and reflecting on it and saying there is some-thing more to this and I don't know what it is yet . I could tell you what ~ so and so says and what the books say, but personally., what do I think, Commitment in a R~ligious Order that's what I'm coming to. When you started to reexamine the vows, did you find yourself coming to a personal interpretation of them, or did you sifnply accept the given interpretation? Oh no! I made my own interpretation, and whether that's right or wrong, it's something l'm going to have to live with. No, I think it's my own personal thing . I have been attempting to distinguish creative responses to institutional demands from variant responses to these same demands. Hopefully, this has clarified the difference between the two. If 1 have been interpreting this material accurately, then a commitment can be said to be creative when the individual personally recognizes the primacy of her relationship with God in her life. That happens, it seems, as the individual assumes greater and greater responsibility for that relationship and the role of the order becomes more secondary as far as that relationship is concerned. In other words, the institution becomes a vehicle whereby a person can live out a way of life that she has created. As the following sistei~ asserted in ~ rather straightforward fashion, the order has become a means to an end hot arl end in itself. I say I commit myself to the Lord through this institution and I never expect that I will break that commitment to t~he Lord. I am not .always saying that 1 make a commitment to an institution: (I. Why no~t~ R. It's just the medium for me. Conclusions I ~began this paper by remarking that religious 9ommitment is often understood in a one dimensional way, as simply a commitment to Christ. Utilizing the insights of sociology, however, it is now possible.to see that religious commitment is a multi-dimensional affair which can often inter-fere with the fuller realization of a Christocentric lifestyle. For instead of a single focus on the proper spiritual characteristics of being a religious woman, this analysis found that members of an order can become more concerned about the instrumental, communal and normative dimensions of sisterhood. The result of this is a preoccupation with the means of religious life rather than its ends. Because this was a sociological analysis, it highlighted the fact that this preoccupation was, in part at least, the result of the order's necessary concern with its self-preservation. This does not mean, however, that such a preoccupation is inevitable. As the information concerning the more creative women has shown, it is also possible to relativize the impact of the " 2011 ] Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 social requirements of communal living and to begin to achieve the under-lying purpose of religious life. But to do this requires an effort on the part of the order to become sensitive to the effects its structures have on the spiritual journey of each of its members and an effort on the part of each member to be radically honest with himself or herself about the real con-cerns which occupy one's life in a religious setting. NOTES ~Marie Augusta Neal, "The Relation Between Religious Belief and Structural Change in Religiiaus Orders: Developing an Effective Measurement," Review of Religious Research 12, 1 (Fall, 1970), pp. 2-16. 2Helen Ebaugh, Out of the Cloister (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1977.). 3Lucinda San Giovanni, Ex-Nuns (Ables, Norwood, New Jersey, 1978). 4Rich~ard Schoenherno and Andrew Greeley, "Role Commitment Processes and the American Catholic Priesthood," American Sociological Review 39 (1974) pp. 417-426. ~Patricia Wittberg, "Transformations in Religious Commitment" REVIEW FOR RELI- ~31OtJS, Vol. 42 No. 2 (1985), pp. 161-170. 6Rosabeth Kanter, Commitment and Community (Harvard University Press, Cam-bridge, 1972). 7Ibid, p. 69: 8lbid, p. 69. 91bid, p. 67. ~ORobert Merton, ~Social Conformity, Deviation, and Opportunity Structures: A Comment on the Contributions of Dubin and Cloward," American Sociological Review 24 (1959), pp. 177-188. Two Forms of Consecrated Life: Religious and Secular Institutes David E O'Connor, S. T. Father O'Connor holds the chair of the Department of Church Law at Washington Theological Union and resides at Holy Trinity Mission Seminary (9001 New Hampshire Avenue; Silver Spring, Maryland 20910). His previous article in these pages was "Lay Associate Programs: Some Canonical and Practical Considerations," which appeared in last year's March/April issue. Th~ 1983 Revised Code of Canon Law in, canons 573-730 designates both religious and secular institutes as Institutes of the Consecrated Life. This is a new classification in church law, In its simplicity, it is open to some misunderstanding as a juridical oversimplification because, in fact, both types of institutes are very different. This may just be another exam-ple of the limitations of all canonical categories which are not capable of fully expressing the charisms and gifts of the Spirit to the Church. While the members of both forms of~the consecrated life do profess the evangeli-cal counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience, their lifestyles manifest two rather divergent forms of ecclesial dedication. The intention of this brief article is to explore some of the similarities and real differences between these two types of consecrated lives and to promote a better appreciation of the distinctiveness,~ the identity and the place each one has in the Church. Let it be stated at the outset that neither form of ecclesial dedication is presented as better or superior tO the other. While canonical religious life has been a recognized and important part of Church life for centuries, it has taken a variety of shapes and forms. Secular institutes, canonically and historically, have received ecclesial recognition only within the last fifty years and are still in the process of trying to have their uniqueness under- 205 906 / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 .stood and appreciated. The new Code of Canon Law is a welcome and innovative move in this direction. It is a positive step forward in giving secular institutes the canon-ical identity and ecclesial status which they deserve. In canon 710, the new code describes a secular institute as one in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for perfection in charity and work for the sanctifi-cation of the world, especially from within. Canon 607, §2 describes a religious institute as one in which the members, according to proper law, pronounce public vows, either.perpetual or temporary, which are to be renewed when they have lapsed, and live in common as brothers or sisters. A quick perusal of these canonical descriptions makes apparent some of the. differences between these two types of institutes. The members of secular institutes are to "live in the world" and work for its sanctification "especially from within." On the other hand, religious are to live "in com-mon as brothers or sisters" and profess "public" vows. These and other distinctive features of both forms of ecclesial dedication need to be more closely examined and elaborated upon in order to manifest the special style of consecration lived by the members of the different institutes. In order to facilitate this examination, a comparison of these two types of consecrated life has been organized under the following five headings: Secularity, Community Life, Apostolic Activity, Evangelical Counsels and Canonical Status. There will be, necessarily, some repetition involved because it is impossible to treat the distinctiveness of each institute without there being some overlapping of ideas. For example, it is not possible to consider the evangelical counsels as lived in religious institutes without considering them in the context of common life. Nor is it possible, to con-sider adequately the evangelical counsels as lived by members of secular institutes without examining them in the context of the secularity which is essential to the life of the members. I ask the reader to be patient in this matter as efforts are made to emphasize the genuine distinctiveness and special characteristics of each form of the consecrated life. Se~.ulariff. The primarY and foremost characteristic of secular institutes is that they are secular. This has been repeatedly emphasized in all the ecclesiasti-cal documents which address the nature and role of these institutes, from Provida Mater Ecclesia (February 2, 1947) and the Motu Proprio, Primo Feliciter (March 12, 1947), through the documents of Vatican II (1962-1965), especially ,Perfectae Caritatis,, 11, to the 1983 Code of Canon Law. It is "secularity" which totally colors the way oof life of the members and is the most significant characteristic of their consecrated way of life. Two Forms of Consecrated Ltfe/ 207 The members remain lay people or secular priests. They are not reli-gious ~nor are they expected to live in any manner which approximates or imitates the religious life.~ In every, sense of the term, they are to cultivate their consecrated secularity as ordinary people; living "in-the world and, as it were, from the world. "~ They should be involved in the social milieu and professional life proper to each member in the concrete circumstances of that member's place, time and culture. Indeed, members are to have a secular outlook and acknowledge themselves as "part" of the world and committed to sanctifying it from within) Hehce, the style of life of the lay members of a secular.,institu~te is that~ of a consecrated person living a rather inconspicuous and ordinary life, holding down a job or involved in a profession, while living alone or wi[h family or friends. Externally they will not appear to be different from any other lay person in a similar situation. Indeed, Pope John Paul II has encouraged them to develop their professional life and to be, at the level of Knowledge and experience, really competent in their specific field of endeavor.4 Religious, on the other hand, are required and expected by/heir own consecrated way of life to have a certain "separation from the world prpper to the character and purpose of each institute.'~ Obviously, this is expressed very differently by monastic communities and by apostolic reli-gious. Members of apostolic religious institutes frequent~ly find themselves immers~ed in the world with similar demands made upon them to have the professional competence required in their particular formJ of apostolate or ministry. Yet, at the same time, they may be more likely to think of themselves, while at the service of people and the Church,.as "being in the world, but not of it." Indeed, they are often readily identifiable as "Church-people" even if they are not wearing a habit or clerical garb. Furthermore, they often live in houses or convents associated with their ir~titutional apostolate which helps identify them as Church-workers. Thus their com-munity lifestyle and their corporate apostolate or form of ministry, in one sense, sets them apart and "separates" them from" the ordinary lifestyle of lay people. There are incarnational and eschatological dimensions" to the life of every Christian. However, it appears that the Church considers thai the incarnational should be especially clear in the Christian life of the dedicated laity and that the eschatological or transcendental should be-particularly manifested through the dedicated life of members of religious institutes. One form of the consecrated life the secular institute emphasizes the goodness of the world and of all God's creation (Gn l:3,1); the Other the religious institute emphasizes the radical discipleship of Jesus which involves some separation from or renunciation of the world (Jn 15:19). 901t / Review for Religious, March-April, 1986 Community Life Some form of life in common or community life has been a part of religious life from timeqmmemorial. It is a clear requirement of the new Code of Canon Law.6 Members of a religious community are to live in a house-of their own institute with their brothers or sisters and under the autl~ority of a religious superior.7 This is the place where they conduct their day-to-day life and offer their companionship and support to one another. It is the place where they gather about the eucharistic table and pray together. It is from there that apostolic religious reach out to others in a variety of ministries and dedicated ecclesial service. Therefore, some form of commu~nity life has been a perennial dimension of religious~ life and presented as an ecclesial witness of Christian love. The common life of religious does differ somewhat fro~a community to community, and is radically different for: monastic and apostolic religious. However, it is a necessary dimension of religious life and one of its special characteristics. Common life is not a part °of the consecrated life of members of secular institutes. While some institutes may have, as part of their particular tradi-tion, residences which belong to the institute, community life is not an expectation, requirement or characteristic of secular institutes in general. In fact, it has often been positively discouraged as contrary to a truly secular style of life and an unfortunate move toward the imitation of a life approp-riate to a religious institute. ~ The secular quality does not permit of community life on the part of mem-o ~rs, even as an option. It is too easy to slip from the notion of a "group" life to that of a "com.mon" life inconsistent with the personl liberty and the vari-ety of commitments which the ideal of presence in the world entails.8 The new 9od,e does not require the administrators or leaders of a secular institute to have their own residence, nor is it necessary to have a house where formation programs can be conducted.9 Members of secular i~stitutes are expected to live as ordinary lay people, either alone or with their families, or in a group as brothers and sisters.~0 Diocesan priests, who are members of a secular institute, likewise, are expected to live as the other priests in the diocese. That is, they are to live in the rectory to which they haye been assigned by their bishop. There is to be nothing unusual or exter-nally distinctive in their style of life in the world. However, as canon 716 of the code states, the members of a secular institute are urged to share actively in the institute according to their own proper law. They are to maintain a certain "communion" among them-selves arid carefully foster a unity of ~pirit and genuine relationships as brothers and sisters. The constitutions and statutes of each institute should specify how this is to be done, but should not imply that cohabitation or Two Forms of Consecrated Life / 209 any form of common life similar to that of religious is expected. It is the obligation of leaders and moderators in the institute to promo.te this spirit of unity and an active participation of the members)~ Apostolic Activity The new Code of Canon Law succinctly expresses the manner in which apostoli~ activity is to be exercised by the members o