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Review for Religious - Issue 55.2 (March/April 1996)

Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus

Issue 55.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1996. ; lived experience of all who find that the churcfl's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles in the journal are :meant to be informative, practical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University. by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP St. Bernadetie Convent ° 76 University Blvd. East ° Silver Spring, MI) 20901 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ I)uluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1996 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy an}, ~naterial (articles, poe,ns, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyrigh~ Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Iris Ann Ledden SSND Joel Rippinger OSB Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MARCH/APRIL 1996 * VOLUME55 ¯ NUMBER2 contents 118 symposium - part I Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal: Will Good Intentions Suffice? Miriam Ukeritis CSJ provides some examples of actions taken by various religious congregations in their renewal and makes some evaluative reflections. 133 143 seeking God The Urban Hermit: Monastic Life in the City Theresa Mancuso describes the life of an urban hermit as integrating the contemplative life of the poustinia with the marketplace where a living is earned. Enclosed in the Mystery of Jesus Marie Beha OSC explores various aspects of enclosure as part of the Christian mystery into which we all are invited. Review for Religious 159 171 growing old Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging Daniel J. Harrington SJ offers reflections on a few biblical texts which contribute to constructing a theology and spirituality for us as we grow old as people of Christian faith. On Selling the Chalices: Vincent de Paul on Aging Robert P. Maloney CM shares the insights and feelings of Vincent de Paul in response to the process of aging. 185 report U.S. Hispanic Catholics: Trends and Works 1995 Kenneth G. Davis OFMConv and Eduardo C. Fern~indez SJ present a panoramic of the year's events within the U.S. Hispanic Catholic community. departments 116 Prisms 204 Canonical Counsel: Authority in Ingtitutes of Consecrated Life 209 Book Reviews March-April 1996 prisms Boundaries are a part of life. We think of how boundaries identify our countries and our states, our soccer fields and our tennis courts. Behavior to be proper and humor to be appreciated observe boundaries. There are time boundaries for speeches to be effective and financial limits for buying and selling. Sometimes we see boundaries through a negative fil-ter. We talk about how we do not want to feel bound in any way since that would close off possible opportunities for ourselves. Boundaries., we say, are restrictions on our human potential and freedom. Yet as a counterpoint we also experience that when cancer breaks down boundaries and has metastasized, life becomes diminished and threat-ened. So too, when people do not acknowledge certain boundaries to their own stamina, they can have a break-down or become sick. Although sometimes appearing to us to be restrictive, boundaries, then, can be appreciated in a life system for the part they play in maintaining good health and vibrant life. Witness the negative results when we humans do not observe boundaries in our polluting of streams and oceans, in our poisoning the atmosphere through chemical emissions, and in our destroying world weather patterns through the deforesting in the Amazon basin. Sometimes people, including women and men reli-gious, view religious life through the filter of boundaries which restrict. Whether it be the observance of the tra-ditional evangelical counsels of chastity, pove(ty, and obe-dience, the acceptance of a life in common, or the practice of enclosure, religious life has always had boundaries. But Review for Religious through an ecological perspective-- that ,is, religious life identi-fied as a life system--we can come to a fresh appreciation of the vital quality of the boundaries we find in it. T6day when membership inclusion for many religious con-gregations seems to eliminate all boundaries, we could ask our-selves whether in a life-system model this movement is going towards health. When there are no boundaries to the kinds of ministries taken on by members of a congregation and no bound-aries to what constitutes a life together, we might wonder whether a deadly cancer may likely enough be coursing through a life sys-tem. Since w~ are so conscious today of environmental and eco-logical concerns with a scientific realism never before possible, we need to apply a similar kind of care to religious life identified as an ecological system. Then our acceptance of certain boundaries will be situated within the .context of health and vitality. Our authors in this issue talk in one: way or another about boundaries. Evangelical counsels, community life, and the enclo-sure associated with contemplative life are all boundaries--bound-aries connected with a furtherance of life. Aging, tog, is a boundary~difficult to face for active, service-oriented people--but aging is seen by faith as another stage in our growing in Christ. Yet doubts, even so, assail us: How can the restrictions of aging, a kind of final boundary of human life, be seen as a growing? The church observance of the Lenten and Easter seasons invites us always to contemplate the growth potential of all the boundaries of human life portrayed in Jesus' paschal mystery. Jesus makes even death no longer a limitation but a boundary that issues into life. We see that Jesus does not take away the boundary of death, but rather allows it--in daily actions and in our final human act--to become the key to our entering into his own paschal mystery, culminating in new and surprising life. Our desire to identify with this paschal mystery as a way of daily living leads us to view all boundaries through the perspective of the risen Jesus. Boundaries, it seems, bring home to us how much we find life as Easter people. David L. Fleming SJ Marcb-April 1996 MIRIAM D. UKERITIS Religious Life'.s Ongoing Renewal: Will Good Intentions Suffice? symposium part Since the publication of the FORUS study, several con-gregations have taken the time to assess their efforts at renewal and plan seriously for their futures.1 This article reviews some of these efforts and identifies areas that con-tinue to require attention. Background Thirty years ago the Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of the Religious Life (Perfectae caritatis, 1965) urged a process of renewal that would include returning constantly both to the sources of all Christian life and to the original spirit of one's institute and 'also adapting to the changed conditions of our time (PC §2). The council fathers said that the manner of living, praying, and work-ing should everywhere--especially in mission territories-- be suitably adapted to the modern physical and psychological circumstances of the members and also, as required by the nature of each institute, to the necessi-ties of the apostolate and to cultural, social, and economic Miriam Ukeritis csJ collaborated with David Nygren CM in producing the study "The Future of Religious Orders in the United States" (FORUS). The current article is one of four preo ¯ sentations made at an October 1995 symposium, "Religious Life 30 Years Later: Is This What Vatican II Intended?" held at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. Correspondence with Miriam Ukeritis should be addressed: De Paul University;' Center for Applied Social Research; 2219 North Kenmore Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60614. Review.[br Religious demands (§3). Considering the various interpretations of this mandate and the various implementations and results, there can be little wonder that this symposium commemorating Perfectae caritatis is subtitled, "Is This What Vatican II Intended?-2 This question of the council's intent was not a new one. Echoes of such wonderment were heard almost as soon as the period of experimentation began. Many books and articles have appeared, reflecting on the themes of renewing, reweaving, refounding, reclaiming, restructuring, reshaping, rekindling, reen-ergizing, and recreating religious life. Simultaneously, many signs of decline and diminishment have marked the landscape of reli-gious orders in the United States. As early as 1988, in an effort to address this issue, Lilly Endowment funded a three-year study to investigate these phenomena. The researchers, themselves mem-bers of religious orders and trained in the field of psychology, made public their findings in The Future of Religious Orders in the United States (FORUS) report. Almost immediately after its release in mid September 1992, headlines in the secular press proclaimed that "Catholic orders need dramatic change to survive" (New York Times 9/20/92), "Catholic orders shunning poor" (Chicago Tribune 9/16/92), "Roman Catholic orders in decline" (Washington Post 9/26/92), "Study sees Catholic orders losing their way" (Boston Globe 9/16/92), and "Religious orders dying out; hospitals, schools may suffer" (Sunday Denver Post 9/27/92). These reports roused both the interest and the ire of many. Some thought the study an accurate reflection of the state of religious life twenty-five years after Vatican Council II, while others saw it as an unnecessarily negative assessment of religious life's efforts at renewal. In light of the controversy surrounding the establish-ment of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious only a few months before the publication of the FORUS findings, this sensitivity, particularly among apostolic women religious, is quite understandable. Too, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had recently completed Threads for the Loom, its study of membership, some of whose results seemed to be contradicted by the FORUS findings.3 As serious scholars of religion and members-at-large of reli-gious orders pursued a more thorough reading of the results, and as others' reactions and interpretations began to appear in Catholic periodicals and internal newsletters, consensus emerged concerning the significance of the FORUS study.4 One of the most helpful ele- March-April 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal ments of the report was the summary chart, of factors shaping the future of religious life (Figure 1). This chart listed results of the study in a manner that provided agendas for many congregations, chapters, formation conferences, and planning endeavors. For that reason and because of its summary nature, this paper will refer to it in reflecting on how congregations have tried to integrate the research findings into their ongoing efforts at renewal. The diagram takes the form of a force field, a construct com-mon to social scientists. The center oval represents the current state while that on the far right depicts the desired future state. In this project it was defined as "Fidelity .to Purpose and Responsiveness to Absolute Human Need." "Restraining Forces" (left column of arrows) identifies factors which, if not inhibited, will keep a group or system in its current state or cause further decline. "Driving Forces" (right column of arrows) describes fac-tors which, if fostered/will support the movemeht of the group or system to its desired future. In this study the driving forces are portrayed as influenced by conversion, a process necessary'to respond consistently and faithfully to the Spirit of God. Co-opta-tion by the dehumanizing aspects of society permeates the restrain-ing forces. Moving toward the desired future is accomplished by attending to the driving forces and withdrawing energy from those that restrain. Unfortunately, groups tend to do the opposite, endeavoring to root out of what is undesirable and neglecting to put energy into what will take them in the desired direction. Figure 1: Shaping the Future of Religious Life in the U.S. Shaping the Future of Religious Life in the US ~ Driving Forces CONVERSION i-TExcellent Lea~ U ¯ [~ iAuthority ~ N ~ ~Corporate Idenlity T T T ~IThe GOSp~ ~ Review for Religious Overview Since the publication of the FORUS findings, the researchers have frequently been asked: Is there a future for religious life? Invariably they have responded, "Yes, definitely--if you want one and are willing to work for it!" Members of religious orders have devoted much time and effort to reading, attending conferences, and discussing the meaning of renewal. Too often their attention has been directed toward outside experts. Borrowing from the author of Deuteronomy, many act as if the answer were up in the sky or across the sea and others had to be sent to retrieve and interpret it (see Dt 30:12- 14). While consultation and input may be beneficial, the congregation must realize that ultimately the scriptural response applies here; the answer sought is "very near., already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out." It is here, in the imagining and implementing, that the difficulty occurs: As in many other change efforts--be it mastering a language or shedding pounds--good intentions are not enough. Effort is required. Neither Neither the FORUS study nor the presentation of any one of the scholars of religious life provides a quick and simple how-to response to renewal questions. the FORUS study nor the presentation of any one of the scholars of religious life provides a quick and simple how-to response to renewal questions. The finding and carrying out of the answer to the question of how to shape a congregation's future is as unique as the congregation and entails hard work.5 To get results, an action plan must be coupled with concerted and sustained implementation. The plan must take into account the current state of the congregation, the hopds and dreams of its members, the reality of its resources, the constraints and supports which the ~xternal environment brings to bear, and the needs of God's people. Openness to the work of the Spirit, through con-stant prayer, dialogue, and a continuous reading of the signs of the times, is critical. Evaluation and correctiori, during the process and at the conclusion,~will help keep all involved honest about their efforts and effective in the accomplishment of the group's mission. It is unfortunate that some perceive an honest assessment of a congregation's efforts toward renewal as an indictment of the March-April 1996 Uke~tis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal work of previous leadership teams, chapters, or members-at-large. This is hardly so. With. the humble realization that the efforts of these often heroic women and men have brought a group to its current ability to be faithful to its purpose and to minister to God's people, it is only in a spirit of fidelity to the work begun by founders and foundresses, carried on through the decades by countless religious, and most recently updated by those who led initial efforts at renewal that any such critique is offered or may merit being initiated. As many have found, it is out of such love that a response of greater effort is often born. Review of Factors Among the ways that religious orders have used the findings of the FORUS study in their efforts at renewal, the most fre-quently cited areas have been "Individualism/Vocation" (in com-bination with "Role Clarity"), "Average/Excellent Leadership," and "Corporate Identity." The remainder of this reflection will consider these three areas one by one. After a brief discussion of the area, examples will be given of actions taken by some groups or congregations, and then some remaining questions will be examined. Individualism/Vocation Members of religious orders have not been alone in noting the negative consequences of exaggerated individualism. In the United States several commentaries have appeared lamenting what seemed to be an overemphasis on self and a loss of a sense of commu-nity. The work of Robert Bellah is probably the most familiar.6 Granted that a healthy sense of one's own personhood is a critical factor in one's development, it is no news that an overem-phasis on individual concerns can lead to a narcissistic self-absorp-tion. Admittedly, many of the practices and customs that marked religious life up to the time of the council could stifle the fragile sense of self that some brought their early training. Furthermore, for those who entered novitiates in late adolescence, when a per-son's developmental task is identity formation, the foreclosure of that process as they assumed the image of religious in their par-ticular institute left many aspects of these tasks incomplete and made the successful transition into mature adulthood difficult. Hence, the psychological climate in many groups tended to pro- Review for Religious duce individualism, with sentiments reflected in songs of the 1960s and 1970s such as "I Did It My Way" and "I Gotta Be Me." With the numbers of golden and diamond jubilarians far sur-passing the number of silver jubilarians in recent years, questions like "Why religious life?" and "What does it mean to be a reli-gious?" are increasingly relevant to a generation whose develop-mental task is now generativity. Hence, it is hardly surprising that the notion of "call"--particularly, "to or for what?"--is a frequent topic of conversation. (Patricia Wittberg SC reflects, in her writ-ing, on some of the elements involved in responding to a call or commitment, notably, sacrifice, common rituals and traditions, and a sense of boundaries.)7 These conversations may be fright-ening to some insofar as they seem to hark back to former prac-tices that long .ago lost their meaning. In times of transition, as the FORUS report noted, it can be particularly enticing to revert to old ways of being and doing. The challenge for religious today is to put creative energies into finding new ways:--and, in this case, identifying what the distinctive elements of the call to religious life are and how they are to be lived. One of these areas of energy is to be found in the realistic examination many congregations are conducting in the matter of associate programs. Involving laypersons in the congregation's spiritual or ministerial activities has a long history for many groups. Others have adopted it more recently as a means of wel-coming those who share in the charism of the group. Thanks to the work of RosemaryJeffries and others, there is increasing clar-ity as to how individuals who are members of associate commu-nities do and do not relate with vowed members of the congregation,s Appropriate boundaries, the meaning of mem-bership, and modes of belonging are increasingly common topics at formal convenings of religious and around the kitchen table. Such discussions serve to enhance an understanding of vocation in today's world. As a separate but related concern, the FORUS study cited role clarity as a significant issue for members of religious orders, par-ticularly women. There is abundant evidence that religious are struggling to address this. The energy displayed in this country as the Lineamenta document circulated before the 1994 Synod on Religious Life was striking. Intended or not, this event provided an excellent public forum for conversations concerning the role of religious. There can be no doubt tha't religious in the United ~qarcb-Aptql 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongo.ing Renewal States are directing their attention to self-definition rather than looking to outside bodies to provide the answer to the question "What does it mean to be a religious in the church today?" In general, it is encouraging to hear religious focused increas-ingly on the accomplishment of the mission of Jesus as expressed through their charism. While the funding of retirement contin-ues to be a concern in the face of dwindling material resources, the new energies that congregations have been devoting to ministries that address critical needs, to realistic ways of supporting new members, and to clarifying the meaning of membership are all signs of movement in the direction of a vital future.9 In reflecting on issues related to vocation, the meaning of membership in a community remains to be examined. Old ways of belonging (common ministry, common schedule, many restric-tions on external involvements) no longer seem functional, but what are the new ways to determine what being a member of a community means? The 1994 Synod .on Religious Life acknowl-edged that community does not necessarily involve the members' living together. Today, however, it is often easier to state what community is not than to describe what it is. Resistance encoun-tered in attempts to describe what it is may relate~to the reality that any definition will place demands or limits on those who choose to belong. The pull of individualism continues to be strong. There must be continuing efforts to grapple seriously with what vocation means to individuals and what its lived expres-sion should include. Undoubtedly, the lived expression of com-munity will take different forms in different groups. Average/Excellent Leadership Members of religious orders are not alone in expressing great interest in leadership and the development of leaders. Officers of major funding groups and administrators of sponsored institu-tions have, in conversations, voiced serious concern about the ability of religious to provide the leadership required to direct the efforts of religious organizations in an increasingly complex world. The absence of plans to address this concern, even after its identification, is even more alarming. Finally, the fact that the pool of religious from which to select and train leaders is dwin-dling adds to the urgency of this consideration. The search for opportunities for leadership training, based on a set of competencies demonstrated to be critical for religious Review for Rel(glous leadership, continues, Unfortunately but typically, this se~irch starts only after individuals or teams have already been selected for their position. Few congregations are at the point of developing a systematic means of providing their members with leadership training. This is complicated further by the fact that the cost of such programs may be or appear to be beyond the financial means of some congregations. One group reported dif-ficulty in finding a total of $1000 for three days of training for a five-member team. Yet, in the world of professional development, this sum is not an atypical cost for one individual to partic-ipate in a weekend program. Efforts to address seriously the leadership issues within congregations have taken many forms. One group devised a three-year series of four-day leadership-skills workshops. All mem-bers under a certain age were expected to par-ticipate in one cycle. The content of these sessions was basic, ranging from how to run a meeting to how to read a balance sheet. It included segments dealing with human-resource issues such as recruiting, hiring, supervising, and firing staff and managing volunteers as well. This not only provided busy people the opportunity to become acquainted with basics of leadership, but also assisted the congregation in identifying its members' var-ied gifts. It had the side effect of enabling participants to interact with one another in ways they might not otherwise experience and served as a means of encouraging some members who might be hesitant or reluctant to see themselves in positions of leader-ship to pursue additional education. Clearly, this congregation is providing for its own future leadership needs, for at some future time some members of this group will surely find themselves in positions of community leadership. The leadership group of another congregation instituted a mid-term evaluation of their ministry as leaders. Having developed at the beginning of their term a ministry plan for their four years in office, they conducted the evaluation at the end of their second year. Results of this effort provided information concerning where and how they might refocus their efforts, alter their strategy, or enhance communication on critical issues. It also gave them a sense of affirmation regarding work well done. Few congregations are at the point of developing a systematic means of providing their members with leadership training. March-April 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal Corporate identity provides an answer to the question "What is this group known for ?" The constant challenge, along with the gentle shift that is occurring with congregational leadership, manifests itself in the willingness of members to allow leaders to exercise their leader-ship skills. Given that many members are steeped, perhaps uncon-sciously, in a culture of individualism, it can be difficult to attend to the call of a leader or leadership group and to channel one's energy in a direction set by others, especially when it is not one that the member would choose. The good news is that capable leaders have learned much about the when and how of man-aging consensus. Paralysis resulting from rigid adherence to consensus processes is less fre-quent. Some of this is true because outstanding leaders have learned to listen to their members. They read the pulse of the community, under-stand what is said between the lines, and attend to the climate of the group. By doing this they are able to gauge thetiming of a program or intervention, frame it in a manner that enables members to receive it, and reframe it when resistance seems likely to thwart the outcome. The leader-ship of a large congregation encountered such resistance after announcing for the coming year a reflection process on the group's previously identified focus. The chapter's response was loud and clear: resistance, based on the complaint that the congregation's members had not been consulted before the announcement. Rather than insist on its prerogative to lead by setting the agenda for implementing congregational goals, the team responded by acknowledging the concern. In the face of time constraints and at the cost of additional effort willingly contributed by the team members, they amended the plan to include a consultation with the members. In the final analysis, the project ran almost exactly as initially presented--with the addition of the consultation step that ensured the success of the effort. The community experi-enced a year-long dialogue that resulted in deeper self-under-standing and greater commitment to the group's focus. It is not only within congregations that outstanding leaders exercise their ministry. Groups of leaders have joined together to influence not only the church and religious life but also soci-ety at large. One regional group has chosen to confront media use of negative stereotypes in portraying religious. They are deter- Review for Religious mined to educate local media personnel about the positive reali-ties of religious life. Calls by leadership for prayer and fasting are increasingly common and are taken seriously by members. A leadership team formally called its members to prayer and fasting on a set day each week as a means of discerning and seeking openness to the call of the Spirit regarding the future of their congregation. In terms of the questions remaining, the growing number and the growing complexity of contemporary needs appear to out-strip religious orders' ability to develop the leadership skills and organize themselves enough to address these needs. For some individuals, relinquishing both the satisfactions and the pains of direct apostolates in order to develop and use leadership skills to achieve systemic and organizational change may be the form of a new asceticism, For others, learning how to be effective board members of congregational and external institutions may be the way to exercise leadership. The critical issues outlined in the introduction to this section remain. They are summarized best in the question concerning the willingness and the ability of reli-gious congregations to provide leadership not only for themselves but also for the institutions they sponsor and the ministries in which they are involved. Corporate ldentity Of all the driving forces identified in the FORUS study, cor-porate identity was perhaps the most misunderstood. It does not imply a congregation's insistence on one type of ministry or one site at which all would live and work. Corporate identity is, rather, a common focus for the life of the ~roup. In a sense, corporate identity provides an answer to the question "What is this group known for?" Corporate. identity is not identical with charism, but flows" from charism. It is the manner in which a religious con-gregation, being faithful to its founding purpose, attempts to focus its many resources to respond to today's most pressing human needs. As avenues of ministry expanded after the council, it became increasingly common for members to be involved in any of the works in which a professional might be engaged. These ministe-rial moves--often in the form of entrepreneurial enterprises-- reflected the zeal of the members as they sought new ways to minister in today's world while simultaneously using both their March-April 1996 Ukeritis * Religious Life's Ongoing Rene~val innate gifts and the skills they had developed. At other times the forces of individualism moved members to pursue areas of inter-est regardless of the connection of their work with the congre-gation's mission. In both cases, this resulted in the dispersion of religious women and men. Religious came to be identified more and more as individual ministers, frequendy heroic in their efforts, frequently invisible as religious. The mutual relationship between the congregation and the individual member, particularly as related to the mission and ministry, was lost. Media reports that document the work of a religious priest, sister, or brother fre-quently fail to mention the member's congregation by name. Changes in the general population as regards violence, increased poverty, and widespread drug abuse--along with greater cultural diversity in the United States--have forced religious to rethink the locus and mode of their ministerial involvements. Increased complexity resulting from globalization and new tech-nologies has heightened the challenge. The overwhelming demand for new understandings and additional language skills, coupled with the shift in the ability of religious to respond .enthusiasti-cally with bodily presence to many of these situations, demands serious examination of how resources are used and immense cre-ativity in crafting responses. Many able leaders of congregations recognized their mem-bers' need for a focal point of congregational energies. Such a requirement is basic to the dynamics of any functioning group: all the more so for a group of individuals who have professed a life commitment in a religious congregation. In most cases these loci began as small endeavors. In some instances initial efforts seemed to fail, as in the case of one group's attempt to establish a shelter for adolescent girls. Examination of the situation and a willingness to admit shortcomings, learn from apparent .defeat, and directly address problem areas were critical in the. revitalization of that effort and its success today. A group with a long history of staffing private academies opted to replicate a successful project that another congregation had begun in the area. It took the form of a learning center for at-risk middle-school students in the inner city of a metropolitan area. The congregation took care to establish a focused sponsoring group as it missioned some members to initiate the work. This sponsoring group not only provided both the civic and religious communities with a sense of stability regarding the project, but Review for Religious also was a positive factor in securing funding and contributions from outside sources. For example, alumni/ae of other schools sponsored by the congregation (particularly schools that had been closed) found a type of kinship with the ministry. They were enthusiastic in their support of this new educational venture, which included a school, a pre- and after-school study center, summer camp experience, and a locus for parent education. In it they saw themselves forming a link with the next generation of those served by the very congregation that had given them an excellent education. As in the example described in the earlier FORUS report, sev-eral congregations--each one using a process that worked best for it--have selected an issue such as domestic violence, home-lessness, or ecological awareness as a focus for their corporate efforts. In such situations the members' activities range from let-ter writing to involving students or parishioners in direct-service projects. On a congregational scale, artists have pooled their tal-ents to create productions intended both to raise funds to sup-port the work and to raise consciousness about the issue. Members have encouraged their sponsored institutions to participate in walks to support the cause, again both to raise money and to make the public more aware of the issue. Congregations have pooled resources to provide salaries for state or regional advocacy. Once again, both direct action and efforts, at systemic change are crit-ical. As Amata Miller IHM noted in the video presentation that accompanied Threads for the Loom, one o~ the contributions that religious congregations can make is in their commitment to a geographic area. Few individuals are able to commit the twenty or more years required to make significant changes' in a neighbor-hood, but a religious congregation can make that commitment-- and ensure that change. For any group interested in addressing the question of cor-porate identity, several pitfalls remain. The. process requires, com-mitment from a core group. Obtaining a sense of the members--often in the face of great apathy--is key, for this pro-cess is aimed at group ownership of the. project. Congregations that have .experienced success in their efforts have' been willing to think small initially, to celebrate, the seemingly insignificant vic-tories, and to encourage their members to connect the focus with current ministerial efforts. In this process it will be a rare group that does not have members trying to define some issue so that it March-April 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal will encompass everything: ecology and AIDS and educational reform. No one would deny the significance of any of these issues. No one group, in this day, can focus simultaneously and effec-tively on all three. Corporate America provided us recently with this lesson when Anheuser-Busch and AT&T recognized publicly the need to define themselves more clearly in order to provide better service. In 1995 Busch announced its plans to divest itself of both the Eagle snack-foods division and its entertainment parks, and AT&T made public its plans to split into three companies, each focusing on a different service or product area. Admittedly, religious orders are not major for-profit corpo-rations. They do, however, stand to learn something from the world around them. Ultimately, of course, they must make sure that any such efforts of theirs are connected with the mission of Jesus, as expressed by the congregation and its charism. Without this spiritual connection, any such efforts would be a sort of fla-vor- of-the-month dilettantism. Conclusion As the reader may have noted, it is difficult to hold separate the three factors selected for review. Issues of individual mem-bership, and call (individualism/vocation), group identity (corpo-rate identity), and ways of enabling the group to accomplish its task (average/excellent leadership) do not exist in isolation from one another. Given the limits of human abilities, focus on one or another at a given time may be not only appropriate but necessary. Considering one area as the place to find "the answer," however, while ignoring the other areas of concern may lead. away from a successful resolution of a problem or to the ineffective imple-mentation of an intervention. As noted above, the hold of indi-vidualism may tend to block the best efforts of successful leaders. Ineffective leaders may not be able to make good use of a newly focused corporate identity. Clear corporate identity may enable individuals to determine the appropriateness of their member-ship in a given community. Unlike the Israelites who ultimately arrived at the Promised Land, it is not probable--and is very likely undesirable--that reli-gious life will attain the stability it seems to have experienced as late as the early 1960s.I° It is imperative, however, that members of religious orders address realistically the issues related to their Review for Religious viability and vitality)1 More than the ordinary members, religious who have been entrusted with greater responsibility for the charism of their congregation must strive to ensure that the gift given them for all of God's people is passed on. Admittedly, for some, this may entail suppression of an institute or evolution to some new form. Modeling death with dignity, in a Christian atmo-sphere of letting go, may prove to be a great lesson for a society inclined increasingly to resist surrender to the paschal-mystery cycle of life-death-resurrection. However, to fail to address the questions honesdy and work earnestly toward answers and imple-mentation might be a great infidelity to the ever present grace of God. To face all of this, We will need courage. We will need energy. We will need vision. We will need to be at ease with ourselves and our decisions. Above all, like the psalmist, we will need to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, our God, until God lets us rest. And then we will know, as we have always known, that the effort was worth the gift of our lives, the best of our years, the length of our days.'z The title of this article reflecting on continuing efforts in the renewal of religious life 'contains the question "Will Good Intentions Suffice?" Hopefully, an answer key is not necessary to determine this author's response. Notes ~ See David Nygren CM and Miriam Ukeritis CSJ, The Future of Religious Orders in the United States: Tran~Cormation and Commitment (New York: Praeger, 1993). 2 The Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, with the cosponsorship of Review for Religious, hosted the 26-29 October 1995 symposium "Religious Life 30 Years Later: Is This What Vatican II Intended?" 3 Anne Munley IHM, Threads for the Loom: LCWR Planning and Ministry Studies (Silver Spring, Maryland: Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 1992). 4 For an executive summary of this project, see Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 6-55, or Origins 22, no. 15 (24 September 1992). See also n. 1 above. Marcb-Aptql 1996 Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life's Ongoing Renewal s While levels of energy and constraints of calendar are realities, a mantra-like refrain of "We're too tired!" or "We don't have time!" among members of religious orders would signal a host of issues more critical than age or schedules. 6 Bellah's works on this subject, each with several other authors, include Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) and The Good Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). 7 Patricia Wittberg SC, Creating a Future for Religious Life: A Sociological Perspective (New York: Paulist Press, 1991). 8 "Results of the Survey on Associate Membership," Horizon 16, no. 2 (Winter 1991). 9 In the early 1980s, one external observer of the religious-forma-tion process likened the care given the few members who entered religious orders to the attention lavished on chicks of a nearly extinct species of birds. Resources were lavished on a few in the hope that they would sur-vive to adulthood. At times formation personnel felt as thpugh they were held hostage by both the candidates and the vowed members until they produced conditions that would get the candidates to make a life com-mitment. ,0 See Patricia Wittberg SC, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), for an his-torical perspective on this notion. ,1 In November 1994, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious convened a think tank on the viability of religious institutes. As reported in that month's LCWR Update, the group searched experience for lessons. After looking at examples of the merger or reconfiguration of religious institutes, the suppression of institutes to create a new congregation, and the decision of a congregation to die with grace, the group concluded that the key element in each case was leadership. In every instance the out-come was shaped by the kind of leadership that had been exercised. 12 Clare Dunn CSJ and Judy Lovchik CSJ. Playmates Winter and springtime playing leapfrog together in March, April, May, Dorothy Forman OSF Review for Religious THERESA MANCUSO The Urban Hermit: Monastic Life in the City Does urban monasticism work? What is an urban hermit? How and why live a solitary monastic lifestyle in the midst of the city? Who are these people? New forms and expressions of monastic life have occurred historically throughout the centuries in both Eastern and Western Christian tradition. They continue to evolve today in the new landscape of the modem world where the hermit's life--the monk in solitude--is not lim-ited to a rural setting, but has found its plake in the city. Monks and nuns in the twentieth and twenty-first cen-turies will be eremitical and cenobitical; they will live in communities and alone, in the country and in the. city. Monastic life has but one rule: the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The goal and purpose of the monas-tic way is union with God, the unification of the person, human salvation, enlightenment, and wisdomuin a word, happiness. Accordingly, monastic life in every time and place is a committed and consecrated endeavor to live faithfully by the precepts of Christ. The monastic voca-tion arises when and where it will in direct response to the call of grace. The urban hermit finds himself or her-self immersed in the spiritual treasures of monastic tra-dition, an integral expression here and now of that same tradition. Theresa Mancuso published "Reflection on the Solitary Life'-' in our September-October 1994 issue. She lives at 310 Beverly Road #4F; Brooklyn, New York 11218. seeking God March-April 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit Bede Griffiths, the charismatic, daring Benedictine who took his monastic vocation to India and back, wrote in The Marriage of East and l/Vest that: ¯. whatever the fate of this present world, the real need is to find a way of life which is able to survive all such disas-ters. In the Roman Empire it was monastic life which saved the world . . . monks who fled to the deserts of Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia founded a way of life based on prayer and work in conditions of the utmost poverty and simplicity and alone survived the collapse of the Roman Empire . . . [their] teaching and example led to the foun-dation of monasteries all over Eur6pe, in which the basis of a new civilization could be found. Today. there has been a revival of monastic life all over the world., centers of ferment which [may] gradually trans-form society and make possible a new civilization. The world of Bede Griffiths appears, perhaps, far removed from the noisy metropolis of New York, Chicago, Washington, Paris, Ba'rcelona, or Hong Kong. Nevertheless, the same ageless truths of which Bede spoke are the Gospel imperatives that call monastic life into being--new forms and old, today like yesterday. That which impelled Bede Griffiths to live his own monastic life a world away in the Hindu ashram is the same impetus that has given rise to solitary monastic ventures in the heart of the city. There is no geography, no time or place, in which monasticism cannot thrive and contemplative life grow. Prayer, work, poverty, and simplicity are the bedrock of a monastic heart. Alone as solitary or hermit or in the midst of community, the monk's path (monk meaning male and female) is to be immersed in God, preoccupied with the Gospel of Christ, living its life, breathing its breath, soaked in the perennial abso-lutes about which there is no ~luestion, no geography, no barrier of age, time, place, culture, or condition. In days of old, the desert was a city, according to D.J. Chitty in his classic work about early monasticism, The Desert a City. Today, perhaps, we can say it another way: the city a desert. What is this desert, then, so fundamental to the monk's life? Desert is wasteland, wilderness, barren solitude, profound silence. Desert is seclusion where the monk searches in prayer and penance, self-emptying (kenosis), th(deliberate renunciation of selfish desires, striving for inner emptiness, awaiting the hour of God's time (kairos), the manifestation of divine grace. Review for Religious The urban hermit is a kind of monk among many. Like monks everywhere, the urban hermit is consecrated to God by vows, sacred promises public or private, temporary or perpetual, worded traditionally--poverty, chastity, obedience, stability--or stated in creative new expressions. The meaning is the same. The monk is one, consecrated, offered, surrendered in complete dedication to God, steadfast in love, permeated with an all-encompassing charity that defines the heart of the monk as lover of God, com-passionate toward all God's creatures. Love sustains the lifestyle of the monastic vocation. Monasticism is a life of union and unity, communion and com-munity, silence and solitude, depth and diver-sity. Love is the call; love, the vocation; love, the path, the way, the meaning, and the reward. God, not a human inventor, makes monks. And this God does when and where he pleases. With the entire focus of the heart fixed on God, the monastic way may weave a strange thread indeed, not perhaps the dream one had in first embarking on the monastic journey. As life unfolds, so does the call of God. Consecration, dedication, immer-sion in Christ--these are what remains. All the rest is incidental. Accordingly, as the grace of God unfolds in pers.onal human history, the fine tuning of a monastic vocation eventually comes to fit the individual. In other words, who and what we are from the hand of God and our mother's womb finally dictates who and what we must become. The mystery of sanctification is some-times conditioned by transition, but it is always and everywhere in God's hands. To be consecrated means to live in the presence of God, to be centered in him, devoted to him, belonging to him, regardless of the conditions of life which are--after all--only the environment, not the essence of the monastic vocation. It is not surprising, then, or at least it should not be, that we have come to find monks and nuns living alone in the city, years and miles from where their monastic journey began. This, too, is caught up in the mystery of salvation. The beautiful Rule of Life created nearly twenty years ago by Father Pierre-Marie Delfieux for the Jerusalem Community-- monks of the city--says: ". You can live in God's heart at the heart of the city because it is his dwelling place. Be monk and nun in the very heart of the city of God" (No. 128). This is true What is this desert so fundamental to the monk's life? Marcb-dp~ql 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit of individuals as well as communities. Lacking financial endow-ment that might create the illusion of security, safety, and afford complete separation from the world, the urban hermit must go out every single day into the hustle and busde of the city just to make a living. And this is exactly as it should be. To be "monk and nun in the very heart of the city of God" is to work in the midst of humanity, to suffer the problems and dif-ficulties of the job, the discipline of tasks that await one at the workplace. It is not a distraction to work in the real world. It is, rather, a call to the most generous and absolute imperative: to center one's heart by turning inward at the same time as one must turn outward in labor. There is no duality in this process; it is an act of unification, part and parcel of monastic experience. Laborare et orate. The work of balancing internal contemplative life with exter-nal work in the center of the city requires a kind of persever-ance. In the beginning, it may seem impossible to remain contemplative in the busy atmosphere of city life. But, no, it is not impossible. The heart cries out to God, "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner," and learns, bit by bit, to pray easily in the midst of all the noisy activity and wild frenzy of the city. Over time, the monk in the world realizes the deep-est center to be one's own impenetrable fortress of joy, faith, Spirit, and Life. Later in his Rule, Father Pierre-Marie says: "What the early monks set out to seek yesterday in the desert, you will find today in the city. All monastic life is a fight and urban monasticism calls for fighters. Followers of Christ, the Beatitudes summon you to a life of real struggle in the heart of the city" (No. 129). There is no protection but God's for the urban hermit who lives and dwells in the real world, as stark and naked a reality as ever there was in the heart of the desert. Like the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the urban hermit knows the isolation and threat of the wilderness, the roar of beasts and the temptation of the heart. To find peace in the city is to walk with God in the deepest center of one's being. " The Monastic Typicon ofNeTv Skete (1980) says this about work: "Throughout history, our fathers and brethren in monastic life have taught that work is not only required to sustain oneself, but that it is equally important as a means of self-discipline and as an adiunct to prayer and worship and individual total growth. Review for Religious Work, therefore,ds part and parcel of our life, first of all, because it;is essential to monastic life in general" (Nos. 71 and 72). The urban hermit, bound by the same need to work that char-acterizes all persons, is fortunate if livelihood can be obtained working at home within the poustinia, but this is not always the case. In fact, it is rarely possible. The monk in the world must learn to accommodate to working conditions in the professions or elsewhere, whether the work~is manual or intellectual. Work joins the monk to all people of all time and place. "With the sweat of your brow shall you earn your bread" (Gn 3:19). Over time, work itself becomes sweet to the monk, for it is but another expres-sion of the inner song of the heart: "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." It has been said that it is not the habit that makes the monk. Nor is it the work. What is essential in mdnastic spirituality is that work and every other dimension of life be characterized by the interior spirit of recollection, purity of intention, and single-mindedness. Work is a sanctifying process, it is not a distraction. By reaching down deeper and deeper into the pool of faith in order to carry out one's work properly, the work and the worker will be immersed and bathed in the light of divine presence. Thus the monk in the marketplace is at home in God's world. In Contemplation in a World of Action, Thomas Merton wrote decades ago, perhaps the prelude for today's monk in the world: "Do we really choose between the world and Christ as between two conflicting realities absolutely opposed? Or do we choose Christ by choosing the world as it really is in Him, that is to say, created and redeemed by him? Do we really renounce ourselves and the world in order to find Christ, or do we renounce our alienated and false selves in order to choose our own deepest truth in choosing both the world and Christ at the same time?" The urban hermit, immersed now in solitude, now in actual labor outside the hermitage, seeks to integrate the contemplative life of the poustinia with the, marketplace where a living is earned. Renunciation of the false self and transcendence over the spirit of the world through the practice of interior recollection and con-templative prayer purify the heart and transform the effort to do one's best into the peaceful harmony that defines right livelihood. The monk is called by God to live alone in him--monos-- monacbos--one--single--alone. In community or in the hermitage wherever it may be, the monk strives to be of single .'focus. In the March-Apt41 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit marketplace the monk is living witness to the holiness of work, the goodness of the world, and the salvation of the earth by the mercy of God. As humility should characterize the soul of a monk, so, too, simplicity, charity, gentleness, tenderness, compassion will exemplify the detachment of heart that frees the religious hermit and enables the monk to live in the world without becoming worldly. The urban hermit strives to renounce that which is worldly (self-centered, egotistical, arrogant, profit-seeking, and decep-tive), to cast out and obliterate those attitudes of mind that block communion with God and harmony with one's fellow creatures on this fragile planet. The pure heart of God's solitary learns to return to the world as often as necessary, not as an adventurer seeking new pleasures or material power, but as one crucified in Christ, transfigured ,by Christ, restored to innocence and holi-ness of life. The soul of the monk, one would hope, gradually becomes transparent, clean, empty, full and brimming over with the joy that comes only from God. The Monastic Typicon of New Skete states that: "Prayer and worship are the major concerns of monastic life. Through the liturgical celebrations [monks] participate in the mysteries of the life and death of Christ, thus moving toward the universal reali-ties of resurrection and transfiguration" (No. 60). The urban her-mit, in communion with monks and nuns of every time and place, lives in the. paschal mystery of the Lord by entering into liturgi-cal celebrations, whether the Liturgy of the Hours or the Eucharist. The "divine office" marks the hours of the day, spiraling the soul in and out of psalmody, uplifting, descending, flying to God, returning to earth. The urban hermit, at work in the marketplace of the world, simply does not have the luxury of stopping to chant the Third Hour, the Sixth Hour, or the Ninth Hour of the day. Nevertheless, interior prayer should never cease, but accompany all our actions, those of labor and social intercourse, as well as the times and places when we are free to enter most deeply into the prayer of the church. Urban hermits try to celebrate as many hours of the "divine office" as are possible in the demands of every day, for life in the world requires the monk to be present to its concerns without losing the focus of vocation. Prime. Lauds. Matins. Vespers. Compline. At least pa~'t of the regular Hours m'ust be celebrated Review for Religio1~s alone or in the parish church if possible. Sometimes the urban hermit may join a religious community for the observance of litur-gical prayer. The wisdom of the desert is today the wisdom of the city-- that is, the city of God. It would be foolishness to overburden one-self by attempting to work a required 35 6r 40 hour week outside the hermitage and expect to be able to complete all the Liturgy of the Hours. Certainly, God does not require the impossible. The rule of faith is simple: Do what is possible. Do what you can. But do everything you can as best you can, with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole being. Concentrate the very fiber of your existence on that which is given to God without neglect-ing that which is given to people. What is the difference anyway between the basket-weaving monk in the wilderness of Egypt who goes down to sell wares at the marketplace from time to time and the computer-opera-tor monk in the center of Manhattan who commutes to Brooklyn or Queens by subway after work? It is the spirit, the heart of the monk---interior substance--that matters. That which defines the monastic vocation is singleness of focus. Prayer that is intimate and ongoing moment by moment, hour by hour, cements our union with God and prompts the conversion of our hearts over and over again, making holy not only our poor, fragile lives, but everything we touch and everyone we love. The monk is leaven in the marketplace and remains so by cherishing and using advantageously the secret silenc~e and deep seclusion of the hermitage, even when many hours must be spent outside. The Liturgy of the Hours is first and finally the greatest cel-ebration of the heart and the center of monastic life. It is the joy of Christians and the soul of monasticism. To chant the "divine office" is to enter again and again into the ageless mystery of Christ. Season by season, liturgical texts teach the heart, renew the spirit, and join humanity to God in the person of Christ, the only lover of humanity. Simplicity, charity, gentleness, tenderness, compassion will exemplify the detachment of heart that frees the religious hermit and enables the monk to live in the world without becoming worldly. MarclJ-Aptql 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit The monk at large may celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours in a monastery church with a community of brother or sister monks or in the parish church anywhere in the city or countryside of his or her abode. It does not matter. At the heart of the liturgy is found the whole meaning of the monastic vocation: to die and rise with Christ in fulfillment of the Father's will for the redemp-tion of the world. The Eucharist is the food of monastic life, its sustenance and joy. To find a monk who does not deeply love the liturgy is to find a sorry sort of monk. Therefore, time and energy must be made available to participate properly in the celebration, of the Eucharist. This is the heart and center of the monastic life. As practiced by Pachomius and the monks of Eastern Christendom, the Eucharist was celebrated weekly, not daily, though it remains the privilege and practice in the Latin rite to celebrate Eucharist daily. The liturgical chants that surround the Eucharist provide spiritual nourishment and food for contemplation. The urban hermit goes forth from the church after participation in the liturgy, and carries back to the city and back to the hidden place of his or her own poustinia the wealth of Scripture that echoes in the prayers of the Eucharist. Be it a tiny .apartment in a busy housing complex or a huge industrial or professional workplace, the chants and meaning of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist remain with the urban hermit all day, eveory day, feed-ing heart and mind with those things which endure, the living breath of contemplative life. Finally, the urban hermit learns to safeguard religious seclu-sion and solitude which provide the depth of silence and cen-teredness that is indispensable to the monastic way. The integrity of monastic life and the monk's personal steadfastness in this voca-tion arise from that wellspring of silence and solitude that ripened by seclusion. Nevertheless, the monk in the city must never become a self-preoccupied hermit whose reclusive tendencies spring from self-deception as if the world were a contagion to be avoided at all cost. A balance of solitude is derived from a healthy view of reality. The opposite is unsound. To live in the midst of the world as an urban hermit is not to sacrifice or minimize the essential quality of seclusion and solitude necessary for ctntemplative prayer. Urban hermits are usually not reclusive. To go inward for the sake of contemplation is a dis- Review for Refigious cipline of the heart, not an act of walls and fences. Monks in the world must come and go; while cherishing and protecting the inner sanctuary of monastic seclusion that is an essential element of the hermit's life. They accomplish this by setting and main-taining proper boundaries. Hospitality and social needs are part of reality--essential for psychological and spiritual balance, no more, no less. They, too, like everything else, must be harmonized with reality in the vocation of the city monk. All the more must the urban hermit learn to bal-ance seclusion and secular involvement, for, being alone, he or she needs to understand what constitutes a necessary monastic enclo-sure in the world and what constitutes run-ning away. Extremes can best be avoided by studying the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord went apart to pray; he rested in the desert and returned to the city. So, too, the monk in the marketplace needs separation from the world. If monks today are to be the salt of society, "the monastery" must be accessible to all, so that they (those in the world who come into contact with monastic life) "may savor its life, its worship, and its message" (Monastic Typicon of New Skete, No. 28). The monk who goes forth from the silent sanctuary of a quiet hidden hermitage in the midst of the city to work and walk among the people of the world does so from necessity and generosity to let the world taste and savor the consecrated life, what it is and what it means, inviting the world to share in the worship and message of the monastic vocation. We must not hide from life, but embrace it, immersing every aspect of it into the mystery of Christ as we ourselves plunge our entire existence into the paschal real-ity, first at baptism, then throughout the day~ of our vocation. It is thus that all is transfigured b,y the grace of God and the entire cosmos shares in the transfiguration of Christ. For the urban hermit, this harmonious integration of all things is at the center of the monastic vocation. But tha~ is exacdy as it has always been for monastic life today and throughout its history--the still point in the turning world, where God and humanity meet and the spark of wisdom is given to illuminate the earth. To find a monk who does not deeply love the liturgy is to find a sorry sort of monk. Marcb-Aptql 1996 Mancuso ¯ The Urban Hermit I like to think Bede Griffiths or Thomas Merton, or indeed any of the great monks and nuns who are our spiritual forebears, might share a day or week in the life of an urban monk and find themselves altogether quite comfortable. They would recognize the rhythm of prayer, silence, solitude, work, hospitality, study, lec-tio divina, and liturgy. Those great followers of St. Anthony, father of Egyptian monasticism, or those who walk with St. Benedict, who codified monastic life--and all the others in between--should recognize in the urban hermit, monk in the world, the same hunger for God that led them in their own spiritual journeys. They would know the path, for it is one: forsaking all, embracing all, a voyage of the heart through dark and desolate places, remote and wild, desert and city, places where the monastic vocation thrives and God meets humanity in a singular embrace of love. References Chitty, D.J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961. Griffiths, Bede. The Marriage of East and West. Springfield, Illinois: Templegate Publishers, 1982. Merton, Thomas. Contemplation in a World of Action. New York: Doubleday, 1971. At Hand but Unattended I spend my foolish life in search of marvels, of wonders to delight and startle me. The ordinary could not hold my interest, my soul each da. y demanded mystery.~ I envied those who lived when. Christ was preaching, who saw him work his wonders with a word. What drama to have seen a blind man sighted, the lepers cleansed, the deaf when first they heard. But, oh, how stupid I with all my longing, my searching for a miracle to see. I let my days go by, not ever grasping my miracle was God creating me. James F. Finley Review for Religious MARIE BEHA Enclosed in the Mystery of Jesus My " stery is a reality which we must explore from within, .a. ¯ .~. enter into, and live with. In contrast, a problem is some-thing we must externalize, be objective about, and solve. We pre-fer the latter, delighting in the challenge, the sense of mastery and control which it gives us. So we relish a "mystery" story just because it presents us with a whole set of "problems" to be solved. And we resist the mysteries in our lives even though we are fas-cinated by the breadth and depth of the big questions like "Where do we come from?" and "What is life?" Religious who freely choose to live enclosed lives present problems for many, even for many Catholics, just because they are so mysterious. Why would persons choose to confine them-selves within a drastically limited geographic space, associating, for the most part, with the same few people for the rest of their lives? It sounds as dismal as life-in-prison. But this is to make the mis-take of seeing enclosure in a problematic context. It is to bang our fists demanding an answer that satisfies us. It als0 misses the invitation to explore a mystery. Unfortunately, not much has been written on enclosure, and much of what has been done approaches it from its more prob-lematic side, presenting its canonical aspects, pointing out its rea-sonableness, or seeking to justify its continuance. Valid, certainly, since enclosure, like other incarnational realities, has external shape and form. Far more importantly, it also has a heart of mys-tery that invites exploration. Two contemporary efforts present the basic meaning of enclo-sure, inviting the reader to explore the reality to appreciate its Marie Beha OSC may be addressed at 1916 N. Pleasantburg Drive; Greenville, South Carolina 29609. March-April 1996 Beha * Enclosed in the Mystery of Jerus mystery. The first of these interpretations has been articulated by Sister Chiara Lainati in an article in Forma Sororum (vol. 4/5 [1983]: 200-203) where she describes it as a "particular way in the church of living out the paschal mystery . . . the emptying out of Christ on the cross" (p. 201). The second is that of Father Herbert Schneider:, who in his Commentary on the General Constitutions (private!y publ!shed, 1992, pp. 14-15), p[esents enclo-sure as "the place of decision to remain with the Lord" related to the statement of the Lord, "Remain in my love" (Jn 15:4). Each of our interpreters has the credentials to present this mystery of enclosure. Sister Chiara Lainati is a Poor Clare nun, a member of the protomonastery in Assisi, where she has served as abbess while continuing to do writing and research on topics related to the Poor Clare way of life. Presently she is the abbess of the small group of Clares pioneering a new contemplative foun-dation in the Vatican. Father Herbert Schneider has been provin-cial of the Franciscan province of Cologne and spiritual assistant of the Federation of German-speaking Poor Clares. At present he is in Rome as the delegate general to all communities who claim affiliation with the Franciscan Order, including the Poor Clares, In this office he has visited monasteries all over the world, presenting workshops as well as attending chapters of Poor Clare federations. Although papal enclosure directly involves only a few Christians, the reality which it symbolizes is a staple of Christian living. Each of us in our own style of life needs to incorporate such values as stability, participating in the paschal mystery, and remaining in Christ. To do this we have to accept many kinds of limits, including geographic ones. Enclosed in the Paschal Mystery Sister Chiara Lainati's "Enclosure: Characteristic Way for Clare to Express the Paschal Mystery" begins by rejecting the more traditional interpretations of enclosure as a "means" of pro-tecting chastity or of promoting the life of contemplation. In cri-tiquing the latter she points out that today there are other more suitable means, such as courses on prayer or the word of God. In her view, enclosure, like the other vows, is a way of entering more deeply into the self-emptying of Jesus. Just as poverty is described traditionally as a renunciation of material possessions, chastity as; Review for Religio us renunciation of sexual intimacy, marriage, and family, and obedi-ence as renunciation of one'~ self-will and determination, enclo-sure "limits a person in space, impoverishes her in her possibilities of action and of spatial liberty." This points out the "underside" of all the vows; they all include a saying "no" to some important human values, but only for the sake of a saying "yes" to some-thing else. "In this perspective enclosure has value in itself, as an opening of oneself to grace, just as Christ, alone on the mountain, was open to the contemplation of the Father" (p. 14). Sister Chiara treats of the origins of Clare's profession of enclosure. She believes that it originated during her brief stay at Sant' Angelo di Panzo, after she had left the Benedictine Monastery of San Paolo and before Francis took her to San Damiano, which was to become her true home. According to Sister Chiara, the group at Sant' Angelo was a community of recluses and penitents from whom Clare took "the completely new and revolutionary idea of a bond of deeper union in that kenosis of Christ which is his solitude of death on the cross" (p. ,1'5). Parenthetically Sister Chiara mentions that enclosure was not forced upon IZlare but was' her own free choice; there were other options even in her own .day. Witness the Beguine movement in which groups of pious women lived in common and practiced the corporal works of mercy. Clare could have chosen a similar form of active ministry, but she seems to have felt called to a lifestyle that included the discipline of enclosure. The question, then, is not whether Clare was enclosed, but the why and the bow of her choice. Both, according to Sister Chiara, evolved as expressions of the mystery of the kenosis of Jesus. Over and over again, Clare emphasizes the importance of "keeping one's eyes fixed on Jesus" (Heb 3:1). Specifically she urges Agnes of Prague to look in the mirror that is Jesus and to see reflected there the Infant Christ and the Crucified One: Look at the border of this mirror, that is; the poverty of him who was placed in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then at the surface of the mirror, consider the holy humility, the blessed poverty, the untold labors and bur-dens that he endured for the redemption of the whole human race. Then in the depth of this same mirror, con-template the ineffable charity that led him to suffer on the " wood of the cross and to die there the most shameful kind of death. March-April 1996 Beba * Enclosed in the Mystery of Jesus Let us respond with one voice, with one spirit, to him crying and grieving who said: Remembering this over and over leaves my soul downcast within me (IV LAg. 19:22- 26). Looking at Jesus Crucified was not idle speculation for Clare, nor just an exercise in contemplative piety. For her, seeing involved not only believing but also living out of that belief. It meant imitation, a putting on the Lord Jesus that brought about a profound interior change. It was participation in the mystery of Jesus. As Clare looked at Jesus, what she saw was not only his bod-ily suffering but at a deeper level the. self-emptying that was sur-render to the Father's will. It was the same self-emptying that marked the incarnation ("He emptied himself, taking the form' of a servant" Ph 2:7), continued all through his active ministry ("My food is to do the will of the one who sent me" Jn 4:34), and culminated in that last triumphant cry, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:46). What does it mean to empty oneself?. At first glance this seems a contradiction. To let go of externals, persons, or things, is theoretically possible, though dif-ficult, but to empty self of self?. How can that be? It sounds, at best, like looking for a way to lift oneself by oneself. Where could one stand, take hold of oneself, to initiate the process? Mystery again. First of all is the mystery of what we mean by self. And if that were not enough, there is the still greater mystery of the process itself. Self, as well as self-emptying, like all mysteries, can only be discovered from inside ourselves. Each of us already has some experience of what we mean by se/fwhen we say, "I am not my best self .today," or affirm, "Yes, that is true of me. That is the way I am." In each instance we have some core experience to which we turn, the bedrock of our personal identity. We recognize ourselves even when we cannot give anything like an adequate description of who we are. This is so because the self that I am is a very sim-ple concept, one that cannot easily be broken down. There is no simple recipe that will blend the right ingredients into a whole we can identify as myself Adding up qualities never sums identity. We can only work toward self-knowledge within the revelatory context of our everyday-lives. This process of self-discovery is initiated with the beginnings of consciousness and continues till death. It is dynamic, a lesson Review for Religious never completely learned but essentially ongoing. Initially the focus is on relating self to an external world, distinguishing myself from other realities. So the baby discovers: I am separate from the surrounding bed, different from mother. How separate? How different? The former distinction will be discovered quite easily; the latter may never be completely accomplished! But this is only negative knowledge: I am not .Ahead lies the whole range of positive identification: "I am .". Others hold up a mirror of how they see us and we begin to discover ourselves in that reflection. I am. baby. I am. good baby., sometimes! Fortunate the individual whose first feedback from others is real-istic and basically positive. Inevitably some of it will be neither. Others may identify us with their problems, ignore us, threaten us, deny us, abuse us. Initially we are almost completely dependent on these impressions received from others; that is why these are so formative. Most of the rest of our lives, we will experience some flashback of these first experiences of who we are. As time goes on, we begin to accumulate a growing memory bank of others' perceptions and of our own self-reflection; together these become the core of our identity We learn how we relate and are related to others, what we can and cannot do, and why we choose or refuse as we do. We come to describe ourselves in such obvious ways as age, sex, size, and shape but much more significandy as smart or stupid, as lovable or unlovable, as good enough or not good enough. Over time these labels take on the reality of personal identity; true or false, they are who we think we are and so tend to become self-fulfilling prophecy. Still, this self-concept that forms me is not written in stone; rather it is as fluid as the flow of time and changing life circum-stances. I can and do become a different person, changing in ways that are more or less profound. Acquaintances who say "I hardly recognize you" may be noting only superficial characteristics. Others who know us better remind us, in the face of surprising changes in the externals of our lives, "I always thought you might. ," under-lining the continuity that is our basic identity. So where does self-emptying come into the picture? What could it mean? On one level it can mean that openness to change which allows us to grow and develop. Unless we are willing to let go of some of our past and present identity, our self-concept remains the same. Detachment is needed if we are to move away from previous self-definition. So change, even freely chosen and Marcb-~lplql 1996 Beba ¯ Enclosed in tbe Mystery of yesus The more significant the change the greater the threat, but conversion never comes without a price tag. desired change, can be painful. It poses risks; our self will never be the same, and We have grown accustomed to its face. The more significant the change the greater the threat, but conversion never comes without a price tag. Yet this is not the fullest meaning of self-emptying. Change is self-improvement or self-destruction, depending on its direc-tion, but self is still very much in the picture. We want it to be; this is how our functional self will grow. Even when we make a destructive choice, we do so under the delusion that this is somehow to our imme-diate advantage, mistakenly opting for imme-diate gratification rather than wait for the slower-appearing benefits of disciplined effort. As our functional self becomes more clearly delineated, we find ourselves growing in per-sonal security. Faithful response to the chal-lenge of ongoing conversion prepares us for another level of letting go; we begin to be capa-ble of self-forgetfulness. The focus shifts from me at the center of the world to a broader view that is increasingly other-centered. The inse-cure .adolescent (of whatever age) grows into the generous adult capable of entering the world of the other with fewer repeated nervous glances back to "how am I doing?" Who of us has not admired individuals mature enough to hold in creative tension the concerns of self with those of oth-ers. Secure in their self-identity, they are not so preoccupied with their own needs that they cannot even see those of others. Nor are they so involved in meeting the neediness of others that the self is at risk of'being destroyed in the process. The latter is only a dis-gnised form of self-gratification that threatens dual destruction. The maturity that makes self-forgetfulness possible opens the self to the world of others, allowing for a truly personal rela-tionship, a dialogue of love. The bonding of parent and child, of a long-married couple, of friends, all exemplify letting go of self for the sake of being with, being for, another. In these experi-ences we begin to discover the paradox that in losing ourselves we find ourselves. We become more ourselves because of the other, and we are grateful. These loving relationships that are first lessons in self-for-getfulness can begin at any age level; they continue for life and are Review for Religious always maturing. But they are not self-emptying. In self-forget-fulness there is still a self, with the focus shifting back and forth between self,and others. We are ourselves and we identify our-selves in loving the others, as loving the other. Self-emptying goes deeper still. Preliminary to it is our will-ingness to allow it to happen. "Let this attitude be in you which was also in Christ Jesus" (Ph 2:5). The self needs to accept self-emp-tying, such is the exquisite courtesy of God who always waits on the consent of our freedom. Still, the initiative is God's inviting us, gradually readying us, then asking us if we are ready. Our hearts must answer, not just our heads. The question: Where is your trea-sure; what do you really want? If our wholehearted response is: God, first of all, more than all, most of all, then the center of self changes. We are no longer just ourselves; our life "is hidden now with Christ, in God" (Col 3:3). This is where "we live and move and have our being" (Ac 17:28), and "I live now, not I . " (Ga 2:20). What was formerly said as pious slogan, then desired more or less seriously, now begins to be realized in our "mortal flesh." This is first experienced with the same sense of awkwardness that accompanies other beginnings. More than just strange, the loss of self is painful. Where is the I? What is happening? Even to ask these questions is to focus back on self. We might expect such a return to normal self-reflectiveness to feel familiar; it may not, and this will be even more disturbing. Who am I and who am I becoming? These questions may be natural enough, but they are no longer important or even relevant. We have to let them go, never mind the risk. This shift from I to the Other of God is as gradual as all other growth. For' a period of time, more or less prolonged, the self is sometimes operative and sometimes gone. We lose ourselves and then recover ourselves. Sometimes our activity will seem self-directed, self-reflective; at other times our focus will move to a self-forgetfulness that allows for a going beyond self. In all of this, though, we are free to say "yes" or "no." We cannot make it happen; that is beyond us. What is ours to do is to accept the divine action or refuse it. The latter occurs when we become afraid, clinging nervously to self; when we yield to the pseudosecurity of self-directed activity; when we try looking back over our shoulder to see ourselves. All of these are perfectly nat-ural, not supernatural; nor do they represent the level on which we are being invited to live. March-April 1996 Beha * Enclosed in the Mystery of yesus The simple truth is that we are no longer our own. We belong to another. "We are God's people, the sheep of God's flock" (Ps 100:3). It sounds fine in general! However, in all the particular-ity of our own experience it presents the most intriguing of mys-teries. Only through generous participation will we be able to share the new life being offered to us. While it is certainly true that we are experiencing a loss of self, it is even truer that we have never been more ourselves. This is who we really are: a creature, created in God's image, redeemed, sanctified and enabled to live divinely./~ are in Christ Jesus. Our truest self exists, lives, only in God, our beginning and our end. This is the self we are called to be "now and forever and forever." How does enclosure further this process of self-emptying? Sister Chiara Lainati states this without developing specifics. I believe the answer lies in the way that enclosure loosens the hold of the functional self and at the same time makes more possible a kind of primary centering on the other that is God. At- least that is its potential; like all of the other vows, enclosure provides an opportunity but does not automatically accomplish what it offers. Let us begin with the loosening of the grip of the functional self. Enclosure clearly limits personal geography so that we become very familiar with our surroundings; we are freer, then, to let go of our self-regarding, cautionary self without endangering life or limb. Contrast this with the degree of anxious concern that marks our traveling into strange space. In the same way, customary rela-tionships with familiar persons relax the ego's grip. We are freed from such self-regarding questions as: Who are we in this new relationship? How are we affected by it? Those are always self-regarding questions. At home and relaxed, we can be ourselves, forget ourselves, and be readied to go beyond ourselves. Similarly, within enclosure, simple, familiar work frees from those compet-itive, complex work situations that underline self-achievement, self-accomplishment, and the building up of the functional self. Put in a more positive way, by limiting one's field of vision, enclosure intensifies the seeing. Like a spotlight, it centers atten-tion on Another. This is illustrated by the inscription over many medieval monastery gates, "God alone," that was both a warning and a promise. Nothing else would be found within; self-seeking would find itself either badly malnourished, trying to satisfy itself on meager rations or starving to death; that was the warning. The promise: Beyond the self God was waiting. Review for Religious But only if the asceticism of an enclosed life was accepted graciously and lived faithfully. Included in the discipline: fidelity to the limits of physical geography, to intracommunity relation-ships and noncompetitive work. But none ,of these can be inter-preted in too materialistic a way. It is the heart that matters, the spirit that must be set free. Limited physical geography can imprison, circumscribed relationships can shrink one's world, and simple work can leave the mind dangerously idle. All such prac-tices can also become self-congratulatory, just as fasting can feed the ego. Each individual must discover for herself and then incorpo-rate into life the particular practices that will allow her to go deeper into the paschal mystery of Jesus. For example: Curiosity may need to be controlled though its object is legitimate; reading, even of a spiritual character, may need restriction lest the func-tional self become too active; even some self-satisfying forms of vocal or mental prayer may need to be abandoned. Examples could be multiplied; what they would have in common is the self-emptying that allows for a more complete immersion into the mystery of God. To the degree that this occurs, enclosure comes to partake in the paradox of the beatitudes. Emptiness will be filled with the fullness of God; being confined will bring greater freedom. Going apart will result in being still more a part; limited apostolic oppor-tunity will hasten the coming of the kingdom through a deepen-ing of the baptismal grace of being "buried with Christ" to "rise to new life with Christ" (Col 2:12). Relating enclosure to the paschal mystery of Jesus as Sister Chiara does permits new emphasis on its sacramental character. It has outward signs, but these point toward a deeper interior reality. But the new life within that is the exciting possibility of enclosure is not guaranteed. Nor is enclosure in the canonical sense of the term the only means. The same process of self-emp-tying for the sake of deeper immersion in the mystery of God can be accomplished in many different life circumstances. For example, fidelity to the limits of a geography circumscribed by poverty or illness, of family relationships stressed by contempo-rary nonvalues, of routine work that offers little room for self-congratulation-- all these can become occasions for self-emptying or for self-seeking. The choice is ours. Freely choosing to live ¯ within the limits of enclosure of whatever kind can be fruitful. March-April 1996 Beha ¯ Enclosed in the Mystery of yesus Though the limits and limitations of any kind of enclosure are real and should not be diluted, its basic purpose is positive: fuller participation in the mystery of God and growing freedom. When chosen as part of an ongoing vocational commitment, it becomes a way of waiting on God, of bringing forth new life in the church and the world, of growing in the freedom that is the power of Christ's redemptive death. Remaining in Jesus Father Herbert Schneider centers his presentation of enclo-sure around the gospel words "Remain in my love" (Jn 15:4). As he explains in his Commentary on the Poor Clare Constitutions, "Enclosure is the place of decision to remain with the Lord. The innermost enclosure is the space of the heart. In relationship to that, the enclosure of the building is a sign and a help" (p. ~14). Because enclosure is primarily a matter of the heart, Schneider suggests that a variety of interpretations may be given to its exter-nal form without changing its essential meaning. What is true is that enclosure has a value of itself and belongs to the basic ~ele-ments of contemplative life (p. 14). ~ Each life has a where, expressed on the geographic level when we say "My address is. ," or "I live in." and rephrased more significantly as ',IYm at home here" or "I no longer know where I am." In the latter two examples ~we begin to explore the way in which external space relates to the world of the psyche and, ulti-mately, to that of the spirit. In everyday parlance, we frequently use spatial metaphors to refer to internal realities: "personal space" and "individual direction." "Don't crowd me" can be meant lit-erally or it can be a graphic way of asking for more time, more space for personal considei, ation. Similarly, when we ask someone to show us the way, we may be hoping for directions on a map or direction fo~: life. As Schneider points out, enclosure is a spatial metaphor for the contemplative desire to remain with God. It is an incarna-tional reality, having both an external form and an interior real-ity. Either one without the other would be less than human, iust as an inanimate body is.only.a corpse and a disembodied soul seems conceivable only as a ghost (or an .angel). Viewed exter-nally, enclosure spells imprisonment, but for a contemplative spirit it provides necessary boundaries. Review for Religio~,s To live contemplatively requires space; that is the basic truth Schneider emphasizes. The external boundaries of enclosure pro-vide sacred space where the heart can find a home. This experi-ence of at-homeness is a familiar one, hopefully, to most of us. Although it may be difficult, even impossible to explain, we know there are places, circumstances, relationships in which we can relax, be ourselves, be at peace. We cher-ish these places, seek to find them, even try to create them. So where is a contemplative at home? Essentially, there is only one place, one circumstance, one relationship: in God. "Our hearts are restless till they rest in thee." Augustine knew from personal experience that we are at home nowhere else. Remain in me, dwell in me, abide in me--the same central truth is nuanced in a changing variety of translations. All use the imperative. We are told in the most direct of terms what we are to do: make our home in God. Though we might like to reduce this to a harmless figure of speech, the gospel command is insistent in its reality. In John's Gospel the details are spelled out with evangelical insistence: "Remain in my love" On 15:9) and "Remain in me, as I remain in you" On 15:4), Where can we find a lasting home? Only by living in love, .remaining there, abiding there. We like the idea, but we protest its impossibility. The world in which we live is not a very loving place:' Unfortunately, that misses the point completely. At issue is not the world around us as much as the world inside us. It is we, .at the very center of our being, who are to abide in love; it is our choice, our decision. No one, nothing outside, can evict us from this home. I may not wish to remain there; I may prefer to roam, seek-ing diversion anywhere I can find it. I am restlessly on the move, changing geography or just changing the subjecwI may look for diversion in the media or seek distraction in idle chatter. I may even allow my mind to slip down into dark valleys of personal gloom or climb the bright uneasy slopes of critical judgment. Any Although it may be difficult, even impossible to expla!n, we know there are places, circumstances, relationships in which we can relax, be ourselves, be at pe.ace. March-April 1996 Beba * Enclosed in the Mystery of yesus escape seems better than no escape. All such forms of selfishness seem to promise oases, but prove to be only deserted places. We need to remain where we are in the reality that is ours: present space, immediate situation, personal relationship, even when this is not comfortable, even when we might prefer to be some place., any place., else. Here is the geography of our real-ity, the enclosed space, that allows us to live in truth and in love. Only when we attempt to remain in this loving truth of pre-sent reality do we discover how much unreality pollutes our human situation. Where we try to live is too often only a castle in the air, a mirage. No wonder we cannot find much of a living there. We cannot dwell where we are not. So we must move on. If the direc-tion of our seeking moves us toward home, then we call our change conversion. The moving now becomes a pilgrimaging, a seeking for our true home. Pilgrims we will always be in this life since the only place where we can have a lasting abode is in our eternal dwelling place. But already in this life we do have a home in God, the God who dwells in the center of our hearts. This is where we must remain in the here and now, loving God, ourselves, others. Then we expe-rience ourselves at home. It is the remaining that often becomes problematic. Monastic enclosure is meant to offer a way of doing so. Time and space for God are its first promise. By setting boundaries on who comes and goes, it reserves a generous amount of time and space that Can be filled with the things of God. Again, what is offered is the opporttmity; what is necessary is faithfulness, not just to making use of the time that is available, but also to the specifics of our own personal vocation. What prayer is God inviting me to here, now? ~- At variant times we may find ourselves called to renewed litur-gical dedication or to a silent waiting on the Lord. Ours may be a prayer of pain or one of more generous service. There will be seasons when we will easily dedicate ourselves to thankfulness and other times when it will be all we can do to muster a decent amount of joy. What remains the same: Be faithful in prayer and you will find the Lord. And find yourselfl This can be even more problematic. People expect to find God (perhaps a "dream" God) within the enclo-sure; they may not be as acceptive or expective of the self they will discover as well. Limited space inevitably brings one face to Review for Religiot~s face with self. Lacking a place to hide, we must face ourselves and learn to love the self that we really are, not the self that we often pretend to be. It is the reality of ourselves just as we are presently that God loves, so we do not have an option about self-acceptance. Remaining true to ourselves opens the door to real love of neighbor. Again, we need to embrace others, not as we would like to remake them, but as they are in Christ Jesus. When we mistake our self-centered labeling of others as lovable/unlovable for the judgment of God, we are left in the darkness of untruth. We do not dare stay there. The only place we can remain is in the all-inclusive tenderness of God's love. Life within an enclosed space is meant to make possible such a love, providing opportunities for in-depth relationships that are tested in the crucible of close living, that endure over a lifetime and bear fruit for eternity. The hope of life enclosed, as Schrieider points out, is that it "leads to nearness and to the ability for relationships" (p. 14). This capacity for relationships extends beyond the monastery. Again it is a matter of the heart. In the bond that is God's life-giv-ing love, all are potentially one. This essential unity is lived out in a faith that makes enclosure as wide as divine mercy and as tender as infinite compassion. Again, no pious dream, but vital enough, to inspire a life of everyday sacrifice and self-giving for the building up of the Body of Christ (Ep 2:20)! This is enclosure's spaciousness, its redemptive power. Slowly, gradually, what was once.intellectual assent to faith's truths becomes experience. We are so united "in Jesus" that each person embracing truth and growing in freedom affects the life of all. We never act alone, because we never are alone; our soli-tude is peopled with all the people of God. When these experi-ences become personal, the contemplative no longer feels constrained by enclosure's limits, but, rather, finds fulfillment in remaining there~ at home in the heart of God. The gospel speaks of such remainirig as living in love and also as living in Jesus. There is a sense in which the two descriptions are redundant; to remain in love is to remain in Jesus. What the latter expression adds is helpful personalization along with the unbelievable promise of a certain reciprocity. We live, are, in Jesus and Jesus lives, is, in us On 14: 20). What does it mean to live in Jesus? For one thing, it requires us to remain in the word of God, allowing it to penetrate our March-Aplql 1996 Beha * Enclosed in the Mystery of yesus very being, shaping all our beliefs, our actions. It means living according to the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as every Christian professes to do. In practice, this may begin with a sim-ple willingness to takeup the Scriptures each day, remaining with them until the word of God sounds deep in our hearts, At each fresh reading of the gospel message, we ask: What is God's good news for me, today? What am I being called to say, to do, to refrain from saying, from doing? Over the course of time this abiding in the word of God begins to shape me, to shape us into gospel people. We become good news in our immediate environment, voices of encourage-ment, sources of strength even as we continue to grow in healthy awareness of our own weakness, for "when we are weak, then we are strong" (2 Co 12:10). As gospel people, we evangelize just in the living of our everyday lives. This remaining in the word of God that is an abiding in Jesus asks that more and more we live as Jesus lived. We think as Jesus thinks, "Let this mind be in you" (Ph 2:4), turning away from the preoccupation with self as well as the defensive criticism of oth-ers that often fill our thinking. Empowered by the Spirit of Jesus we speak as Jesus spoke, "with authority" (Mk 1:22), no longer threatened by fear or plagued by self-doubt. In Jesus, our lives teach, our touch heals. In Jesus we reach out to the poor, the sick, the troubled, the outcasts. The point of our remaining is not to recreate the past of Jesus' life in any literal sort of way. We are not first-century Palestinian Jews. For each of us, to live in Jesus requires fidelity to the cir-cumstances of'our lives. I need to ask: What is the mind of Jesus on my questions, the problematic situations of my days? What does Jesus say to the pleasure and pain that texture my days, the dailyness of my work, my leisure? In the silent spaciousness of the enclosure, these questions become, not pious, exercises, but literal necessities. I need to discover some specifics of an answer. Essential to such remaining in Jesus is the conviction that Jesus already remains in me. "Abide, dwell, live, in me, as I in you." How does Jesus live in me? In the constancy of faithful commitment, a covenant relationship begun in baptism and endur-ing through .all the circumstances of my life, unless repudiated by a definitive rejection on my part. Jesus lives my every activity; none are excluded as too ordinary, too human, too trivial. That is the truth revealed in the incarnation; it is the possibility of my Review for Religious baptism, but a reality that waits on the yes of my desire. Jesus enioys my joys, suffers in my pains, grows weary at the end of my days. His abiding presence remains a loving constant; only the unreali~ of sinfulness reduces my responsiveness. Unbelievably, we can and often do choose our own way rather than the way of Jesus. We temporize: not here, not yet. We assume control, seek-ing to fulfill ourselves. Fortunate the individuals who are open enough to realize such resistance and turn back. They find Jesus waiting, always there. Within enclosure the realization of our withdrawal, of the unsatisfying nature of our selfish pursuits, can come more quickly.There are fewer places to turn, more helps in returning and remaining faithful to Jesus living in us. Gradually, as Jesus lives more fully in us, we come to pray as he did: "Your kingdom come; your will be done" (Mt 6:10). This is where Jesus lived, where he remained: in the will of the Father. From the beginning of "I come to do your will" (Ps 40:8) to the end of "Not as I will but as you will" (Mk 32:36), Jesus had only one center, one place of peace, the will of the Father. If Jesus is to live ever more fully in us, we must stay in the same place. It must be at our every beginning so that it may be the end of all our endings. Sometimes it will be easy to accept God's will; at other times, costly. Ultimately, it will cost everything as we hand over our lives, with the same surrender of "into your hands" (Lk 23:46). This at the hour of death, but alsb in all the immediacy of today's letting go, for to live in Jesus is to die in daily surrender. Then eternity will be iust a continuation of that "remaining in Jesus" which has been the enclosed dwelling place of all our living. At each fresh reading of the gospel message we ask: What is God's good news for me, today? Conclusion Entering into enclosure is a matter of faith and hope. It is a lived expression of the belief that God is worth a whole life's seek-ing. Those who embrace the limits of enclosure find themselves freed for the paschal mystery of risen life through a going down into the valley of death-to-self and daily surrender. If they remain faithful, remaining in Jesus as Jesus remains in them, they will be March-April 1996 Beba ¯ Enclosed in the Mystery of Jesus transformed. No longe~: living for themselves, their lives "will be hidden now, with Christ, in God" (Col 3:3). This is what it means to live within the enclosure. This is to abide in the glory of that promise, "When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory" (Col 3:4). Who Am I? I am the woman tentatively touching the hem of Jesus' garment for healing, and having to tell what it is that ails me, and who and what have failed to heal me until now, all of Which was so much rubbish! I am the woman anxiously sweeping my floor in searchof the lost coin, the last coin I had to.live on. How happy I will be when I see it shining in the dust at my fee!! I am the Woman going into the temple putting that last coin of mine into the treasury. Then I will go home wondering whether it was wise of me to have relinquished the only treasure that I had! Bernadette McC~rrick RSM Review for Religiou.~ DANIEL J. HARRINGTON Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging This year I celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of my ordination to the Catholic priesthood in the New England province of the Society of Jesus. This year no one will be ordained a priest in our province. This year ten men will celebrate fifty years as priests, and fifteen men will observe their fiftieth anniversary as Jesuits. Priests and religious in the U.S.A. and Europe are aging, and so, too, religious life. As we grow older together, we surely need the intel-lectual and spiritual resources of our biblical tradition to help us along the way. Many people assume that aging and the elderly are major topics in the Bible. Perhaps they make this assump-tion because the early chapters of Genesis feature char-acters like Methuselah who live to great ages. Perhaps the reason is that the Bible, as an ancient and wise book, must have something important to say on these matters. But from a quantitative perspective aging and the elderly are not central concerns of the Bible. There is no lengthy biblical treatise.on aging and the elderly. Nor is there any uniform perspective in the rela-tively few texts that do deal with these topics. The more explicit treatments appear in the Old Testament. Old Testament Perspectives The people of the Old Testament lived in a traditional Daniel J. Harrington SJ is editor of New Testament Abstracts. His address is Weston Jesuit School of Theology; 3 Phillips Place; Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. March-April 1996 Harrin~ton * Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging, The elderly were expected to be exemplars of wisdom and fear of the Lord. society in which the elderly were held in respect. Most biblical people did not reach the kind of old age that has become common at least in the U.S.A. and parts of Europe since 1950. And so in searching the Scriptures for wisdom on aging and the elderly we need to face from the start the differences between the Old Testament world and our own. We live in a society with little respect for tradition and social .status based on age, and with a great demandfor material productivity and accom-plishment. Moreover, our expanding life spans may be creating problems and possibilities that the bib-lical writers never imagined. Nevertheless, the Bible can contribute to developing a theology of aging today despite these obvious differences. Whatever one makes out of the life spans attributed to the patriarchs in Genesis 5 (930 years for Adam, 912 for Seth, 905 for Enosh, and so on), ordinary Israelites in the period covered in the his-torical books lived much shorter lives. It is safe to say that the lower classes lived between thirty years and fifty years (if they reached adulthood), that aris-tocrats lived between forty and sixty years, and that all regarded a life between seventy and eighty years as an elusive ideal. It was assumed that the elderly showed signs of aging (gray hair, beards for men), and began to experience physical infirmities. The com-mandment to honor one's parents in the Decalogue (Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16) was understood as applying primarily to adults and as urging them to care for their aging parents. It was regarded as a social norm and a divine command to respect older people: "You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old; and you shall fear your God: 'I am the Lord'" (Lv 19:32). The elderly themselves were expected to be exemplars of wis-dom and fear of the Lord. Male and female elders had the task and privilege of handing on the social and religious tradit~ions. The critical treatments of elders in .lob and Qoheleth only serve to emphasize that in this traditional society the elderly were sup-posed to have an important place. As the testament-of-Jacob scene (see Gn 49) shows, the ideal was to die surrounded by many off-spring and to hand on property and land to one's children. The positive picture of old age in the Old Testament tradition is best stated in a block of random sayings in Sirach 25:3-6. Ben ' Sira, a wisdom teacher of Jerusalem around 200 B.C., concluded Review for Religious his lists of pleasant and hateful things (25:1-2) by expressing a loathing for "an old fool who commits adultery." By a thematic connection he then outlines some positive teachings about aging and the elderly: 3. If you gathered nothing in your youth, how can you find anything in our old age? 4. How attractive is sound judg-ment in the gray-haired, and for the aged to possess good counsel! 5. How attractive is wisdom in the aged, and under-standing and counsel in the venerable! 6. Rich experience is the crown of the aged, and their boast is the fear of the Lord. The three sayings (25:3, 4-5, 6) are only loosely connected by subject matter. The first saying (25:3) makes the point that the quality of one's old age--wise or foolish--grows out of the quality of one's youth. A foolish young person will probably grow into a foolish old person. The mere fact of old age does not work a drastic personal transformation. The second saying (25:4-5) lists the ideal characteristics of the elderly as sound judgment, good counsel, wisdom, and under-standing. These characteristics are basically synonyms; they all refer to the wisdom that is attractive in all people, especially in the elderly. The third saying (2 5:6) acknowledges the life experience of the elderly as a "crown" and holds out as the most important quality of the elderly the "fear of the Lord." Fear of the Lord is one of the chief themes in the biblical wisdom books and in Sirach in particular. It proceeds from an accurate assessment of who God is and who we are before God. It is not the fear that proceeds from anxiety and issues in avoidance or flight. Rather, it refers to the respect and awe that God deserves. That attitude of respect is the beginning of wisdom (see Si 1:14). From it, according to Ben Sira and the other sages, will flow whatever wisdom is necessary for finding one's way through the tests and trials of life. Wisdom and fear of the Lord are two sides of the same coin and express the positive ideal of aging in the Bible. The negative aspects of old age are best described in another wisdom book, Qoheleth (or Ecclesiastes). Here the focus is the decrepitude and death that are part of old age. In the final chap-ter (12) of his book, Qoheleth has clothed a depressing message in a series of exquisitely drawn images. The message is that old age means loss of pleasure, physical infirmity, fear, and death. Qoheleth's picture of the afterlife is shadowy at best: "The dead March-April 1996 Harrington ¯ Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost" (9:5). So for him the death that accompanies old age is all the more final. 1. Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; 2. before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain; 3. in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; 4. when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; 5. when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; 6. before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at.the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cis-tern, 7. and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity. The one addressed is urged to face the negative realities of old age ("days of trouble") when even the prospect of the years to come gives no pleasure and life seems to be dark and stormy (12:1-2). In a beautiful but disquieting set of images Qoheleth compares the process of aging to the decay of a house fallen into disrepair (12:3-4): loss of eyesight and hearing, loss of teeth with which to chew, and inability to sleep soundly. Then with other images he calls attention to the fear, the loss of desire, and the obsession with death that can be part of old age (12:5). Death is described with images of breaking the silver cord, the golden bowl, the pitcher, and the wheel (12:6). In death the body becomes dust and returns to the earth, while the breath "returns to God who gave it" (12:7), not to immortality or resurrection but at best to the shadowy existence described in 9:5. Death, like all of life (see 1:1- 11), is empty, mere "wind," without lasting substance (12:8). Old age as Qoheleth paints it with his marvelous images is painful and depressing. Young people should enjoy life while they can. The ideal of old age is fullness of wisdom and fear of the Lord (Si 25:3-6). The reality of old age may well involve bodily infir-mity, loss of physical and emotional powers, and fear; death is Review Jbr Religious inevitable (Qoh 12:1-8). In the Jewish tradition it is the duty of adult children to care for their aging parents. That obligation is clearly stated in the Decalogue: "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" (Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16). Starting from the commandment in the Decalogue, Ben Sira in Sirach 3:1-16 presents an instruction on the duties of adult children to their aging parents. After addressing his pupils as a father addresses a son (3:1), he gives some reasons why children should care for their parents: 1. Listen to me your father, O children; act accordingly, that you may be kept in safety. 2. For the Lord honors a father above his children, and he confirms a mother's right over her children. 3. Those who honor their father atone for sins, 4. and those who respect their mother are like those who lay up treasure. 5. Those who honor their father will have joy in their own children, and when they pray they will be heard. 6. Those who respect their father will have a long life, and those who honor their mother obey the Lord; 7. they will serve their parents as their masters. Caring for one's elderly parents conforms to the divine order of creation (3:2), atones for sins and merits spiritual treasures (3:3-4), gives good example to one's own children (3:5a), ensures that one's prayers will be heard (3:5b) and that one will live a long life (3:6a), and honors God (3:6b). Ben Sira (and all the biblical writers) lived in a society in which honor and shame were important values. How one appeared to others and in relation to them was very significant, far more so than in our modern individualistic cultures. Failure to honor one's parents brings a curse from them and disgrace in the eyes of others: 8. Honor your father by word and deed, that his blessing may come upon you. 9. For a father's blessing strengthens the houses of the children, but a mother's curse uproots their foundations. 10. Do not glorify yourself by dishon-oring your father, for your father's dishonor is no glory to you. 11. The glory of one's father is one's own glory, and it is a disgrace for children not to respect their mother. The final part (3:12-16) of Ben Sira's instruction gives par-ticular attention to the situation of caring for a parent who loses mental abilities ("even if his mind fails"). It recommends patience and fidelity and promises a reward from God: March-April 1996 Harrington ¯ Biblical Contributions to a Theology of Aging 12. My child, help your father in his old age, and do not grieve him as long as he lives; 13. even if his mind fails, be patient with him; because you have all your faculties do not despise him. 14. For kindness to a fathe~ will not be for-gotten, and will be credited to you against your sins; 15. in the day of your distress it will be remembered in your favor; like frost in fair weather, your sins will melt away. 16. Whoever forsakes a father is like a blasphemer, and whoever angers a mother is cursed by the Lord. Ben Sira's insistence on care for one's parents as leading to forgiveness of sins (3.'3, 14) is especially interesting in light of his own shadowy concepts of afterlife and his enthusiastic support for the Temple's system of sin-offerings and sacrifices. He appar-ently regarded faithful and patient service of one's parents as a privileged way of atoning for one's sins in this life. The three wisdom texts that we have looked at say much of what there is to say about old age and the elderly in the Old Testament. Indeed, they summarize most of the wisdom about these topics outside the Bible and into the present. Their con-tent would have been taken for granted by people in New Testament times. New Testament Perspectives The New Testament does not explicitly offer new and radically different teachings on aging and the elderly. What it does offer is an outline of spirituality that can help aging people and others to confront the reality of old age in faith and confidence. The Old Testament story of salvation began with God's call to Abraham in Genesis 12 and the promise to make of his descen-dants % great nation." We are told that Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran (12:4). God's promise was then fulfilled through the birth of Isaac when "Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age" (18:11). Thus the history of God's people begins in an unlikely and improbable way--from a child born to a very old couple (21:5). According to Luke, the story of salvation through Jesus Christ began with the elderly couple Zechariah and Elizabeth and with the birth of John the Baptist to them. Likewise, the birth of Jesus is properly evaluated and proclaimed by Simeon and Anna in the Jerusalem Temple. These two figures represent the best features of Old Testament piety. Simeon is described as "righteous and Review for Religiotls devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel" (Lk 2:25). He is granted the privilege of seeing and proclaiming the newborn Messiah before his death: "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace." (Lk 2:29). Anna also, at the age of eighty-four, culminates a long life of piety by praising God and speaking "about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (2:38). These two elderly representatives of God's people see in the child Jesus what the religious and political lead-ers of Israel failed to see in Jesus the adult. It is intriguing that elderly people--Abraham and Sarah-- begin the history of salvation according to Genesis, and that elderly people-~Zechariah and Elizabeth, and Simeon and Anna-- recognize clearly the new and definitive chapter in this history that began with the birth of Jesus. These elderly people exem-plify the wisdom and fear of the Lord that are the biblical ideals of old age. They speak the language of the Scriptures (especially Second Isaiah) to proclaim eschatological fullness in Jesus the Messiah. Their openness to God and trust in God allow God to use them as unlikely instruments in the history of salvation. The ways of God are very surprising. While Simeon and Anna provide positive models for elderly people who are serious about the surprising ways of God, we can-not disregard the negative aspects of old age so well described by Qoheleth. Although the New Testament does not deal explicitly with this topic, there are New Testament texts that speak elo-quently to us as we face the physical infirmities and fears that accompany old age. Like Ben Sira and Qoheleth, Jesus was a wisdom teacher. One of the earliest and most eloquent teachings we have from Jesus is his instruction about dealing with anxiety in Luke 12:22-31 (see Mt 6:25-34): 22. He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. 23. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24. Consider the ravens: they nei-ther sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25. And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 26. If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? 27. Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 28. But if God so clothes the Marcb-~lpril 1996 Ha~ngton ¯ Biblical Cont~butions to a Theology of Aging grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you-- you of little faith! 29. And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. 30. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31. Insteakl strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given ~o you as well. Though not directly addressed to elderly people, this instruc-tion concerns issues and questions that disturb elderly people especially: How long will I live? What will I eat? What about my health? What will I.wear? Jesus deals with these issues on two fronts. On the one hand, he exposes the futility of anxiety: It does not achieve anything positive (see 12:25-26). Simply telling peo-ple not to worry is not enough to combat anxiety. Jesus places before us some positive considerations about God's care for us and about God's kingdom as the goal of our lives. He first insists that life is more than food or clothing (12:23), and then urges us to consider how God feeds the birds (12:24) and clothes the lilies in splendor (12:27-28). If God so cares for birds and flowers, how much more does God care for us human beings. Jesus reminds us that God already knows what we need (12:30). The primary goal should be striving for God's kingdom, and everything else will fall into place. (12:31). There is great wisdom in this instruction, and it is particularly pertinent to elderly people. But sometimes anxiety turns into reality. Few of us leave this world without experiencing physical or emotional suffering. Here the apostle Paul has some eloquent things to say. Paul took over early Christian formulas of faith that describe Jesus' suffering and death as "for us" or "for our sins" (see Rm 3:25-26; 1 Co 11:24; 15:3). He himself used similar formulas as a matter of course (see Rm 5:6; 14:15; 2 Co 5:14,'21; Ga 1:4; 3:13). These expressions affirm that Jesus as God's servant (see Is 52:13-53:12) suffered and died on our behalf, and so made available to all--Jews and Gentiles alike--right relationship with God and the possibility of eternal salvation. We are saved through Christ's suffering. According to Paul, Christian life involves participation in Jesus' suffering and death as well as his resurrection: "We have been buried with him by baptism into death" (Rm 6:4). This shar-ing continues after baptism: "For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ" (2 Co 1:5). Elsewhere Paul says that we always carry "in Review for Religious the body the death of Jesus" (2 Co 4:10). Paul's ideal for himself and for every Christian is to be "conformed" to Christ; that is, to take on the very "shape" (morphe) of Christ: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his suf-ferings by becoming like him in his death" (Ph 3:10). For mil-lions of suffering Christians, identification with Christ and participation in his sufferings have provided meaning and comfort in the midst of suffer-ing, and still do. In the Deuteropauline letter to the Colossians the theme of sharing Christ's suf-ferings takes an unusual turn: "In my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col 1:24). This cannot mean that there is something deficient in the rec-onciliation brought about by Jesus' death and resurrection. The whole New Testament and Colossians 1:19-20 in particular stress the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrificial death. What then does Paul's suffering fill up? The key expression is "Christ's afflictions," or, more accurately, the "tribu-lations (or, woes) of the Messiah." According to contemporary Jewish texts (I Enoch 47:1-4; 2 Baruch 30:2) God has set a limit to the tribulations associated with the Messiah's coming. The state-ment in Colossians 1:24 applies Paul's sufferings to that fixed amount of suffering that must occur before God's kingdom arrives in its fullness. Thus Paul's suffering shortens the time before the fullness of God's kingdom (see Mk 13:20) and contributes to the faster vindication of God's church. This text, which has been a great inspiration to suffering (elderly or not) people, needs to be understood in its proper theological and historical context. Other Pauline texts provide important advice for elderly per-sons (and others) who suffer. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul, in answer-ing the critics of his ministry as an apostle, boasts about his weaknesses rather than about his strengths and accomplishments. He does so on the basis of what the Lord said to him: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Co 12:9). In a world that associates power with strength, Paul reminds us that the true power of God is manifested most bril-liantly in the weak---as was the case with Abraham and Sarah, and with Simeon and Anna. Few of us leave this world without experiencing physical or emotional suffering. March-April 1996 Harrington ¯ Biblical Contributio~.~n~.to~ Tb__eo,~lo.~f~A.~n,.g' Eternal life for Christians, according to Paul, begins with baptism, since eternal life comes from participating in Jesus' death and resurrection (see Rm 6:1-11). Therefore death and sin no longer exercise absolute dominion over us. We are already living our eternal life. It does not begin at the moment of our death. The line between physical life and physical death is no longer de

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