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PurposeThis paper explores the relationship between board interlocks and firm outcomes by reviewing the most recent peer-reviewed articles examining this research theme.Design/methodology/approachA systematic and bibliometric methodology of assessing 369 peer-reviewed articles from the Web of Science (WoS) database was applied. The study also leverages key R-packages litsearchr and Bibliometrix software to enhance the descriptive and thematic literature analysis to identify gaps and opportunities for new research.FindingsThis study confirms a rapid increase in articles on this thematic area, over the last decade, with increasing collaboration occurring among researchers in the United States, Europe, China, South Korea and India. Four core research clusters are identified. The first and largest cluster links interlocked directors to issues related to corporate governance and firm outcomes. The second cluster links social network theory, interlocking directorates and firm outcomes. Smaller emerging research clusters include topics related to ownership structure, board size, political connectedness and impacts on firm outcomes. The final cluster examines the influence of board interlocks on market value and firm innovation.Practical implicationsInterlocked directors can have both positive and negative impacts on a wide variety of firm outcomes. This study places great interest in the selection of new directors, ensuring that the selection has aligned with the needs and interests of the company and disclosures of potential competing interests are declared and considered. Equally important are the governance practices used to monitor directors' behavior and to protect the interest of shareholders and the firm. This is particularly relevant in the internal appointment of interlocked directors to critical positions, such as audit committees or instances where interlocked directors may simultaneously hold CEO or executive leadership positions in other companies.Originality/valueThis paper examines the board interlocks literature related to firm outcomes. Additionally, this review identifies several topics and disciplines which, if pursued, could enrich the literature and promise new avenues for future research.

AbstractBy investigating a sample of industrial Italian listed firms for the years 2003–2020, this research aims to explore two main relationships. First, the study examines the association between the ratio of female directors and CSR strategy score in both family and nonfamily firms. Second, it investigates the link between family female directors and nonfamily female directors within the subsample of family firms. The empirical findings show the existence of a positive link between the ratio of female directors and CSR strategy score only in the subsample of family firms and that this result is driven by the percentage of nonfamily female directors. Additional analyses, aiming to elucidate the heterogeneity of family female directors, report that family females who have an executive role on the board are beneficial for the CSR strategy score, whereas family females who are interlocked and with long tenure are detrimental for the CSR strategy score.

AbstractResearch Question/IssueInformation processing, agency, and resource dependence perspectives provide diverging predictions regarding the relationship between board interlocks and firm performance, which are rooted in different perspectives on the roles of boards of directors. This study argues that these various approaches are reconcilable when considering the nature of board committees to which the interlocked directors are assigned.Research Findings/InsightsWe test our hypotheses on a sample of 5133 firm‐year observations in India. Our analyses support our hypotheses. The results show that interlocks between audit committees, whose primary function relates to providing financial oversight and ensuring compliance, are negatively related to firm performance. In contrast, interlocks between nomination and remuneration committees of Indian firms, which provide them with access to resources such as human capital and information on appropriate incentive structures, are positively related to performance.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsOur study clarifies the relationship between board committee interlocks and firm performance by taking a multi‐theoretical perspective. Our analysis suggests that information processing, agency, and resource dependence theories complement one another in explaining the effect of interlocks on firm performance.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsOur results show that it is not board interlocks per se that are detrimental to firm performance; in fact, appointing well‐connected directors with experience in serving on other boards might be beneficial for firms. However, firms should not assign specific monitoring‐intensive tasks such as auditing to directors who also serve on other firms' audit committees. Our findings suggest that these directors should have greater independence and focus.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the Board of Directors' characteristics and their impact on the financial soundness of Islamic banks.


Design/methodology/approach
Regression analysis is applied to test the impact of the Board of Directors' characteristics on the financial soundness of Islamic banks, using a panel data set of 67 Islamic banks covering 20 countries from 2005 to 2018. The Z-score indicator is used to evaluate the Islamic banks' soundness. To check the robustness of the results, this paper uses other dependent variables (CAMEL) than the Z-score.


Findings
The main results show that the presence of an independent non-executive director negatively impacts the financial soundness of Islamic banks, while the chief executive officer duality practice has a positive effect on it. Other characteristics of the Board of Directors do not significantly impact the financial soundness of Islamic banks (foreign director, institutional director, chairman with a Shari'ah degree, interlocked chairman and the Board of Directors' size).


Practical implications
This study aims to fill the gaps in the literature that discuss the Board of Directors' role in corporate governance and its impact on the financial soundness of Islamic banks. In other words, it shows the role played by the Board of Directors and improves the knowledge of the corporate governance-financial soundness relationship. Plus, managers, investors and regulators may gain evocative insights, particularly those looking to improve their Islamic banks' soundness by restructuring their boards' composition.


Originality/value
This study sheds new light on the literature on Islamic banking by clarifying the relationship between the Board of Directors and the financial soundness of Islamic banks. Contrary to previous research, this paper uses an additional hypothesis stating that a chairman with a Shari'ah degree (Fiqh Muamalt) has a positive impact on the financial soundness of Islamic banks.

AbstractManuscript TypeEmpiricalResearch Question/IssueThis paper sets out to shed light on female representation on Italian corporate boards before the introduction of gender quota legislation in 2012, as well as on the relevance of family connections. We investigate the potential determinants of having boards with diverse representation and the correlation between female directorship and family connections, with a focus on governance measures.Research FindingsUsing data on all directors of Italian publicly traded companies from 2008 to 2010, we identify two different models. In the majority of gender‐diverse boards, at least one woman has a family connection to the controlling shareholder. Family‐affiliated women are more common in companies that are small, have a concentrated ownership, are in the consumer sector, and have a larger board. Conversely, non‐family‐affiliated women are more common on the boards of companies that are widely held, have younger and more educated boards, have a higher proportion of independent directors, and have a smaller number of interlocked directors. With reference to governance‐related outcomes, the number of board meetings appears to be negatively correlated to both the presence of family members and female directors. Additionally, women show lower attendance than men at board meetings.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsThe paper provides support for theories on the differences between the governance of family‐owned and non‐family‐owned companies.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationThe study offers insights to policymakers implementing gender quota legislation. Substantial effort should be devoted to ensuring that board diversity is associated with actual independence of board members.

Boards of directors of large American corporations are marked by a surprising degree of overlap in their memberships. The median Fortune 500 firm interlocked (shared directors) with seven other large firms during the mid‐1980s, although this prevalence dropped slightly by the mid‐1990s. In contrast to Japan, interlocks among American firms are rarely linked to banking relationships or vertical (buyer‐supplier) relationships; rather, they reflect the embeddedness of corporate governance in social structures (e.g., friendship or other ties). Recent empirical research has linked interlocks to almost every important aspect of corporate governance, from executive compensation to strategies for takeovers and defending against takeovers. These findings suggest that proposals for reforming boards of directors through changing incentive structures (e.g., paying directors in equity rather than cash) are likely to have little effect because they misconstrue the role of the board as a social institution.

Purpose
Interlocking directorates are a common phenomenon across several markets around the world. Yet, the institutional environment and the role of corporate elites in forming board networks promote some developing markets as a unique setting to understand the corporate boards network structure. This study aims to first explore the board directors' network of all publicly listed companies in Kuwait. This paper then evaluates the effects of exogenous factors and endogenous network structural processes on the likelihood of board interlock.


Design/methodology/approach
This study analyzes the interlocks network structures of 167 listed companies in 13 different market sectors in Kuwait relying on hand-collected directors' data and using four measures of network centrality: betweenness, degree, closeness and eigenvector. The authors predict board interlocks using exponential random graph models (ERGM) and firm-level information from the Bloomberg database.


Findings
This study observes that both the firms and directors' networks consist of 55 components, with the largest component containing about half of the total number of firms/directors. The firm's network consists of one giant component of 85 firms, including all but one bank. This study shows the importance of endogenous network variables, such as the number of edges, centralization and triangles on the estimation of the factors that promote the board interlocks. Highly centralized firms are less likely to interlock with other firms, while two firms that are interlocked with a common third firm are more likely to interlock.


Originality/value
This paper is the first to analyze in-depth the structure of the directors network of companies in Kuwait. This study illustrates the complex map of interfirm and directors social networks in Kuwait. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is among the first to exploit ERGM in the context of board interlocks to account for potential cross-dependencies and emergent network structures. Managers can identify the director interlock with other firms in the network and take advantage of the connection as a source of external knowledge and influence.

Professionalism essentially is a pathway to success in any field in the modern world. Professionalism is interlocked with knowledge, skill, autonomy of decision making, strong commitment and motivation. Along with the understanding of the key word management, the functions, roles & responsibilities of Board of directors, Chairman are important facets. The other area that requires attention is "leadership" on which the other factors are dependant. While discussing professionalism with regard to co operatives it is incomplete without the mention of 97th Constitutional amendment. This amendment laid emphasis on the professional management in the co operative sector. This farfetched amendment also has been the reason for various changes implemented in the co operative legislations in most of the states of India, among which Karnataka is focussed as a part of this article. Karnataka co operative societies Act 1959 has been amended and the 97th Constitutional amendment has been incorporated in the very preamble itself in the legislation specially with respect to professional approach to the management of co operatives.

Numerous studies have shown that since about 1900 the largest industrial, financial, and transportation companies have interlocked extensively through a sharing of directors and, much less often, officers (e.g., Bunting and Barbour, 1971; Bunting, 1976a, 1976b; Dooley, 1969). In fact, this interlocking has been so extensive that a virtual network exists whereby nearly any large corporation in principle is able to participate either directly or indirectly, once or twice removed, in the top-level policy deliberations of any other large concern (Mizruchi, 1982; Pennings, 1980).Little is known about the origins of this network. Most research implicitly assumes that the network has resulted from some relatively recent decline in competition and subsequent movement toward economic concentration. This conclusion follows from the commonly accepted proposition that competition precedes monopoly in industrial development. Scherer (1979:47), an authority on modern American industrial organization, cites Marx for the essence of this notion: "'One capitalist always kills many' (creating) a 'constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all the advantages of this process.'" In less colorful but more factual terms, Burns (1936:1-42) and many others have described the "decline of competition" and the factors leading to the domination of many industries by relatively few large corporations (literature reviewed in Scherer, 1979:67-70; Blumberg, 1975:16-83).

Issue 61.6 of the Review for Religious, 2002. ; DECEMBER 2002 VO~,UME 61 'NUMBER 6~ Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2002 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. view for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2002 VOLUME 61 NUMBER 6 contents 566 579 ignatian spirituality Ignatian Invitation: Remember and Imagine David L. Fleming SJ sums up the contemporary relevance of Ignatian spirituality in the dynamic movements of remembering and imagining. Ignatian Indifference and Structural Constraints Ignatius Jesudasan SJ enters us into the contemporary struggle to apply indifference as understood in spirituality to the various structural situations of authority and obedience. 585 594 ministry formation The Emergence of the Contemporary Traditionalists David M. Whalen OSFS presents certain "verbal snapshots" of young people identified as contemporary traditionalists whose interim theology includes an exemption or "notwithstanding" clause. A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation Guy B. Wilson ST explains a model of formation for the men candidates of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, which involves the collaboration of the Trinitarian family of men and women religious and lay persons, following the inspiration of their founder, Father Thomas Augustine Judge. 602 sisters and brothers Mary Magdalene: An Icon for Women Religious Mary Kay Dobrovolny RSM, by using the resurrection story found in John 20:11 o 18, presents Mary Magdalene as an icon for celibate loving and apostolic mission for women religious. Review for Religious 615 Lonely and Small: Religious Brothers' Situation Philip Armstrong CSC makes a case for religious life, the vowed commitment to a life of service to the church and to the world through the public profession of the evangelical counsels, to be raised to the status of a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church. 624 God and us The Birth of Christ in the Human Person Janet Sullivan OSF brings home the faith reality that God asks of us what he asked of Mary: to allow his Son to come to birth in us. 631 Reading/Reciting the Psalms: Some Reflections Roland E. Murphy OCarm offers, from his lifetime of study and prayer, a bright sprinkling of information and intuition about the psalms. 64O Eucharistic Faith: Jesus' Bread-.of-Life Discourse Dennis J. Billy CSSR reflects upon Jesus' Discourse on the Bread of Life On 6:22-71) to emphasize the call to faith which every Eucharist celebrates~ departments 564 Prisms 649 Canonical Counsel: 656 Book Reviews 666 Indexes Mandatory Dismissal November-Decentber 2002 prisms After sixty-one years of publish-ing on a bimonthly schedule Review for Religious begins a quarterly schedule of publication beginning in the year 2003. As our readers may well surmise, rising costs of publishing and mailing have played a signifi-cant role in leading to this decision. As editor, I have explored, with the help of my Board members and staff, various options. We could raise the subsdription price and still be competitively equal to other jo.urnals ~nd magazines. But since women and men religious with their religious vow of poverty make up the larger part of our readership, I want to keep the cost as low as possible. Perhaps even more importantly, fi large number of foreign sub-scribers, especially in India and in the countries of Africa, would find any increase in price unbearable in terms of currency exchange rates. We thought of reducing the size of the journal from 112 pages to 64 or 72 pages, a common pagina-tion for journals of our kind. A cheaper production and a lighter weight for mailing would save some expense, while at the same time allowing us to main-tain a bimonthy schedule. After serious discussion among Board members and staff, we decided that the continuity of appearance and quality of material should not be sacrificed for the sake of economy. As we considered the quarterly schedule, the Board encouraged us as an editorial staff to try to Review for Religious engage our readers in a more interactive way with follow-up questions or reflection/prayer helps and, perhaps, with some sort of readers' forum or letters-to-the-editor column. As we reduce the number of regular issues of Review for Religious from six to four times a year, we intend to provide a 32-page supplement issue for the seasons of Lent and Advent which will allow us to experiment. These supplements will be included in the regular subscription price that remains the same as it has been. Since we are an international journal, we will not try to des-ignate our quarterly issues by seasons since they vary with our readers' northern or southern climates. Instead we will identify the volume number and then each issue as "Quarterly" num-bered from one to four in every year. The two supplements will be identified by the church seasons of Lent and Advent. We are grateful to you, our subscribers and readers, for your loyal support. We intend that you will find the same con-sistent high-quality articles in every issue. We also will be look-ing forward to your response to our interactive supplements, whether for possible publication or not. In fact, we welcome comments from our readers even now. We are always seeking to increase our readership and so we continue to encourage you to give a gift subscription or sug-gest that a friend or colleague subscribe. If you or your com-munity could provide a gift subscription for those financially limited communities or individuals, usually in countries other than the United States, your charity would be much appreci-ated. Either designate the gift-recipient or allow us to fund the many requests that we receiveand do not have the resources with which to respond. You then extend your own mission in wonderful ways through the mission of Review for Religious. The editors and staff of Review for Religious wish you the richest blessings of the Advent and Christmas seasons. David L. Fleming SJ November-December 2002 DAVID L. FLEMING Ignatian Invitation: Remember and Imagine ignatian spirituality Pope John Paul II issued a call to all Christians as we entered this new millennium. It is a call that he has repeated i~a many talks since he wrote his challenging letter about the new millennium back in January 2001. The Latin phrase Duc in altum expresses his challenge succinctly. We translate it as "Put out into the deep." It is, of course, Jesus' command to Peter and Andrew, James and John, and their fishing companions after they have just spent a fruitless night at their fishing occupation. As we faced a new millennium, with its unfulfilled promise and its potential disasters, John Paul said that as Christians, full of faith, we should lead the way: Duc in altum, put out into the deep. Little did we think that in the year 2001 we would experience, especially in the United States, a "deep" defined by the effect of the September 11 terrorist attack on a whole way of living. Little did we think that in 2002 we would have our economy shaken by major company fraud, abetted by accounting firms that paradoxically were not accountable. Little did we think that we would find David L. Fleming SJ, editor of this journai, presented this material as a talk at the Ignatian Spirituality Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, in July 2002. Review for Religious ourselves in a church under scrutiny for its own internal terror by a few of its priests, but a few too many, and by the lack of accountability in some of its own hierarchical leaders. Duc in altum. Yes, we feel that we are somewhere out in the deep. What are the resources that we Christians now draw on? What are the strengths of the spirituality that we try to live? I would like to share with you the strengths that I experience in Ignatian spirituality. Back in the last century--in the 1940s and '50s--part of growing up in St. Louis in the summer months was a day-long trip on the Mississippi River on the excursion boat called the Admiral. The boat left at ten o'clock in the morning from the downtown riverfront (the area where now the Arch stands), usually went south down the river just beyond the Jesuit White House Retreat, which sits on the bluffs overlooking the river, some fifteen or twenty miles down river. The boat would then circle around and buck the river currents, chugging slowly back up the river and mooring at about four o'clock in the afternoon. Being a five-deck boat, it offered a lot of room for people to meander, between air-conditioned decks and open-air decks, between a ballroom dance-floor deck and a deck for games, between restaurant areas and "bring-your-own-picnic" areas. What always made a big impression upon me were the two massive pistons, the major attraction of a noisy and hot first-deck area. These two massive arms kneading up and down were our visible representation of what moved the boat forward. To make a turn, one arm obviously would do most of the work. But the two working in unison pushed this big boat securely against the strongest of river currents. I experience Ignatian spirituality much as I experienced the Admiral excursion boat. Ignatian spirituality is something in movement. Ignatian spirituality has a lot of room within it--a lot of different decks, as it were, where we live out an Ignatian spirituality in a variety of contexts. But what intrigues me the most are the two massive pistons that allow for the movement or dynamism of Iguatian spirituality. The words with which I will identify these two pistons will surprise no one. Those of us familiar with Ignatian spirituality talk about them with ease. But what I hope to share with you is the often overlooked importance of each of these arms and, perhaps even more so, the necessity of November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ Ignatian lnvitation their working in unison if we, seeking our life's direction within an Ignatian spirituality, are to continue to move forward even amid strong and deep currents. I will use the word remembering for one arm of movement and imagining for the other. Remembering I deliberately have chosen these active verbal terms remembering and imagining rather than the more stolid noun-forms mentor)/and imagination. Ignatius is a man-in-motion, and he relates to God, to his fellow men and women, and to his world in a dynamic fashion. In his mystical intuition at the river Cardoner in Manresa, he sees God as a God who labors, an active God, a busy God. He understands that busyness, laboring, working does not take us away from a laboring God, a busy God. And so Ignatius writes with verbs and participles, a motion-oriented, vigorous style, especially in the Spiritual Exercises. We need always to keep reminding ourselves that the Exercises book, by its very title, speaks of movement, of interactivity--the activity within a person (in the retreat first of all, but in daily life as well) and the activity without, that is, all that happens outside us in the world all around us, in the circumstances of the people and things of our everyday life. Ignatian spirituality is an active spirituality, or, rather, an interactive spirituality. Noticing One of the first actions of Ignatius in developing his relationship with God is caught in the word noticing, taking note of, noting. Ignatian spirituality begins to thrive where Ignatius himself began--paying attention to various experiences, noting what is going on. In his Autobiography, Ignatius particularly emphasizes his noting of his own reactions to his daydreams about serving his king or a noble lady and his d~ydreams about doing as St. Dominic or St. Francis did. He notes what is going on inside (within) himself---the effects both short-range and longer lasting. Just as for all of us, Ignatius does not claim that he never had these kinds of experiences previously. It is just that now he notes or notices them. He also takes note of what is going on around Review for Religious him (the without). He is very observant of his world, the people in it, their various customs. Perhaps out of his piety and certainly out of his courtly training, he adopts an attitude of reverence to God, to God's people, and to God's world. Noting or noticing is all part of our attitude of reverence as we live in God's world, our home. Noting or noticing is a first and essential part of remembering, one of the two piston arms of Ignatian spirituality. Examining Another part of remembering in Ignatian spirituality is something that has received much emphasis in our day. The examen or examination of conscience has had a revitalization over the past thirty years that has put it at the forefront of, made it the signature exercise of, Ignatian spirituality. For us in North America, Jesuit George Aschenbrenner's article "Consciousness Examen" in the January-February 1972 issue of Review for Religious marked the beginning of this renaissance. Since then, the writings of John English, Joseph Tetlow, John Veltri, Dennis Hamm, and many others, Jesuits and others, have given new life to and sharp insight into the practice of the daily examen. From the Exercises book we are aware that Ignatius identifies a number of examinations. In fact, because these constitute the first material under the title First Week, we cannot miss the implication that examining is an important ingredient of making the Exercises. Obviously, our process of examining works better as we get more accustomed to noting or noticing as we move through a day. But examining remains its own special exercise, beyond noting, and remains an essential part of the piston arm we call remembering. Recalling the Story A third aspect of remembering is to be found in the Ignatian first preludes from the contemplations of the Second Week on, the preludes that recall the history of an event. "History" for Ignatius does not refer to facts of a past event. His Spanish expression, ~aer la historia (§§102, 191), emphasizes "making present the story." Ignatius does not say "bring to memory" or November-December 2002 Fle~ning ¯ Ignatian Invitation Remembering plays such an important role in Ignatian spirituality that this spirituality is clearly a reflective spirituality. "remember" the relevant ~cts. He says "recall the history bow" (the Spanish como). For Ignatius, facts are not enough. He wants us to enter into the how and why of events. The first and second preludes for a gospel contemplation are interlocked. The second prelude is a composition, sometimes erroneously identified as a "composition of place." Among more recent authors, the Jesuit William A.M. Peters brought the significance of this Ignatian usage to our attention, showing that Ignatius stresses rather the composition of ourselves within the history. We place ourselves by noting how we see the Trinity looking down upon our world; we place ourselves by noting bow the pregnant Mary, Joseph, and a little servant girl wend their way towards Bethlehem. So history and composition are tightly interlocked-- not as preliminary to prayer, but as an integral part of our prayer, which has its various focal points. Just as noting and examining are integral to the Ignatian remembering, so, I believe, the Ignatian "history," this recalling of the story, is an integral part as well. Remembering, then, plays such an important role in Ignatian spirituality that this spirituality is clearly a reflective spirituality. It is reflective in the way that scholars suggest the Hebrew Scriptures were formed--by people noting, recalling, exa.mining, reflecting on the story. Ignatian spirituality is in sync with the providential process whereby people's remembering contributed to the forming of our Scriptures. We have described one arm of Ignatius's dynamic spirituality. It is time to express a qualification, beginning with the word but. But this arm I have just described has, I believe, received overemphasis through the centuries and perhaps also in our own time. This emphasis was so great that often the second arm was practically ignored. I would like to focus now on the second piston arm of Ignatian spirituality, which I will describe by the word imagining. Review for Religious Imagining Over the past thirty years, I think that the battle about whether Ignatian spirituality predominantly makes use of an intel-lectu~ il and meditative form of prayer or a contemplative one has been won. The centuries-long controversy, in fact, may have been not so much about a way of praying as about how important imagination is in Ignatian spirituality. Even now, in the current renewal of Ignatian spirituality, I think that people do not give imagining the pride of place that Ignatian spirituality requires. Jesuits themselves are partly responsible for the lack of emphasis on this second arm of Ignatian spirituality. In most traditions, secular or ecclesial, there seems to be a continuing fear of imagination. After their forty-year suppression, I think that Jesuits in their 1814 refounding took their cue from the church climate and parroted the text of the Exercises and their own Ignatian constitutions just as American Catholics parroted the Baltimore Catechism in the 19th and 20th centuries before Vatican Council II. I believe that many of the retreats Jesuits gave to religious women in their motherhouses and to lay men and women in Jesuit retreat houses suffered from a deficient understanding of the importance of imagination in Ignatian spirituality. St. Ignatius implicitly but clearly calls for imagination when he insists on adapting the Exercises to specific retreatants, but this was often ignored. Even now, in the current renewal of Ignatian spirituality, Jesuits and others often set little store by imagination. You may be getting the picture that I think that imagining is all too scarce in people's understanding and living of Ignatian spirituality today. And, in looking to the future, I think that imagining is altogether essential. Just as I discussed three integral parts of remembering-~- noting, examining, and recalling the story--now I want to discuss three integral parts of imagining in Ignatian spirituality. I begin with contemplating, for this is again where Ignatius has left his mark on Christian spirituality. Contemplating Ignatian contemplation is focused, not on losing oneself in God, but on finding oneself with God. Contemplating is ordinarily understood as "gazing upon" the divine. In this gazing, November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ lgnatian lnvitation We tell stories not just to remember the past, but to learn for the future. the emphasis is not on the relationship between oneself and God, but rather is on being absorbed in God, lost in God, taken up into God. An example of this kind of contemplation is centering prayer. For Ignatius, however, the focus is always on relationship. Because Ignatian contemplation is ordinarily focused on gospel mysteries (that is, gospel events), we as contemplatives may, of course, get absorbed in the gospel story, but we are always consciously in relationship. For Ignatius, contemplating the gospel mysteries is the privileged way to come to know Jesus more clearly so as to love him more dearly and follow him more nearly, as the popular song from Godspell would impress upon us. A number of people today, in our media-saturated climate, claim difficulty with Ignatian contemplation for the very reason that it calls us to use our imagination. Having been spoon-fed by movies, television, and now computers and handheld Palms, we may have had our imaginations dulled. But, regardless of the cause, how do we help ourselves and others to do the imagining that Ignatius calls for? Ignatius was a romantic man, and he made active use of his imagination, as we know from his Autobiography. We ourselves may or may not be romantically inclined, but I think that most of us have told a story or two in our small world of everyday interaction with others. We tell stories about what happened to us or to others at the store, at work, at school, or on the way home. Most of us tell stories frequently. Ignatian contemplation can be understood as "telling a story." Remember what we said about the Ignatian "history": making something present to ourselves, recalling how. Contemplating for us is meant to be as involving as our own telling of a story. We have had the experience of telling the story of being at the bedside of dying Aunt Martha, and in the telling the lump in the throat and the tears come just as if we were once again in the midst of the very event. We have had some ridiculous interchange between a fellow worker and ourselves, and the event is so real that, in the retelling, tears of laughter roll down Review for Religious our own cheeks and down our listeners' cheeks as well. That kind of involvement is Ignatian contemplation. Perhaps we are not very imaginative, and the Ignatian directive of seeing the people, listening to what they say, and then watching their actions may seem very stilted and even cause us to feel frozen in our response. But I repeat that almost everyone can tell a story (and usually does in day-to-day life). And I think that, for Ignatius, contemplating and telling the story are one and the same activity. When we tell a story, we not only provide details; we also communicate meaning. Beyond that, we intimate the story's significance for ourselves and for the future. Telling the story may give us insight into our own behavior, other people's perceptions and moods, and God's ways of acting. We tell stories not just to remember the past, but to learn for the future. Telling stories is our way of imbibing wisdom. Contemplating, telling stories, looks to the future, and is an integral part of imagining. Dreaming A second aspect of imagining for Ignatius is dreaming--not nighttime dreams, but the daydreaming that is a part of youth, no matter the age. When we looked at the importance of noting for Ignatius, we observed that he had daydreams about serving the king of Spain and winning a great lady's hand; and then alternately he dreamed of serving Christ his King with great deeds like the saints of old, such as Dominic and Francis. After his wounding at Pamplona and his conversion, Ignatius never lost his ability to dream. I think we gain insight when we look upon the Call of the King meditation at the beginning of the Second Week as Ignatius's attempt to bring us into Christ's dream. Whether we take the parable king, so winning and inspiring, proposing his dream of conquering his enemies and achieving a victorious peace, or whether we consider the risen Christ calling each of us to let ourselves be caught up into his dream of the kingdom of heaven, God's reign, we are entering into a dream of future happenings. For the human king, such dreams might never be realized; for Christ, the victory of the dream is already realized in his resurrection, as we know by faith. In the Exercises, whether we consider the Three Degrees of Humility (§§165ff) or the situations described in the Second Way November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ Ignatian lnvitation to Make a Good and Sound Election (§§184ff), Ignatius presumes that most of us dream about our futures. He takes a common human experience and uses it for God. Dreaming, which is about a future still unrealized, is a use of imagination. Dreaming is an integral part of imagining in Ignatian spirituality. Visioning Similar to dreaming in Ignatian spirituality, but fixed more in the reality of what is already present, is visioning. Ignatius presents us with three vision exercises. He begins with a vision exercise known as the Principle and Foundation. He closes with an exercise tided "Contemplation on the Love of God," a vision exercise. The third vision exercise is tided the Call of the King (sometimes understood as the Second Principle and Foundation opening the Second Week and the Weeks thereafter). We have already considered it primarily under the idea of Christ presenting his dream to us, but Ignatius is careful to point out that this is more than just a dream, for the victory is assured. It is also a vision. The Principle and Foundation expresses succincdy Ignatius's way of seeing God, himself, his neighbor, and his world--in all their relations--and seeing, too, the choices to be made in living out the truth of the vision. The Contemplation on the Love of God expresses the ways of God's loving that we have reflected on and experienced through the course of the Exercises. In it we pray to be empowered to go forth and love with something of the fullness and breadth of God's loving. For Ignatius, visions present reality to us. Our effort to bring our own way of living into the vision gives us our direction into the future. Visioning, then, lik~ dreaming and contemplating, is an integral part of imagining--all three elements looking towards the future. I believe that the emphasis on imagining inherent in Ignatian spirituality is what allows it to be open, adaptable, and applicable to the future. Imagining is akin to the "blue-skying" that is so much a part of the planning process in organizational psychology. "Blue-skying" breaks us out of our usual restraints just as the image suggests. For Ignatius, imagining allows God to break into our lives because we have given up our own control, our own setting of limits. Imagining allows us to be open and Review for Religious available, to be vulnerable, to let a divine break-in help us to break out. Such imagining, then, as Ignatius discovered, becomes a way of working with God in the direction that God calls us. Recall that it is two piston arms that give Ignatian spirituality its dynamism: remembering and imagining. These terms mean more than a casual "look back" and then a "look forward," and neither one is to be chosen over the other. The genius of Ignatius was to see how only both working together would provide the forward dynamism that is summed up in the often misunderstood phrase "spiritual freedom." Being Free We are free only if we know, acknowledge, and work with our own personal history. But we need something more. We are free only if we are not limited or shackled by our past or present so that we can imagine the fi~ture that we are invited to by God. In Ignatius's experience, human freedom is a gift of God, but only a potential one. Actual freedom requires us to join together our remembering and our imagining. To be more exact, for us people of faith the gift of freedom is realized only in its relationship with the gift of God's grace. Then human freedom is experienced--Ignatius would say, using the Spanish word liberalidad--as generosity. I think, indeed, that liberalidad is better translated self-giving. Liberalidad well describes God's way of loving, a loving without limits, and yet always a discreet love. For Ignatius, a love without limits is a love of discretion because of reverence. The reverence that God shows to each of us, his children, is meant to be the pattern of our own way of loving. As the Third and Fourth Weeks show, God's love, incarnate in Jesus, will not be limited even by threat of death or death itself. And, in his risen life, Jesus lives the discreet love of never forcing but eliciting our response. Jesus' interaction with Thomas a week after the resurrection shows Love eliciting love. There are no limits to God's love, but, his reverence for us being so great, God always loves us with discretion. Human freedom, what we sometimes call spiritual freedom, is about giving oneself, sharing who we are. Freedom in its essence is not focused on one's independence or on concern about one's rights. For Ignatius, as we are reminded in his November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ Ignatian Invitation prenote to the Contemplation on the Love of God, lovers want to express their love in deeds more than words, and lovers want to communicate (the Ignatian word communicar) or share what they have with the one they love. It is in self-giving, in mutual sharing, mutual surrender, that human freedom is most strongly experienced. It is in this experience of generosity that true love is experienced between God and us and between wife and husband and between all who love. Ignatian generosity is not just a giving as in giving away; it is a sharing, a communication back and forth between two parties. "More !" The dynamism of Ignatian spirituality is sometimes identified with the Latin word magis, "More!" Looking for more seems to indicate a discontent with what is. Wanting more--for example, more food, more money, more successmcan be a devil-driven quality that makes us desire to be our own gods. To put magis in focus, we need to recognize that Ignatius's meaning of the word is in relation to love that has no limits, but nevertheless is always discreet. In ottier words, magis for Ignatius is a relationship word, a word having meaning in terms of personal relationships, in terms of love, reverential love. For Ignatius, God-given love is the only thing, the only giving, that gives proper meaning to "More!"--the love given freely, in generosity and always in reverence, just as God loves. Into the Deep In the same apostolic letter that Pope John Paul told us Christians to "set out into the deep" in this new millennium, he also gave a name to the spirituality that was to empower us in this endeavor. He called all Christians to live a "spirituality of communion." The pope made little attempt to define it and certainly did not identify this spirituality of communion with any one school or tradition of spirituality. The word communion, we note, does not come from the Latin unio and cure, meaning "union with." Rather, with its two re's, communio (from the Latin munus and cure) expresses a "functioning or working with." The usual English meaning of Review for Religious "communion"--that is, "union with"--will result from our "working together," but there seems to be an emphasis on activity, a real working at something together. The pope has called us all to live a spirituality of communion--to live a working-together spirituality--in a world in which divorce and family divisions are rampant, a world in which the meanness and divisiveness of racial, cultural, and economic differences have turned various cities and countries into war zones, a world in which our churches are divided between conservative (or traditional) factions and liberal (or progressive) ones, and a world in which religious faith itself is used as the excuse for the hatred, violence, and death visible in Europe, visible in the Middle East, visible in Africa, visible in India, and there are always more. The spirituality that is needed for us to face this world, the pope says, is above all a spirituality of communion. It is a provocative expression for a spirituality that looks to the future--"working together at bringing together." What is Ignatius's invitation to us today? It really does not differ from his invitation to the men and women of his own time in the 16th century. Perhaps we see the makeup of his spirituality more clearly today, finding it attractive in the face of the demands of our times. Perhaps we are more needy today, more in need of what this spirituality offers. Perhaps Ignatian spirituality shows the way to a reverence for all relationships in our world, so missing in secular culture and perhaps obscured in our church too. Whatever the appeal of Ignatian spirituality, I know that it concretizes for us a spirituality of communion--a "working together at bringing together." We need to be fed by God's word, by "every utterance that comes from the mouth of God," if we are to live and actively minister in our church today. For this, it can help to hold on to the word remembering, noting, examining, and recalling the story of events that have gone into the making of who we are--but not letting the past encapsulate us or drive us. We need to allow our creator God to break into our lives with creativity, and so it can help to hold on to the word imagining, contemplating, dreaming, and visioning activities that allow God to enter our life and accompany us into a world of generosity that only a truly'free person can know. When we remember God's love from past events and when we imagine God's call to greater love, more generosity, in the November-December 2002 Fleming ¯ Ignatian Invitation future, we are able to experience the magis (the "More!"), a love that is free and discreet, not driven, because of God's reverence for us and our reverent response. With a discreet love that knows no limits, we enter into Jesus' way of loving, into all the activity of God's way of loving. We are free to share our gifts, to be present, to give of ourselves, to labor and struggle and not count the cost. Whatever our situation, we may hear St. Ignatius echoing Pope John Paul: Yes, put out into the deep, be empowered with a spirituality of communion, look beyond patriarchy, foster mutuality, look towards solidarity, "work together at bringing together." Father Pedro Arrupe, the former superior general of the Jesuits, often used to ask challengingly, "Como?" or, in English, "How to do?" I can see Ignatius responding: "Remember and imagine." I can see Ignatius softly reminding us that there is a magis because there is Love. More softly still he adds, "Remember, imagine. See Jesus, our crucified Love." Adirondack Dawn Such intense stillness - no birdsong greets my ears, but only the whisper of lake water lapping the shore and birch leaves rustling ever so slightly. A faint cloud of incense rises from the misty waters, perfumed by the aroma of fragrant pine forests. Nature and I stand mute, awed by the miracle of this new day being birthed in such splendor. Christine Diensberg OSF Review for Religious IGNATIUS JESUDASAN Ignatian Indifference and Structural Constraints ~sehraneet lSy tu. nIgcnhaaltlieunsg reedfe cros ntcoe apst Gino odu'rs pwluilrla ilsis htiacr tdilmy eas. For him and his contemporaries, God was the indubitably trustworthy and unshakable rock on which to secure one's choice and commitment. Our age and culture do not believe in and recognize God as patently as previous ones did. Ours is a secular era, which understands and is at home with only secular language and thought. As contemporaries of this era, we cannot use any other language if we seriously want to address people of our era and be understood by them. In the context of seeking and finding God's will with regard to important decisions at the crossroads of one's life, St. Ignatius is, in effect, speaking of "affective indifference." In common parlance, this is a state of peace unruffled by the emotions of joy, hope, fear, and anxiety about actual or possible happenings. Anxiety is an indicator of attachment to something or someone and of the consequent fear of losing or becoming distanced from that object or person. Attachment can also be to one's own will, interests, or powers. Regarding decisions to be made by individuals and groups, we can use this language to approximate what Ignatius calls God's Ignatius Jesudasan SJ, new to our pages, writes from Loyola School; Uthiramerur 603 406; India. November-December 2002 Jesudasan ¯ Ignatian Indifference and Structural Constraints Images can be obstacles to affective indifference. A will. He desires to help people find as complete a freedom and objectivity as is obtainable or realizable on earth, so that they may be peacefully sure of making the right decision in current circumstances and the prevailing state of knowledge, avoiding needless errors of judgment and resulting difficulties, regrets, and recriminations. Affective indifference means freedom from emotional attachment or aversion to someone or something that a decision concerns or affects. Attachment and aversion are prejudices for or against someone or something. When one makes a decision on the basis of a prejudice, one is far from being fair to all involved in or affected by the decision. This unfairness comes ultimately from one or another prejudicial structure. Ignatius's stress on emotional or affective indifference can be seen as stemming from his concern about social structures with their social prejudices. Within those structures he sees the obviously unstable and changing nature of the emotions of both liking and disliking. His wish and desire is to help people achieve a stable social structure wherein all can be at peace together. This means that personal decisions people make need to be firm, steady, and. dependable. Affective indifference or lack of it has a bearing on social structures, and vice versa. People's most common difficulty in achieving and retaining affective indifference arises from the way their likes and dislikes make relationships unstable, opportunistic, exploitive, and irresponsible instead of stable, edifying, principled, virtuous, and responsible. People get stuck in webs of negative relationships from which only great effort, suffering, and sacrifice could extricate them--things they are not likely to desire. Often the very positions people occupy in an institution are obstacles to affective indifference, especially positions of great power, wealth, esteem, and influence. This can be true in the church and in institutions of religious congregations. Images can be obstficles to affective indifference. The image that people have or might get of you, or the image that you want to project of yourself, say of clarity and firmness, can make you Review for Religious inflexible. But you flatter yourself---and, when you are in power, there are also others to flatter you--with having that clarity and firmness. Such inflexible consistency is likely to be the very opposite of affective indifference and of psychological and spiritual freedom. It is perhaps a sign of the times and a clue to what they are reading that major superiors call for feedback on their governance. One hopes that they do this in openness and Ignatian indifference to the diverse opinions expressed. Needless to say, the teaching of St. Ignatius on indifference applies no less to superiors and their attitudes and decisions than to the ordinary members of his Society. Superiors have a duty to ask it of their subjects, and subjects have the reciprocal right to expect it from their superiors. Without it, religious governance would be no different from that of any secular, efficient, and exploitive military organization. The very call for feedback is a sign of a personal government, one that respects every member and takes the whole of his personality into account in decisions that affect him. This implies that the superior follows up, observes carefully, and, from what he sees and hears, learns how the subject has responded and how effectively he is accomplishing the assignment. Subjects might, of course, deliberately give false impressions. The superior might not interpret the information objectively, might bring prejudice to it, a lack of affective indifference. Depending on the patterns overall, the decision, its result, and the reading of the resulting situation will qualify as just clever and efficient, or else as also holy. An order made or given in affective indifference (and thus without prejudice) can be expected to be received with affective indifference by the subject. When there is resistance or reservation on the part of subjects who are usually affectively indifferent, there may be an absence of indifference on the part of the superior. The indicator of affective indifference is readiness to listen to the reasons and feelings of people on the other side. Indifference is total presence, availability, and attention to the other. It presupposes a measure of leisure and empathy to move with the other's flow of feeling, understanding, motivation, decision, commitment, and action. It is identification with the November-December 2002 ~esudasan ¯ I~natian Indifference and Structural Constraints other; it is objectivity with and transparency to the other. It is a state of perfect understanding, with a naturally contagious mutuality. The above is a description of a desirable ideal. The reality is very different on both sides. For we are all "busy" and in a hurry to achieve: make a name, prove a point, or teach a lesson--all in a short time. The result is that we do not achieve a solid objectivity, but make a show of power or of ourselves and our self-will, unaware of what we project and the violence we inflict on others because we do not see ourselves with their eyes: because in fact we are not indifferent. There are other structural hindrances to affective indifference. Being conditioned to structures can be the first. Some structures are inevitable and therefore function as criteria of indifference. Other structures, like tight schedules and strict procedures, militate against indifference. The greater the work, haste, power, prestige, or public image in one's life, the less time and likelihood there is for self-questioning. Thus one becomes extrovert and self-justifying, revealing the absence of detachment and indifference. When one is vested with much power or authority, one seems threatening to others, and the perceived threat erodes their indifference too. Another hindrance is that structures themselves, the very forms and formalities of objectivity, may have lacunae. That is, they may be objective only on the dubious assumption of perfect indifference on the part of decision makers and consultors. In decisions about a subject's psychological illness or resistance to change, the person involved may be physically absent from the scene of decision, and there may be a real possibility of his being prejudicially misrepresented because someone at the meeting likes or dislikes him. This writer became aware of one such misrepresentation and pointed it out. The superior, when informed, was apparently honest and humble enough to accept the correction, but the decision had already-been made in the absence of the subject and on the basis of a misunderstanding of a text. How sure is one that the information supplied to the consultors at the decision-making session is correct? When the basis of the decision is incomplete or incorrect, how complete and correct can the decision be? The probability is that this was not a unique occurrence. But Review for Religious how and why do such instances occur? They occur from the ex-parte nature of the decision or proceedings in the absence of the concerned person. The system does not have a built-in transparency for all concerned. Between the superior and the consultors, there may be some transparency. But, if the superior had the right to decide the matter after his face-to-face discussion with the concerned person but chooses, permissibly but without necessity, to bring the matter before his consultors, the subject's trust in the proceedings tends to be shaken. When the subject's personal indifference is not great, accepting the communicated decision is difficult, and the subject is left with the impression that the decision makers are no more indifferent than he himself is. It is likely that bias affects the decision precisely because the proceedings go on without the concerned person. In a personal government, transparency to the persons concerned is more important than transparency to a mechanism of decision making. Personal transparency is more likely to induce or educe a subject's indifference than an authoritarian structural mechanism like an official meeting of consultors. Besides, transparency to a mechanism risks betraying information that is passed on to a superior in confidence, and will only serve to make people opaque and nontransparent. If both trust and transparency are to be preserved along with the existing mechanisms and ways of proceeding,' the persons whom decisions concern will have to be asked to be present when the decisions are made. Otherwise, decisions are perceived as unfair and confidence is further eroded. A bigger structural constraint is the centralization of power and portfolios in the hands of one major superior. I am not advocating the appointment of more major superiors, but a suggesting that there may need to be decentralization and How sure is one that the information supplied to the consultors at the decision-making session is correct? November-December 2002 z~esudasan * Ignatian Indifference and Structural Constraints democratization of power at all levels, with the right to appeal to a higher superior when there is disagreement or conflict at any level. Democratization can be ensured by dialogue and wider consultation and by opening the local consultors' meetings to any and all members of the local community who are interested. The content or agenda of every such meeting should be announced beforehand. When a member and his works are discussed, he should have to be present. Entrusting more powers to local superiors in dialogue with their consultors and their community could ensure decentralization, but there should also be appeal to the higher superior in case of conflict or disagreements. Only that which cannot be resolved or decided upon by the local superior and community should be referred to the higher superior and his consult. When individual members feel that their voice is heard at the appropriate and necessary levels, the level of their confidence and indifference will increase. 5-841 Walking with Jesus I stroll along the water's edge tiny shorebirds my companions scurrying for morsels of food God provides in the receding tide. And I think of Jesus by the sea of Galilee, the apostles his companions listening to every word from his gentle heart. Now I too reach out to Jesus midst the sunrises and sunsets cognizant of the food of life bestowed on me, a loving son. Neil C. Fitzgerald Review for Religious DAVID M. WHALEN The Emergence of the Contemporary Traditionalists If indeed a picture is worth a thousand words, let me begin with a few verbal snapshots. The first is of a meeting of the liturgy/chaplaincy committee at a prominent Catholic university. Seated around the table are the priest chaplain, a full-time lay chaplain, and a half dozen or so students. The topic for discussion is what chaplaincy might offer by way of special services during Lent. Several suggestions generate little response. Then a student proposes an all-night Eucharistic vigil before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. The priest chaplain is amazed, and highly skeptical of its success, but feels he must go along with the suggestion if only to prove to the committee that such practices no longer attract the young. On the evening selected a brief exposition service is held with a surprising number of students present. The priest chaplain retires, setting his clock to wake him in the middle of the night so that there is sure to be someone present especially in case of an emergency. ministry formation David M. Whalen OSFS, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, teaches in the University of St. Michael's College. His address is Faculty of Theology/USMC; 81 St. Mary Street; Toronto, Ontario M5S 1J4; Canada. November-December 2002 Wbalen ¯ Contemporary Traditionalists As he enters the chapel, he is astonished by what he sees. There are young people everywhere. Some are on their knees. Others are sitting on the floor against the wall. Some have a Bible in one hand and a water' bottle in the other. There are even a few young students who have fallen asleep right at the foot of the altar. A second visit several hours later shows a scene almost identical to the first. The second snapshot is of a recent ~rdination. Only one man is being ordained. The concelebrating clergy section is comfortably filled with an assortment of "fifty-something" priests in albs and stoles of various design. Seated in the congregation are two additional priests, men in their mid sixties. Neither is in clerical attire. They have concerns about the overly clerical nature of the ordination ceremony and what they consider clericalism in general. For most of their priestly life, they have been in the vanguard of theological and liturgical change. Right in front of them are seated two seminarians, each in black suit and Roman collar. One sports a bright silver earring in each ear. The final snapshot is taken on the streets of Toronto, Canada, at the outset 'of World Youth Day. Walking down the street past the university are four or five religious sisters in full habit. By full habit I mean ankle-length dress, scapular, rosary hanging alongside, and a full back veil. One concession to modernity is evident. Since they do not wear a forehead cover, glimpses of black hair can be seen. Their progression down the street is continually interrupted by groups of young people who stop and talk with them, and, while I am not privy to the conversation, it appears friendly and positive. Whoever these sisters are and wherever they are from, it is clear that they are welcome in the eyes of the youth gathering in the city. These, of course, are only three snapshots. Though I could offer many more, they seem to capture bits and pieces of what I am calling contemporary traditionalism. I am a priest and religious in my late fifties. I grew up in a traditional Roman Catholic family, attended the local parish elementary school and the local Catholic high school. I entered my religious community right out of high school. My postulancy, novitiate, and first two years of professed life preceded Vatican Council 1I. The remainder of my formation took place right in Review for Religious the midst of the council. My priestly ministry began and continues in the post-Vatican lI era. My ministry has been chiefly in education, first as a high school teacher and administrator and now for twenty years at the university level. I teach in a faculty of theology attached to a university. I have also been a member of my congregation's formation team for close to twenty years. On weekends I assist in parishes. I refer to myself as part of the "bridge" generation, that is, the generation that lived before and after Vatican My doctoral work dealt with ministerial identity. Using qualitative or thick research, I studied a group of theology students, mostly lay, for one year, looking for indications of whether, when, where, and how they appropriated a ministerial identity. Religious/ministerial identity still intrigues me. What follows in this article is some informal qualitative research, that is, an attempt to look in some depth and over an extended period of time at a particular issue. Qualitative research does not permit long-range projections, and both the writer and reader need to be aware of that limitation. On the other hand, qualitative research, even of the informal variety, may suggest that the issue under scrutiny deserves some serious investigation. For several years now I have been fascinated by the growing number of people who seem to be forging a new religious identity. Many of these people have been students in my classes. Others have been a part of our formation program at one point or another. Some come from my parish experience. I refer to these people as the contemporary traditionalists. They are men and women in their twenties and thirties. Most of them are university educated, and many are now pursuing graduate studies. Theirs is the world of cyberspace and technology. Just as I would be reluctant to leave the house in the morning without my wristwatch, they do not think of leaving their residence without cell phone and PalmPilot in hand. They are much more likely to get their daily news from I have been fascinated by the growing number of people who seem to be forging a new religio ts identity. November-December 2002 VVbalen ¯ Contem~orar[ Traditionalists the Internet than from the printed newspaper. They are educated, although their educational resources are very different from mine. While I still like to hold a book and have no difficulty roaming through the stacks in a library to find the book I want, they are much more likely to use the Internet and its resources than library stacks. I continue to be amazed as the bibliography of student essays indicates more downloaded articles than traditional "hard" text references. They have only known one pope, John Paul II. They have known the liturgy only in the vernacular. Events like Vatican II, the Vietnam war, and indeed the Persian Gulf war are all historical events for them, just as Vatican Council I and Trent were for my generation. Although their Internet abilities give them a global access, they are surprisingly apolitical. They find pictures of campus disruptions in the 1960s and 1970s mildly amusing. They are generous in volunteering for local efforts to help the poor or marginalized, but not much interested in what seem the deeper structural issues that cause such poverty. It is in the broad area of theology and religious practice, though, that their contemporary traditionalism is most evident. In moral theology, for example, specifically regarding divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, and abortion and contraception, they seem at first glance totally supportive of the church's current teaching, but as conversation continues one notices the contemporary side of their traditionalism in what I call their "exemption" or "notwithstanding" clause. They believe that marriage is for life, they do not believe in divorce or remarriage of the divorced, and yet they not only are not condemnatory of divorced and remarried people they know, but often express the conviction that such people ought to be admitted to the sacraments under certain nonspecified conditions. They see no difficulty in holding a traditional position about marriage and sometimes granting exemptions to church restrictions by way of a "notwithstanding" clause. They take a similar stand regarding homosexuality. While terms such as "intrinsic disorder" are not part of their vocabulary, they seem to believe that homosexuality ought not enjoy the same status as heterosexuality. But, expressin, g such concern about the issue, in the abstract, they are quick to cite the Review for Religious gays and lesbians they know firsthand, particularly those in generous committed relationships, as persons who should be granted an exemption to the church prohibitions. They are strongly opposed to abortions. In fact, an antiabortion protest is one of the few protests in which they will participate. They do not believe in free or recreational sex, but they seem much less concerned about artificial contraception whether used in or out of marriage. They have this relative unconcern particularly in the case of young people who they think have not yet reached a certain level of moral development. People call this theological approach cafeteria theology, a pick-and-choose theological stance, or a revival of situational ethics, but the contemporary traditionalists do not seem to see it that way at all. They seem to see it as an interim theology. I have had occasion to speak with a young man who acknowledges privately that he is gay. lie does not consider himself intrinsically disordered--in fact, the term means little to him--and yet he is willing to live by the church's current expec-tations. He supports neither the "queer culture" nor the church-sanctioned support group for homosexuals called Courage. He does not think either of these groups contributes much to the cause. He is convinced that the church's teaching will change in time and seems willing to wait for it to change. He has friends who are less patient than he is, and, while he does not agree with them, at least in some instances he seems willing to grant them an "exemption" or "notwithstanding" clause. In other areas of theology, many of these young people appear to be theologically illiterate. My generation grew up with a question-and-answer form of religious education that provided a certain primitive theological literacy along with some problematic side effects, but the contemporary traditionalists do not seem to have even a primitive theological literacy. This is true even of students who are studying theology. But the contemporary traditionalists do not seem to have even a primitive theological literacy. November-December 2002 Wbalen ¯ Contemporary Traditionalists --5.90 In one of the classes I teach, I invite students at a certain point in the course to go to their "theological treasury" and find elements that they can place in conversation with their contemporary experience. A student responded by saying, "My theological treasury is bare. Someone got in before me and robbed me of everything." His opinion seemed to be that of many in the class. While many of my generation have bemoaned the style, language, and structure of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, I am amazed at how many students consider it one of the most valuable documents in their possession. They are more likely to have this on their bookshelf than the documents of Vatican II. It is in the broad area .of liturgy/spirituality/piety, though, that the contemporary traditionalists seem most clearly identifiable. These contemporary traditionalists are searching desperately for a genuine Christian and Catholic spirituality. Last year, for example, my introductory course in spiritual direction had the highest enrollment of any course in our faculty of theology. Class evaluations were overwhelmingly positive. While in moments of pride I am quick to think that the positive response centered on me as teacher, comments suggest that their enthusiasm was for the content, not the professor. My generation was delighted when the first home Masses began to be celebrated. Gone were the long rows of pews. Instead, friends sat around a coffee table with a relaxed and much more informal ritual. The priest, if he wore any liturgical garb at all, probably wore only a .simple stole. There was always a "shared" homily and a very warm exchange of peace before the Eucharist itself was shared. The contemporary traditionalists are clearly not excited by the casual liturgy of the 1970s. They are tired of "sharing" their feelings about the readings. One student said to me, "From grade one on, all anyone ever asked me was what I felt about this or that. What I feel now is that I need a litde more information rather than another round of everyone's feelings on the topic." Almost universally, the contemporary traditionalists are critical of the way liturgy is celebrated today. They seem to find many parish liturgies and many of the clergy incapable of creating the sacred moment for them. As for p.reaching, they Review for Religious would much rather read a passage from one of the church fathers than listen to a homily. One student said to me: "Look, I already have a degree in psychology, and frankly my parish priest's attempt to speak psychologically falls flat. If he has nothing theological to say, I wish he would just sit down and shut up!" The traditional part of the student keeps him going to church while the contemporary part is constantly searching for another option. Some contemporary traditionalists are rediscovering various pious practices in the church. One student told me that from childhood on she had wondered what the various pictures were that graced the walls of her parish church. What she was referring to are the Stations of the Cross. While surfing the net, she came upon a copy of prayers and reflections designed to accompany the Stations. Waiting for a time when she felt "safe" in walking the Stations, she came to the church and walked them and prayed them. Her comment and question to me was "Why are these such a bigsecret tooay." ~" In addition to the retrieval of many traditional devotions from the past, the more contemporary practice known as Taiz4 Prayer appears very common among the contemporary traditionalists. Taiz4 Prayer, modeled on that used by the monks of Taiz~ in France, combines simple chanted scriptural phrases, mostly in Latin, with periods of silent prayer and usually concludes with a veneration of the cross. As the snapshots I gave you at the beginning of this essay hinted, the contemporary traditionalists have no difficulty with visible manifestations of their religious beliefs. They seem somewhat intrigued by the fact that so many religious and priests have abandoned religious clothing and other religious symbols. At the same time they know very few religious. Although many of them have attended Catholic elementary and secondary schools and in some cases Catholic universities, few if any of them were The contemporary traditionalists have no difficulty with visible manifestations of their religious beliefs. November-December 2002 Whalen ¯ Contemporary Traditionalists ever taught by priests, brothers, or sisters. They are much more likely to identify sisters with the late Mother Teresa or with Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act than with an actual still-living religious woman. And, while there is a world of difference between the late Mother Teresa and the Whoopi Goldberg version of a sister, the contemporary.traditionalists find both very enticing. One young male religious in a religious community that has a visibly distinct religious habit told me that the "habit" issue is not his issue; it is an issue for the "older" members, who still seem to be fighting for something that his generation has little time or sympathy for. This gap between many of the contemporary traditionalists and many of the current generation of religious was brought home to me vividly by a simple line from a young woman beginning consecrated life. The Canadian Film Board spent a year following this young woman through the process of applying to and eventually entering a religious community. One scene in particular drew nay attention. It shows her filling out the questionnaire sent by the community as part of the admission process. One question asks, "Have you ever dated?" The young woman turns and faces the camera with a bit of a grin, rolls her eyes upward, and says "How fifties-ish!" In many ways that comment seems to represent the attitude of the contemporary traditionalists as they confront the church and ministry and religious life today. Their issues, their lifestyle, their questions and concerns are simply different from those of stereotypical conservatives or liberals. Those ideas, those agendas, are so "fifties-ish" or so "sixties-ish"! Another difference between the contemporary traditionalists and the usual conservative or liberal "suspects" and representativFs is on the matters of married clergy and women priests. The traditional side of these young contemporaries supports an all-male celibate clergy, but for many of them what is important is not the clergy's gender or marital status, but rather its authenticity. Given the option between a celibate but incompetent male priest and a liturgy presided over by someone of the caliber of Mother Teresa, they are prepared to use their "notwithstanding" clause in favor of the woman. In their eyes, this is not inconsistency; it is yet another example of different concerns and their use of the "exception" or "notwithstanding" theology option. Review for Religious Whether these contemporary traditionalists are merely a passing blip on the great Jumbo-Tron of religion today or are a whole new picture slowly replacing an older picture it is probably too early to tell. Still, it seem to me that such contemporary traditionalists are the ones most likely to investigate consecrated life or the priesthood today. Whether the religious communities and dioceses that have assumed--by deliberate choice or simply by default--a standard conservative or liberal posture will be welcoming of them and their way of life remains to be seen. Epiphany Like one of the magi, you journey toward the Light. There's more wilderness than you would have thought, uncharted plains stretching from yesterday to remote Decembers. You could lose your courage or your way and scan the sky for twinkling clues. But it requires no gift of gold or frankincense for God to grant epiphanies. Unexpected stars have risen in your darkest nights, and always just in time. So you were not surprised at what you heard today. The magi's star, absent for a while, would of course shine forth again, be fair oasis brightening the desert of vast sky and luring, as stars do, curious travelers to the very feet of new-begotten God. Patricia Schnapp RSM November-December 2002 GUY B. WILSON A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation Imn the past four years we have developed in Costa Pica a odel of formation for our new members. The model is based on religious and lay people working together. This article is an attempt to articulate the philosophy, theology, spirituality, and practice of our experience with this model. The model is inspired by the vision and pioneering work of our founder, Father Thomas Augustine Judge. He began an apostolic organization of laypersons, the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate,and then founded two religious congregations, one for women, the Missionary Servants of Most Blessed Trinity, and one for men, the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity. He encouraged us all to collaborate as a missionary community or family. Our Rule, constitution, and documents promote this interdependence and cooperation. The new Manual of Forma-tion for the men religious emphasizes the common history and the shared vocation we have with the other branches and takes our collaboration with them for granted. Our religious have been working in teams with laypersons, sharing gifts, ministries, and faith. We are doing so more and Guy B. Wilson ST, a member of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, first published this description of formation principle and practice in his congregation's newsletter, Tri-Com. He can be addressed at Cenficulo Misionero San Jos~; Apartado Postal 191-3100; Santo Domingo de Heredia; Costa Rica. Review for Religious more in our promotion of parish life and the life of pastoral centers. In these places the three groups share responsibilities, power, and decisions to enrich the ministry of evangelization and to strengthen the missionary vocation of all. In Costa Rica we have applied this pastoral model of collaboration to the formation of our men religious. In this model, the laypersons are key. They form an integral part of the formation team with the director. They share responsibilities and decisions. As they do in pastoral ministry, they gready enrich the ministry of formation. Religious and laypersons, by forming community and working together as teams, model for the seminarians the reality of the church. They form a microcosm of the church, men and women, lay and religious, married and celibate, all united in their faith and promoting the mission of Jesus. This collaboration reflects the church as the people of God, an important image articulated in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. All the baptized are called to participate, with their gifts and faith, in the mission of Jesus. Laypersons, with their practical experience of day-to-day struggles and successes and with their varied professional backgrounds, have much to offer to formation ministry. Our young men have benefited from being accompanied in their religious vocation by a psychologist and father of a family, by a mother of adolescents who is also a financial administrator, by a grandmother and pastoral coordinator, and by an experienced lay missionary. Our candidates and newly professed are in an intensive process directed towards serving the people of God. It is crucial that the people of God are intimately present in their formation. This model shows laypersons and religiou~ united through their baptismal commission in promoting the mission of Jesus. It is an important change from priestly and religious vocations being enthroned above the lay vocation. The participation of women is essential not only in the ministry of the church but also in the formation of our men religious. Their perspective on life, the gospel, faith, and motherhood enriches the formation of our men in their otherwise male-dominated world. The women who have worked on this team have helped to create an environment of trust and accessibility. The seminarians feel at home in November-December 2002 Wilson ¯ A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation approaching them to talk and seek counsel. At the same time, because of this relationship, the women have been able to challenge our young men to mature personally and grow in their religious identity. We want our future religious to reflect, in their relationships with all and especially with women, the harmony, intimacy, love, and collaboration promoted in our devotion to the Holy Trinity. Spiritual and Theological Bases This model of collaboration is based on the vision and charism of our founder. Father Judge referred to the lay apostolic organization and the men's and women's religious congregations he founded as the Missionary Cenacle. He emphasized that we work and share together the spirit of the first Christian community, the cenacle. The cenacle (the upper room where the Jesus' followers were gathered at Pentecost) is the image and model for this formation program. The formation community comprises men and women, laypersons and religious, and people from different cultures, all guided in faith and mission by the Holy Spirit. In the interaction of the cenacle, the members of the formation community are helped to develop their various gifts for use in their mission ministry. "It is the same and only Spirit who gives all these gifts and powers, deciding which each one of us should have" (1 Co 12:11). It is the Holy Spirit who prepares us for mission. This ministry calls us to adopt a prophetic stance that flows from the spirituality and ecclesiology of our founder. He selected the cenacle as the model of the interdependence of his missionary family of religious and lay people. The renewal promoted by the Second Vatican Council also suggests a formation style of collaboration. The Triniw is the main image for the church's community and mission. The Trinity, as a model of collaboration, encourages dialogue and shared ministry in our formation endeavors. Our efforts to glorify the triune God have brought us to a commitment of collaboration in community and mission with the branches of the Missionary Cenacle, lay and religious. As the Father collaborates with the Son and Holy Spirit in distinct and specific ways to actualize the saving mission, we as a formation Review for Religious team intend to collaborate in the ministry of formation of our candidates and newly professed. We form not only a team with specific duties but also a formation community in which our faith and shared ministries testify to the life and mission of Jesus. Jesus, sent by the Father, sends his missionaries or apostles to realize his mission. As people sent by Jesus, we are designated to cooperate in the labor of the Holy Spirit in the vocational development and the missioning of our brothers. Jesus is our key and door to the mystery of the Trinity. Our devotional knowledge of the incarnation brings us to a greater intimacy with Jesus. This devotion teaches us that, with all our graces and all our defects, we are sent. As humble and grateful members of the Body of Christ, we understand that our collaboration with Jesus' mission involves using the variety of our gifts. These gifts enrich the formation ministry as we accompany the candidates and newly professed in their spiritual, human, communal, and apostolic development. This model of interdependence and collaboration has several aspects. First, the religious life and its formation are not isolated from the world. The previous model of priestly and religious formation separated seminarians from the people of God in their daily life. The seminarians lived, prayed, studied, and socialized amid priestly formators and other seminarians. Only priests, normally with an academic emphasis, were chosen to direct the seminarians. The role of the laity in their formation, if it existed, was limited to classroom teaching or to consulting on specific matters. Often this environment produced elitist attitudes. The present model of formation emphasizes helping seminarians develop their capacity to live relationally with other seminarians, lay people and religious, men and women. The Formation Team The formation team of the Missionary Servants in Costa Rica comprises a religious priest as director, a layman as associate director, and a laywoman as the pastoral supervisor. This team accompanies the propaedeutic, prenovitiate, and postnovitiate formation programs. The cooperation of laypersons increases the pool of those who can dedicate themselves to formation. In our situation this is a great advantage, for we have few religious November-December 2002 Wilson ¯ A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation available for this ministry. Also, the laypersons, through their professional training and experience, have improved the quality of formation. Our associate director, for example, a professional psychologist, has strengthened our efforts to foster the seminarians' personal growth. He has implemented extensive workshops on personal growth, sexuality, maturity, and group dynamics. Using his professional vision and understanding of the expectations of our congregation and the needs of the church, he has selected various other professionals to accompany our young men towards maturity. Likewise, the pastoral supervisor has arranged to have our seminarians trained and evaluated in their apostolic endeavors along with our lay missionaries. The apostolates have improved significandy. Our students and the lay apostles cooperatively help one another. The participation of women in the formation program has strengthened the seminarians' ability to relate to and work with both men and women. The model produces a healthy environment for our young men and for the director. Exchange and dialogue help the seminarians and also help the director in making decisions for their sake. Likewise, open sharing with lay formators is a blessing for the personal and spiritual life of the director. By challenging me daily to become a better director and religious, the lay members of the team strengthen my vocation. On the other hand, the laypersons who participate or have participated speak of the profound spiritual, apostolic, and faith growth they experience in this exchange with religious and seminarians. They are grateful for what God is doing in their lives through this relationship. The Formation Programs The formation team is responsible for three programs: propaedeutic, prenovitiate, and postnovitiate. The programs are distinct, but are located on the same property. Each program has its own living and recreational areas. I have observed certain advantages to the proximity of the programs. First, it helps economically. One team serves the three programs, and the expenses of domestic employees, property taxes, financial administration, and so forth are reduced. Second, there is good Revie~v for Religious communal interaction. The young men in the three programs share the same Eucharistic table and the common table. This has helped to build community in number, participation, and spirit. They share sports activities and work in teams. The participants of the three programs form apostolic teams with the members of our lay branch, many of whom celebrate the daily liturgies with us. All the programs study at ITAC (Instituto Teol6gico de Am4rica Central), which was formed to educate religious. The international environment has greatly enriched the formation programs in Costa Rica. The formation team consists of members from the United States, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. The candidates and newly professed are from nine different nations of Central America, the Caribbean, Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico. At the theological institute, there are students from sixteen countries and a number of religious congregations. The cultural exchange broadens everyone's worldview and promotes the vision of one America among the Americas. The formation community includes a retired religious, another religious priest (vocation director), two members of our lay organization who work in the seminary (financial administrator and academic advisor), and lay apostles from the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate who gather in our center for formation and apostolates, sharing prayer and training with our seminarians. All the members of the team have participated in programs designated for formators. The Formation of the Team All the members of the team have participated in programs designated for formators. The programs emphasize personal and spiritual development as well as methods of sharing ministries. Most of these people have attended pr.ograms of the Instituto Central de Espiritualidad in Guatemala under the leadership of Father Carlos Cabarrus SJ. They also attend theology classes at L-Y99-- November-December 2002 Wilson ¯ A Collaborative Model of Missionary Formation ITAC. They gather in retreat once a year and pray together frequently. All members of the team participate in spiritual direction. Concerns have been voiced in regard to the role of laypersons in the formation of our religious. There is a concern that, in this collaborative model of formation, our professed will not develop a clear identity as religious. From my observation over these years, our young men's religious identity is actually reinforced. In particular, the laity demand and challenge our candidates and professed to be faithful to their vocation and religious way of life. They likewise encourage our young professed to share the richness of their studies and spiritual and apostolic training with them for the benefit of the mission. It is quite evident that lay participation in their formation reinforces the vocation of our religious. A clear indicator of this is that religious priests formed in this model and now serving in our missions show a clear and strong identity in their vocation as religious. They are forming good community with their confreres on mission, and they work well with the laity. Specific Abilities This model comes with risks and challenges. Although it is based on the experience of pastoral teams functioning in our missions, the formation ministry requires specific abilities to accompany our young men in their development as persons, Christians, and religious. There are few books or guidelines to follow. The formation team has to dedicate itself to dialogue and communication. It must make a deliberate decision to form a community that shares faith, life, and vision. The heart of the work of the formation team is to model a communal spirit that collaborates on many levels. The team has to adapt continually to the new realities of this generation of young men. This is a new model, and in many respects it is prophetic. It is important that team members dialogue with other formators, with council members, and with spiritual directors to ensure the effectiveness and health of the formation. And, of course, the team must be united and convinced of the model even though people criticize it. Many will not understand it, including at ti~nes our own seminarians. Review for Religious All in all, the model is developing positively and serving well the needs of the congregation. It is producing a healthy environment for the seminarians' formation, a healthiness that includes taking some prudent risks. Bees Canning bees and picking bees, long skirts pinned up front and back, gingham aprons - blue, green, yellow-checked (diversity skirting uniformity). Noon hours in sweaty kitchen or out in sunbaked yard snipping beans, podding peas, peeling scalded tomatoes - coming and going like flocks of sparrows alighting in waves, laughing, pecking at bits of news, filling tubs of ready-to-can. Sticky evenings in berry patch or orchard, filling buckets with raspberries, blueberries, currants, climbing trees for cherries, red and black - a thousand locusts chattering between the rows, whisking clean every bush and branch. Chapel bell intoning silence. Then instant stillness - hundreds of nuns processing quietly along dusty lane toward stately motherhouse. Mary Joseph Maher IHM November-December 2002 MARY KAY DOBROVOLNY Mary Magdalene: An Icon for Women Religious sisters and brothers About six years ago I fell in love for the first time. The experience opened entire new worlds to me and taught me a great deal about honesty, integrity, inti-macy, and myself in relationship with others. It also brought tremendous conflict and turmoil. I was inex-perienced in matters of the heart, and I had made a public commitment to live vowed religious life, includ-ing celibacy, for at least three years. Being in my sec-ond year of this three-year commitment, I prayed daily for the grace to live my life with faithfulness and integrity as I discerned whether to leave my religious ¯ community or stay as a vowed member. Today I am very happily a perpetually professed Sister of Mercy, having made final vows in July 1998. But I remember clearly those days of my first love and the struggle in the months thereafter to freely choose vowed religious life. Beyond the intense grief for the path not chosen, there was the great void of role mod-els for how to negotiate a love relationship while choosing to remain a vowed member of a religious community. Loud in my consciousness were the myr- Mary Kay Dobrovolny RSM is pursing a doctorate in New Testament studies at Vanderbilt University. Her address is 3335 Acklen Avenue; Nashville, Tennessee 37212. Review for Religious iad stories of women who left in the 1960s and 1970s to marry or pursue a committed relationship with another. Deafening by its silence was the reluctance of current members to speak of their own experiences of falling in love and being in love. As a new member I began to wonder if it was possible to fall in love and choose to remain part of vowed religious life. To help fill the void of role models, this paper will present Mary Magdalene as an icon for celibate loving and apostolic mission, using the resurrection story found in the Gospel of John. This passage speaks of a love and intimacy between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. In addition, as the first to encounter the resurrected Jesus and receive the commission to "go and tell," Mary Magdalene becomes the "apostle to the apostles." This paper will (1) explore who Mary Magdalene is, sorting through the myths in the tradition; (2) examine the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in chapter 20 of John's Gospel; and (3) note some insights suggested by this examination regarding celibate loving and apostolic mission for vowed women religious. Sorting through the Myths of the Tradition When I began working on this paper, a theologically edu-cated friend of mine gave me an article on Luke 7:36-50, a pas-sage the New American Bible calls "The Pardon of the Sinful Woman.''1 I looked at my friend, smiled, thanked her for the article, and then said, "You do know that the woman in this pas-sage is not Mary Magdalene, don't you?" Gasping slightly, she said, "I can never keep those Marys straight." My friend is not alone in this, and she has had much help combining the women of Scripture. In the tradition of the West, the unnamed woman in Luke 7, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and sometimes even the woman who was caught in adultery ~ln 8) have all been interwoven and confused. The confusion can be traced as far back as the 6th century. Pope Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604) merged the identities of these women into one woman in sev-eral homilies. Since that time, veneration of Mary Magdalene in the West has diverged from the Gospels' portrayal of her. While none of the biblical women is called "a prostitute," Mary Magdalene's most frequent portrayal in stories, legends, art, and worship has been as a prostitute and repentant sinner. November-December 2002 Dobrovolny ¯ Mary Magdalene The East has looked at Mary Magdalene as equal to the apostles. The combination of these women's identities was not shared by the Eastern churches, which have treated the women as sep-arate individuals. The East has looked at Mary Magdalene as equal to the apostles. Shortly after the time of Pope Gregory the Great, Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem, said that Mary Magdalene, the myrrh-bearer, was "chief among the women disciples," a teacher of other holy women, a lifelong virgin, and a martyr.2 While the popular mind continues to think of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute, recent scholarship is replac-ing this image with a view of her as faithful disciple, witness to the resurrection, and apostle to and with the twelve. This is a retrieval in the West of a previously held image, not a new creation. Each of the Gospels portrays Mary Magdalene as a follower of Jesus through his Galilean ministry, a wit-ness and mourner of his crucifixion and death, a witness of the empty tomb, the first to whom the risen Jesus appears, and the first to proclaim his resurrection. Accordingly, Hippolytus (ca. 170-235), bishop of Rome, named her apostola apostolorum, apostle to the apostles. This title, revived by recent scholars, was repeated as late as Thomas Aquinas. Narrative Analysis of John 20 John 20:1-18 is a single narrative unit divided into three scenes. Verses 1-2 depict Mary Magdalene's discovery of the empty tomb, verses 3-10 describe the race between Peter and the beloved disciple to the tomb, and verses 11-18 find Mary Magdalene alone, weeping outside the tomb. She went to the tomb of the crucified Jesus "early. while it was still dark." hnmediately after discovering that the stone had been removed from the tomb, she ran to tell Peter and the beloved disciple that "they have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." This is the first of three times that she announces that the body of Jesus has been removed from the tomb (see also 20:13 and 15). This announcement to Review for Religious Peter and the beloved disciple is the catalyst for the second scene, in which these two characters race to the tomb to dis-cover it empty, albeit for linen wrappings. After these two have returned home (20:10), Mary Magdalene stands weeping beside the tomb. Still weeping, she stoops and looks inside, continuing her search for Jesus' body. Her weeping is mentioned twice in one verse, suggesting both intense frustration and intense grief. She stays in this place of grief and pain rather than return home like the other disciples. She turns toward suffering, pain, and death.3 The setting for Mary Magdalene's search for the body of Jesus is both a graveyard and a garden. Her weeping in the graveyard is reminiscent of the grief of Mary of Bethany upon the death of her brother Lazarus, and the garden On 19:41) brings to mind both the primeval male-female intimacy of Adam and Eve in Genesis and the passionate love in the Song of Songs (4:12-5:1; 6:2-3; 8:13).4 Mary looks into the tomb and sees "two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying" (20:12). Rather than deliver a message of hope, comfort, or resurrection, these angels question her: "Woman, why are you weeping?" This question calls attention to her tears for a third time. Mary reit-erates the cause of her pain: "They have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him" (20:2 and 13). Apparently not awed by the angels, Mary turns from the tomb to see the unrecognized Jesus. A conversation with this "gar-dener" takes place, three exchanges between them. Jesus asks the reason for her weeping--tears mentioned now a fourth and final time. The intensity of Mary's grief and worry and serves to fulfill the prediction Jesus made earlier in the Gospel: "Amen, Amen, I say you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice" (16:20). In this Gospel, Mary Magdalene is the only character who weeps and mourns when she can "no longer see [Jesus]" (16:19).s Soon the rest of Jesus' prediction will be fulfilled: "You will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy" (16:20 and 22). Jesus asks not only the reason for her weeping, but also "Whom are you seeking?" (20:15). She reiterates for the third time her search for the crucified Jesus, asking the "gardener" to help her find him. The focus on Mary's unrelenting search for . November-December 2002 Dobrovolny ¯ Mary Magdalene the crucified Jesus echoes the lover's intense search for her beloved in the Song of Songs: Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought .him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer. "1 will rise now and go about the city, in the street~ and-ih the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves." I sought him, but found him not. The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. (Sg 3:1-4, NRSV) In this passage and in the narrative about Mary at Jesus' tomb, the women are seeking and failing to find their beloved. The searches occur in a garden (Sg 4:12-5:1; 6:2-3; 8:13; Jn 19:41-42). The women inquire where their beloved might be. And, as we will see shortly, neither woman wants to release her beloved once he has been found. This is stated strongly in the Song of Songs 3:4: "I held him, and.would not let him go until I brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me." The second exchange is marked by recognition. Mary Magdalene has not recognized the resurrected Jesus by sight, but now, his voice sounding her name, she recognizes him. This recognition reminds us of the shepherd who "calls his own by name" and they "follow him because they know his voice" (10:3- 4). Mary exclaims, "Rabbouni!" (meaning Teacher). This title and "Lord," the title she has used before (20:2, 13, and also 15), are titles Jesus has mentioned as fitting ones: "You call me Teacher and Lord--and you speak correctly, for indeed I am" (13:13). Before Mary's "Rabbouni!" the Greek text says of her (using a participle) strapbeisa. This can simply mean baying turned, but it can also mean baying changed inwardly, baying been converted.6 The New Revised Standard Version uses the former meaning of physical motion, saying "she turned." But she has already turned from the tomb toward this "gardener" (20:14); turning physically again does not make narrative sense. It s~iems instead that, hear- Review for Religious ing her name spoken by that beloved voice, she is inwardly changed by that recognition. Most likely the transformation of her weeping and mourning into the joy described in John 16:20 and 22 is at the heart of that change. In the third exchange, Jesus presents Mary Magdalene with two commands: "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father" and "Go to my brothers and sisters and say to them . " In read-ing between the lines, it can be difficult to get the tone of Jesus' commands and their impact on Mary, whose weep-ing has just been transformed into joy. Some commentators try to find a fault in her or her belief, which does not permit her to touch Jesus as Thomas is later invited to do (20:27).7 Others have written about a "decided brutality" in Jesus' rebuke and rejection of her.8 Both of these interpretations miss textual clues. Far from being found at fault, Mary is given, a privileged position within the Gospel of John as the first to see the risen Jesus and the first to be commissioned to proclaim the resurrection. Jesus does not find fault with her--which suggests that the Gospel's author does not intend the reader to do so either. As for the idea of "brutality," Mary does not respond as one who has been rebuked or rej.ected by her beloved Jesus. There is no more weeping. Instead, with jubilation Mary proclaims, "I have seen the Lord!" (20:18). Still, inasmuch as Mary's inclination to hold on to her beloved after seeking him unrelentingly with intense longing is quite understandable (as in Sg 3:4), Jesus' command is per-plexing. It can only be understood in light of his explanation: "for I have not yet ascended to the Father." Later in this same verse, Jesus tells Mary to announce "I am ascending . " The text seems to indicate that Jesus is in a transitional phase in which he is in the process of ascending.9 The appearance of Jesus at this threshold moment between his resurrection from the dead and his ascension to the Father is unique, and it Hearing her name spoken by that beloved voice, she is inwardly changed by that recognition. November-December 2002 Dobrovolny * Mary Magdalene involves only Mary Magdalene. By the time Jesus appears and invites Thomas to touch him (20:27), he has already ascended to the Father and returned, bringing and bestowing the Advocate upon the disciples (20:22). Mary's encounter with Jesus is recognizable as a uniquely privileged one. After telling Mary not to hold on to him, Jesus commis-sions her to "go to my brothers and sisters and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'" (20:17). There are three noteworthy pieces of this com-mission: (1) the phrase tous adelphous mou, translated above as "my brothers and sisters"; (2) the phrase "to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God"; and (3) the verb tense used in the commission to "go and tell." The phrase "my brothers and sisters" denotes a new rela-tionship between Jesus and his followers and among his fol-lowers. 1° Previously, in his final discourse to the disciples, Jesus has called his disciples friends rather than slaves (15:15), and, while hanging on the cross, he has created a new relationship between his mother and the beloved disciple (19:26-27). Now (20:17) he proclaims that all members of the believing com-munity are his brothers and sisters and, by implication, broth-ers and sisters to each other. This new relationship recalls and fulfills the imagery in the Johannine Prologue: "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" (1:12). The fulfillment of the words of the Prologue is made more explicit in what follows: "I am ascending to my Father andyour Father, to my God and your God" (20:17). The rhythm of these words recalls the covenant Ruth made with her mother-in-law Naomi: "Your people shall be my people and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16). Despite the differences in race, Ruth, a Moabite, casts her lot with her Hebrew mother-in-law, mak-ing their futures forever intertwined. In the same way, Jesus proclaims that, despite the differences (see 14:6: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me"), a new covenantal family relationship has been established. This new covenantal family relationship encompasses all of the believing community in the postresurrection community. Mary Magdalene is commissioned to "go to my brothers and Review for Religious sisters and tell them . " The imperative verb poreuou (go) is in the present tense. A present imperative "generally denotes a command to continue to do an action or to do it repeatedly.''11 Thus, Mary Magdalene is commissioned, not for a one-time telling of her revelation of the risen Jesus (such as that recorded to the disciples in 20:18), but to go repeatedly to the commu-nity, continuing to tell the story of her encounter with the risen Jesus.2 The Gospel of John does not narrate any additional con-versation between the risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Instead, Mary is presented as going immediately to the disciples to pro-claim: "I have seen the Lord!" Her weeping and mourning have been transformed into joy. Her intense search-ing for her beloved has been transformed into assured confidence of continuing in her rela-tionship with Jesus. Her encounter with the risen Jesus establishes her authority among the disciples. And, through her conveying the mes-sage of the risen Jesus, a new relationship among the community of believers is estab-lished, enabling them to be "brothers and sisters" in the one God and Father of them all. It is on the authority of her witness and the new relationship that she is given to proclaim that the tradition correctly bestows upon her the identity of apostola apostolorum, "apostle to the apostles." Through her conveying the message of the risen Jesus, a new relationship among the community of believers is established, enabling them to be "brothers and sisters" in the one God. Iconic Insights for Celibate Love and Apostolic Mission The command in the Gospel of john is clear: "Love one another" (13:34, 15:12). The Gospel further indicates that it is through our love for one another that we will be recognized as Nove~nber-Decenlber 2002 Dobrovolny ¯ Mary Magdalene disciples of Jesus--that Jesus will be made known in our world. As apostolic women religious, we do love deeply. We are drawn by Love and called by Love. We express our love in prayer, in community, in ministry. Sometimes we eveh fall in love. I used to fear falling in love and being in love. I thought it would jeopardize my identity as a Sister of Mercy. I thought it would place my ability and my commitment to live the vow of celibacy at too great ~ risk. I was wrong. Through experiences of falling in love and being in love, I have been drawn deeper into the mystery of Love. Through my love experiences, I have been taught how to love, and I have been taught what it means to be another person's "beloved." With my own longing for the touch of another, I discovered the depth of my longing for God. Through the words of another person's longing for me, I have heard God's longing for me. These love experiences have drawn me deeper into the mysterious and mystical love of God. I am not saying that as apostolic women religious we need to have one or more experiences of falling in love and being in love to be drawn deeply into the mystical love of God. I am simply saying that it can happen through these love experiences because it has happened. I would venture to guess that many of us have been taught how to love God as God's own beloved through experiences of loving another and being loved. That is part of the mystery of the incarnation, the revelation of God in human form. As one who has dared to love deeply, I resonate with Mary Magdalene, who dared to love Jesus deeply. Through my expe-rience of choosing not to follow my beloved and commit myself to that love relationship, I identify with her intense longing, her intense searching, her utter grief. There is a point in which it seems that tears will never end. In the midst of risking to love deeply as vowed religious, we risk being led to the depths of our pain, our longing, our search-ing. But a wise woman once taught me that, if I am unwilling or unable to feel the depth of my own pain, or longing, or grief, then I am also not able to journey with another person to the depths of her or his pain.~3 Our choices do impact our ministry. By feeling the depths of our pain and our grief, our hearts are opened to feel the pain of others around us and of our world. As apostolic women religious, we are called to feel that pain, to Review for Religious name that pain, to witness to the suffering of those around us. We are called to stand with those who are marginalized, to mourn and weep with them for all that is not right in our world. We are called to name destructive violence for what it is, to name the things that rob individuals, communities, and coun-tries of fullness of life. Tears can seem unending. Mary Magdalene chose to stay at the tomb; she chose to stand in the emptiness, in the void, in the confusion, in the pain. She chose to weep and mourn. She continued her search for her beloved Jesus. She sought him out, persisting in the search even when others did not. Her actions are characterized by initiative, persistence, and determination. Her search betrays an intense longing and yearning. As apostolic women religious, we too are called to stand in the emptiness of a broken world. We are called to search for our beloved God in the midst of this brokenness. We are called to long and yearn for a world that is imbued with the presence and love of God in every cor-ner, in every action between individual persons, and in all diplo-macy and business between countries. We are called to work for such a world with our own efforts, our own initiative, per-sistence, and determination. Mary Magdalene searched for what she knew was possible to find--the body of her crucified Jesus, her beloved. Ultimately, instead of finding what it seemed humanly possible to find, she was found by a divine reality beyond her fondest hope; she was found by the risen Jesus. In turning toward Jesug, in hearing her name called by her beloved, she was transformed. She was able to turn to a new.reality and allow her life and the world she knew to be transformed. As apostolic women religious, we are called to model Mary Magdalene. We are called to seek out and work toward what we know is realistically possible. In our ministerial commit-ments, we are called to set attainable goals and strive to meet them. We are called not to be overwhelmed by the extent of brokenness in our world, not to let ourselves be paralyzed by grief and despair. In our searching and striving, we are called to have an open heart that is ready to be transformed, a heart ready to be found by a divine reality beyond our imagination. The words of the risen Jesus are again perplexing: "Do not hold on to me." After such intense searching and longing, it is Noventber-December 2002 Dobrovolny * Mary Magdalene Like Mary Magdalene, we are commissioned to proclaim the living God here in our midst. completely understandable to want to hold on to whatever sign of life and love, whatever divine revelation, we see in the midst of a broken and pain-filled world. Yet love and the things of this world are not ours to hold on to. With open hands and open hearts, we instead hear Jesus' words: "Go to my brothers and sisters." Like Mary Magdalene, we are commissioned to proclaim the living God here in our midst. Mary Magdalene was in a privileged place with a unique encounter with the risen but not-yet-ascended Jesus. Her encounter cannot be replicated. Yet, as apostolic women reli-gious, we sometimes do not rec-ognize our own privileged place. We belong to religious commu-nities that nurture and support our spiritual journey, that help us integrate contemplation into our lives of ministry. Time and money are provided for ongoing spiritual direction and annual retreats. We are joined by others who are on this same jour-ney; together we have companionship and a common language to name our experiences. Many days I take all of this for granted. But, like Mary Magdalene, we women religious are in a privileged place in our world. In our lives, contemplation opens us to divine revelafons that may be unique to our world-- and maybe our world desperately needs to hear them from us. Through Mary Magdalene's encounter with him, the risen Jesus instituted a new relationship among his followers. He called his followers his "brothers and sisters" and said that his Father is their Father, and his God their God (20:17). We live in a fractured and broken world and a fractured and broken church. Like Mary Magdalene, we are called to give witness to a vision of unity. We are called to be sisters to each other in our communities so that we can be, beyond our communities, sisters to our world. Like Ruth's covenantal relationship with her mother-in-law Naomi, we are called to unity with others, no matter how different from us. This is the vision Mary Magdalene was given by the risen Jesus, and it is offered to us as well. Review for Religious As apostolic women religious, not only are we called to weep and mourn with those at the margins of our society and with the victims of the violence in our world. We are also called to proclaim the power of the resurrection. We are Galled to pro-claim a God who loves us deeply and calls each of us by name. We are called to proclaim a God who transforms lives, filling the empty tombs of our lives with life unimaginable. We are called to proclaim a God who raises the dead to life and offers life eternal. Like Mary Magdalene, the premibre apostola apostolo-rum, "apostle to the apostles," we are called to proclaim an Easter faith to a world that is ravenously hungry for God. May God find us willing. Notes ' The story in Luke 7:36-50 is of an unnamed woman who bathes the feet of Jesus with her tears, kissing them and anointing them with ointment. The setting is the home of a Pharisee who neglected the customary act of hospitality of washing his guest Jesus' feet upon his arrival in his home. 2 Modestus of Jerusalem, PG 86, cols. 3273-3276, as quoted in Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalen, Myth and Metaphor (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), p. 107. 3 This is emphasized by Dorothy A. Lee, "Turning from Death to Life: A Biblical Reflection on Mary Magdalene (John 20:1-18)," Ecumenical Review 50 (1998): 112-120. 4 See E Scott Spencer, "'You Just Don't Understand' (or Do You?): Jesus, Women, and Conversation in the Fourth Gospel," in A Feminist Companion to John, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff, Vol. 4 of Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002, antic-ipated). 5 Colleen M. Conway, Men and Women in the Fourth Gospek Gender and Johannine Characterization (SBLDS 167; Atlanta: SBL, 1999), p. 193. 6 See John 12:40; BAGD, 2nd ed., p. 771. 7 Interpretations that place a fault on Mary Magdalene have been found as early in the tradition as Ambrose and Jerome. For the history of interpretation of this verse, see Harold W. Attridge, "Don't Be Touching Me: Recent Feminist Scholarship on Mary Magdalene," in A Feminist Companion to John. 8 See especially Alison Jasper, "Interpretative Approaches to John 20:1-18: Mary at the Tomb of Jesus," ST 47 (1993): 107-118. November-December 2002 Dobrovolny ¯ Mary Magdalene 9 This interpretation has been in the tradition as early as Origen. See Attridge, "Don't Be Touching Me," pp. 3-4. 10 While many translations, including N'JB, NAB, and NRSV, trans-late adelphous simply as "brothers," there is no good reason not to use the inclusive translation "brothers and sisters." There are a substan-tial number of places in both Koine and Attic Greek in which the plural adelphoi refers to both brothers and sisters, not just brothers. See BAGD, pp. 15-16. 11 David Alan Black, Learn to Read New Testament Greek, rev. ed. (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), p. 168. ,2 This provides further evidence for the appropriateness of the inclusive translation of tous adelphous mou as "my brothers and sis-ters." 13 My thanks to my former CPE supervisor Rosemary Ferguson OP for teaching me this lesson. Child of Mary The presbytery garden, after Mass, is busy with departing worshipers, mostly taking the shortcut to their cars; only Patrick, pauper of the parish and carless, solitary wanderer-about- town, seems unready to be gone. A single point of stillness in our midst, he lingers by the weathered blue and white of o~r Lady, in her privet bower, hands in his pockets and a cigarette - unlit and apparently forgotten - casually tilted between his lips. It's not the first time that I've seen him there, at Mary's shrine under the conker-trees, in that same relaxed, attentive posture, head bent in unobtrusive reverence and his eyes, as now, remotely focused on something only he is privy to. Ian A.T. White Review for Religious PHILIP ARMSTRONG Lonely and Small: Religious Brothers' Situation Z ose with long memories may recall a novelty song the rics of which ran, "I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch . . . all I do is cry all day." The catchy melody and much repetition were probably more responsible for the song's burning itself into the memory than any depth of meaning, but the plaintive cry of a single common flower that finds itself surrounded by a crop of onions tugs at least minimally at our heartstrings. The poor litde petunia, no matter how attractive, cannot help feeling overwhelmed. It grieves in its isolation. Latter-Day Petunias I suggest that religious brothers are experiencing something of the lonely petunia's plight in today's church and world. The brothers' existence, let alone their impact, is nearly impercep-tible. They are much less noticeable than the clergy, who, like onions, are rather conspicuous. Metaphorically speaking, the church cultivates onions assiduously, and in more than one way people keep being reminded of their existence. Few take notice of a few petunias scattered here and there among them, eager to have a beneficial impact on the church. No wonder the brother is sometimes tempted to cry all day about being practically invis-ible and irrelevant. Philip Armstrong CSC last wrote for us in September-October 2001. His address is P.O. Box 460; Notre Dame, Indiana 46556. November-December 2002 Armstrong ¯ Lonely and Small But that would be surrendering to self-pity, and there is really no reason for it. Brothers, however hidden, do in fact accomplish enormous amounts of good through multiple forms of ministry. Brothers by all means must reflect regularly on the relevance of their vocation. Doing so can increase their capac-ity and determination to continue serving God's people in prac-tical and concrete ways. It is not my intent to prove the situation of the brother, for it should be self-evident to anyone closely and objectively observing the working of the church's hierarchical structure thirty-eight years after the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the church, Lumen gentium. There, in chapter 2, the council fathers remind the faithful that all the people of God constitute the church, but make it clear in chapter 3 that "the church is hierarchical," with positions of higher and lower authority in it. By implication, then, the concept of horizontal authority, lending itself more to equality than to degree of dis-tinction, is set aside. A wisp of cynicism might drift in here, in language reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal Farm: All God's people are equal, but some are more equal than others. True, at times the roles of these leaders have been circum-scribed by expectations of the faithful. Clerics of whatever rank have always been somewhat limited in their practice of min-istry by various expectations that church members have, some-times by reason of their limited education, sometimes because they make rarely make use of their membership, sometimes for other reasons. The laity were able to se~ this plainly enough. They have been able to see, too, that religious sisters, despite their goodwill, talents, and sacrificial dedication, often had their activities arbitrarily limited. But still, in the case of both clerics and nuns, the laity have long had a clear, consistent image of them in the scheme of things. Not so in the case of religious brothers. In the small world of parochial or diocesan secondary education during the first two-thirds of the 20th century, brothers indeed were visible, for they figured prominently in the plans of bishops and pastors as the logical educators of adolescent boys. Outside that world, however, brothers' visibility ceased. There were almost no brothers in ministry outside their own institutions. So, if you were not the parent of a boy in a brothers' school, you just did Review for Religiotts not know any brothers. If you were such a parent, you probably knew them only in their professional and institutional capacity. Visible or Not Yet conciliar, synodal, and papal statements continue to remind us that the brothers' life is a needed, purposeful, valid, blessed state of life among the people of God. The brothers' life has been an enduring part of the church and has been affirmed and approved repeatedly over the ages, both by the hierarchy and by those benefiting from the brothers' ministries. The vowed life has demanded and permitted adaptations befit-ting the "signs of the times" regarding current needs of church and society. None of these factors, as we look into the stark reality of membership trends today, changes the perilous situ-ation in which vowed commitment finds itself as a way of life in the church. Who could blame today's brothers, lonely little petunias, for crying, if they avoided sobs of self-pity and merely shed a few silent tears of loneliness amid feelings of irrelevance? A Proposal Allow me make a proposal here that is simple, radical, and perhaps revolutionary. Recent research and writing on forward-looking ecclesiology and theology has been done by such authors as Cletus Wessels OP, Sandra Schneiders IHM, Kenan Osborne OFM, Joan Chittister OSB, and Ronald Rolheiser OMI.~ It would be helpful if they supported the concept behind nay proposal. Except for Osborne in a very general way, they do not, so far as I know. Nor are there incontrovertible scriptural or patristic citations I can lean upon. Yet in experience, common sense, and urgent pastoral need, there seems to be adequate foundation for this proposal: I believe religious life, that is, vowed commitment to a life of service to the church and world through the public profes-sion of the evangelical counsels, should be raised to the status of a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church. I ~nake this proposal for two reasons. First, both matrimony and orders are recognized by the people of God as sacramental moments in which God's providential presence is at work in a special way and as symbols of God's continuing activity among November-December 2002 Armstron~ ¯ Lonel.~ and Small us. These sacraments touch the lives of those receiving the sacra-ments, those who witness their reception, and those who receive the ministrations of parents and priests. Currently, vowed com-mitment is recognized as only a "sacramental" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1667), that is, "a sacred sign which bears a resemblance to the sacraments." Sacramentals are meant to dispose individuals to receive the sacraments. Yet religious life, in its purpose and its demands, ranks logically with the sacra-ments of matrimony and orders as equally exacting, equally needed, equally exemplary, and equally rewarding. Second, the raison d'etre of religious life goes far beyond individual commitment and participation in the common life of an approved congregation. Pronouncing the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience demands of the those making this pub-lic commitment the express intention of reaching out in gener-ous, loving service to others and also of being a visible witness to the gospel values that run counter to pleasure, wealth, and power. In short, vowed commitment constitutes a way of life modeled perfectly by Jesus in the gospels. Besides the individ-ual and congregational covenants, there are perceptible public consequences of religious profession from which the whole of society benefits. Who can ignore the symbolic impact and value vowed com-mitment could have as a sacrament? If the church, as we are informed, periodically evaluates the sacramental system with a view to keeping it optimally relevant for the people of God, now is the time to exercise that prerogative once again and bring commitment by the vows of religion to the level of recognition and acceptance it deserves. If the dearth of vocations to lay religious life is to be effec-tively addressed from within the church, if those who have supervisory and teaching authority in the church are to heighten the awareness of the people of God to this form of life and ser-vice in yhe church, then I suggest that no better way exists than to bestow the character of sacrament on vowed commitment in the religious life. What would that entail? Sacraments Then and Now The church gives as its traditional definition of sacrament: Reviev) for Religious "an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace" (Baltimore Catechism). The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§1131) supplies the same definition, slightly elaborated. With all due respect, I suggest this description is neither adequate nor entirely appropriate today. Acknowledging that the present sacramental system was developed over the course of centuries, that only since 1150 have we specified seven, and that the system remains open to review and revision in the light of new insights and the needs of the times (Sacrosanctum concilium, §62), I propose the following definition: "A sacrament is a meaningful symbol first exemplified in the life of Jesus and today incarnated through him in key human moments or events publicly celebrated by the worshiping community as a sign and promise of life in the Spirit and of bonding among the people of God." Here I suggest less emphasis on exegetical proof of a sacra-ment's being "instituted by Christ" and on its "giving grace" ex opere operato. I would rather the focus be put on the gospel rev-elation of Jesus' participation in significant events in the spiri-tual development of individuals and groups and on how those events enrich their personal relationship with God, invite them to ongoing conversion, and give promise of growth arising out of continuously augmented relationships. From this perspec-tive I believe Jesus' conversation at the well with the Samaritan woman and later with her fellow townspeople (Jn 4:1-42) illus-trates a sacramental moment, as does the cure of the demoniac in the country of the Gerasenes (Mk 5:1-20). In both cases sig-nificant individual impact opens the door to community con-version and further orientation toward God. Other examples could be the wedding at Cana (Jn 2:1-11), the multiplication of the loaves and fishes (Lk 12:9-17), Lazarus (Jn 11:1-44), the man born blind (Jn 9:1-41), and Zacchaeus (Lk 19:1-10). According to the current definition, a sacrament stresses the individual's readiness and participation; that is, each sacra-ment's salvific effects relate primarily to the recipient. The ben-efit is bestowed directly on the person(s) being baptized, confirmed, ordained, anointed, forgiven, married, or nourished by Christ's Body and Blood. On the other hand, in the light of recent research leading to a more profound understanding of the human person, the focus seems to be moving toward a com-munity- centered interpretation. November-December 2002 Armstrong ¯ Lonely and Small Such a sacramental system is perceived as productive of new, restored, or improved relationships and a wider, more knowl-edgeable and conscious participation in the administration of each sacrament; it presumes that a communal enrichment is more desirable than a benefit chiefly or only for an individual. The emphasis switches from ex opere operato (individual benefit from grace already won by Christ) to ex opere operantis (individual and community intention to receive and benefit from grace con-stantly available through Christ). The latter effect is "from the recipient's own activity" (ex opere operantis) and can be under-stood as applying not only to an individual recipient but also to the witnessing, supportive community of worshipers. The indi-vidual's participation in the reception of a sacrament draws in, involves, and impacts the entire worshiping community. Playing It Out So considered, baptism can more readily be seen as the com-munity's welcoming another member into God's family, a fam-ily that seeks to extend God's reign on earth. Confirmation marks a communal response of support for the individual's maturing affirmation of fundamental faith. The Eucharist-- both as celebration and as nourishment--is the perfect bond uniting God's people. Holy orders and matrimony are the com-munity's affirmation of and blessing on individuals' vocational and lifestyle choices in their seeking of God. The community's example helps the individuals to do the same. Reconciliation is clearly community-oriented because the individuals' failings impact the entire assembly, and so the community's forgiveness, encouragement, and support are essential in the individuals' battle with human weakness and willfulness. The anointing of the sick is the worshiping community's laying on of hands, even if figuratively, to show oneness with, care of, and support for an ailing member; it is a reminder of how interdependent we are as the people of God. Why Not? It is from this view of the sacramental system that I pro-pose raising religious life to the level of formal sacrament, I see Review for Religious no more effective way to reestablish the ecclesial significance of vowed commitment. I will not elaborate here on the appro-priateness of including other forms of commitment to the ser-vice of the people of God (for example, appointments or elections to church office, including the permanent diaconate and most other offices, even temporary ones, oriented toward the pastoral care of the community). Vghat more fitting way to welcome a pastor into the midst of the flock than by a commu-nal sacramental celebration of the significance and symbolism of that pastoral office? These and even more possibilities would, I believe, inaugurate anaong the people of God a better under-standing of how communal (in and through the church) the relationship between an individual and God is. In the process, knowledge of and respect for the religious life would be aug-mented, along with encouragement to join its ranks. Juridic Implications Were vowed commitment to become a sacrament, would that not, as some suggest, expose this way of life, even in exempt congregations (those approved by and directly responsible to the Holy Father and exempt from overall juridic control by the local ordinary), to greater control by local ordinaries? I believe the answer contains two components. First, the church already has the authority to interpret the evangelical counsels, to regulate them in practice, and to establish lifeforms that implement them (LG §43). The church's authority over religious life is acknowledged further, for example, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§919, 927,944) and in the Vatican II document Ad genres (§~18, 40). Thus, the question is not whether the church would assume an authority it did not have before, but whether local ordinaries would get some juris-diction over exempt communities that they did not have before. As the above citations indicate, even exempt religious commu-nities must work with and by the authority of the local ordi-nary, in accord with his overall pastoral plan. With the revised understanding of "sacrament" proposed above, I contend that there would be no more control than before. Second, emphasis would be placed, not on consecrated life as sign, but on vowed commitment as promise; that is, not on November-December 2002 Armstron~ " Lonel~ and Small the already but on the notyet. It is the latter that witnesses to the religious life's prophetic mission. A supervisory role, even though indirect and informal, would then seem to fall to the worship-ing community at large. Vowed religious would be accountable to the whole body for living up to the promises they made and thereby helping the entir